The Queen of bees

Every beekeeper runs into a testy hive once in awhile. Bees can get defensive for a lot of reasons. Most often, it is the beekeepers fault, dropping something, bumping the hive, moving too quickly, disturbing a frame of bees.

The weather can make bees cranky too. If the weather is cool and cloudy, a lot more bees will be at home that day with nothing else to do but defend the hive. This is why it isn’t a good idea to open up a hive when rain is threatening. A poor nectar flow can can have the same effect.

Desired traits in bees

For obvious reasons, when selecting which colonies you wish to graft from, you should always select from your "best" colonies. But "best" is really a subjective analysis, and open to a wide range of potential definitions. More often than not, you are selecting for a number of different qualities, such as honey production, spring buildup, gentleness, hygienic behavior, long lifespan, pollen foraging, low propolis, low swarm tendencies, ect.

But what is the order in which you should be selecting for? Is any one quality more difficult than others to select for?

The Queen is Dead, Long Live the Queen

Every beekeeper runs into a testy hive once in awhile. Bees can get defensive for a lot of reasons. Most often, it is the beekeepers fault, dropping something, bumping the hive, moving too quickly, disturbing a frame of bees.

The weather can make bees cranky too. If the weather is cool and cloudy, a lot more bees will be at home that day with nothing else to do but defend the hive. This is why it isn’t a good idea to open up a hive when rain is threatening. A poor nectar flow can can have the same effect.