Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: NurseBee on April 10, 2005, 09:11:45 am
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I know of a hive of bees that has survived the tough New Hampshire winters for many years unmedicated,unfed by humans,and honey unharvested. The owners obtained the bees several years ago for pollination purposes only. Could these bees be a disease resistant strain of bees?? Should I consider obtaining some of these bees for a colony of my own? The hive probably hasn't been cracked open for years either.Who knows what's inside! I'm not sure of the strength or population of the hive but have seen them each spring coming and going like any other hive. How would I (or should I?) go about starting up a second hive of these bees? What does everyone think?
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Hey don't fix a hive that is not broken but you might study them to see if you can duplicate the successful actions of that hive
kirk-o
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I would suggest not bothering them for fear of upsetting whatever it is they seem to have going for them. If I where you, I would buy/build a few swarm traps, buy some swarm lure and set up around/near the hive. Try and get a swarm or two from it and see how they do.
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May I venture a guess with out getting a rock thrown at me?
Natural sized cells and no man made poisons or artificial feeds.
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I understand not wanting to disturb whatever balance is going on in the hive, but what would it hurt to open the hive (with the owners permission), remove a frame of fresh eggs and start a nuc to allow them to raise a queen from their own offspring?
I don't think this would be too invasive and could produce what we have all been looking for. I'll take one of the resulting hives.
Of course, catching a swarm would work the same way, just not as quick and with the current old queen (singular, not plural the way you could harvest queen cells if the new nuc would raise more than one).
Fuzzy
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I guess you wont know if you dont try, bye :)
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I understand not wanting to disturb whatever balance is going on in the hive, but what would it hurt to open the hive (with the owners permission), remove a frame of fresh eggs and start a nuc to allow them to raise a queen from their own offspring?
I don't think this would be too invasive and could produce what we have all been looking for. I'll take one of the resulting hives.
Of course, catching a swarm would work the same way, just not as quick and with the current old queen (singular, not plural the way you could harvest queen cells if the new nuc would raise more than one).
Fuzzy
If the hive has been untouched for years, I image the burr comb and propolis will make it pretty difficult to remove a frame of eggs. Not without causing a major disturbance.
Even if you did get some eggs and raise some queens, you would have to do it in the same vicitiny so as to get the same drone lineage during mating that the hive queens would get.