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Italian Queens
Posted: Mon Mar 03, 2008 1:57 am
by TJ
Hi Kurt, I ordered two Italian queens at the last meeting, but only want one. Can you change my order (not sure who's looking after this). Thanks, Tracey
Posted: Mon Mar 03, 2008 5:00 am
by Kurt Bower
I am sure this wont be a problem.
Kurt
Posted: Mon Mar 03, 2008 7:27 am
by Locust&Honey
When would they be in??? I may take the other one if it will be soon. i have one hive that may need to be split soon...
Posted: Mon Mar 03, 2008 5:45 pm
by Kurt Bower
Queens is queens.
It all depends upon the weather.
Best guess is around the middle of April.
Posted: Mon Mar 03, 2008 10:00 pm
by Locust&Honey
Can't quite commit to that...yet. When would be the latest I could let you know??? Of course if someone speaks for it let them have it. I was hoping to have most of my needs for a queen done by then but I am still new.
Queen rearing
Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 12:26 pm
by bdloving
speaking of queens, is anybody considering raising their own queens?
Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 6:53 pm
by Kurt Bower
I will be keeping the extra queen. If it is still available after it comes in, I will post it for sale.
As for raising queens, yes I will be raising some. I will be raising them via swarm cells. Nothing fancy but it seems to work well with minimal effort.
Kurt
Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 9:20 pm
by Locust&Honey
Could you give a little explanation of the steps you take to do this?
Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 12:54 pm
by Kurt Bower
Well when you have as many bees as I have you tend to have a few with swarming tendancies no matter what you do. While I try to maintain my bees, occasionally I will have a couple to build swarm cells.
Everyone knows that swarm cells produce the best queens. So why not take advantage of this?
I am going to use the queen castle by brushy mountain.
http://beeequipment.com/products.asp?pcode=687. It is fairly self explanitory.
I was doing this with regular sized nucs but thought this might be fun.
Kurt