# how's this for a plan



## drobbins (Jun 1, 2005)

I got some really nice bees from iddee last summer
I'd like to raise some queens from them this year and I had a plan in mind
I'm thinking I could do a cutdown split with them, a week before the flow, putting the queen in the split, then the following week or two add another frame (or two) of sealed brood from a different hive to the split and really boost them and have them strong enough to use as a breeder colony while the flow is on
give them frames of honey/pollen too
wouldn't this result in a hive with LOTS of nurse bees?
the idea is to build an ideal breeder hive and still let the parent hive make a honey crop
It's going to be my first try at a Jenter system

Dave


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>wouldn't this result in a hive with LOTS of nurse bees?

Since all the field bees will return to the old hive, yes, you'll have YOUNG bees. But what you need are lot's of BEES. I find density to be the main issue. You need a crowded hive and when all the field bees return to the old hive, it won't be so crowded. Of course you could just shake in a few frames of brood from other hives until it's packed with bees. Again the field bees will fly home but the nurse bees will stay.

Jay Smith says this about young bees being nurse bees:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesbetterqueens.htm#Nurse%20Bees


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## Jim Fischer (Jan 5, 2001)

Well, you will *start out* with lots of
nurse bees, but the "advantage" won't last
long, as the colony population will adjust
to a mix of task assignments that matches
the needs of the *colony*, which is 
not always the ideal mix for a "breeder
colony". Bees have no programming that 
prompts them to go out of their way to make 
a whole bunch of queens at the same time,
as they really need only one or two at a 
time, even in a worst-case swarming scenario.

Mike's citation of the Jay Smith book is a good 
example of why old beekeeping books should be 
read for entertainment, rather than for hints 
on how to manage bees. Welcome to the *21st*
Century, we hope you enjoy your stay.









Jay Smith's observations about bee maturation, 
made back in the 1940s, are able to be better
understood in light of the advance of science 
tools and techniques since then.

In short, Jay was wrong about much of what he
thought he observed about "nurse bees", and
was right about some of it.

The bottom line here is that attempts to
manipulate a colony for one purpose or another
are doomed to failure over the long term, as 
the colony will consistently re-establish a 
division of labor that is "optimal for the 
survival of the colony", regardless of the 
beekeeper's intent. So, if you want a lot
of nurse bees, you'll need a big strong 
colony that can support a large group of
nurse bees and feels that it "needs" that
number of nurse bees. If you want the 
queen cells to be sure to get sufficient
attention, I guess you could remove a frame
or two of brood when you put your queen
cups in, but I can't imagine you'd need to
pull worker brood to assure that the queen
cells get attention.

The book "_The Wisdom Of The Hive_" goes 
into more detail on these issues, and has lots
of citations to current work on each topic.

In short, it is a hormonal/pheromone thing, and 
it turns out that bees are very flexible 
creatures.

If you remove all the foragers from a colony,
some of the remaining bees, even though "too
young", will step up to the task of foraging
within a few days, restoring a "proper" ratio
of forager to "house bees". 

Conversely, older bees can take a break from
foraging, and go back to "house bee" tasks,
and do so quickly if there is brood that
needs attention.

The so-called "juvenile hormone" is Octopamine.
The concentration of this chemical in the antenna
lobes of bees' brains correlated with "current
task", high in foragers and low in house bee 
_regardless of age_. But overall levels of
Octopamine in the "mushroom bodies" of bee brains
tracked age rather than current "role" within
the colony.

There are other chemicals that can be used to
track development of bees, dopamine, and 
serotonin being the major ones.

Here is a good paper, written in plain language
with a minimum of jargon that tested 3 major
scenarios (Removal of foragers, confining of 
the foragers, and removal of the house bees)
and looked at both the behavior of the bees,
and the underlying brain chemicals driving the
behavior (just skip the jargon, and read the
"Results", if ya want to):
http://www.cyberbee.net/huangpub/1996BES.pdf

Had Jay Smith waited a bit before expecting his
manipulations to have an impact, he would have
had more success, as it can take a few hours to
a few days for the bees to "adjust" to any 
unusual situation, and in queen rearing, a few
hours difference can make or break an entire
batch of queens.

But "behavior", even in humans, is being understood
more and more as nothing but the work of fairly
easy-to-track chemicals, throwing the concept
of "free will" into a tailspin.

_*From honeybees to elephants,
we're all just basic elements,
and we all turn to compost when we die...*_


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## Wayne Smith (Dec 15, 2006)

and we all turn to compost when we die...

Best case scenario.


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## drobbins (Jun 1, 2005)

ok, shifting gears a bit
is there really any reason I can't use the original hive I'm trying to get some honey production from as the cell builder?
it should be booming (sure looks like it today)
make the split with the queen in the split
let her lay in the Jenter
transfer the cells to cellbar frames and put em in the parent hive
of course it will have created it's own queencells which may well be a day or two ahead and would have to be kept in mind, but couldn't I still move my ripe cells into mating nucs before the rogue cells emerge?
would I need to tear down the rogue cells?

Dave

[edit] Michael, did you modify your Jenter kit to fit a medium frame?
I'm thinking cut off the mounting legs and attach it with some kind of adhesive

[ February 22, 2007, 05:22 PM: Message edited by: drobbins ]


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Conversely, older bees can take a break from
foraging, and go back to "house bee" tasks,
and do so quickly if there is brood that
needs attention

Which is exactly what Jay Smith said in the very next section:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesbetterqueens.htm#Old%20Bees%20Good%20Nurses7

>Michael, did you modify your Jenter kit to fit a medium frame?
I'm thinking cut off the mounting legs and attach it with some kind of adhesive

Yes. I've converted four of them now. I cut the legs and shaped the ends to fit in the groove on the bottom bar and the top fits into the groove on the top bar.


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## drobbins (Jun 1, 2005)

Michael

hopefully I can pick your brain on this thing a little
the instructions are pretty poor
do you end up with the Jenter box centered in the frame?
in other words, when it's in the hive, is the frame spacing normal?
what is the purpose of the back side of the box? 
it looks like you could store some tools back there or something but I bet that's not the intended purpose
is that just a way to push the plugs out after they're layed in?
the plugs seem to fit REALLY loosely and don't seem like they'd be hard to get out although after the bees work em it may be different
sorry for all the questions, but you have experience and I need it
a short primer perhaps? 
(don't you love being asked to write other people's documentation for them  )
thanks for any pointers

Dave


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>do you end up with the Jenter box centered in the frame?

The box? Yes.

>in other words, when it's in the hive, is the frame spacing normal?

The frame? No. Because you have a beespace inside the excluder and you need a beespace outside the excluder. So when the exluder is off, yes it's normal spacing. When it's on, I need another 1/4" to 3/8" minimum so the workers can get in and out of the box. 

>what is the purpose of the back side of the box?

To keep the bees from propolizing, storing honey in the backs of the plugs and trying to build comb there.

>it looks like you could store some tools back there or something but I bet that's not the intended purpose

You could put that little plastic thingy that is made to remove the plugs in there if you want.







I have the back of the box even with the surface of the comb on that side.

>is that just a way to push the plugs out after they're layed in?

You use the plastic thing, or your fingers or a pair of needle nosed pliers to pull the plugs out the back. Is that what you're asking?


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## drobbins (Jun 1, 2005)

>Is that what you're asking?

yes, that's what I was talking about
thanks for the feedback, just want to make sure I know what I'm doing before I take a bandsaw to this thing

Dave


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Jay Smith's observations about bee maturation,
made back in the 1940s, are able to be better
understood in light of the advance of science
tools and techniques since then.

You mean, of course that they are correct in spite of the fact that they were contrary to scientific opinion of the time, right? Jay Smith says EXACTLY what you quoted, with the exception that he is pointing out that newly emerged bees are still eating and growing for a few days. Jay Smith (the old, outdated, non-scientist that he was) noted that old field bees make fine nurse bees (contrary to the opinion at the time) if you put them in a position that they need to:

"Again some have told me that old bees cannot nurse as their milk glands dry up. I maintain such a statement erroneous. Many have observed that bees returning from the fields could not nurse. Of course not, for they were acting as fielders and not prepared to nurse. I will wager (a dime is my limit) that if these same bees were given several frames of unsealed brood, they would soon change from fielders and become nurses. Some of the brood might perish, for this was thrust upon them with no warning. But they would at once put on the white aprons and white caps with red crosses on them, take a hurried course in nursing, and in two or three days could show those younger bloods how to nurse. In a few days should you remove all the brood and give them grafted cells, they would do excellent work. Now just what are the requirements when taking this course in nursing? They devour pollen and honey in abundance and soon begin giving milk.

"I have given a frame containing eggs only to a colony that had been queenless and broodless for some time. The bees removed many of the eggs as they were not nurses. Then they concentrated on a few and built a few very small queen cells. The eggs were given to them on too short notice for them to become nurses. Had they been given three day's notice they would have taken a course in nursing and would become competent nurses.

"I have taken queenless and broodless colonies that had been in that condition so long that I was afraid laying workers would develop, and have introduced a laying queen. The presence of this laying queen served notice on them that they must take a course in nursing. This they did by eating pollen as has been stated and in three days, when the eggs began to hatch, they fairly flooded the cells with bee milk to such an extent that one might believe they were going to make queens out of the whole lot!

"Probably in a normal colony the bees do the work best fitted to their age but, as stated, they can do any work required after they are ten days old. In the far North in the spring many bees would be six months old and all would be at least four months old. These old bees do a better job of nursing than the young ones that come latter, for European Foul Brood seldom attacks the first cycle of brood, while later, after the old bees are gone and the young nurses take over, European Foul Brood develops. This would prove that the old bees are better nurses." --Jay Smith, Better Queens
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesbetterqueens.htm#Old%20Bees%20Good%20Nurses

And the previous paragraph to that section (the section I quoted first) he says any bee 10 days old can do any job required:

"I have found a bee worthless as far as doing any useful work about the hive until it is a week or more old. When ten days old it can do anything required." --Jay Smith, Better Queens

Isn't that what you said? If not, then it differs in what way? It seems to me proof that Jay was a VERY keen observer that he said this when conventional wisdom was that old bees could not be nurse bees.

Maybe before you criticize a book you should actually read it.


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## Jim Fischer (Jan 5, 2001)

Stop arguing to defend your citation of an
old book, and relax a little. 

Old bees *CAN* nurse brood.
But so can young bees.
Young bees less than Jay Smith's 10-day old limit.

Its all about what the colony needs at the
moment, and there was no way for Jay Smith to
ever figure out just how flexible bees can be.
Nowdays, we can measure just how flexible they
can be down to 8 decimal places.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>there was no way for Jay Smith to
ever figure out just how flexible bees can be.

Except that he DID at a time when that was not the popular position.

Jay Smith says a newly emerged bee cannot nurse. Tom Seeley says:

"When a worker emerges from her cell in the comb, her anatomical features are fixed, but the full development of her glandular systems takes place only afterward, in a complex pattern which mirrors the changes in the bee's behavior over her life...During the first few days of adult life, a worker functions primarily as a CELL CLEANER, cleaning and polishing recently vacated brood cells. She also devotes time to eating some of the pollen that is stored nearby, which favors the rapid activation of her hypopharyngeal gland. The worker also spends some 20% of her time resting--standing motionless on the combs or in a cell--and another 20% patrolling--walking about the combs, as if searching for work." Wisdom of the Hive.

Jay Smith didn't say he knew exactly when they could nurse. He said when they first emerged they could not, and when they were 10 days old there was nothing in the hive they couldn't do.

There are several small reference that are similar, probably the most extensive is when Tom Seeley says:
"...Robinson, Page, Strambi and Strambi (1989) in which they created small colonies consisting of workers all of the same age, and found that regardless of the workers' age, there were always some with low hormone levels (the nurses) and always some with high hormone levels(the foragers). This it is clear that under certain experimental conditions the division of labor within honey bee colonies can be completely unrelated to age." --Wisdom of the Hive

>Stop arguing to defend your citation of an
old book

Obviously you don't care about my point, but the point is that Jay Smith, without all this proof, had observed the same thing, which, rather than indicating that "the Jay Smith book is a good
example of why old beekeeping books should be
read for entertainment", it indicates that Jay Smith, in the context of actual bee work, and not a lab, made very accurate observations and you won't go too far wrong listening to him.


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## inga (Feb 21, 2007)

Michael, do you ever sleep?  

A post that references sources like you do is obviously not top-of-the head & requires a bit of time. 

I appreciate your no-nonsense practical approach to beekeeping, backed up by observation and experience both current and past. You've convinced me that I would benefit from reading Jay Smith's book. 

Thanks for not propping up sacred cows -- not even the sacred cow of modern science. 

[ February 26, 2007, 10:35 PM: Message edited by: inga ]


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## Jim Fischer (Jan 5, 2001)

Mike, why are you arguing? We apparently agree
that the bees will take up whatever tasks are
needing attention, which is the practical point
here.

I merely disagree with Jay Smith's flat statements
that bees need to be a certain age to perform a 
certain task, as experiments with primer 
pheromones have shown that "normal" rates of 
maturation can be sped up when needs are not being
met within the hive. 

I agree that the "normal" case would result in
a "normal" maturation rate, and therefore would
result in a "classical" progression of bees
through an age-driven set of tasks. But when
someone wants to mess around with the mix of
bees in the hive (the question that started the
thread) they CHANGE the mix of bees, and thereby
stand a very good chance of messing up the normal
ages at which bees undertake various tasks.


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## ScadsOBees (Oct 2, 2003)

From the second post:
"Since all the field bees will return to the old hive, yes, you'll have YOUNG bees. But what you need are lot's of BEES. I find density to be the main issue. You need a crowded hive and when all the field bees return to the old hive, it won't be so crowded. Of course you could just shake in a few frames of brood from other hives until it's packed with bees. Again the field bees will fly home but the nurse bees will stay."

My interpretation: "You want lots of bees, regardless of age. 
But... if you do what you propose to do, the foragers will fly home and you will end up with just nurse bees."

Sounds like you-alls(including Jay) are saying just the same thing: bees can change jobs if needed.

[ February 27, 2007, 12:37 PM: Message edited by: ScadsOBees ]


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>I merely disagree with Jay Smith's flat statements
that bees need to be a certain age to perform a
certain task

Perhaps you could point out those "flat statements". What I see is that he says a newly emerged bee cannot nurse, which, as I quoted from "The Wisdom of the Hive" is what it says also, and that a ten day old bee can do anything that is required. "The Wisdom of the Hive" did not have any particular statement on what age a bee reached the point it could do "anything" and Jay made no statement indicating the minimum age either, other than he had no doubt a ten day old one could do anything required.

So what staetment did Jay make that you think is erroneous?


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## Jim Fischer (Jan 5, 2001)

Gee Mike, I'm not answering any questions until
you answer mine, 'cause I asked mine  first.

Hmmm... 4.5 years, 24656 posts, thats about 15
posts per day, 7 days a week 365 days per year,
*Plus* whatever you post over at the BeeMaster 
forum. Maybe you just need a little vacation time 
to gain some perspective and stop the completely 
unprovoked attacks.

Anyway, lay off me, as I never did 'nuthin to you,
except dare to offer divergent views from time to
time, with supporting citations.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>I'm not answering any questions until
you answer mine, 'cause I asked mine first.

If could specify the question I would be happy to try to address it. I didn't see a question. The only sentence with a question mark in that post is the one I already addressed.

Obviously you can't find the alleged erroneous statement by Jay.


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## Jim Fischer (Jan 5, 2001)

> Obviously you can't find the alleged erroneous 
> statement by Jay.

Sure I can, and so can you. "Ten Days" is what 
I was talking about. No such absolutes exist for
bees, and I think we agree with this. Bees "rise
to the occasion". Jay's comments on queen
introduction elsewhere in the same book are also
so dated as to be laughable in light of actual
research done with things like "controls".

> The only sentence with a question mark in 
> that post is the one I already addressed.

Fine, you can explain to the moderators, then.
Perhaps they can convince you to get a life
and/or get off my back.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Sure I can, and so can you. "Ten Days" is what
I was talking about. No such absolutes exist for
bees, and I think we agree with this. Bees "rise
to the occasion".

Jay simply said that by ten days they could do anything required. You're saying that's not true? Are you saying that there are things a ten day old bee can't do in a hive? Do you have sources?

> Jay's comments on queen
introduction elsewhere in the same book are also
so dated as to be laughable in light of actual
research done with things like "controls".

I didn't know we were discussing queen introduction. But if we are, I'd have to say the complexities of all the issues make it very hard to prove anything definitively. I know of all sorts of methods that people swear by that I wouldn't try and methods I do that others probably wouldn't try. But in my experience, the circumstances have more to do with success or failure than the method.


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## iddee (Jun 21, 2005)

Drobbins, what was your question again? I forgot.


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## drobbins (Jun 1, 2005)

I can't remember either  

Dave


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## Jim Fischer (Jan 5, 2001)

> Jay simply said that by ten days they could do 
> anything required. 

No, he said that prior to 10 days old, they
could NOT be nurses, which is pure bull.
I quote his book, which you were nice enough
to OCR for those who need a good laugh now
and again:

"_I have found a bee worthless as far as 
doing any useful work about the hive until 
it is a week or more old. When ten days old 
it can do anything required._"

> Are you saying that there are things a ten day 
> old bee can't do in a hive? 

No, I'm saying that 10 days is an arbitrary
limit, something Jay Smith imagined about bees
less than 10 days old. He was wrong, pure and
simple. Get over it, and move on.

> Do you have sources?

Lots of them... whatcha need?


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>I quote his book, which you were nice enough
to OCR

I wish. I have not seen a OCR that could do a good enough job where correcting it wasn't harder than typing it. I typed it.

> for those who need a good laugh now
and again:

That's an interesting characterization of a book written by the man who probably raised more queens than anyone on the planet ever. Whose method are still used by most large queen rearers on the planet NOW. Whose books are in great demand by people who want to study queen rearing today. I find it inconceivable that you can so easily write off a half century of experience by such a brilliant man as only good for entertainment.

>No, he said that prior to 10 days old, they
could NOT be nurses

No, he did not. You are putting words in his mouth. He said:
"I have found a bee worthless as far as
doing any useful work about the hive until
it is a week or more old. When ten days old
it can do anything required."

He did NOT say it could not be a nurse bee at less than ten. He said at ten days they could do anything required. "A week or more old" is not an arbitrary number.


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## Jim Fischer (Jan 5, 2001)

Mike, I don't know why we are arguing, as I
supplied the Jay Smith quote, and did *not* 
put words in anyone's mouth.

If a bee is "worthless as far as doing any useful
work", this tends to imply that it would also be
"worthless" as a nurse bee.

And I don't care if you pick 10 days or "about a
week", either way, the statement is flat wrong
about nurse bees, and misleading about bee task
uptake in general.

I don't know any queen breeders who would ignore
advances in knowledge since Jay Smith's time,
and would admit to still using "his methods", but 
if you'd care to list any, I'd sure like to know
who they are, so we can all be sure to buy our
queens from other suppliers, ones who can stay
a tad more up-to-date on techniques.

I'm sure that much of what Jay wrote still applies,
just as the basics of beekeeping have not changed
much for nearly a century.


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