Okay bad day for the queen post office put her in my mail box instead of calling me I don't know if she was there yesterday or today. Anyway only 3 worker were left alive the queen was still alive too.
Now this is a Italian Queen from Kelly Bees y'all take a look shouldn't she be bigger than this? Last year I got a Russian Cross from them and couldn't tell her from the workers. I ordered the Italian this time because of that problem.
(http://a5.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/224072_218342071511965_132800646732775_922618_2502142_n.jpg)
Tell me what you all think?
did the queen from last year fatten up ? i would give it some time remember she has been caged for how long ?
First, what I think, is that you should stop ordering from a middle man who is selling another producers bees. The producer usually needs to bank or hold queens to fill immediate orders for big supply places like Kelley. So you place an order with Kelley, they pass it off to the producer, and it gets filled from overstock or queens held over.
Anytime you see most of the bees dead, they are either getting very old, or they are very dehydrated. I hope you gave them a drink.
Of course the queen is small. She isn't being fed her regular amount. She is not producing eggs. And she has been caged for who knows how long.
For the record.....when I cage queen the morning I mail them, I have had bees in the postal system, or sitting on my counter for 3-7 days, and almost never have dead attendants. If I mail the same day the queen and young bees from the brood have been caged, I do not see a cage like in your picture till about a week later. That is not to say your bees sitting in the mailbox didn't kill off a few, but it should at least have you wonder about spring queens from large producers and how they go about supposedly mailing you a quality product.
I would have bought from Russell here in Jackson MS but at least right now I cant pick up anything local.
And Russell shipping is to high for one queen.
Personally, I order all my bees from Honey Bee Genetics. Everything I have ever received from them has been is excellent shape, and very low mortality rate when received. They came up with high resistant russian Carniolan bees to mites. They have good prices too, quick shipping. Their queens have all been super nice and big.
They fatten up when they start laying.
Checked just a minute ago kelly queen still alive fattened up a little but she is not laying yet.
I need another queen though my original hive seems to be queenless after the swarm.
I could recombine the nuc with the kelly queen but my plan was to do increases this year so a new queen I think would be best.
If you have half a dozen hives or more you might want to raise your own queens. Divide a 10 frame box into thirds of 3 frames each using divider boards and rear a queen in each section. Replace a frame once in a while if you don't use the queen so the bees have to keep drawing comb. The 3 frames will give sufficient space for a queen to stay nice and plump while actively producing brood.
Requeening is easy, just take the frame the queen is on and place it in a queenless hive, or you can use all 3 frames and do a combine.
For doing those kind of combines it's nice to use a nuc box. Cut a sheet of plywood the size of the hive body (like a top without the sides or ends) and cut a hole in it the size of the nuc. Replace the top with the plywood, lay down a sheet of newspaper, and add the nuc above it. Once things get going the nuc box can be removed (if eggs you grow a new queen or make a new nuc) or replaced with a full sized box and additional frames.
Some people make beekeeping to hard.
This is the first year ordering bee packages from Kelley Bees and I will never order from them again. One of the four packages had a dead queen. I contacted Kelley Bees the next morning and left a voice mail. No one called back so I called their office a couple of hours later and spoke to a rep. I was told that I would need to fill out a damage report at the post office and I should be getting a replacement queen in two to three days. Also, I would need to pay for shipping. No guarantee that the next queen would be alive. "We didn't ship you a dead queen. She may have died in shipment." This is very suscept because two weeks ago they tried to postpone my order because they didn't have enough bees to fill their orders. I told them I could not postpone it because I would be out of town on the days the bees would arrive.
As a seasoned beekeeper I know that each day counts when you don't have a live queen laying. Your working bees could begin laying and most importantly future bees aren't being produced. I tried to get a queen overnighted and was told that would cost me $25 AND the queen may arrive within one to two days, no guarantee that she would arrive overnight. Kelley Bees does not take responsibility for their products.
I highly recommend CF Koehnen as a source to buy your bees. I told Kelley Bees not to send me a replacement queen and I will be buying my queen from CF Koehnen who airmails them directly to me at my doorstep. I've never received dead queens from CF Koehnen in all the years of my beekeeping.
It looks like the queen I justed hived from my package from Kelly. Mibne arrived in good shape. Probally only about 20 dead bees. But mine shipped sat and arrived monday morning. I'm sitting at my puter, and can see them buzzing around my fields.
Kelly raises their own bees . I think in mississippi.
And then Ship them to KY to then ship them back to me in Mississippi
I think they contract with queen suppliers that is at least what one of the ladies lead me to believe last year.
I still ordered the VSH queen from them you cant beat them on having one to ship that day.
But I would Love for them not to be so small.
Oh and the Italian was laying fine last time I looked trying to grow her three frames into a full box.
my Kelly queen is doing great. I checked today, just shy of two weeks hived and three frames of capped brood looks like.