Inspection des ruches du Santropol Roulant!

Lundi dernier, nous avons effectué notre première inspection de l’année. Pour certain(e)s, il s’agissait aussi de la première fois qu’ils mettaient les mains dans les ruches! Les photos que nous avons intégrées dans cet article ont toutes été prises par Jasmine Waheed, photographe professionnelle.

Les abeilles étaient très calmes, les ruches étaient fortes (malgré un taux élevé d’infestation aux infâmes varroa destructor) et nous avons aperçu les deux reines, qui semblaient en santé. Elles sont toutes deux marquées de rouge, ce qui indique qu’elles ont été achetées l’an dernier. Les ruches dégageaient une odeur agréable et nous n’avons pas observé de signes de maladies.

La ruche sud était nettement plus avancée que celle du nord, et presque tous les cadres étaient occupées par du couvain dans tous les stades : oeufs, larves, couvain operculé (fermé). Nous avons même assisté à quelques naissances, comme sur la photo, juste à côté du doigt de Jonathan! Cela signifie que la population de la ruche va exploser d’ici une semaine – et peut-être même avant! En effet, puisque le couvain est operculé dès le 9e jour et que les abeilles en sortent le 21e jour, il ne peut se passer qu’une douzaine de jours entre la naissance et le moment où on remarque que le couvain est operculé. Puisque nous ne savons pas quand le couvain a été operculé, il n’y a aucun moyen de savoir quand les abeilles en émergeront – cela pourrait très bien déjà avoir eu lieu! Sauf en ouvrant les ruches fréquemment, il n’est pas possible d’en être sûr(e). Toutefois, nous essayons de minimiser les interventions sur nos ruches puisque celles-ci constituent une grande source de stress pour les colonies.

Nous hivernons nos abeilles dans des colonies de deux hausses gorgées de miel ou de sirop. En général, les abeilles commencent l’hiver dans la hausse du bas, puis montent lentement vers les réserves du haut à mesure que celles du bas s’épuisent. Au printemps la chambre à couvain se trouve donc habituellement dans la hausse du haut. Alors que dans les ruches Warré les abeilles construisent de haut en bas, elles font l’inverse dans les ruches de conception Langstroth, que nous utilisons. Afin de donner plus d’espace de ponte à la reine, nous avons inversé les deux hausses à couvain. Puisque le manque d’espace pour la ponte est un des principaux facteurs d’essaimage, il s’agit d’une approche préventive.

Nous avons aussi inspecté la ruche de McGill, qui a survécu à l’hiver mais qui demeure très faible. Nous avons décidé de jumeler cette colonie à un des nucléis que nous recevrons d’ici quelques semaines, ou à un de ceux que nous créerons nous-mêmes en divisant nos ruches du Santropol Roulant. Continuez à nous suivre pour plus de détails sur les interventions à venir!

The Beginning of a New Hive

The hive at McGill has been growing rapidly since the new queen was introduced several weeks ago. Because it is so large and strong, we decided that this was a good time to split the hive. In terms of bee lingo, a “split” or “making a split” means dividing the hive in half. Making a split is a means of reducing the size of a hive that has become very large (imagine boxes upon boxes of buzzing bees stacked on top of one other!) It is also one of the most useful ways to prevent swarming and increase the number of hives in our apiary. Splits should only be performed on strong, thriving hives, and the McGill hive certainly fits that description.

Once we determined that the McGill colony was strong enough to merit division, we put in an order for a queen bee. The queen arrived yesterday, and so today, Simon and I went to McGill with an empty hive to do the split. We took a few frames filled with brood and a few with pollen and honey from the strong hive, and then we put them in the new small hive in order to get the new hive a good start when the queen is finally released from her cage (see our blog post here for more information on introducing the queen).

So here is a photo of the strong McGill hive no worse for wear after we completed the split.

You can see all the bees heading back inside the hive after Simon and I took the whole thing apart. It’s like letting the genie out of the bottle, but fortunately, the genie goes right back inside.

Here’s a photo of the new pink hive with the new queen safely in her queen cage inside.

We will be checking both hives in about 7-10 days, once the queen has been released from her cage, to make sure everything is going well with the neighbor beehives.

Overall, the intervention was a success. There were only a few bee casualties (mostly from bees accidentally being squished by heavy supers) and only two minor bee stings. But the promise of a very large amount of honey soon to come helps to ease the pain.

Welcome to the New Queen

After preparing the nucleus two days ago last Monday, it was time to introduce the new queen today to her new colony at Santropol Roulant’s McGill apiary. The queen arrived yesterday in a plastic cagette shaped like a lowercase letter “D” within a larger plastic cagette (see photo below). The stem of the “D” holds a candy plug, which the worker bees will eventually eat through to let the queen bee out of her cage. The purpose of the candy plug is to delay the queen’s release and thus enhance her chance of acceptance. The worker bees need to get used to the new queen’s pheromones and accept her, or else they think she is an intruder and possibly attack her.

She was accompanied by three attendant worker bees, who help to groom her, feed her and keep her warm while she is in transit. You can see them fussing about her here in this photo.

  

Once they arrive, the queen and her attendants have to be properly cared for and placed in the colony as soon as possible. Since the cage contained candy and attendant bees, they were kept in a warm and dark place in my apartment. They can be kept like this for up to one week given they are fed a drop of sugar water twice per day.

The queen has a small red dot on her back, indicating that she was born this year (red means that the queen was born in years ending in 3 or 8, and other colors mean different years). The red dot also helps us to identify her when she is in the hive surrounded by buzzing worker bees.

So, Tim and I slowly introduced the new queen by placing the cagette in the top super between some sticky frames. Instantly, some of the worker bees covered the cagette to get a closer look at their new queen (see photo below). When introducing a new queen, you are supposed to pay attention to how the other bees react to her. If the bees cluster over the cagette and appear to by trying to bit or otherwise injure her, then they might not be very happy about a new queen. On the other hand, if the bees form a loose cluster and try to feed or lick her, they are more ready to accept her. Either way, the candy plug gives the bees over a week to get used to their new queen.

After introducing the queen, we shook a few bees from one of the honey supers below to give the queen more potential subjects. We tried to brush them in (which they really do not like), but they were more amenable to being shaken in.

There were not too many bee casualties and no stings, so Tim and I deemed the intervention a success.

Check back on this blog to find out if the colony has officially accepted its new queen. We should know in about ten days.