Beekeeping course

[maddydog]

A nuc that is left queenless after a mated queen is removed is desperate for a queen. They will take any passing queen out for a mating flight and guide her back to their nuc.

Do you have a theory as to where these queens are coming from? None of my queenless colonies have press-ganged a passing queen to the best of my knowledge

 

[Millet]

You have it all wrong.

When I said "Pity: I just squished 3 unmarked queens this morning" (https://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=40141, post #9) they were virgins - all my queens emerge in the incubator and are marked with disks on their thorax so they can be tracked. These didn't have theirs.
Don't be so quick to judge. There was no wind-up.

Understood I appoligise, i was tired and in a grumpy mood yesterday and it will not happen again. sorry. .
Steve

 

[B+.]

Understood I appoligise, i was tired and in a grumpy mood yesterday and it will not happen again. sorry. .
Steve

No problem

 

[B+.]

Do you have a theory as to where these queens are coming from? None of my queenless colonies have press-ganged a passing queen to the best of my knowledge

They were too big to be scrub queens produced by a nuc.
It is possible that they were the queen I introduced which had lost her disk. However, I have no proof so I can't take the risk.
It is also possible that they were hi-jacked on their way back to their own colony after a mating flight.
I don't know for sure.

 

[maddydog]

They were too big to be scrub queens produced by a nuc.
It is possible that they were the queen I introduced which had lost her disk. However, I have no proof so I can't take the risk.
It is also possible that they were hi-jacked on their way back to their own colony after a mating flight.
I don't know for sure.

Thanks, learn something new every day on here.

I did wonder whether some of the queens may have lost their disks

 

[B+.]

I did wonder whether some of the queens may have lost their disks

Yes. It does happen.

 

[Millet]

No problem

Thank you and good luck with your endeavor.

 

[coffindodger]

Thank you. I agree with the KISS principle. I want the group to work independently so they should not be confused what to do when.
What were the most important leaning points for you?

Specifics:
Identification of stages and the timing sequence.
Varroa control
Feeding
Inspection protocols
Queen cell identification and action.
General:
What should we see in the hive?

IMHO there is a lot of good advice available on this site and other pages. There are also workshops from government and talks at association meetings. These are great for reference and identifying diseases etc, but are of little use if one doesn't know what a good healthy colony looks like and feels confident in assessing the situation. Knowing what is normal and letting the bees tell you what is going on is much more important for a beginner than any advanced techniques. The caveat, of course, is that you need to give them confidence to ask when in doubt.
Just my view, but HTH

 

[Fusion_power]

None of my queenless colonies have press-ganged a passing queen to the best of my knowledge

It happened just a month ago to one of my breeder queens that was in a hive near some mating nucs. She was 2 years old and the bees were trying to supersede her. One of her daughters returned from a mating flight and went in the mother's colony. Within 2 days the old queen was gone. This does not normally happen with a colony, but if they are already looking for a new queen and one shows up at the door, they can be very obliging. I know for sure that it was her daughter that moved in because I checked the nearest mating nuc and found it queenless. I then checked the breeder queen's hive and recognized the young laying queen by a unique mark on her abdomen. While it hurt quite a bit, I had already raised quite a few daughters from the breeder.

 

[Beefriendly]

Do you have a theory as to where these queens are coming from? None of my queenless colonies have press-ganged a passing queen to the best of my knowledge

It happens. I had a colony go from being very passive to bees from hell. Saw original queen 3 days before they went berserk and then found a different queen in there...it was a painful inspection. Yes, other explanations possible but a full inspection a week previous and partial 3 days before showed nothing amiss.....not to say I didn't miss something, but due to strain of bees I could see there was an awful lot of different coloured bees in that colony. A passing swarm found a new home and ousted old queen?...never be a 100% certain, but a possibility for what happened.

 

[Eyeman]

I've been asked to give a course on beekeeping to a small group of people (assume no prior knowledge although 1 or 2 people may have some exposure to bees).
To be honest, I'm a bit out of my depth as it has been many years since I did the BBKA basic exam. What should I include? What should I leave out? How long should I devote to each topic?
The idea is that I should leave them fairly self-sufficient at the end of it although I would be available to mentor them via phone/skype (they are probably an hour or so away from me and it isn't practical to jump in a car to go help whenever they have a problem/question). I have suggested that they attend a local group who offer ready-made courses, but, they prefer to keep it "in the family" since I have a long relationship with the group.
I'd appreciate your input, particularly from anyone who has recently taken beginner training. What did you find helpful? What was missing from your training that you needed? Are there any ready-made course outlines that I could adapt? What should I charge?
Many thanks

I've started running a beginners course at work this year. 4 novices attended 5 evening lectures and are now accompanying me with inspections and managing their own nucs and watching them build up. One nuc per pair of beekeepers.
The lectures are bases around pictures with very little text. So it was more like an informal discussion. First lecture went on for over 2hrs before someone mentioned the time and that they should have been home an hour ago!
If your interested pm you email and I can send you the power point files.

 

[B+.]

It happened just a month ago to one of my breeder queens that was in a hive near some mating nucs. She was 2 years old and the bees were trying to supersede her. One of her daughters returned from a mating flight and went in the mother's colony. Within 2 days the old queen was gone. This does not normally happen with a colony, but if they are already looking for a new queen and one shows up at the door, they can be very obliging. I know for sure that it was her daughter that moved in because I checked the nearest mating nuc and found it queenless. I then checked the breeder queen's hive and recognized the young laying queen by a unique mark on her abdomen. While it hurt quite a bit, I had already raised quite a few daughters from the breeder.

I have seen for myself how queens on orientation flights can end up in other nucs too.
All my queens are numbered so I know exactly which nuc they should be in. I have found the wrong queen in a nuc many times, sometimes even sisters on the same comb (Apidea) - not fighting. It goes against all that you will read in a book, but, it happened. I was amazed they didn't fight.

 

[B+.]

I came across this and found it just what I was needing as a foundation to both build on and to modify.

https://www.scottishbeekeepers.org.uk/learn/study-notes

1 through 8 I have printed off and am going through them to suit my format.

May assist.

Many Thanks PH.

I have printed them off and gradually worked my way through them. They're a great resource.

I think, what I'll do is prepare PowerPoint slides with references to all of this source material. Then, people can dig out the detail when they have time. I'll just summarize it. I want them to be independent/competent but I don't want to overload them with too much information.

 

[B+.]

Many thanks to those of you who have sent me material or provided resources.

I'll prepare slides and present the course over the winter. The idea is that I do a demonstration at my test apiary (which is stocked with the best breeding material I have) to illustrate how bees should be handled and what good stock is like, then allow them to practice handling colonies at one of my other apiaries that is stocked with open mated daughters of 55-2-70-2016 (https://youtu.be/KGZ0ZmN-W8M) during late spring next year.

 

[Poly Hive]

So pleased you find them useful as obviously a great deal of work has gone into them.

PH