George Imirie's PINK PAGES
May 2002
Top or Bottom Supering?
Do you just add one super on top of the previous super, which is called TOP
supering, or do you lift the previous supers and put a new super next to the
brood chamber, which is bottom supering? This difference has been argued for
years with the same intensity as arguing about religion or politics. Each method
has its advantages and disadvantages, not to mention that a particular method
might be better for comb honey production, while the opposite might be true for
a steady but weak nectar flow in extracted honey production.
Let's start with TOP SUPERING. It is certainly easier, just "plopping" an
empty super on top of a filled or partially filled super. However, unless many
of the bees are using some type of upper entrance to the super area, the lower
supers that are closer to the brood chamber will surely get a lot of travel
stain on the pretty white comb from the dirty feet of the bees constantly
walking on it. TOP SUPERING has the advantage of a quick inspection of the
uppermost super to determine if another empty super is needed. Further, if you
do not use a queen excluder, you will rarely find a queen laying eggs in any
super except the super adjoining the brood nest hive body.
BOTTOM SUPERING is certainly more difficult, because you have to lift all the
supers that are on a colony before you can place a new empty super next to the
brood nest or on the queen excluder. Not only may each full super weigh 40-50
pounds, but it has a lot of bees in it. However, bottom supering prevents a lot
of travel stain on the white wax, so bottom supering is advantageous when
producing comb honey. The tremendous disadvant- age is the difficulty of
inspecting the bottom super to determine if it is near full or still quite
empty. If your honey crop is derived from a long, steady, but weak nectar flow
bottom supering can be frustrating because you may have to make several
inspections to determine the condition of the bottom super. When using a queen
excluder, bees may be resistant to go through the excluder into an empty super
unless it is "baited" by the beekeeper. However, if no queen excluder is used,
if the brood nest area is crowded for laying space, the queen is certainly going
to lay eggs in this empty bottom super.
Speaking for myself and the nectar flows in central Maryland, I am a great
believer in queen excluder use because I want to always know exactly where that
queen is, so I
Adding Supers One-at-a-Time or Multiple
As you know, for many years I have advocated installing supers ALL
at-one-time rather than adding one super when needed. I have done this primarily
to inhibit swarming, but also to increase colony honey production. Bees need a
tremendous amount of space to spread incoming nectar around so they can ripen it
and evaporate the water from it to make honey, so this extra space inhibits
swarming during a nectar flow. Let me show you a few lines from page 618 of the
1992 Edition of The Hive and Honey Bee: .....This is the time to place supers of
drawn combs on the hive for honey surplus. The number of supers to use is still
a matter of discussion among some beekeepers. Some individuals believe it is
best to add one super at a time while others will add multiple supers.
Researchers for the Department of Agriculture conducted some very practical
research in which they demonstrated that the "honey hoarding" instinct of the
bees was actually increased if the amount of storage space (drawn comb) was
increased. A colony with two or three supers of drawn comb will store more honey
than a colony with one super of drawn comb during the same period of time,
assuming the colonies are of equal size. An important consideration is that the
hoarding instinct of the bees is increased only when drawn comb is used, and the
use of foundation does not show any positive effect.....
This was written by John Ambrose, Ph.D., Professor of Entomology and
Extension Apiarist, North Carolina State University. Dr. Ambrose was Director of
the EAS Master Beekeeper program from 1990 to 1997.
How Old is Your Queen?
Did you lose any swarms this year? Was your queen MARKED? If not, how do you
know whether you know that you did not lose a swarm? Did you have a weak honey
crop? If you lost a swarm in March or April, you surely won't get your share of
the honey crop.
What does all this talk have to do with the age of your queen? Forty or fifty
years ago, some beekeepers became concerned that colonies headed by older queens
often swarmed, whereas colonies with young queens rarely swarmed. With all the
many problems started by the appearance of the tracheal mite in 1984 and the
varroa mite in 1987, bee scientists and bee researchers have done more bee
research work in the past 15-16 years than ever before, and FOUND truth in some
of the things that had been suspicioned, notably that the age of a queen has a
great deal to do with whether a colony swarms or not. Research found that a
queen loses her ability to produce the queen pheromone that inhibits swarming as
she grows older. Tests showed that a colony headed by 2 year old queen was 3
times more prevalent to swarm than a colony headed by a 1 year old queen; and a
colony headed by a queen that was a new queen during the spring of the previous
year was twice as likely to swarm during the spring of the next year as compared
to a new queen that was installed in the late summer like August or September.
Hence, read almost any bee-book written recently (last 10 years), and the great
majority strongly suggest ANNUAL REQUEENING, which means "never keep a queen
more than 13 months"! The great majority of commercial honey producers (those
guys with 5,000 or 20,000 colonies whose income is totally dependent on their
honey bees) requeen every year and some even requeen twice each year! If you
doubt me, attend the January meeting of the American Beekeeping Federation and
ask them yourself! As many of you know, I have practiced requeening all my
colonies on September 1st for quite a few years, and I don't have many swarms.
Easy Queen Marking
My e-mail is filled with questions about what paint to use to mark queens. It
is so simple, you use a TESTER'S MARKING PEN that is available in dozens of
different colors. Tester made the fast drying enamel paint that I used to paint
model airplanes about 70 years ago. Most of the bee supply houses have some sort
of queen marking device or tool, but I like Better Bee Company's Queen Marking
Tube which is a 1" diameter plastic tube closed on one end with a plastic screen
with "holes" about 1/8" apart and a sponge plunger. Just drop the queen in the
tube and gently move the plunger towards the screen until she becomes immobile,
touch her thorax with paint with Tester Marking Pen, let the paint dry for about
1-2 minutes, and release her back to her colony. Unlike typing Wipe-Out, water
colors, or fingernail polish, the Testers paint MARK will last the life of the
queen. The Better Bee Catalog Number is QMT1, and costs $4.95.
There are still some folks out there that are AFRAID to pick up their queen.
SHAME ON YOU! First, a queen bee will not sting a human - she only stings
another queen. Second, DON'T TOUCH HER ABDOMEN (that is like punching a pregnant
woman's stomach). Just grab her by her wings or thorax, and drop her in the
marking tube.
How Long Do You Feed a New Colony?
Most new colonies are started in April or May on frames of foundation rather
than drawn comb. Far too many only feed these new bees 1:1 sugar syrup until the
May nectar flow starts, and then they wonder why they still have lots of
untouched foundation still in their hive in July, August, or September. If I
have said it once, I have said a thousand times "Bees will NOT draw foundation
or build comb without a nectar flow"! 1:1 sugar syrup is an artificial nectar
flow. Hence, you CONTINUOUSLY FEED BEES 1:1 SUGAR SYRUP from the day you start
the colony until about September, and that generally requires about 20-30 pounds
of sugar or about $10. When the nectar flow is present, the bees prefer that to
sugar syrup and hence won't take any of the syrup; but what to they do on rainy
days or at night? In Maryland, there might be lots of pretty flowers out there
for you to see, but there is essentially NO NECTAR FLOW after June 15th. Hence,
if you want a nice strong colony to get through the coming winter, it has to
have a lot of drawn comb (at least 20 fully drawn deep frames or 30 fully drawn
medium frames) to hold the 60-70 pounds of honey needed for fall and winter
stores; so FEED YOUR BEES SUGAR SYRUP CONTINUOUSLY until at least September. If
we were in an area that had several different nectar flows stretched over
several months, or if we moved our bees to gather different crops, little
feeding would be necessary, but that is not the case for hobbyists in the
Maryland area. Isn't a strong colony with 30-40 frames of drawn comb worth the
$10-$15 of sugar it will take to get that? You come to the MCBA Apiary at
Brookside Nature Center and examine the two colonies the Short Course students
started on April 13th, one in 2 deeps and the other in 3 mediums, and these
colonies will always have 1:1 sugar syrup feeders on them until Labor Day.
How Long Before New Queen Lays Eggs?
Beekeepers surely are confused about how long the new daughter queen of a
swarm queen begins laying eggs; and so many dash off, purchase a new queen,
install it, and it is killed, because there is already a new queen in their
hive. Let me explain why this might take as long as 16-23 days before the new
queen lays her first egg, or 25-32 days before those eggs are capped so that
"tired, old beekeeper's eyes" can see proof of the queen laying.
Assuming that a colony is "hot" to swarm and the weather is warm and sunny,
the swarm might occur on the day the first queen cell is capped, which we will
call DAY 0. A queen cell is capped about 8th day after the egg was laid, and the
new virgin queen emerges 8 days later, DAY 8, which is the 16th day after the
swarm queen laid this egg. Queens do not become sexually mature until they are 6
days old, and if the weather is warm and sunny she flies out to a drone
congregation area and mates in the air with several drones, or about 7-17
different drones. This is now DAY 14. She lays her first egg about 2 days later
or DAY 16! Worker bee eggs remain as eggs for 3 days, DAY 19, hatch into a larva
which is heavily fed by the nurse bees for about 6 days until the cell is capped
on the 9th day, now DAY 25, and finally emerges as an adult worker bee 12 days
later, which is DAY 37 from the day the swarm left. Suppose that the weather was
chilly and rainy and the virgin queen could not go out and mate for a week; and
this would increase the date of laying her first egg to DAY 23 and the first
capped worker bee cell to 32 days.
A beekeeper inspects a colony and determines that the colony has recently
swarmed, and orders a new queen. The new queen is introduced via the queen cage
method to the colony, but it is killed. WHY? There was already a queen in the
colony, maybe still a virgin, but was accepted already by the worker bees as the
queen of that colony, and the fancy, new queen in the introduction cage is an
"interloper". Remember the Chinese adage: Two women in the same house is WAR.
Of course, if you are installing a new, laying queen in a new split or a new
package of bees, that queen will lay her first eggs about 5 days after
installation, using up about 3 days to escape from the introduction cage and 2
days "getting-to-know" her subjects, and a "tire, old beekeeper"
should see the first capped worker bee cells on DAY 14.
I hope I have helped you!
George Imirie
Certified EAS Master Beekeeper
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