We check in on the fourth graft; another mated queen got into our cell raiser! Outside forces were messing with the space the cell raiser was in and a mated queen got in. We went to visit the apiary; we checked in on all our mating nucs and caught 20 mated queens out of the 25 mating nucs! We take those mated queens back to Best Bees headquarters and put numbers on each of the queens to track them. We are using them as breeding queens; when they get installed into hives, we will note which hives they are going into and pull data on those queens’ performances.
June 7, 2023
June 7, 2023
BY Bridgette Whalen,
Bridgette Whalen started beekeeping in 2016 when she was studying at Roanoke College. In February 2022, she joined The Best Bees Company and moved to Boston. Bridgette is a level 2 beekeeper currently taking the Cornell Master Beekeeping Course to attain a Master Beekeeper Certification. She is the Boston Lead Beekeeper – the person who new beekeepers come to when they first come to Best Bees to learn how to beekeep, and also someone to call when a beekeeper is seeing something in the field that they haven't seen before. She conducts data analysis of the colonies we tend to make sure they are up to the best practices and promote bee health.
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