In 2020, I plan an all out assault on the small hive beetle, maintain under 20 hives and breed the best queens on the planet: gentle, honey producers, non swarming with hygienic qualities. Of course I am bias, I admit it, I adore my queens.
My Alpha queen, that is my main breeder queen will be 4 years old. I have 4 generations of queens from Alpha that range in age from 3 years to 6 months of age. For those of you who are not familiar with Alpha know this:
At two years of age Alpha Filled 5 deeps, 10 frame langstrof of eggs in 4 months. I could have started 15 nucs or more if I wanted. I estimated she was laying 2,000 eggs a day, non stop all Spring and Summer. Her 4th generation daughter, hatched last August, Thelma Lou; hatched, mated and was laying in four days, a new record for me. Most queens take 7-10 days from hatch to mated and laying. Alpha has never swarmed, a great quality. I do not sell queens, this is no sales pitch. I will give away queens to locals.
I don?t know if Alpha will make it to Spring, so far, so good. She is a Cordovan Itialian with a tiny paint spot so easily recognized.
So next Spring:
1. Verify Alpha is OK and graft more queens from Alpha.
2. Green drone frame provided to Cordovan queens with different genetics than Alpha.
3. Employ my new entrance traps for small hive beetle, shown in earlier post.
4. Employ pvc entrance on 3 test hives for beetle reduction. New idea from BenFramed.
5. Artificial Inseminate Alpha virgins as drones mature, about late May.
6. Produce a YouTube video staring Alpha. IF I can figure that out?? Low priority.
7. Access small hive beetle #3 #4 controls and repeat that with best results.
8. Extract enough honey for family.
Ok, I hope I did not bore you to much. I have previously texted about Alpha on BeeMaster so forgive my repeated boast. Just a proud ol BeeKeeper I am. I am a bit anxious to see if Alpha will survived her 4th winter.
Blessings
Van