Apideas filled today

[drumgerry]

Well I filled my 8 Apideas and 2 Kielers today. It was a doddle with the Apideas and a hassle with the Kielers. Had to trim some excess comb with a knife from off the cells to get them through the holes in the Jenter bar and to enable them to fit into the hole in the Apidea crownboard. I had made two polycarbonate crownboards with a little hole cut out and flap covering them for the Kielers - a direct copy of the Apidea. That was a big improvement on an off the shelf Kieler. Spraying the Kielers twice a day means taking your life in your hands to hold the things above your head to spray through the floor - did they not think about that in the design?!

They're currently buzzing discontentedly in the central heating shed which is attached to the side of our house and will be released on Wenesday. And it looks like the weather's improving here from Tuesday onwards - so fingers crossed!

[drumgerry]

Ach well I can always reply to myself! Sad? Moi?!

Anyway...I was lifting the Apideas over to their final resting place this evening and I was most surprised to hear a bit of an odd sound coming from some of them. It was a bit like a skein of geese in the distance. I take it I've just heard my first piping queens (after 8 years of beekeeping no less!)?

[fatshark]

... final resting place ...

sounds a bit bleak, but perhaps is an accurate prediction considering the lousy weather we've had for mating over the last few weeks.

[drumgerry]

I'll need to take a picture Fatshark. It's quite nice shady spot actually. And I finally found a use for the two top bar hives I built a few years ago. Their flat roofs are the perfect platform for the Ap's!

[Jon]

I take it I've just heard my first piping queens (after 8 years of beekeeping no less!)?

If you have a stack of 30 or so apideas piled up the piping can be impressive.
The queens emerge and can hear the others in the neighbouring apideas and they all start piping at once.

I remember this stack last year had a good piping chorus.

1095

[drumgerry]

I'd have loved to have heard that Jon!

But not to get too sentimental about it all (trying too sound like a big gruff bloke) it was one of those moments that make it all worthwhile. I took some of the boxes past the house on the way over to the apiary and let my partner and her friend who's staying with us hear the queens piping and they described it as a privilege to hear them. I have to agree. One of the wonders of nature.

Would I be right to say that it's how the queens announce themselves to the world? Does it achieve anything else for the queens?

[Jon]

I think they use it to track down rivals and fight when there are multiple virgins running around in a colony.
A virgin which pipes from within a cell is likely to find itself dispatched by one already emerged.

[gavin]

It seems like a lottery for the responding virgin in a cell. With luck, the one on the outside will go with a swarm and leave room for the one still to hatch. What if she doesn't answer? It seems likely that she will be killed by the older queen after she hatches. Catch 22 - reveal yourself when you are still in the cell, and you *might* be killed. But you might emerge into a grateful colony with no resident queen. Don't reveal yourself and the old queen will stay with probably fatal consequences after you hatch.

This game of chess has the useful outcome of the colony not getting itself into a position where it loses its only viable queen (unless an inexperienced beekeeper intervenes of course).