Hello from David & Sheri Burns at Long Lane Honey Bee Farms!
Is there any better life than that of a beekeeper? I’ve kept bees long enough now and have such a love for bees and beekeeping that I even don’t mind being stung. You can always tell a new beekeeper from a seasoned beekeeper because the new ones tell you how many times they’ve been stung and where. Seasoned beekeepers have lost track and don’t care and know you don’t care to hear about bee stings :)
Here at Long Lane Honey Bee Farms we are in full queen production! Queens, queens, queens, everywhere there are queens in all stages. My youngest daughter Karee has work along side of me for 3 year now in our queen rearing operation and she’s a pro! All day long we are grafting, transferring cells, marking mated queens for sale, and dividing hives for more mating nucs. Karee knows the whole operation and is a great grafter too.
Our bees help out a bunch with our own garden. Here’s mating nuc number 40 doing double duty. Producing queens and pollinating our gardens. We enjoy garden, chickens, bees and generally living out in the country! We are in our 6th year now in the country and it’s a hoot.
GUESS THE PHOTO! Sheri took this picture of everything we made from our own property in these three containers. Anyone know what’s in the jars? The middle one is obvious, so good luck on the other two. You can click on the photo to enlarge it.
LESSON 76:The Success of Your Hive is Riding on Your Queen
You must keep an eye on your queen and make sure she has a great laying pattern. As we hit middle summer and slide down into fall beekeepers are more likely to kill their queen during super removal, or queens can fail toward fall. Don’t go into winter with an old queen or a missing queen.
There are three caste of bees in a hive: 1) The female worker bee, underdeveloped reproductive ability, 2) The male drones who only mate high in the air with virgin queens, then die and 3) The queen.
When a hive makes a new queen, they do so from a fertile egg laid by a queen. They feed this young, three day old larva or younger, a special queen royal jelly and build out the queen cell perpendicular to the comb. It looks like a peanut shell. From the time the egg is laid until the queen emerges requires 16 days. Workers take 21 days to emerge and drones 24 days.
When the queen emerges she, of course, is a virgin queen or what some call an unmated queen. The queen only mates one time outside  the hive. A few days after emerging, she will take her mating flight and fly away from her hive several miles to a drone congregation area (DCA). The DCAs are 40 feet or higher and have been an established meeting place for years. The DCA is a place where hundreds of drones hang out in the afternoon seeking a virgin queen. Virgin queens somehow know where the DCAs are and will mate with 12-20+ drones. She may take several mating flights over the course of a week, but once mated she will never leave her hive again unless the hive decides to swarm. For reproductive swarms, the original, old queen will leave with 60% of the bees and the 40% left behind will be headed up by a new queen.
The queen mates with many drones in order to increase the genetic mix in the hive for survival. During mating, the drone’s genitalia (shown in picture) breaks off and is left in the queen and can be seen upon the queen’s return to the hive. This is called the mating sign. However, since she mates with many drones, each drones removes the previous drone’s mating sign and then mates with the queen.
The sperm from each drone is stored in the queen’s spermatheca so that she is able to lay fertile eggs for years to come from her initial mating flight. She will never mate again. A poorly mated queen may have stored only a limited amount of sperm and may only lay a very short time and turn into what we call a drone layer, laying only unfertilized eggs which produces drones.
It is very important that beekeepers see the value in replacing their queens on a regular basis. Replacing queens especially after June 21 can dramatically increase your hive’s winter survivability.
More on queens next time.

Summer Hours:
Mon – Thur 8:30 am – 4 pm Central Time
FRI-SAT  visits & pickups by appointment only
Long Lane Honey Bee Farms
14556 N. 1020 E. Rd
Fairmount, IL 61841
(217) 427-2678
www.honeybeesonline.com
Email: david@honeybeesonline.com
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Hello from David & Sheri Burns from Long Lane Honey Bee Farms. We saw that some may have had trouble seeing this lesson if it was posted via your Email, so we are attempting a duplicate resending, hopefully working this time. Thanks for your patience.
We’ve had some hints that spring is getting closer. Bees are out flying a bit more, and warmer weather! Finally, as it has been another long winter.
In today’s lesson I want to once again teach on the biology of the honey bees as we take a look at the fascinating leg of a bee. Before our lesson, let me ramble on a bit.
Let me tell you that I have some neat videos I’ve taken of our hives this winter. So, be sure and read through all my ramblings so you can see what one of our queens can do taking her gang through a terrible Illinois winter. And if you have trouble viewing the videos because you received this via your Email, go directly to where these lessons are posted:
http://basicbeekeeping.blogspot.com
Many (and I do mean many) people desire to visit our honey bee operation. In fact, already people are showing up to tour our place. Some have asked to go out and work the bees with us. Please understand that we certainly welcome tours, but it is seasonal. Hives cannot be opened and regularly inspected until it is around 60 degrees on a regular basis.
During the spring our operation is buzzing! Grass is green, trees are leafed out, and we are in full operation. Until May 1st, however, our place is not tour friendly. The grass is brown, trees are bare, everything is wet and muddy, bees are tightly clustered, sticks are in the yard…winter has left its mark.
So Sheri and I sat down and discussed how we could better prepare for those who wish to walk around (take a tour) and ask a bunch of bee questions. After all, that’s our goal, to help more people get into beekeeping. Please understand that we offer an array of various beekeeping courses and classes. This is how we educate those who want hands on experience learning to work bees. But if you MUST take a tour read on...
TOURS
We have 3 levels of tours we offer from May 1 through Sept. 1
Friendly Farmer Tour
This tour is available Monday – Saturday any time between 1pm – 4pm. The Friendly Farmer means you can talk to us while we work, and you’ll get to see what we do. It might be grafting queens, painting or building hives, packaging hives from shipment, working hives or mowing grass. In other words, feel free to come, but we must keep working and we’ll talk while we work. We cannot stop what we are doing to show you something else. For that, see our other tours below. Wear your work clothes and bring a hat and veil. If you come unannouced, we might be speaking in a different state and you'll not be able to tour our place, so call first. COST: FREE
David and Sheri’s Vacation Money Tour
This tour is available by appointment only on Saturday. Cost $100 whether it is one person or 100. In other words, a group of 30 people still only pay a total of of $100. The reason for the name is because money paid for this tour goes to our vacation fund. On this tour David or Sheri will take you around the operation and show you how everything works. It is a one hour tour and questions are answered during the tour. If you’d like to see a particular aspect of our operation, we just ask that you let us know when you schedule your tour. COST: $100
Call 217-427-2678 to arrange your appointment.
David’s Brain Picking Tour
This tour is available by appointment only on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday. COST $200  This is a 2 hour tour where David will show you all aspects of beekeeping, raising queens, harvesting honey and more. For 2 hours you can pick David’s brain and he will rattle off whatever comes into his mind at the moment. The cost covers 1-5 people.
Again, all tours do not start until May 1. If you wish to purchase beekeeping equipment, packages, nucs or supplies while you are here, be sure to let us know in advance so we can have everything ready when you arrive. Call 217-427-2678 to arrange your appointment
LESSON 71: Amazing Leg of the Bee & What to Expect from Your Overwintered Hive
The honey bee has 6 legs, three on each side. Bees use their legs like we do, to walk and run. However, there is more to the bee’s leg than just movement. On the very end of the leg is what we might call a foot. The foot is made up of three claws. This enables the bee to cling and grip on to things.
It gets more interesting. On the front leg, called forelegs there are antennae cleaners. All three caste of honey bees (workers, queens and drones) have this special cleaner device. Since the antennae serves an important role in communication it must be kept clean. You can look at bees up-close and usually see them cleaning their antenna.
The front legs also have stiff hairs which the bee uses to clean their head, eyes and mouth and to gather and transfer pollen to the back legs which have the pollen baskets.
The middle legs have hairs or brushes which are used to clean the middle of the bee, her thorax. The bee’s middle legs are also used to continue transferring the pollen to the back legs. The middle leg also has a spur for to pick the wax that is produced on the abdomen. The middle legs are also used by the bees to clean the wings and to dislodge the pollen from the baskets on the back legs.
The back legs are most well known for their pollen baskets. These “baskets” aren’t actually baskets, but hairs that surround bare spots on the leg. So the hairs hold the collected pollen which is placed on the back leg. Often, nectar is added to the pollen to make it stay tightly together. Only the work is equipped with these rear leg pollen baskets. Propolis is a stick substance which the bees gather from tree sap and sticky plants and the bees also carry the propolis back to the hive in their pollen baskets.
As expected the honey bees is magnificently made and every part has many purposes.
What to Expect from Your Overwintered Hive
Many beekeepers are finding that as it warms up, they are peaking into their hives to see if there are still bees alive.
Newer beekeepers are sometimes alarmed by what they find, things like dead bees…lots of dead bees. Even hives that survived the winter and are alive still may be filled with dead bees, certainly on the bottom board but sometimes even between frames.
Often time in the winter the bees break cluster to gather honey from frames that are beyond reach of the cluster. But when the temperature drops, they sometimes fail to regroup as one cluster, and instead form two or more smaller clusters. These smaller clusters cannot generate the heat needed to stay alive, so the smaller clusters die and usually freeze within the hive.
If your bees died with their heads stuck in the bottom of cells, this usually means they starved to death. They died licking the last drop of food from the bottom of cells.
It is very common for the bottom board to be full of dead bees. They either died of old age or winter kill. Left alone, the bees will eventually clean out the dead. However, I like to remove the bottom board and shake out all the dead bees. This keeps a cleaner hive and makes life easier for the bees.
Mold and dampness. It is common for beekeepers to find dead and moldy bees in frames too. This means that your hive had too much moisture over the winter and that you needed better ventilation. Every winter, in our yards, the hives that do best are the ones with opened screen bottom boards, drafty holes and propped lids.
What to do about moldy dead bees in a hive. Shake them out or rub them out, at least as many as you can. You can’t get them all out. They are dead, they won’t sting you. Be careful not to break the comb if you try knocking out the dead bees. Typically, we don’t worry about the mold unless it is really thick. A slight glaze of green or white mold doesn’t worry us. We reuse the frame and let the next package clean it up. Dead bees stink bad! Sometimes beekeepers ask me if they have American Foul Brood since there is such a stink in the hive. But I remind them that there is little to no brood in the winter to smell. The smell is the dead bees.
If you forgot to seal off your entrance to keep mice out, you may find some fury friends in the hive, and even a sizable mouse nest with little baby mice. If so, serve the eviction papers and throw all the mice overboard.
You might also notice bee poop all over the top and sides of your hives. It’s a light to dark brown and thick almost waxy substance. Do not panic and conclude you have Nosema. What you are seeing is that the bees have finally had a chance to defecate outside the hive and they didn’t bother to fly away very far. You wouldn’t either if you’ve spent  4 weeks waiting for a bathroom break. Excessive spotting might happen on some of your hives and not others. Don’t worry, it will clear up with additional warm days. In the slow motion video below you can see my bees have messed on the front of their hive. This was taken on March 4, 2010. If you have trouble watching the videos in your Email, go to our website at: http://basicbeekeeping.blogspot.com and you can watch the video there.

Now, if all went well with your bees over winter, then this is what you’ll see in the video below. Lots of bees, and a queen and lots of stored honey still available. This is an example of the queens that we produce. We graft from hives with strong winter hardiness and good honey producers and very gentle bees. They also show hygienic behavior which means they are more mite resistant. Again, if you have trouble watching the videos in your Email, go to our website at: http://basicbeekeeping.blogspot.com and you can watch the video there. Notice how gentle our bees are even at 40 (f) degrees! No gloves. These hives are as strong coming out of winter as most beekeeper’s hives are in the summer. Our candy boards that we sell also help absorb winter moisture.

Let’s have even more fun. Here’s a video I’ve made into slow motion of bees flying into their hive.

Beekeeping techniques that we teach at our beekeeping classes will help beekeepers have the success in overwinter hives like we do as well. And of course, having the right queen helps, like our Pioneer Queens. In fact, here’s another video of our Pioneer Queen and her overwinter gang. Notice how many bees there are and how much honey they’ve stored for the winter and the key is…how little they have eaten to survive the winter. Watch this…

Before I finish today I do want to let everyone know that we have set aside a large number of packages for customers who also purchase hives from us. In other words, if you want a hive and bees, we have that combination available. Other wise, if you need just bees, we are all sold out. But you can get bees from us if you wish to also purchase a hive.
Here’s the info on our upcoming beekeeping classes:
e limited.Until next time, remember to behave yourself!
David & Sheri Burns
Long Lane Honey Bee Farms
14556 N 1020 E. Rd
Fairmount, IL 61841
Phone: 217-427-2678
Website: www.honeybeesonline.com
FREE ONLINE LESSONS: www.basicbeekeeping.blogspot.com
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Hello friends, from Long Lane Honey Bee Farms. Sheri and I (David) welcome you to another basic beekeeping lesson.

Feel free to share these lessons with others. We recently heard where a beekeeping association prints off each lesson and places them in a binder for their members. We are thankful to have an opportunity to help others in the wonderful field of beekeeping.

Today, I want to show you how to control your varroa mites without medication. I have a video below that show me treating an entire hive in about 5 minutes.

I have previously (Lesson 28) written an entire lesson explaining the history, reproduction cycle and how to identify mites. You might want to review that lesson before proceeding through this lesson on how to safely treat for mites with powdered sugar. That lesson can be found by clicking here or going to: http://basicbeekeeping.blogspot.com/2008/02/lesson-26-varroa-mites.html

Powdered sugar does not get rid of every single mite, but it greatly reduces mites in a colony if treated properly. Along with green plastic brood comb and screen bottom boards, powdered sugar treatments can significantly reduce your mite load. Maybe you should consider getting off the medication treadmill and approach mites with an IPM (Integrated Pest Management) method without chemicals. We sell a complete kit that includes a screen bottom board, two green drone combs and a powdered sugar sifting screen which you can see used in one of my videos below. This kit sells for $39.00. These one piece green drone combs allows the bees to raise only drones on these 2 frames. The mites prefer the drone cells since they stay capped longer. When sealed, simply freeze the frame, killing all mites in the sealed drone brood. Return the frame to the same hive and they will clean out the frame and repeat the process.

You will want to get rid of as many mites as possible now that we are into late summer. DO NOT carry a mite infestation into winter. Many mites carry viruses and can kill your hives during the cold winter months. But, if you can reduce your mites then the winter generation of bees will emerge without being bitten by a mite.

How do you conduct the powdered sugar drop?

IN A NUT SHELL: Pour one cup of powdered sugar onto the top of the frames in one deep hive body for a minimum of 3 consecutive weeks on the same day each week. A six week treatment is even more effective. The powdered sugar falls between the frames, coats the bees and causes the mites to lose their suction cup grip on the bees and then falls through the screen bottom board, or off of the bee on their next flight. I strongly recommend a six week application so you can be sure to break the mite's brood cycle.

If you treat only once, but the bulk of your mites are within the capped brood, then that treatment will only help with the mites that are out and on the bees or comb. But as soon as the other bees emerge, the mites spread again. That's why a six week application is so effective.

A MORE DETAILED EXPLANATION First, purchase some powdered sugar. There is a debate on whether the corn starch found in most store bought confectionery sugar may or may not be good for bees. Most of us aren't too worried about the small amount of corn starch compared to how effectively it helps reduce mites. However, if you have a good blender and some time, consider taking granulated sugar and grinding up your own corn starch free powdered sugar. A good blinder will do it very fast, but keep in mind that the sugar does become pretty warm when you grind it up into powder. The volume stays the same, so to make 2 cups of powdered sugar use 2 cups of granulated sugar.

Use 1 cup (8 oz) of powdered sugar per hive body and I do not treat my honey supers because I do not want powdered sugar in the honey. But, if you time things right, you can treat as soon as you take off your honey supers. This year my bees are still pulling in nectar like it is July, so I'm treating a few that still have supers as in the video below.

Next, head to the bee yard with your smoker, hive tool, sifting screen, powdered sugar and humble feeling of knowing that you are a beekeeper!

In this next video, you'll see me actually demonstrate the entire process. And, watch the timer because you'll see that it really doesn't take all that long to do a complete hive even with a stuck super on it!

Okay, let me answer a few questions that the video may prompt you to ask.

1) Why use a screen. Because it holds the bees beneath the treatment. Otherwise, they will fly up and out of the top as soon as the powdered sugar starts falling between the frames. YOU WOULD TOO!

2) What about the powdered sugar on top of the frames. Leave it, or brush it between the frames. Remember, bees love sugar!

3) Why didn't I have an inner cover on this hive. Because I have a special spacer attached under the top cover that does the same thing and makes it easier for me to lift open the top.

4) Why did you put your first deep on the ground? Because I use both common placement methods. In the video I placed my super on the inverted top cover, but placed my deep on the ground. I usually do not place my boxes on my top cover because they stick. I set them on the ground like I did my top deep, always putting the front down so I can place it back on the hive in the same orientation that I took it off. NEVER place a hive body on the ground with the frames down, like it sits on the hive. You'll smash all your bees on the bottom. Tilt it to its front, like you see me doing in the video. By the way, when you place the supers or deeps on an inverted top cover, you can also kill bees, and even the queen. But by placing it on the ground no bees are smashed. The queen does not fall off and the bees do not mind.

Finally, you must be stringent about your schedule. For six weeks, keep track of what day you did your powdered sugar drop. If it was Monday, then repeat the process every Monday for a total of six weeks. Do not fudge or skip or haphazardly complete the process.

Thanks for joining me today for another lesson. As our family business continues to grow, we'd like thank all of our customers who are so wonderful to us. Thank you for your support and business. We sacrifice many hours a day, answering email and answering questions on the phone and it is our pleasure. Many call in who have never ordered from us but simply found us on the Internet and have some questions. We don't mind, but we do need your business :)

We have completed our beekeeping Store/Education/Research Lab and it is really working well for us. And, this year our bees did very well, both in producing queens and honey! We still are producing queens, and September is the best month to replace your queen so that your new queen can lay a great winter generation and take off fast in the Spring. Do not put up with an old, worn out queen. MANY, many beekeepers go into fall and winter queenless. Please inspect the condition of your queens or else your hives will not survive the winter without a strong queen. If you need a queen, please call us at: 217-427-2678.

Our queens are grafted from our hives that have survived two Illinois winters and from hives that have never been treated with medication. We also select for gentleness, adherence to the comb, honey production and low mite counts. We professionally package our queens with 4-5 very young attendants and ship via USPS 2 day guaranteed.

Here's a video of our daughter Karee, preparing queens for shipment. She is choosing very young nurse bees and picking them off the frame and placing them into the cage with the queen. The queen is already in there.

Finally, do keep our upcoming class in mind, and remember now is a great time to purchase your Spring hive equipment!!

Until next time, BEE-have yourselves!!David & Sheri Burns
Long Lane Honey Bee Farms

ORDER LINE: 217-427-2678

EMAIL ADDRESS: david@honeybeesonline.com

WEBSITE: www.honeybeesonline.com

FAX: 217-427-2678

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Hello from Long Lane Honey Bee Farms.

Today, we're taking a pause from our lessons and thought we'd have fun showing you what it's like in the real world of beekeeping because there's not a perfect hive at the bottom of every rainbow.

Most people's picnic tables don't have a beekeeping hat and veil, a nuc box and 10 queens ready to be shipped. This is what everything seems to look like around Long Lane Honey Bee Farms. There are beekeeping items everywhere, and I do mean everywhere!

Bees are our business and there never seems to be enough of us to go around. I find myself doing what I tell you never to do, work hives in the rain or late in the evening. Even though Jesus is perfect, we still live in a fallen world. Nothing is always perfect in beekeeping either.

The other morning I woke up and noticed a queen bee on my wife's desk, just walking around. I guess the queen emerged from her cell, escaped out of her cage and walked out of the incubator. Or maybe by accident I left a queen cell laying around. Which gives me a good opportunity to share with you something my wife mentioned to me the other day.

My wife mentioned that we do not want to give the wrong impression to people, that we have some huge, multi-building business with hundreds of employees and lab technicians walking around in white doctor coats in a bee lab. As I have said in previous posts, we are a family business, simple folks and that our operation is a functioning bee operation. The pictures probably make it look better than it really is. Probably all beekeepers who have a lot of hives are usually short on time to get everything accomplished. Certainly that is our situation.

More than an occasional queen walking or flying through the house, my wife puts up with much more! Though she thoroughly enjoys bees and our bee operation, I'm sure she feels the bee business has invaded and taken over her home.

We are currently revamping our old garage into a store/lab/learning center. Since it is only our family doing all the work, it is going slow. Any carpenters in Central Illinois that want to volunteer some work? But until that building is completed, most of our queen rearing operation is in our kitchen/dinning room.

There is an incubator on my wife's desk, a fax machine and telephone system in my children's rec room and my basement is full of bee stuff, stuff like canning jars for feeding bees in the spring, entrance feeders and anything that needs to be kept out of the rain.

Usually queen cages are scattered throughout the house.

Cell bar frames lay around the kitchen counter and we are constantly trying to clean up propolis and honey drops.

Queen cell cups in the window next to my baby's rubber ducky. Oh, there is more, but you get the picture. And if I show anymore, I will embarrass my wife and myself.

Before every meal, we have to clear away comb, frames, beekeeping magazines, grafting tools, flashlights, order sheets and a bunch of other beekeeping stuff.

By the way, the frame in the picture is for banking queens until mating nucs are freed up. It just so happened that the bees took advantage of only 4 queen cages and put comb everywhere else.

My wife does great chasing around after, Christian, our 10 month old and keeping our house clean and straight. (Here's Christian after sliding down a plastic slide which gave his hair quite a strong electrical charge.) But clean and straight still means that I have to graft queens, and leave cell cups here until tomorrow and I can't move this or that until I'm ready to put it in here or there. If I were a rich man, and I'm not, I would buy a house somewhere else, and move there and drive over here to do all the bee work.

Now the outside is even more of a challenge to keep everything organized and straight. There is bee stuff laying around everywhere. Don't get me wrong, it is important bee items, like feeders, queen excluders, feeding jars, bottom boards, lids, inner covers, tie-down straps, smokers, hive tools and on goes the list. Trust me it's EVERYWHERE!! But I really do use it and need these items on a regular basis. I even have much of the equipment stored in a storage facility.

And then there are the active hives, hives and more hives! Hives surround my shed where we make hives. Queen rearing nucs are sprinkled throughout the yard.

A row of queen rearing nucs take away from a beautiful spruce. I could move them further away on our 3 acres, but then I would have to walk further to work them.

I have around 10 of these nucs which receive either virgin queens or queen cells and house the queens while they mate and until they are laying well. We recently had a bad thunderstorm knock down our power line, broke a power pole, and downed a large maple tree but these nucs withstood the storm just like they appear here, with no rocks, no tie-down strap or nothing! We praise God for protecting our queens!

The yard! We have a real nice John Deere riding mower, but I can't bring myself to mow our yard because of all the clover! So we have some areas that look real pretty and other places look like no one has lived here in 5 years.

My wife works hard to help me keep everything going and so do our children. My wife worked a full 8 hour day Saturday finishing the dry wall and painting our honey processing room. Wow, she did a great job, just in time for me to crank it up that night.

To me, our honey room is a honey plant! I've rebuilt a Cowen uncapper that uses motors, gears, chains and hot water to uncap honey frames. It can uncap both sides of 10 super frames in 60 seconds.

Seriously, can you imagine uncapping both sides of 10 medium super frames in 60 seconds? I rebuilt a 33 frame, motorized extractor.

Here's my middle son, Seth, helping extract our first run of honey for 2008!! YEA!!!

My oldest son and I have made some plumbing changes each year to improve the operation. This year it is working better than ever.

So, I just want to bust your bubble if you think we are more than we are. We are a small, family operation, slowly trying to expand. Until we do, we are making do with the resources that God has give us for the moment.

Having said that, let me say we are proud of our humble operation and we do take beekeeping serious. We work hard both in physical labor and in research and development.

For example, in trying to come up with a better way to produce comb honey, which is really popular now, my father-n-law came up with the idea of building a frame with wooden pieces throughout the middle. The bees loved it and in one week built this nice comb. I am not going to run it through the automated uncapper. I just placed it there for a picture. These frames are just empty frames, with no foundation and the bees make their own. Isn't that neat. We've thought about selling these and we have had people request them.

Last year, we had some people with arthritis claim that our honey and our honey comb had greatly improved their arthritis. I would not, nor cannot make such a claim but a lot of people do say that about honey. Nonetheless, more and more of our customers are requesting honey comb, they kind we had back in the good ole days. Comb honey is mentioned in the Bible. "Pleasant words are a honeycomb, Sweet to the soul and healing to the bones" (Proverbs 16:24). The Bible does seem to imply that honeycomb brings healing to the bones.

So when you visit our honey bee farm, just remember that we're hard workers doing the best we can to keep up with the ever growing demand of helping more and more people enjoy beekeeping!

Finally, I'm really proud of my youngest daughter, Karee (pronouced like Marie only with a K). Karee is 17 and has really done well with the queen business. She goes out, cages up the queens and hand picks 4-5 young nurse bees to ride along with the queen to tend to her every need during shipment. She is faster than I am at this. She doesn't get stung at all! One day, she wore no hat or veil either. Way to go Karee. I keep telling Karee that she can continue to make queen rearing her lifelong business. Especially starting so young.

Our next lesson will be on how to manipulate your frames to help your hives expand and get those two deeps built out and that honey super filled up. See you then.

Please visit our web store at: http://www.honeybeesonline.com/

And if you don't see what you need on our website, just give us a call, as we sell anything you need related to beekeeping! Call us at 217-427-2678 and don't forget to sign up for our upcoming classes. See our last blog entry for info on the classes.

Remember to Bee-have yourselves! David & Sheri Burns

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Without the queen the hive will perish, and perish fast! New beekeepers fail to realize how crucial it is to have a healthy queen, and how fast a hive will die when the queen perishes. Sure, the colony will try to raise another queen, but to do that several factors have to work perfectly. Needless to say, we do not live in a perfect world and the colony does not always get the job done in time and remain queenless and perish--and fast!
Because of this, queens are in short supply and in extreme high demand.There are plenty of apiaries that sell queens, but usually you have to wait two weeks or more before they can ship. Here's the problem: Queens that die now, say in May, are hard to find replacement for until June. A hive will be too far gone if a they have to wait more than two weeks for a queen.
You must have a queen supplier's number in your speed dial! You must have a good source for queens or else you could lose your hive fast. Think about this for a moment. We pay as much as $100 for a package of bees, but if we lose the queen, we can lose the entire colony and the entire cost of the package. Queens sell for between $10 to $30 which is a small investment to keep the hive alive and growing.
For the most part, queens stay out of trouble and avoid calamity. But, not always. As she ages, she can be ousted by the bees due to her poor performance in laying eggs. Not to mention our inspections pose the greatest threat to her. Moving frames, smashing lids down, prying hive bodies apart and smashing them together can lead to the queen being killed. I accidentally smashed and killed a queen Sunday. I know to watch carefully, but this time I never saw where she was and smashed her dead. It happens. We must be more careful not to kill the queen when working our hives.
I've never been too keen on marking queens. For one, it is costly and time consuming. And since there are no Africanized hives in Illinois, I'm not worried about my queens being superceded by Africanized queens. Without marked queens, you can never tell if your original queen has been replaced.
But I'm changing my mind about marking queens. A marked queen is beneficial because it aids the beekeeper in identifying the queen more quickly, thus knowing where the queen is so as not to accidentally kill her. It also allows us to keep detailed records on a specific queen, particularly her age and performance.
Also, when making splits, the queen can get moved around, so by having her marked and numbered you'll always know the history of that particular queen no matter where you place her.
In the past I would occasionally mark certain queens by picking them up and holding them by their legs and mark their thorax. Even whiteout works fine. Testers model paint works better but takes a few minutes longer to allow it to dry.
But I decided that I needed a better way to track not only my queens, but specific bees in my observation hive. I'm building this awesome and huge observation hive that holds 8 deep frames. In it I hope to study various habits of these marked bees. So, I've decided to number all my queens and specific bees for my observation hive. Everyone should have an observation hive. Really, it is a blast!! I've studied the whole observation matter for some time now, and at first shied away from it because it can be hard to operate. However, after attempting to overcome some common problems, it really is a great research and educational tool for the beekeeper. Not to mention it is a huge attention getter! I'll do my next lesson on the "how to" of an observation hive.
Also, I've number a great number of my bees, and I can actually watch their behavior and even find number 15 out on a flower.
Let me show you how you too can number/color code your queens yourself. It is very easy and you'll feel like a professional entomologist when you're done.
First, you must know that there is an International Color Code system for marking queens. Do not just mark your queens any ole color. You'll forget what year you started with them.  Here's how the color code works:

So, this year, queens should be marked in red. The span between years is 5 years. It would be next to impossible for the queen to live that long, so you would not have to wonder if the red dot meant 2008 or 2013.
So how in the world can you mark a queen. We sell the complete kit for marking your queens or bees too, but let me walk you through step by step.

Okay, first open up your hive and locate your queen. Here's mine. I found her fast because it was a newly install package, and not a full hive.
Next I gently chase her down and pick her up by her wings or thorax, the middle section just behind her head.
In the field, I have my marking system in hand, which is a plastic tube with a removable plunger in one end, and a screened opening in the other. I place her in there while holding everything over the hive, incase she falls off, she's back in her hive and not in the grass somewhere.
Next, I slowly push up the plunger being careful not to snag a leg or wing. I wait until the queen stands on the plunger, then I slide her up to the screen. When she is close to the top, I slow down and carefully slide the plunger until the top of her thorax pokes up through the screen. It may seem like you are smashing her, but you don't want to push any harder than just to hold her thorax in a screen square as in this picture. You can click on the picture for a larger view.
Next, I punch out one of the numbers from the numbering kit that comes with this complete marking kit. For this queen, I've chosen number 4 and of course in keeping with the International Color Coding system, I've chosen the color red. This kit also comes with non-toxic glue. I put a little glue on the back side of the number, and carefully place it on her thorax. I press down gently to give it a good seat. I hold her in this position for a minute or two allowing the glue to dry. I have big hands so I wear a jeweler's magnifying glass for better placement and control. We sell these as well if you need one. At 48, my close up eyesight is not what it used to be :)

Now, she is numbered and ready to be returned to her hive. I make sure she is over the hive, very close down to a frame before pulling out the plunger. Some times she does not immediately drop out so I gently shake her out on to the frames.
For your sake, I pulled out the frame to show you how proud she is of her new number and notice how impressed all the other bees are as they stare and marvel over her new red number four.
Also, now I can keep a notebook and make any kind of notations on queen number 4 that I want. If she is ever replaced, I'll know it as well, because her replacement will not wear the number 4.
Marking worker bees is a bit harder because this system is made for a larger queen and the smaller workers squeeze through the top screen. But, with a little patience I was able to pin them at just the right moment and number them.
You don't have to use numbers if you don't want to mess with the glue and numbering system. We sell a paint pen, so that when you pin her thorax up through the screen, you can put on a touch of paint.
In summary, a marked queen is not essential. However, there are benefits that make it worth the while as you have discovered in this lesson. The marking systems are affordable and easy to use.

To order the queen marking kit, just give us a call at: 217-427-2678.
Thanks for joining me for another beekeeping lesson.
Remember to BEE-Have yourself!
David & Sheri Burns
Long Lane Honey Bee Farms
217-427-2678
www.honeybeesonline.com
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