A22—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, July 18,1981
Beekeeper’s meeting buzzes
about queen bees, bee stings
BY SHEILA MILLER
BETHEL More than 170
apiarists from southeastern
Pennsylvania recently were busy
buzzing around the grounds of the
Paul Zeigler farm, located east of
here, during the evening meeting
of the Tri-County Beekeepers.
Zeigler, who is a retired state
bee inspector and an apiarist for
many, many years, hosted the
group at his Berks County home.
It was a ‘honey’ of an evening for
the beekeepers as they hovered
around Zeigler’s nephew, Dennis
Keeney, who provided a demon
stration in the bee yard that was a
royal treat for the onlookers.
Keeney skillfully executed the
"making” of queen bees.
As the beekeepers circled
around Keeney, the young apiarist
described how he “draws” the
queen cell. Taking a wooden block
support and jelly spoon in hand,
Keeney began to "graft” the cells
with royal jelly gathered from the
hives. This, he explained, was the
preliminary stage the larvae
would be transferred later.
While deftly manipulating the
tiny spoon to drop the royal jelly
precisely in the center ot the cell,
with none spilling down the sides,
Keeney told how the royal jelly
serves two functions it keeps the
bee larvae moist and it provides
the nutrition they need to survive.
After preparing the cells,
Keeney covered them with a moist
towel to keep the royal jelly tiom
drying out He then led the group
up into the middle ot the honey bee
hives and selected a frame from
which to transfer the bee larvae.
The larvae selected to be grown
into queen bees, however, are not
just any larvae. They come from a
hive where the queen has been
studied and tested. Her per
formance is what determines
whether her eggs will be chosen tor
future queens.
"We test a queen tor three years
before she becomes a breeder,”
explains Keeney “That leaves us
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A wooden box, equipped with heat lamp and water pan,
serves as the bee incubator. The bees ripen in an environ
ment similar to the hive 92 degrees Fahrenheit with high
humidity.
with about a year’s worth of eggs
from each breeder.
"What we look tor is the queen
bee’s record for honey production,
wintering-over, temperament, and
disease resistance. Temperament
is important since we sell a lot of
queens to hobbyists who don’t want
nasty bees.”
Keeney showed the beekeepers
how he scoops the bee larvae from
the honeycomb cell built by the
bees on the frame and transfers it
to the cell located on the wooden
block support. These larvae are no
older than 36 hours when they are
dropped on top of the royal jelly, a
milky substance produced by the
bees as food for only queens.
Once the cells are filled, Keeney
explained, they are placed inside a
‘brood nest’, or bee incubator,
where they are kept at 92 degrees
Farenheit until they are ‘ripened’
and ready to be placed into a hive.
In nature, Keeney observed,
there may be times when a new
queen is raised by the workers to
supercede the breeder in the hive.
When this happens, he said he
removes the queen cells and the
worker bees continue to produce
royal jelly.
But, it the mature queen bee is
located and removed from the
hive, a ripened queen cell can be
introduced from the incubator into
the hive, or mix as apiarists term
it. "This queenless colony will
more readily raise the cells,”
Keeney noted.
The total procedure was ac
complished in slightly over an hour
with tew stings being inflicted on
the enthusiastic crowd ot
beekeepers. But, as they heard
later from Dr. Kobert Brooks ot
Walter Heed Hospital, bee stings
may have some beneficial effects
on ailments such as arthritis.
"All beekeepers and their
families are intimately in contact
with bee venom at some tune,”
Brooks stated, warning the
apiarists to be prepared tor
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Dennis Keeney, R 1 Bethel, demonstrates
the art of raising queen honey bees to a crowd
of more than 170 beekeepers from seven
southeastern Pennr Vania counties. Here he
Spooning the milky-white royal jelly from the
small jar in his let hand, Keeney carefully
places it directly in the bottom of the support
cell without touching the sides. The larvae
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With nurse bees scurrying across the frame,
Keeney holds up the immature queen bee cells
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e larvae gently from its ‘honeycomb
bed' and transfers it to the wooden support
cells, background, containing a jelly-spoon full
of royal jelly.
floats on top of the jelly which keeps it moist
and supplies it with the necessary nutrients to
develop into a queen.
for the crowd of young and old apiarists to
study.