1. Swarm cluster arrives in the Spring, a median of 200 - 300 meters from the mother colony.
2. They begin to make wax to hang the comb structure from the top of the cavity. Temperature is kept at 40 degrees C.
3. Bees forage up to 3 miles in every direction for water, nectar, pollen and resin.
4. Bees ripen the noey in the comb.
5. They beging reasring brood.
6. In the summertime, the brood is raised in a near constant temperature to ensure optimum development. Foraging continues. Nutritious honey and pollen with enzymes, trace elements and vitamins used to feed brood and workers, keep brood warm and make wax. Nest atmosphere of pheremones and antiseptic propolis.
7. Autumn time, lots of honey stored for brood raising and to keep the bees through the winter. Colony prepares for winter. Stores increase and number of bees decreases. The drones are "kicked out". Stocks of nutritious honey built up.
8. Winter time, the colony clusters in warm pocket under its stores, consuming the stores of homey and pollen to keep warm. Middle of the colony is kept at 40 degrees C.
9. Winter/Spring, brood rearing starts. Brood are fed on nutritious honey (commercial beekeepers take all the honey in autumn and feed their bees sugar syrup in spring, which will raise inferior health bees, fed on a junk food diet). During the spring, the bees raise brood, feed them keep the tempoerature constant and sustain the colony.
10. Late Spring, more brood are produced. The colony expands rapidly into empty comb. Foragers gather fresh nectar, pollen and water. When affluent enough in bees and stores to reproduce the colony, they prepare to swarm. Egg laying reduces, queen cells and drone cells are raised. New pollen and honey added to stores.
11. Queen stops laying to slim down for flight with swarm. Swarm bees are selected from older nurse bees and young foragers. The swarm will leave when the new queen larvae are capped.
12. Virgin queens hatch. Often the first out kills the others. Sometimes casts are sent off (small swarms with a young queen). Sometimes the worker bees will prevent regicide in order to allow for multiple swarms, particularly if the cavity they are in is too small, and honey bound with no space for expansion. Virgin queens are assisted by workers. The new queen will take a week to prepare, and then will take her mating flight. The new queen inherits half the origial colony of bees, with ready buylt combs, stocks of stores, sealed food and hatching brood. Egg laying is interrupted for 2 -3 weeks.
What Does a Colony Need?
1. It needs shelter from the elements, preferably a South facing entrance.
2. Location near forage. A variety of food sources. Food that has not been sprayed with pesticides. Not too close to competition.
3. Protection from predators, suitably thick walls, small entrances off the ground.
4. Seclusion, not too noisy, free from disturbances.
5. A suitably sized cavity with enough storage space to survive the winter. They need 20 litres of honey through the winter. Optimal size for a natural hive is minimum 40 litres with wall thickness 4-5 inches. Ideally they will require more space than this for expansion to about 60 litres. Bees should be left with plenty of honey to last them through the winter. We can then harvest some in the spring if they haven't used it all. Generally there will be quite a large surplus, unless it has been a particulary severe winter or poor summer.
Ideal Home
It should not be too close to the mother colony. A dry place, or at least possible toseal up any gaps. It should enable the bees to thermoregulate the nest. Space sufficient for expansion of colony. Anchors for comb structure to suit bees plentiful stores of nutritious food. Defendable entrance. The beehive should not be moved ideally. If you do move a beehive, you can mov e it up to 3 feet, or more than 3 miles. If you move it more than 3 feet, they will go back to the orignial hive site and not be able to find it. If you move it more than 3 miles they will have to adjust to new surroundings. They depend on landmarks for navigation and have a foraging radius of 3 miles.
Do Not
Open hives routinely,
Manipulate combs,
Top sugar,
Inhibit swarmiing,
Feed poor quality food,
Make multiple splits,
Keep crowded apiaries.
Do
Provide dry, warm, draught free hive
Reduce repari and heating costs to bees
Allow bees own pace
Let bees build freestyle comb
Ensure proper nutrition
Enable brood wax changes
Monitor entrance behaviour, floor debris, bees and comb
Intervene only when symptoms dictate
Natural Comb
Is sized to suit the colony requirements, with worker cells and drone cells (artificial comb foundation is sized for worker brood only, to inhibit drone cell production).
Natural Beekeeping
Enables colonies, communities and superorganisms to thermoregulate, live on their own honey, behave naturally, solve their own problems, raise brood as they require, including drones and queens.
Things that can go wrong in the hive
Physical damage to structure
Cooling/chilling of the brood - likely if you open the hive up and inspect frequently as do conventional beekeepers.
Insufficient space for adults and new brood
Loss of Queen
Brood disease - European Foul Brood, American Foul Brood (notifiable diseases)
Pests - Varroa mites, Small Hive Beetle, Mice, Birds
Chemical Damage - Varroacides (Formic Acid preparations), crop pesticides.
Diseases may be transmitted vertically through swarming, which tends to be benign pathogen transmission, and horizontally through bees drifting and robbing, which can transmit more virulent pathogens transmission. Beekeeping practices of moving frames rom hive to hive, manipoulating the bees, vcreating artifical colonies, merging colonies etc. increases the chances of horizontal transmission.
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