Wayne's Bee Nuc

[Jacobs]

I began my attempt to get a Wayne's Bee queen this afternoon. Last night, David and I moved some hives, including bringing one of his Wayne's Bee hives home. I took a frame of capped brood, eggs and larvae with nurse bees and put it in a nuc box with a frame of pollen, a frame of nectar/honey, and 2 open frames that had been extracted but not cleaned up. I shook about 4 frames of nurse bees from 2 other hives into the nuc. So far, I have had reasonable luck at getting queens mated, so I hope it will hold for this one as well.

If this nuc gets queenright and makes it, I plan on making more Wayne's Bee queens/hives in the future.

[Wally]

If you get several cells, I would like to have one or two.

[Jacobs]

I'm pretty sure the foundation is plastic. If there are several, can you take cells off of it?

[herbcoop]

I'll be going into my into my strong Wayne's bee hive and pulling honey supers off for extracting tomorrow, Sunday if I have time I'm planning on doing a split off of it and doing a 5 frame Nuc and letting them re-queen. If it works out I'll be willing to sell that if anyone is interested

[Jacobs]

Getting a queen from this attempt is going to be a long shot. The food stores frame I put in the nuc caused a steady stream of robbers and it is empty. There is 1 very small capped queen cell and some capped brood on the frame of eggs I used.

[Jacobs]

This nuc did not turn out well. The queen never emerged and the nuc didn't make a queen from a second frame (not Wayne's) with eggs and larvae. I'll shake out the remaining bees this weekend.

[specialkayme]

What a shame.

I've been trying for 3 years to get a Wayne's Bee queen (unsuccessfully).

[Wally]

You haven' tried very hard. I invited you down twice, and after the second refusal, I asked you to call when you were ready. To date, you have not called.

[specialkayme]

What?

Second time you called, I called back. Talked to you on the phone. We met up at one of your yards. Went through the hive. On March 31 you told me you were making a split the next day (a Tuesday) and I should come out. I said I was working, but would love to. If you could do it on a weekend, or a Wednesday, I'd be there. On April 1 you told me "I'll let you know what I find tomorrow and we will go from there." I responded "sounds good."

You never got in touch with me after that. I assumed the hive wasn't doing well anymore.

We have distinctly different memories of what happened Wally.

[Wally]

Yes, totally different. My understanding was you were going to do a graft. You came down and checked the situation so you would be prepared when you came. I told you you could bring a nuc and graft into it, or you could carry a frame of eggs and larva home and graft there. You asked how much I would charge. I said, at most, a queen or two if it went well. I said you could come at any time after you saw the hive and where it was located. I didn't even have to be home.

That's how I remember it, and it still stands that way. Come today or any day if you want to get larva for grafting and either graft here or at home.

[specialkayme]

Yup. Not how I remembered it.

I thought I was going to graft out of the hive, but when I showed up to look into the hive you told me I should just take a frame of larvae and put it into a 5 frame nuc and let them make e-cells from it (and cut the unwanted ones out if need be). When I asked how much, you told me you could "get $15-20 for a frame of larvae" (which is still an accurate statement). I assumed that when you told me on April 1 "I'll let you know what I find tomorrow and we will go from there" that was where we stood.

Either way, appears to have been a communication error. What a shame.

I usually don't graft after June 1, and don't try and raise queens anytime after that. I usually find queens grafted after June 15th have difficulties mating. Unless you have a couple of grand in sugar to open feed for a month on end. With the summer dearth drone populations significantly decrease, making matings harder. Plus robbing becomes more prevalent, making it harder to maintain a mating nuc without a heavy population, or sacrificing a full colony to be used as a mating nuc. Not wise this time of year, as if the queen doesn't mate properly you wouldn't know until September 1 at the earliest, usually later than that, which by then it's too late to get a second queen going and your population has dwindled, making overwintering that colony that much harder, so you'll have to do a combine, i.e. losing a colony.

I also folded up most of my mating nucs for the year.

That being said, I did keep 4 separate, 8 - 1/2 frame mating nucs going (three of which were queenright, last time I checked on Sunday). I was hoping to try and overwinter the mating nucs, mainly for s**ts and giggles to see what would happen. In theory, I could take the three queens I have right now and bank them, do a round of 4 Wayne's bees queens and replace the queens that didn't mate properly with the ones that I banked. But based on averages I'd probably only end up with 2 or 3 queens. Not too sure if it is worth the effort. But uncertain. What do you think?

[Wally]

There are many, many queens mated in Aug. and used to requeen strong hives. If you don't have any "common" hives to requeen, I can give you one.

No, a fall queen cannot build up for the winter, but thousands are used to replace older or lesser queens to be ready for spring.

[specialkayme]

I think you missed the point Wally. I'm not saying NO ONE mates queens in August. Just that I don't mate queens in August. In my opinion, queens mated in CENTRAL NORTH CAROLINA during a nectar dearth in July/August produces inferior queens. Poor nutrition combined with intense robbing pressure combined with a decrease in quantity of drones doesn't make a good outcome for queens.

That's not to say you can't get queens from the mountains, the coast, or another state that has nectar and pollen for the hives to forage on, mate them properly there, and have them arrive here. Just that we aren't there.

Here, the only way to do it is to use a colony as a mating unit, then be prepared to sacrifice the colony when its over by combining it into another colony. Works fine if you have a small colony that you were going to combine anyway (but not too small, less they be robbed out or succumb to SHB), or left over mating nucs that you can't overwinter. Doesn't make much sense when you take a standard colony and use it as a mating unit. You get a 75% chance of obtaining a $20-30 queen (depending on your opinion of value) at the cost of losing a colony (worth between $100-250). Doesn't really make economical sense.

I don't know what you mean by "common" hives.

[Wally]

OK. If either of my 2 wayne's hives are still alive in the spring, you are welcome to use them as a source whenever you like.
That is, if I am living also.


If you decide to take a chance this fall, just let me know. I'll go along with whatever you want.

[Wally]

A "common" hive is one with an unknown queen. Cutout, caught swarm, or just bought a queen of no special strain. Any hive without a special queen or known genetics.

[specialkayme]

I've gotta think about it. I really didn't want to risk losing those 4 mating nucs, and going through the mess of a cell builder/finisher for 4 queens (max) seems a little outta place. But at the same time I have been trying to get ahold of these genetics for three years.

Let me think about it. If I decide to, I'd have to graft this weekend though.

[Wally]

My number is still 336-302-2708. Call me if you decide to come. If I can, I will be there. If I can't, you know where the hives are. Help yourself.