Queen Rearing Course at Hartbury

On the 15th May, day started early so that we could arrive at Hartbury College on time, indeed early. Oh yes by the way I have left it a week before posting this as I wanted to leave a fair reflection!

I must say that it was not a good start with Shirley, who was our "teacher" for the day turned up 20 mins, late.We then went into the classroom for the morning. Rather than any formal lecture Shirley led a general discussion about what we wanted for the day and some very basic methods of queen rearing, i.e. spliting the hive; and what we might want to achieve from rearing the queens.   She then disappeared for another 40 mins to finish of the photocopy, whilst we talk amongst our selves. Then came back the notes and we had to organize them ourselves.  I must say that the notes were actually very helpful after reading through them on my return, but the general discussion was well not as informative as I would like, needs work and having some of the equipment to hand would help greatly. Not a great start.

After lunch; we went down to the apiary at the college, and to be frank I was APPALLED at the state of it. There were hundreds of boxes which seem to have been slung any which way. There were greater wax moth damage, wood pecker damage, wax moth flying around the shed. No obvious hygiene method were being practiced,  The comb in the bees was a black as pitch and we were told to save money it was just treated with acetic acid and re-used. No obvious records cards were being used and the memory was not that good. Anyway that is the bad points out of the way & we should not dwell on them.

The set up of the hives was done really well, which enable use to do all but one of the 5 main stages of queen rearing. 1) setting up the hive  2) setting up the hive again 3) grafting the bees 4) introduction of queen cells 5) checking to see if the queen has mated and is laying.

I know I have simplified it beyond beleif, but hey I am still learning not writing notes.  There were a few minor hick-ups but overall the practical went well The most fun part was learning to graft lava with the chinese grafting tool, it was really good to know what size the lava should be and how best to get them out. We also had a go with the jenter method, and the Miller method.

Anyway I have taken photos and videos which I will just dump down here, and you can view as you wish.