# Sustainability in a small yard



## Tom Davidson (Mar 20, 2012)

I am fascinated at Michael Palmer's talk on the sustainable apiary, and my eyes have been opened to sustainability. It just makes sense. I have only two hives that are starting (well) from packages and mated queens. What is the best way to create 2 nucs and raise queens to overwinter without putting my two new colonies at great risk, so I can break the cycle of having to buy bees to replace losses, or is this something I should only do with XX number of hives in later years?


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## drlonzo (Apr 15, 2014)

Creating nuc's can be done nearly anytime once a hive is up and brooding well. Most beeks will tell you not to do it unless there is a flow in your area, however it can also be done if you feed the bees while you are allowing them to make the new queens. Just keep in mind that it requires a frame of brood, fame with larva or eggs, and plenty of adhering bees. Some people will actually remove the existing queen and let the original hive make the queen. There are many ways that splits, nucs can be made. Just read up on each method and go from there.


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## Tom Davidson (Mar 20, 2012)

Will do, Dr. I am quite fascinated with the technique of elevating brood in order to get queens raised. Listening to Michael I understand that you do not deplete the resources you have but maximize them in order to create more bees and queens. I'm going to see if, when my colonies are strong enough, to buy a couple frames of brood from a local beekeeper and go from there. There are so many different ways. Why we don't raise our own bees is mind boggling, almost as much as the information out there about how to do it (my head is actually hurting). Brother Adam's book, "Bee-Keeping At Buckfast Abbey", is definitely on my must-read list.


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

Seems like you're just starting out, but I think if you're serious about beekeeping, then you should by all means start moving towards MP's model. However, given you only have two colonies from packages, you're at a bit of a disadvantage. I'd recommend the following:
1. Split your colonies as soon as conditions within the colonies permit and feed splits
2. Purchase some additional queens for these splits from a producer that has already achieved some level of varroa resistance
3. Forget about honey this first year (possibly two). Your primary mission will be to get these colonies built up as quickly as possible
4. Study how to make you own queens.
5. Work with a few local beekeepers to more quickly gain experience.


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## rhaldridge (Dec 17, 2012)

Excellent advice. I don't understand why new beekeepers aren't thinking about sustainability from the beginning. Last year was my first year, and I had to buy bees, of course. Not this year. I'm about to take two strong nucs north to NY that came from my own bees. I hope to avoid buying any more nucs or packages, but I do have a couple more Beeweaver queens coming next month. It can be interesting and instructive to try new genetics, but once you have a few good hives, you should be able to avoid having to buy more bees.

On the other hand, my wife says I have too many bees in the backyard.

She's right.


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## Tom Davidson (Mar 20, 2012)

AstroBee said:


> 1. Split your colonies as soon as conditions within the colonies permit and feed splits
> 2. Purchase some additional queens for these splits from a producer that has already achieved some level of varroa resistance
> ...


Wonderful. I most certainly will. I'm lucky and have two local queen producers, one a half hour away another a couple hours away. One breeds Russians, which I keep (my preference due to Varroa). I will make sure to give my local producers my business until I can make some myself in later years. Thanks, AstroBee!


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## Paul McCarty (Mar 30, 2011)

I haven't bought bees in almost 5 years now. I think about 20 hives is the magic number for easy sustainment, at least for me.


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## Tom Davidson (Mar 20, 2012)

rhaldridge said:


> Excellent advice. I don't understand why new beekeepers aren't thinking about sustainability from the beginning.


I wish I'd thought about it when I started 4 years ago. But last year I lost all of my hives due to extremely poor judgment, bad weather and too many small hive beetles. So this year I'm starting over again and want to improve everything across the board. So far so good. It pays to plan ahead, that's for sure.


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## rhaldridge (Dec 17, 2012)

I've been thinking about why so many folks don't seem to think about replenishing their bees when they first start out, and it occurred to me that maybe folks are just expecting to set a hive down in the yard, watch them prosper, and take off a hundred pounds of honey in the fall. I sort of remember thinking that way when I first decided that last year was going to be the year I finally got some bees, and continued the family tradition (which has been dormant for 50 years.)

Then I spent the winter studying up on beekeeping, and got over that foolishness. But I'm pretty sure most folks aren't as crazily obsessive about learning new stuff as I am. So there must be a learning curve for the casually interested that doesn't much resemble the learning curve for the lunatics like me.


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## Paul McCarty (Mar 30, 2011)

I have NEVER liked buying stuff from people - in particular bees.


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## TWall (May 19, 2010)

Tom Davidson said:


> One breeds Russians, which I keep (my preference due to Varroa).


Please don't assume you won't have varroa just because you have Russians. 

Don't splits will help to mimic one of their mechanisms to overcome mites, more broodless periods. Once you have queens/genetics you like walk-away splits (letting the bees raise their own queen) is something else you might want to try.

Tom


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## Tom Davidson (Mar 20, 2012)

TWall said:


> Please don't assume you won't have varroa just because you have Russians.
> Tom


Well said (and no, I do not ... Russian bees have plenty of varroa, they just deal very well with them).


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## mmiller (Jun 17, 2010)

rhaldridge said:


> Excellent advice. I don't understand why new beekeepers aren't thinking about sustainability from the beginning.


I agree with this statement. I wish I had given more thought to that when I started but I'm a little slow. One thing to remember though, is that not all beekeepers are as intense about beekeeping as others. Some are happy being "bee buyers" rather than beekeepers and there is nothing wrong with that. It's just another way of doing things. I watch fellow beeks from our club go through the process of losing bees every winter and starting with new packages in the spring and never changing anything to improve. Again, nothing wrong with that if they are happy with it. Since I started paying attention to what M. Palmer had to say I've made huge improvements to my wintering success and have the nucs in spring with proven queens to replace those colonies that don't make it through winter. This is my 3rd year of not purchasing bees and still increasing hive counts in my operation. 

My dad always told me to keep my ears open and my mouth shut. On the rare occasion that I pay attention to this advice I find that I actually learn new and interesting things........who woulda thunk? :scratch:


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

It seems to me no matter how few or how many hives you have, if you go into winter with a lot more than you need you will need to buy less in the spring and maybe even none and maybe even sell some hives. In other words, if your goal is to have two hives, then you probably want to go into winter with four or five. You can always combine two weeks before the flow if you didn't need them or didn't sell them and get a bigger honey crop. You can do some splits after the flow and get back up to four or five again. Sustainability does not require hundreds of hives. I ran between about 2 and 7 for many years and hardly ever bought any bees or queens. When I did buy queens it was more from curiosity than need.


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

drlonzo said:


> Creating nuc's can be done nearly anytime once a hive is up and brooding well. Most beeks will tell you not to do it unless there is a flow in your area, however it can also be done if you feed the bees while you are allowing them to make the new queens. Just keep in mind that it requires a frame of brood, fame with larva or eggs, and plenty of adhering bees. Some people will actually remove the existing queen and let the original hive make the queen. There are many ways that splits, nucs can be made. Just read up on each method and go from there.


The lowest impact method of making a split I see, I am calling a stretch split. It is based on MB's observations and turns MP's double nucs on it's side. Ray Marler and I'm sure others have prior experience with it.

Rather than physically separating the split brood is placed above and below an excluder in the same stack. There is no drifting and limited impact on the organization of the hive. From what I have seen so far,(not nearly as many trys as I would like) fewer, better QCs are started than true emergency cells. Closer to superceder cells. Adding a super with empty drawn combs as an additional spacer will get cells started if the bees are slow to start them. The main point is the work force remains relatively intact

Think of it as MP's double nucs in a vertical set up. Very different in that you cannot leave them stacked vertically after the 2nd queen gets going. That is the time to replace the excluder with a bottom board and separate them.


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## Tom Davidson (Mar 20, 2012)

I'm currently enjoying the heck out of my first read of "The ABC's and XYZ of Bee Culture" (1950 edition, thank you public library). I'm collecting as much data as possible and reviewing/updating it each week. I took off the feeders last night after 2 weeks on for these packages. They've drawn out the deep chamber to about 65-70% and backfilled all combs with the syrup. Queens are laying well, but in order to free up space and with brood emerging in the next week and the nectar flow on it made sense. One colony had little to no pollen whatsoever in it, so I gave it a pollen supplement patty, which it devoured so I gave it another one last night. Reading "The ABC's ..." and the forums it seems to me that sustainability and a happy apiary is all about achieving balance, not too much or too little of any one necessary component. I want to have at least 2 production colonies and 2 nucleus colonies at all times. So I'll be following the "more" advice but will try and keep the balance right when I make those splits. But first things first, I suppose: nutrition, enough space and tight brood on these 2 upstarts. Is inspecting every 7 days a good schedule, so I don't interfere with their work too much?


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## Tom Davidson (Mar 20, 2012)

Saltybee said:


> The lowest impact method of making a split I see, I am calling a stretch split. Think of it as MP's double nucs in a vertical set up.


I am very interested in this (love the term!). How many shallow supers should separate the bottom queen with excluder on and the top brood chamber with open brood/eggs/larvae (is 1 enough, or are 2 required)?


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

I think usually none is required. Had one that did not start cells in 10 days, one super and fresh larva did it. I do not think MB added any when he observed the resulting queens from the excluder. Ray has done this method much more often and more formally than I have.

7 days too often? Some hives do not seem to care at all if you inspect , others do. If you have a reason to go in, do; if not, do not.


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## Tom Davidson (Mar 20, 2012)

Saltybee said:


> I think usually none is required. ... If you have a reason to go in, do; if not, do not.


 Thanks, Saltybee!


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## Paul McCarty (Mar 30, 2011)

I overwintered a few of the vertical double 5 frame nucs as described by Mr. Bush earlier. They worked out very well, and I split them 4 ways.

Making splits is one of the areas I part ways with the other NM beeks. They have a saying that you should not split after mid-summer. I say hogwash! That is when I make my winter nucs - to keep the others from throwing overcrowding swarms. Then if they survive winter, I have extras.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Here is a simple way that I have made increase using two story nucs. 

In a 5 frame two story nuc hive, I make sure there is one frame of mostly eggs in the center of the bottom box, with a frame of mostly pollen on one side of it and a frame of mostly open nectar on the other side of it. The two outer frames, I like to have sealed and emerging brood, but one of those can be a frame of stores. Other frame arrangements can be made, depending on what you have in the nuc, but the one frame with a lot of eggs is needed for sure.

The rest of the frames and the queen go in the top box, with a queen excluder in between the two boxes. I set this up sometime in the mid to late afternoon. Then the next day in the mid morning, I set the top box off to the side of the bottom box, with it's entrance turned 180 degrees so it is facing the other direction.

Now the next day in the late afternoon, after 36 hours or close to it, I take and put the queens box back on top of the queenless box, with a queen excluder in between the two boxes. From being queenless for 36 hours, the bees get in queen cell building mode, and I find that a few queen cells of good quality will be built in the bottom box after being joined with excluder. The bees in the bottom box get most of the activity as the entrance is a lower entrance in the bottom box, and the queen is not there, she is pinned above the excluder, so her pheromones are not strong in the bottom box now. So I think they build cells as if replacing a failing queen.

Now in 9 days after joining the boxes, I move the bottom box to a new stand, and give the box left in place another box on top to expand up into, as they will now get the field force and they have the laying queen. Doing this makes the box moved away lose the field force and reduces the population, so that in one or two more days when the queen cells emerge, there is much less chance of them swarming. At the time of moving this box away to a new stand, I now have the option of cutting out queen cells for making other splits, if I so desire.

There are a few variations on this theme, but this is one way I've used to create just a few cells so that I can make a split with low probability of swarming happening. I call it an enhanced walk away split, as it gives nice well built queen cells with out grafting and not too much intense manipulations. Also, you can modify the timings in this so that it can easily be done on a weekend schedule by moving the bottom box to a new stand in 7 or 8 days later instead of the 9 days. Makes it very convenient for us weekend beekeepers!


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## Tom Davidson (Mar 20, 2012)

RayMarler said:


> Here is a simple way that I have made increase using two story nucs. ... I call it an enhanced walk away split, as it gives nice well built queen cells with out grafting and not too much intense manipulations.


 Nice, Ray. THANKS! :thumbsup:


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## Intheswamp (Jul 5, 2011)

RayMarler said:


> Here is a simple way that I have made increase using two story nucs....


Nice! How do you think this work with a hive consisting of 8-frame mediums?

Ed


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## bxtplus (Jun 8, 2012)

Your plan sounds as if it utilizes the basic principle behind the Juniper Hill Plan for Comb Honey or using a Cloake board. Just distancing the queen from most of the bees (by comb or honey supers does the trick). I was planning on trying something similar with a regular two story 10 frame colony that is a little behind the others. I want to save some of the genetics as the queen is in her 3rd season (yellow paint) so I thought I might apply the plan to a honey producing colony by way of a little experiment. Just wish I had done the manipulation a couple of weeks ago as we are just past one of the heaviest black locust flows in the last 20 years. 

"Nice! How do you think this work with a hive consisting of 8-frame mediums?"

Try it and see. Maybe a little extra honey and some new queens! 

Trying, thinking, observing success or failure, its all part of the "joy of beekeeping" that keeps us coming back for more.


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Tom - with only 2 hives, your first endeavor should be _increase_ before you worry about _sustainability_. Read Dr. Lawrence John Connor's book, Increase Essentials. This is one of the fundamental beekeeping skills that needs to be mastered before a sustainable queen rearing operation can become a reality.

Do not be afraid to buy queens at first. Starting with good stock is a great jump in all animal husbandry. 

As you learn, try different things. Each area has it's strengths and weaknesses. Some areas are great for making lots of honey, some are great for making over-wintered nucleus colonies, some places are situate ideally for making pollination money. Your time/level of effort/abilities, your bee colonies, even other factors will play a big part in how your apiary is ultimately set up. As we often say in beekeeping, "Give it a few years, and go with what works."


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

I did a two story nuc kind of like ray. Found a supercedure cell, artificially swarmed the queen with a single frame and 4 brand new pf100's. Moved rest of nuc 5' away and turned it facing opposite direction it was. Original cell failed, found 4-5 nice queencells about 9 days later, made sure each box had a frame with cells, bought new top and bottom board, took top box off and put on new bottom board, put top on and now have 3 nucs instead of one.


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

Until my last August wipeout my plan for this year was to do a side by side comparison of Ray's queen removal and simply inserting an excluder between upper and lower bodies with brood on both sides.
Expectation was removal would yield more cells and excluder would be closer to superceder than emergency. Have to wait until next year unless someone gives it a try. (hint, hint)

Method has the usual drawbacks of walk away splits; not as sure of the exact age of cells and they are not single packaged, usually some are joined, but method is more economical on resources than a walk away. Much less resources required than dedicated builder.


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Salty-
With very little bee resources, a vented nuc cell starter and running VERY FEW queens (like a single bar of 10) should yield a few good, large cells to get back in the game with. 

I got lucky with only 2 colonies a few years ago, although I did not use a small nuc like that. One colony had overwintered 5 deeps tall and the other, a tiny swarm in November, grew up big enough in February to handle Cell Builder duty. 

I happened to check them 8 days after adding the excluder and the imported brood, and removed 8 swarm cells and made nucs from these. 3 more swarm cell starts were found on day 11, grafting day. These were not ready to plant, so I destroyed them, and removed all the brood that wasn't capped, and compressed the now 4-boxes-tall colony down to 3-boxes-tall (for additional crowding). That was my first graft of the season, as usual a low take on my first graft of the year. I got 7 cells using a slight variation on Brother Adam / Michael Palmer's method and ended up with 15 colonies.

One thing that MP does that really helps is making up a super-fresh pollen frame out of empty, drawn comb by shaking fresh pollen out of the trap into it. You could make one of these for a nuc cell starter, or make 2 of these (yeah, the grafts go in between them) for a full 10-frame Cell starter/finisher colony.


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

kilocharlie,
Still just barely crawling, (2) 2 frame mediums and (2) 2 frame deeps with laying queens. A week old today. Got to get bees building up first, maybe 2 more nucs and then get them ready for winter.
Hope to keep them out of the bug spray, brother's spot has fewer neighbors.


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Yep, Increase before Queen Rearing! Use top-quality feeds and hive entrance reducers to keep them safe through the nectar dearth probably coming in a few weeks to a month or so. Good luck!


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## oldiron56 (Mar 9, 2009)

One thing that MP does that really helps is making up a super-fresh pollen frame out of empty, drawn comb by shaking fresh pollen out of the trap into it. You could make one of these for a nuc cell starter, or make 2 of these >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Kilo can the bees process raw pollen and use it for making Royal Jelly? I remember reading somewhere (might be here) that the spheres of the pollen are coated withe silica and the bacteria breaks it down for the bees to digest and use as bee bread. If that is true, fresh pollen would be of no help at the time of making a queen, bee bread would,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Pete


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Interesting point - maybe I have it wrong. Better go to the source - I'll pm Michael Palmer, if he doesn't respond first!

So far, doing this has upped my score, but I may have been using less-than-ideal pollen frames before. I do not have a qualifying control group to compare against objectively, nor a variety of "aged" pollen frames to compare against. Michael has been getting rather remarkable results, so let's ask him the exact procedure!


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## oldiron56 (Mar 9, 2009)

I`ve had a face to face with Mike about this, I`m asking what do you think ?,,,,,,,,,Pete


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

kilocharlie said:


> Interesting point - maybe I have it wrong. Better go to the source - I'll pm Michael Palmer, if he doesn't respond first!


Yes, I've heard it before. Pollen harvested from pollen traps isn't bee bread, and bees require bee bread to produce royal jelly. Well, all I can say is look at the results. Big queen cells still full of jelly on day 10 when I place them in the mating nucs. If the bees couldn't use the pollen, then why the good results? There is no other pollen in my cell builders.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

oldiron56 said:


> I`ve had a face to face with Mike about this ,,,,,,,,,Pete


We did?


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## oldiron56 (Mar 9, 2009)

Yes Mike in Delaware. Also in EAS Vermont , I showed you a folding frame that fit my mating nucs. I`ve based my method of raising nucs and queens on things Ive`d learned from your posts. 7 OW nucs and 7 hives made 63 nucs so far, still alot to learn. I steal bee bread from one of them to put next to the grafts. I tried moving the queen out of a strong nuc and giving them a graft, 90% take. Thanx for your posts they have inspired me and others alot ,,,,,,,,Pete


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

oldiron56 said:


> Yes Mike in Delaware. Also in EAS Vermont , I showed you a folding frame that fit my mating nucs. ,,,,,,,,Pete


I usually forget names. I sometimes forget faces. I never forget folding mating nuc frames.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

And I have never even seen a folding mating nuc frames before. What do they look like?
How are they used? Pics would be great!


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## oldiron56 (Mar 9, 2009)

Wish I could post pics, gotta get my nefew to show me how, ha! It is a 19 inch frame that folds in half. You put it in a hive and get it laid up then fold it with bees and all and put it in a mini nuc and give it a cell. when your done with it for the year open it and put it in a hive to hatch out. Dave Cushman has a plan for one on his site,,,,,,,,,,,,Pete


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## mitch30 (Feb 8, 2014)

Michael Palmer said:


> I usually forget names. I sometimes forget faces. I never forget folding mating nuc frames.


What is folding mating nuc frames???


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

You asked the same question I had earlier. Take a look at the tri-fold frame too.
http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/spframes.html


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## oldiron56 (Mar 9, 2009)

I made about 20 of them.I thought they were a pretty cool gismo and they work great, but they cant be re-designed to be the size of half frame because of the lug in the middle, so I had to make special boxes for them. I made a bunch of single frames the same size to fill out the rest of the box.Then I saw how easy it was to just make half frames and a few 20 inch long boxes (de coates) stacked up and give them a swarm, all drawn out and filled with brood. I had to make 30 more boxes to fit those. I mostly use them, the folders are still scattered in the big hives, it was a good idea at the time,,,,Pete


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Michael Palmer said:


> Yes, I've heard it before. Pollen harvested from pollen traps isn't bee bread, and bees require bee bread to produce royal jelly. Well, all I can say is look at the results. Big queen cells still full of jelly on day 10 when I place them in the mating nucs. If the bees couldn't use the pollen, then why the good results? There is no other pollen in my cell builders.


Thank you, Michael. Your results speak volumes. I wonder if they convert it to bee bread and then to royal jelly as they go from pollen frame to queen cell bar? If only Franz Kafka had changed Gregor Samsa into a bee instead of a giant ****roach, I'd really love to have interviewed him! If we ever do learn to speak Apis Mellifera, that's one of the questions I'll probably ask a bee.


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