Starting Queen Cells

This looked a little more complicated then The Fat Bee Man method. The Miller Method suggested cutting a  zig zag edge at bottom of comb and the bees would make queen cells in the gaps. Another method was the Alley Plan where cells with one day old larvae is take and placed with the cells pointng down (didnt explain HOW to do this really) with every couple of larva destoryed to leave enough space.

Clipping and Marking Queens

I have to admit I was slightly concerned when I saw the picture of the Baldock cage. However, I found this article fascinating. It explained how to mark queens. This is essentially painting them or sticking a number to them to organize and know how old a queen is. There was a pretty confusing way of colour coding with corresponding years that I did not really find very useful or easy to remember. The Baldcok cage is to keep the queen still while you do this but there were various over methods such as special pliers. The article also told about how to clip queen’s wings. This process seemed pretty tricky and the article didn’t really explain why you should do this. With some additional research I learned that clipping can also be used for marking age (left wing clipped for a year ending in an even number, right for an odd) and to prevent swarming or keep track of the queen as she cannot fly. However there are a few cons to clipping. Some beekeepers argue that the hive can sense the queen is injured and will reject and replace her.

Splitting Hives (Not Hairs)

In this video we learm how to spilt a hives. First you need a  5 frame "nook(?)" box. This is where you will put the split hive. Next select a few frames from the orginal hive. Look for frames with things that will be necessary for the new hive, such as honey, pollen and babies. You will also need to locate the queen and put her in the nook box with the selected frames. The man advised waiting 3 days before putting a new queen in the original (and now queen less) hive so that the bees can realise they have no queen and change their pheromones. I was wondering if the bees would create a new queen on their own? Next, move the nook box at least 2 miles awas so the bees do not go straight back to their orgininal hive. After a few days the two new hives may be right beside each other again, if desired. 

How To Make A Queen

Fat Bee Man says it is not as hard as you may think and stated several times that ANYONE can do it. First you must build your frame ahead of time and have a bar that will hang about half way down the frame. Nextcut a slit of comb containing larva and put wax on your bar, this will act as glue.  Next squash the strip of combs on the bar at intervals.TADA! Horizontal cells. I though this method seemed pretty easy, however i liked our pencil method better.