Access Denied
IMPORTANT! If you’re a store owner, please make sure you have Customer accounts enabled in your Store Admin, as you have customer based locks set up with EasyLockdown app. Enable Customer Accounts
Local Queens are Best by Bruce Henderson Smith
€18,95
Local Queens are Best
€18,95
“Richly illustrated with the author’s photographs, there’s a first-hand commentary on what to look for and when just to trust the nurse bees to know their job. Highly recommended for any beekeeper, even with modest experience, who wishes to improve their stock.”
Geoff Hardman (Editor, Gwenyn Kernow magazine, CBKA)
Say “queen rearing” to most beekeepers, and they will probably run a mile! This book aims to de-mystify the mysteries of simple queen rearing. It sets out to explain a method of queen rearing on a small scale, which can be used by any beekeeper with a few years of experience and a small number of hives, perhaps only three or four (or even two).
Why raise queens at all, when the bees are perfectly capable of doing it all by themselves? Or they can be bought in?
I suggest there are three main reasons. The first is to improve the qualities of the bees we each have, such as good temper, hardiness, ease of management, and productivity. The second is to increase the number of colonies which consist of locally adapted bees. The third is that we can at once stop importing queens from abroad, and soon there will be no need to import queens from out of the county in which you live. The bonus is the satisfaction you will get when you see the first local queen you have raised heading her own colony!
Bruce Henderson Smith lives in Cornwall and has been keeping bees simply for over 35 years. He is an Honorary Life Member of the Cornwall Beekeepers Association and a past Chairman of the CBKA Council. As a change from honey production, he started queen rearing in 2019. He is very keen on encouraging and persuading beekeepers of all standards to learn more. Hence this book to improve both local bees and the expertise of local beekeepers everywhere.
VIEW Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- The Beekeeper
- The Bees
- Objectives
- A Bit of Theory
- Life cycle of the Honey Bee
- Queen Cells
- Physical appearance
- Good and poor cells
- Inbreeding and Diversity
- How To Do It
- Equipment
- Queen Rearing Timetable
- Selection
- Native appearance
- Method
- Eggs
- Bees
- Food
- Babysitting
- Adapted chart
- Appendix 1: Results and More Photographs
- 2019
- 2020
- 2021
- 2022
- 2023
- Appendix 2: References, Sources and Acknowledgements
VIEW Book Review
Reviewed by Geoff Hardman Editor, Gwenyn Kernow magazine Cornwall Beekeepers Association
The title says it all: this is a book for those of us who have a colony with a benign matriarch, whose offspring are gentle to handle, healthy and productive. This is how to continue her line and improve the other colonies in our care, using the minimum of fuss, equipment or expense. Ultimately, this improvement benefits all beekeepers in the neighbourhood, as the density of well-bred drones increases in the area.
Bruce gives the reader a quick refresher of some basic life cycle knowledge, then shares his method using nothing more sophisticated than a diary, a pencil, a drop of light syrup and a nuc box – or even just a spare brood box and a dummy board. It’s a personal step through getting the bees to do what they do naturally, which is for the nurse bees to react to the loss of the queen by taking the newest of fertilised eggs and feeding them royal jelly.
Nurse bees are collected using a double shake – first a gentle shake to encourage the foragers to fly off and then a stronger shake to dislodge the nurse bees from the brood they are focussed upon. Bruce also sets out expectations for the process – it may require a couple of attempts, it may require good fortune regarding the weather and it may result in a few more queens than you personally need, but there are always neighbouring beekeepers that will be grateful for your excess.
Richly illustrated with the author’s photographs, there’s a first-hand commentary on what to look for and when just to trust the nurse bees to know their job. Highly recommended for any beekeeper, even with modest experience, who wishes to improve their stock.
Unavailable
Invalid password
Enter