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  • From: Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com>
  • To: S Reavis <serena_reavis AT hotmail.com>
  • Cc: Ryan Chamberlain <rjc7654 AT gmail.com>, "ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org" <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] Queens Available?
  • Date: Fri, 1 Apr 2016 17:15:22 -0400

Thanks Serena!

Jennifer Keller at the NCSU Bee Lab told me that she sees this a lot. In her case, the reason often is that there is a second (or more) queen loose among the package bees. So the result is the same as if we were trying to introduce a new queen into a colony that already has a queen. This situation can be confirmed by looking carefully for eggs before the queen is released or after she is found dead in the cage. Eggs are evidence that there was another queen in the package. In addition to the eggs, a very careful look-through by an experienced beekeeper could/should be able to reveal a second queen in these killed-in-cage-after-arrival cases since packages are light on bees.

If so, there isn't really a problem as long as the beekeeper is aware of what is going on. There will be a package and a queen, no problem, just not the queen in the cage.

If this is the case and the beekeeper isn't aware of it, they could enter a cycle of introducing queen after queen and having the same result over and over.

I was a bit surprised to learn that the queen can be killed by the bees while "safely" inside the cage but Jennifer says it happens enough for her to take precautions against it.

Just FYI, the way packages are made is that a colony of bees is opened up, a queen is found and set aside, and the search for a queen stops. The remaining bees are shaken via a large funnel into a package. A caged queen that has been raised for the purpose of sale, not related to the shaken colony, is then placed in the package along with a syrup can, and voila, we have a package. If the original colony of bees has superseded their queen but the mama queen is still around (which is not uncommon for a short time), the package will get an extra queen. There are other ways this could happen too.

There may be another completely different reason for the problem, but this one fits the circumstances and is also pretty interesting!

Randall




On 4/1/2016 4:13 PM, S Reavis wrote:
SNT407-EAS353FEBA175702DD8050F9B4849A0 AT phx.gbl" type="cite">
Hi, Randall!

In each of these cases, a beekeeper  found the queen dead in the cage when they checked to see if she had been released a couple of days after a package install (so case 2).

Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 1, 2016, at 2:55 PM, Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com> wrote:

Serena,

Please clarify... are you talking about
1) dead queens in the cage with the package when the package arrives (in which case the buyer should get a replacement from the seller)
2) queens in the cage that are killed shortly after the package is installed (still in the cage)
3) queens in the cage that are killed after installed as replacement queens, not in packages (still in the cage)
4) queens that have been released after package installation and die soon thereafter (within, say, a week)
5) queens that have been released after package installation and are superseded within a few weeks (this is fairly common)
6) queens that have been released after installation as replacement queens and are immediately or very soon killed

or something else?

All of these are different and could have different causes. As mentioned, if #1 (queen is dead on arrival), the seller should replace it or the post office insurance should pay for it.

Randall

On 4/1/2016 1:23 PM, S Reavis wrote:
SNT148-W3296D211D1138EFA9E1113849A0 AT phx.gbl" type="cite">
I know Bailey has queens...

...but I am more concerned about queen loss.  This is the third instance that I have seen reported about queen death in packages this year (the others were on DCBA's list).  I haven't seen these reports in the past.  Just not reported, or is this a new pattern? 

Thanks for any insight!

Enjoy the bees!

S Reavis



Date: Fri, 1 Apr 2016 12:57:19 -0400
From: rjc7654 AT gmail.com
To: ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [ocba] Queens Available?

Greetings,

It's early, and it may be a longshot, but does anyone have queens available?  Reaching out for a friend whose package queen died before getting out of her queen cage.

I could provide a queen cell, but won't be able to for another week or so.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks!

Ryan Chamberlain
919 757 6301

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