FAQs & Fun Facts

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Introducing virgin queens can be tricky, but we have had great success using an introduction method developed by Cory Stevens from Stevens Bee Company.  

1. Remove the queen from the hive that you want to requeen.

2. Return to the colony in 8-9 days and remove all queen cells that the colony has started. This will make the colony hopelessly queenless as they do not have any young larvae to develop a queen from. Be sure to shake or brush the bees off of all frames to ensure you do not miss any queen cells. If you miss even one cell, the bees will likely kill the virgin queen you are trying to introduce to them. 

3. Add the virgin queen in a candy cage. 

4. Check back in 4-5 days to ensure the queen was released from the candy cage. If she has not been released, manually release her into the colony. 

5. Check back in 2-3 weeks for a mated queen. Do not check back too early as this can trigger the colony to kill the young queen.

NOTE: If you already have purchased a virgin queen and you do not have a hopelessly queenless colony, place duct tape over the candy plug to prevent the bees from releasing her, and add the cage to the colony. The bees will tend to her through the cage. After you complete Steps 1 and 2, you can remove the duct tape and let the bees release the virgin.

Because of the great success we have had introducing virgin queens using Cory Stevens's method (Stevens Bee Company), we now use this method for introducing mated queens as well.   

1. Remove the queen from the hive that you want to requeen.

2. Return to the colony in 8-9 days and remove all queen cells that the colony has started. This will make the colony hopelessly queenless as they do not have any young larvae to develop a queen from. Be sure to shake or brush the bees off of the frames to ensure you do not miss any queen cells. If you miss even one cell, the bees will likely kill the queen you are trying to introduce to them. 

3. Add the mated queen in a candy cage. 

4. Check back in 4-5 days to ensure the queen was released from the candy cage. If she has not been released, manually release her into the colony. 

5. Check back in 1 week to see if the mated queen was accepted and laying. 

Our bees are Michigan bees that stay in Michigan year-round. They do not go down to Georgia or to California to pollinate almonds. We raise our own queens from our overwintered stock. We select for temperament, productivity, and hardiness. As our queens are open-mated in our apiaries, we do not claim them to be any specific race of bee. Instead, they are hybrids of the local bees that are surviving in our area. These bees are often referred to as "Michigan Mutts."

Here is a video that shows the temperament of our colonies:
https://youtu.be/kyv_kVQyXCw

Yes! We will have a limited number of Michigan overwintered nucs in the spring. Each nuc will come with a marked overwintered Michigan queen. 

We also may have a few late spring nucs available. These nucs will come with a marked 2023 queen from our Michigan stock.

We do not enjoy getting stung. We also do not like to wear gloves while we do our hive inspections. As such, any colony that shows aggression is requeened. This makes beekeeping more enjoyable for us and our customers. However, it is important to note that not all of the colony's demeanor is dependent on the queen's genetics. 50% of a worker bee's genetics is passed on from her father. This means that if the queen mates with spicy drones, the colony could show some aggression. Because of this, we cannot guarantee that the queens that you purchase from us will be as gentle as the ones you see in our videos. It is also important to note that after requeening a colony, it can take as long as 8 weeks for the worker bees from the previous queen to die and the new queen's workers to take over the colony. Therefore, do not expect an immediate change in the demeanor of a colony that has recently been requeened. It will take some time.

Here is a video that shows the temperament of our colonies:
https://youtu.be/kyv_kVQyXCw

Preparing for winter begins in August. We make sure that each colony is queen right, healthy, up to weight, and has low mite counts. As it starts to get colder, we add our mouse guards and tape any seems that the bees have not propilized shut. We also double-check that each colony has an insulated top and a slight forward lean to allow any water to run out the front of the colony. 

Mouse Guards https://youtu.be/PulOcDHE8BY

Winter Setup: https://youtu.be/QNynqG2rSys

When we split our colonies, we move the mother queen, brood frames, and resource frames into another brood/nuc box. We set up this hive at a different location within the same apiary. The remaining queenless colony can be left to create its own queen or we will split them down further into two to four nucs and requeen them with queen cells or virgin queens. 

We evaluate our queens each time we do a hive inspection. We may decide to requeen a colony if the queen is slowing down, there are signs of disease, if the colony is overly aggressive, or if the colony is queenless. Some people requeen each hive every year. We do not subscribe to this management strategy and have had great success with queens living for 2-3 years before we notice a decline in productivity. 

While we have had success requeening laying works with queen cells, we have determined that it isn't worth the hassle. Instead, we either shake out the laying worker colony in front of other queen-right colonies OR we newspaper combine them with a queen-right colony. We have heard rumors that combining a laying worker colony with a queen-right colony will result in the death of the queen of the queen-right colony. However, we have done this several times and have never lost a queen.

We manage our colonies in a way that requires little to no feeding. We do this by leaving ample honey stores for them when we harvest honey in the fall. Generally, we overwinter in double deeps and we never take honey from these boxes. If we determine that a colony is light in the fall, we will feed 2:1 syrup to help them get up to weight. We feed internally using mason jars above an inner cover.

We will also monitor each colony's stores throughout the winter. If we determine they are light or we are concerned that they might not have enough stores to make it to spring, we will feed them dry sugar via the mountain camp method.

Feeding Using Mason Jars:  https://youtube.com/shorts/A7-a3CC8rxE?feature=share

Feeding Dry Sugar:  https://youtu.be/BQ8tbS_tKUQ

The best way to prevent robbing is to keep your colonies populous and healthy. If a colony is small or becomes a target of robbing, it is best practice to reduce the entrance to give the colony a smaller opening to defend. You may also consider purchasing robbing screens.

No! We do not use upper entrances or upper ventilation. Instead, we follow science and insulate instead of ventilate. 

Bees eat nectar (carbohydrates) and pollen (protein) that the foragers collect from flowering plants. 

The forager bee finds nectar and pollen sources using sight and smell. Once they find a source they use their proboscis to suck up nectar and store the pollen on their back legs in their pollen baskets. The forager bee will then return to the hive to deposit the food and tell others how to find the source using the waggle dance.  

The waggle dance is performed by a forager bee to let other bees know where to find a source of nectar or pollen. The dance involves the bee moving in a figure-eight pattern and waggling (shaking) its butt. The direction of the dance lets others know the direction of the food in relation to the sun and the longer the waggle the further away the source is.   

Bees store the food they collect in cells within the hive. The pollen provides the protein needed to raise the brood so it tends to be stored closer to the brood while the nectar is stored toward the outside edges of the brood nest. The nectar that is not immediately needed will be dried out and capped with wax to be stored long-term as honey.

A worker bee's life starts when the queen lays an egg in a cell (Day 0). A fertilized egg will become a female worker bee while an unfertilized egg will become a male drone. On Day 3, the egg will hatch to become a larva. The larva will be fed and tended to by nurse bees. If the larva is destined to be a worker bee, the cell will be capped on Day 9. If the larva is destined to become a drone, it will be capped on day 10. After being capped, the larva will spin a cacoon and pupate. Once the pupa has fully developed into a bee, it will chew its way out of the capped cell and emerge on Day 21 (worker) or Day 24 (drone).

A newly emerged worker bee will act as a nurse bee. Nurse bees feed the larva, attend to the queen, and take care of the hive.  After 2-3 weeks of nurse bee duty, the bee will graduate to a forager and leave the hive to find pollen, nectar, and water for the colony. This will be her final role until she dies.

Female honey bees are the worker bees. They care for the hive and forage for resources. Male honey bees, or drones, exist only to mate with virgin queens. They do not work around the hive and do not forage for food. They eat honey and look for virgin queens to mate with until they get kicked out of the hive as the colony is preparing for winter or until they successfully mate with a queen, which will result in him dying.

Drones also cannot sting and are significantly larger than worker bees.

The queen bee is the mother to all the bees in the colony. Her only job after emerging and getting mated is to lay eggs. She has attendants that follow her around feeding and taking care of her. She only leaves the hive to mate and if the colony decides to swarm.

New bees are made by the queen laying eggs in cells.

New colonies are made by existing colonies swarming. When a colony swarms, the queen leaves the hive with a large number of bees to go establish a new colony.  Prior to swarming, the bees prepare by building queen cells that will emerge into new virgin queens. These queens will fight to the death until there is only one queen left in the hive. That queen will then need to go out and get mated so she can build up her colony. The bees that swarmed will find a new location to build their hive and the mother queen will get right back to laying eggs.

The number of honey bees in a colony ranges from 10,000 to 80,000 bees and depends on the time of year and the health of the colony. Typically, hives will be at their smallest coming out of winter as they have not been able to raise large amounts of brood during the colder months. 

On average, worker bees live 6-8 weeks after emerging from their capped cell. They become foragers and work until they die.

A queen bee can live 1-5 years before the hive decides to supersede her. Her life span depends on how well she was mated and her ability to continue laying eggs.

Toward the end of summer, the colony will start raising winter bees. These are the bees that will overwinter within the hive and can live for 4-6 months.

During the cold winter months, honey bees cluster together to stay warm. They flex their muscles to generate heat and keep the internal temperature of the cluster at around 94°F. When the bees on the outside of the cluster start to get cold, they will migrate into the cluster to warm back up. The colder the exterior temperature, the more tightly packed the cluster is.

Going into winter, most of the cells in the hive will be filled with honey stores that they will eat.  As winter progresses and they eat the honey stores, the cluster will move about the hive to reach additional resources. 

Bees have special glands on the underside of their abdomen that secrete flakes of wax. The bees will then chew the wax flakes softening them up so they can build with them. It is said that 1 pound of wax costs the bees 6-8 pounds of honey!

No, honey bees are not endangered. When you hear the phrase "save the bees" it is referring to native bees such as bumble bees, miner bees, and carpenter bees. Honey bees are an introduced species brought over from Europe and are primarily considered livestock, not wildlife since most colonies are managed by beekeepers.

A better phrase would be "save the pollinators" as this would include bees, butterflies, moths, flies, wasps, beetles, birds, bats, and other small animals!