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~ The more I studied beekeeping, the less I knew, until, finally, I knew nothing. But, even though I knew nothing, I still had plenty to unlearn. Charles Martin Simon

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Tag Archives: honey bee queen

Queen Bee Chemistry by Sciences In the Mural Of Life

27 Thursday Sep 2018

Posted by sassafrasbeefarm in beekeeping, queens

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honey bee queen, pheromones, queen bee chemistry, queens

It is so easy to jump to conclusions when observing and studying honeybees. To the uninitiated, the female workers seem to be the key to the hive. After all, they do so much. They start off early in their lives cleaning the nest. A few days later they are feeding larvae, then secreting wax to build the honeycomb. At about the age of 20 days, they act as guards to the entrance of the nest, and when their glands degenerate, they’re off collecting pollen and nectar for the rest of their lives. After a successful trip, they perform elaborate symbolic dances, revealing both the angular and scalar components of their displacement from flowers to hive. In contrast, the males and the queen bee don’t do any of the above.

But the female workers, as industrious as they may be, do not reproduce and do not exert the strongest influence in the hive. The failure of a single and other type of individual is consistently listed as a cause of honeybee colony mortality.  That individual is the queen bee. She is born in a cell built larger than the others to accommodate her bigger size. But what makes her develop into a queen? After observing that the queen bee larva and adult queen is only fed a so-called royal jelly, a white mixture of protein and sugar secreted from the heads of worker bees, it was long assumed that the mixture held the secret. But a few years ago it was revealed that the key was not necessarily contained in the royal jelly but in what the queen bee was not fed: pollen and nectar. The latter food- source for other larvae contains flavonoids, some of which include inhibitors. Investigators reared larvae in the lab on a royal jelly diet adulterated with para coumaric acid, and by the time they developed into adults, ovary development had been stunted.

Read the full article here: Queen Bee Chemistry — Sciences In the Mural Of Life

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Beek Reads: Nobody Wants to be the Queen by Q Gardens

23 Sunday Sep 2018

Posted by sassafrasbeefarm in beekeeping, biology, honey bee behavior, honey bee biology

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honey bee behavior, honey bee queen, honey bee roles, political

“What role would you want in the hive?” we asked, the eight of us sitting in the circle of benches surrounded by Q Gardens’ newly green herbs and late spring blooms. The answers differed, but on one thing, we agreed: No one wants to be the queen.

The life of a drone sounds idyllic, if short-lived. Lay about the hive. Eat. Wait for a sunny day to fly out to the drone congregation area—how exactly the drones know the congregation’s location is a mystery—and find a young virgin queen to explosively impregnate. And die, gracelessly but with purpose.

The worker bee’s life isn’t so bad either. She has a number of roles, from nurse to scout, so it’s never boring, and workers have the highest “autonomy,” collectively making the hive’s “decisions.” A worker’s life is always busy, always productive.

Read the full article here: Beek Reads: Nobody Wants to be the Queen — Q Gardens

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Easy Queen Rearing by Sustainable Bees

18 Wednesday Apr 2018

Posted by sassafrasbeefarm in beekeeping, queens

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honey bee queen, queen rearing, queens

Queen rearing doesn’t have to be difficult. Here is an excellent article by Sustainable Bees on raising “easy” queens. – sassafrasbeefarm

Article by: Sustainable Bees

Many beekeepers believe queen rearing is a very technical and difficult process. Actually it is easier than you think.  There are a lot of good ways to do it.  Harvesting swarm cells in the springtime is one way, but to be in control of the process and get queens when you want them, the beek has to intervene & get the bees to do it on command. Moving the queen out of a strong colony by forming a nuc and keeping her in it is one way to get the bees to go into emergency queen rearing mode. (cont.)

Read full blog article here: Easy Queen Rearing by Sustainable Bees

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