This is a good short story on why you may need to be prepared to help your new queen get accepted. Last week we knew our new Sue Cobey NWC Breeder (#4) was expected any day, but were waiting for the tracking info, so we could be prepared in advance for her arrival. However, she arrived … Read more
Coming out of the 2012-2013 winter we experienced our worst bee loss in 17 years. It was a blow to us – our operation’s honeybee survival was at stake. Coming out of the prior 10 winters our average winter loss was always between 10-20% and that was with bees which had never been treated. We … Read more
We confirmed last weekend that our New World Carniolan 2014 Breeder Queen will arrive the 1st week in May. This will be our sixth year that we will be bringing in a Carniolan Breeder queen from Sue Cobey. Mary has grown quite fond of the New World Carniolan queens; she finds them to be quite … Read more
In May 2003 Ed completed Sue Cobey’s Queen Rearing course at the University of Ohio. At the time Sue had uploaded her New World Carniolan Stock Maintenance Protocol to her web site. Sue is now at Washington State University. I think it is important that new beekeepers see this protocol. Sue’s current web site is http://honeybeeinsemination.com/Home_Page.php … Read more
We began raising our own queens after we discovered our bees had mites which had developed a resistance to both Apistan and Coumaphos in 2002. The option at that time was to use an even stronger chemical to kill the mites. It seems that no chemical will kill every mite in the hive, so by … Read more
We took our 1st instrumental insemination course at the University of California, Davis in 2007. In 2008 Mary went back to California to complete the advanced instrumental insemination course with Sue Cobey. Back at home we had setup a really nice lab in our guest room with all the required insemination equipment, including a Nikon … Read more
Here is a sample schedule in spreadsheet format if you are using the Cloake Board Method of Queen Rearing (Sue Cobey) :
We made a presentation to the Raritan Valley Beekeepers this past Friday. Our presentation was titled: OUR HONEY BEE PROJECT / Natural and Chemical-Free Breeding Program Listed below is a snapshot of our PowerPoint slides: How We Got To This Point We lost 50% of hives in 2002 Mites developed resistance to Apistan & Coumaphos … Read more
We have seen some hints of Spring in recent weeks, but there still are too many freezing nights and the occasional snowy day. If next week shows the promise of warm sunshine, we will begin making our deep hive inspections. Our winter loss rate is about 17% for this past winter. One of the most … Read more
In 2009 and 2010 we introduced (2) New World Carnolian Breeder Queens from Sue Cobey at the University of California,Davis. We also continued to get Russian Queens from Charlie Harper from Carencro, Louisiana. In 2009 we had separate Russian and Carnolian breeder yards. In 2010 we combined those breeding yards and the New World Carniolan … Read more