CARNIOLAN QUEEN BEE

The Dare to Kill Carniolan Queen Bee

By: Uno Birawan

Do not imagine a Carniolan queen bee as a beautiful, charming and diligent lady. This queen we are going to talk about has really the opposite of the above traits. A queen bee has nothing to do with beauty and charm. She is a big lady who dares to kill and spends her entire life to do nothing else than mating and laying eggs while well served and fed by the worker bees.

The metamorphosis of queen bees

Before a female bee becomes a queen she will go through a metamorphosis from an egg to a stage of a mature queen which will occur in about 23 days. The phases include: egg – larva – capping of the queen cell – pupa – emerging pupa, virgin queen bee – nuptial flight – a mature queen bee ready to lay eggs.

In fact, those are the worker bees that make queens. After a queen bee has laid eggs in queen cups, the worker bees start to select which among all those larvae should be developed to be queens. They will then provide more quality food, which is the royal jelly, to those selected larvae. Although all larvae are fed with royal jelly at the beginning for several days, but only queen larvae will be fed continuously and exclusively. The rest of the larvae will become worker bees.

Queen bees are raised in very special constructed cells. Initially the eggs were placed in queen cups, as the larva emerge the worker bees then build it further to become a queen cell to exclusively feed the larva. The worker bees then will cap the queen cell with beeswax. In these cells larvae will develop into pupae. In about 7 – 10 days the pupa becomes a virgin queen bee and tries to emerge from the queen cell.

Upon maturity the virgin queen bee in her peanut-like cell will try to go out by chewing a circular opening on the cap cell made by the worker bees. After most of the cap has been cut, the cap will eventually swing open resembling a hinged closure. With the presence of the virgin queen, the old mother queen will give way to the young virgin and voluntarily leave the hive with the primary swarm.

A virgin queen is a bit larger than most of the worker bees, but smaller than the mated laying queen. In fact, a virgin queen is not easily distinguished when put together with the worker bees in a frame. She moves actively and can run across the honeycomb, scrambles over the workers and may even fly if she feels annoyed by the workers. You can frequently find a virgin queen hanging on the hive wall or corner.

The deadly queen competition

As soon as a virgin queen bee emerges from her cell, she will look for other emerging queen bees with only one straight purpose, to kill them! As there are many virgin bees in a colony, with all of them having the same purpose, it is most likely that a war of virgin bees is about to happen.

Virgin bees do not just killed their direct rival virgin bees, but also the un-emerged virgin bee still occupying its cell. You can often see an opened side of a queen cell with a dead pupa inside, indicating an assassination by another virgin queen.

When the swarm mode of a colony continues and the primary swarm has left the hive, the worker bees can temporarily hold the virgins fighting each other. Some virgins may leave and follow an after-swarm, while other virgins will stay and look for an opportunity to continue the deadly competition

At the end only one virgin remains who will become the new queen bee. If a primary swarm has both a new young queen and an old queen in the same time, the new queen will let the old queen to live and continue to lie down. After a few weeks the old queen will eventually die naturally and time has come for the young virgin to take over.

The nuptial flight

This is an important phase of the queen bee where she mates with bee males and then land to start the new generation of a colony in a hive. The mating is typically carried out during a flight of the queen and male bees, hence called nuptial flight.

The mating should happen in a clear weather with the absence of rain which could be a trouble for flying insects. The queen starts to release pheromones to attract the males. However, after releasing the pheromone it often happens that the queen tries to escape the males letting only the fastest and fittest male bees to mate her. The mating will occur during the flight.

It is common that a queen will mate with a number of males and stores the sperm in a special organ in her abdomen which can last for her whole life. This sperm storage is good for about 20 years which can produce ten of millions fertilized eggs. The queen is now ready to lay eggs continuously and she totally becomes an egg laying machine to breed the younger bee generation. Oh, what a life of a queen bee.

CARNIOLAN BEES

The Superior Carniolan Bees

Carniolan bees (Apis mellifera carnica), which are also called as carniolans. The English term for these bees is ‘carnies’ which at this moment is the second most popular honey bee among beekeepers after the well known Italian bee. This bee is native to Slovenia (Carniola is a place in Slovenia) including to some other regions like southern Austria, parts of Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria and some areas of the former Yugoslavia.

The carniolans possesses a lot of benefits and superiority compared to other bees, hence they are most favored among beekeepers. They are known as gentle and non-aggressive bees which make the beekeepers feel save while working with them. They can also be kept in populated areas with less bees drifting from one hive to another beehive. Unlike the Italian bees, Carniolan bees are less prone to rob honey.

The Carniolan bees are also known to be very proficient in adjusting their worker bee population to the availability of nectar. They are able to make the adjustment very swiftly. As soon as they detect the increasing availability of nectar in springtime they multiply their worker bee population and with the same speed they can swiftly cut of their offspring production when nectar availability is decreasing. With such speedy increase of worker bees, their ability to collect large amount of honey will be very beneficial to the beekeeper.

Another benefit is that these bees are quite resistant to brood diseases which in the case of other bees could easily spread and weaken hives of other bee subspecies. A Carniolan worker bee has a longer lifespan of about 12% compared to other bees. In terms of hive management, the beekeeper needs only a small amount of propolis to seal the unwanted open spaces or small gaps in the hives.

Carniolans are more suitable for areas with long winters, where they can survive in smaller number of worker bees while keeping their honey storage at its maximum. They are also very useful in areas with strong nectar flows. They will look for honey early in the morning or late evening when the days are wet and cool.

In spite of their benefits, Carniolans possess also some disadvantages, which include their proneness to swarming when overcrowded, less ability to thrive during hot summer weather, their broodnest strength depends on pollen availability and the fact that it isn’t easy to find the carniolan dark queen bee among thousands of other worker bees.

Carniolans are about the similar size of the Western European bees but with a slimmer abdomen. They can also be distinguished by their hairy grayish brown colored stripes hence they are also called as the gray bees. The long tongue of the Carniolans (which ranges 6.5 – 6.7 mm) makes it suitable to seek nectar from cloves. They also have very short hair and a very high elbow join. 

FEEDING BEES

When, What and How to Feed Your Bees

There are times where you need to put forth the attention to feeding your bees. Neglecting the needs of your bees during different times throughout the year will cause the bees to seek for other food sources for the sake of survival. And when this happens, you’re the one who will carry all the loss cause by the swarming of your starving bees

When to feed

During the year there are two seasons where sufficient feeding should be assured. First is in the autumn after you have harvested honey crops from the hives. Make sure that you have enough honey left for storage of food through the winter. Additional feeding may be required during winter time.

The second is in early spring after the winter where the bees might be short of honey although you felt that you have left enough honey for the bees. Their honey storage is simply at a critical level. Additional feeding should be provided.

What to feed

Naturally, honey is the main food of bees. Always bear in mind that you should left a sufficient amount of honey every time you harvest the honey from the hives. On the other hand there are occasions where the bees need extra feeding, especially if you would like to stimulate a colony to produce more bees.

Syrup is the alternate food of choice in beekeeping. The syrup can be easily made in a large quantity from granulated sugar diluted in the same portion of water (1 : 1 ratio). Since syrup is tasteless and its presence is probably not detected by the bees, you can add a little honey to the syrup to attract the bees to take the syrup. If you want to use syrup to extra feed your bees to stimulate colony growth a portion of sugar and water with a ratio of 1 : 2 will be sufficient.

How to feed

You can feed your bees from outside the hive as well as from inside the hive. You can make use of a bee syrup feeder which can be placed on top of the hive, hence called a hive-top feeder. A hive top feeder is a specially designed hive box or an up side down pail with some holes. As a matter of fact you can choose from various types of feeders that are available in the market. To mention a view:

• The Boardman style entrance feeder
• One Gallon Pail Feeder Plus a Stainless Steel Screen Lid
• The 10-Frame Plastic Top Feeder
• The 8-Frame Wilde’s Wooden Top Feeder
• The Division Board Feeder
• Modified Entrance Feeder with an extended feeder into the entrance 

HONEY BENEFITS

About The Superb Benefits of Honey

By: Uno Birawan

Honey benefits, especially to health have been acknowledged since long ago. Honey provides multiple benefits to human life shown by its significance in many tradition, culture and religion. It has been used in various cooking and baking, or just as bread spread. It is also used as sweetener in many beverages such as tea and several commercial drinks.

But the prominent benefit of honey is the health benefit. Almost every religion suggests the use of honey for the purpose of healing and health keeping. The Holy Qur’an for instance, stipulates the benefit of honey in Surah An-Nahl (The Honey Bee) as it says:

And your Lord inspired the bees, saying: "Take you habitations in the mountains and in the trees and in what they erect. Then, eat of all fruits, and follow the ways of your Lord made easy (for you)." There comes forth from their bellies, a drink of varying color (honey) where in is healing for men. Verily, in this is indeed a sign for people who think (An-Nahl, ayat 68 – 69)

As is it says, honey is indeed much valuable to health. Countless research has proven various benefits to our health. And here are a few benefits to mention taken out from the long list of honey health and medical benefits.

Natural energy booster. Honey is an excellent source of carbohydrate which is the fuel to generate energy and strength of our body. Two major sugar components of a typical honey are fructose (38,2%) and Glucose (31.3%), Sucrose and Maltose about 8.4%, and water (17.2%).

Glucose is the form of sugar which will be quickly absorbed by the cells hence it could provide an immediate energy boosting effect. Fructose will be absorbed at a slower pace thus provide sustained energy. Having those two forms of sugar in honey makes it a perfect fast and sustainable energy booster. This benefit has been used by athletes to boost their performance, increase endurance and to reduce muscle fatigue.

Anti-cancer effect. Some researches and reviews have clearly indicated that certain kinds of honey polyphenols tested in laboratorial facilities showed to be a promising anti-proliferative agent. However, it is suggested by other scientists that such findings should be followed up by clinical trails for further validation before it is applied in medical practices. 

Anti-oxidant effect. Free radicals and reactive oxygen species have been associated to aging process and disease in human beings. To overcome this humans try to protect themselves by the means of taking high anti-oxidant food, where honey is one of the best choice to fulfill this requirement.

A trial with two honey treatments showed that the phenolic compound found in honey increased the antioxidant activity of blood plasma. This may be speculated that this will enhance protection against oxidative stress in healthy human therefore it could delay the aging process.

Anti-bacterial and anti-septic effect. A study by Dr. M. Subrahmanyam (1991) indicates that honey is effective for the prevention of infection because of its antibacterial or bacteriostatic properties specifically through slowing down the growth of both Gram- negative and Gram-positive bacteria. He isolated 9 bacteria species found in burn wounds and apparently all the bacteria failed to grow at a concentration of 30% honey in a Muller-Hinton (MH) medium.

Another study by Tumkur Ramachandriah Shamala and friends show that honey has remarkable antibacterial activity against Escherichia coli tested on honey feeding animals under in vitro and in vivo conditions, and show the potential health benefit after the animals have been fed with honey regularly.

As a matter of fact honey was being used for wounds healing in the past time due to its antibacterial properties. But with the introduction of penicillin and other antibiotics in the twentieth century, honey's wound healing qualities have been taken out. However, it is still used as a traditional wound treatment on many communities.

Other anti-bacterial related benefits of honey and is still used:

• Good remedy of sore throats and cough
• Good antiseptic dressing for burns and open wounds
• Anti-diarrheal and promotes rehydration.

Other known benefits of honey includes: support blood formation, skin moisturizing, insomnia (sleeplessness) cure, heals stomach ulcers and for alcohol hangover recovery.

HONEY EXTRACTOR

Honey Extractor – How It Works

A honey extractor is basically a modified centrifuge which is designed to extract honey from the hives without damaging the honey comb. The construction of an extractor includes a container that holds a basket of frames in it, which spins throwing the honey out of the frames by the centrifugal force.

The capacity of a honey extractor depends on the number of frames a container can hold. The smallest capacity is a two-frame extractor, while a large commercial one is able to hold more than hundred frames. The small ones are suitable for the hobbyist, where you the option to use a manual or an electric powered one.

Depending on how the frames are placed in the container, the type of an extractor can be divided into a tangential and radial extractor. A tangential extractor allows the honey comb to be placed with one side of the frame facing outwards, while the radial extractor allows the frames to be placed with the top bar facing outwards.

The radial type provides you with an advantage where you can reduce the amount of extraction work. You do not need to turn over the frames to extract the other side, since all the honey goes outwards already and can be directly tapped or pumped out.

After placing the honey into the honeycombs, the bees naturally cap the frames to keep the honey as storage. Thus the initial step of the extraction process is breaking and removing all the caps before the frames are placed in the honey extractor.

The uncapping task can be done with the help of an automated uncapper, but you can do it manually using a knife that is heated prior to cutting of the caps. The uncappings, which are the removed small pieces of wax, are actually rich in honey which needs to be drained by the means of a little heating.

While the automated uncapping machine works by grinding the wax surface using moving chains or prickles, but it is a bit cluttered compared to the manual uncapping. But on the other hand it needs lesser work. Prior to uncapping, several hobbyist or noncommercial beekeepers separate and keep the propolis by scraping it manually.     

Those uncapped frames will be placed in the container of the honey extractor. Be sure that all the frames are placed properly to the right direction. You should place the comb a little upward to avoid the honey flowing out and then let it spin. The yield of the honey still contains small pieces of wax hence you need to filter it through a strainer to obtain the clear honey.

After extraction you will find a thin film of honey left on the frames which should be removed and put back in the hives. Putting this left over back into the hives should be done in the early morning or late evening which is the time where the bees will take this treat aggressively. Avoid doing this when food is scarce, since other foraging bees from another nearby colony will rob the honey.

To assure hygiene, it is recommended to perform honey extraction in a special room, with an adequate temperature to allow a smooth honey flow with all the required tools and equipment ready in place. Seal the room securely to minimize the possibility of honey robbing by other foraging bees or insects.