Breed your own Queen Bee

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Good morning everybody, Welcome back.I'm Ron Wilson and you are in the
garden here on news radio six'ten WTVN talking about yardening and of course
all the heat and everything out therehas been crazy. What do the bees
do this time of the year.We're gonna find out. But you know,
the big topic today is, youknow, all the hives that you
see out there, they all haveto have a queen, right the queen

(00:20):
runs the hive, and of coursethat the queen ain't happy and the hive
isn't happy. So what happens ifyou lose your queen? What if she
leaves? What if she dies?How do you get another queen? You
know there's actually queen bee breeders thatactually develop those queens that you can buy
or now, as Nina is doing, teach you how to make your own
new queen and to join us thismorning and tell us how all that happens.

(00:43):
Is Nina Begley, good morning,Good morning again. How are you?
I am good? Good to haveyou on with us this morning.
So just so folks understand, youlive in German village, very small yards.
You are a beekeeper. Do youmake your name? Nervous? No,
the neighbors are happy as long asthey get honey. I'm not talking

(01:06):
about the bees. I'm talking aboutwith you, oh with me, no
me, okay, I'm because yousupply them with honey. That's why they
love it it endless amounts of honey. There you go. And that just
shows you that. And and everybodyknows German village and how small the ours
can be, that you can actuallykeep bees in a small place like that

(01:27):
and have no issues whatsoever. Correct, you can have a garden hive.
You can have a garden hive justlike you do. Now. I've known
Nina for several years. She's apart of the Three Stingers, which of
course Teresa Parker and our Queen Beealso a Barbie bletcher, and then Nina.
And what's interesting about Nina, ofcourse you were not you know you

(01:48):
you got into beekeeping as a hobby, right, Yes, I did.
You were like a professional, ifI'm not mistaken, a designer and seamstress,
right. And I when I gotmarried, I came to Columbus,
Ohio, and I thought, letme get some bees. And then I
took it to another level and thought, you know, why don't I try
to learn more about this, andyou know, I got I took my

(02:10):
masters and beekeeping and I worked witha mentor for eight years who was a
master bee keeper and raised queens.He's eighty something now and he taught me
most of everything I know, whichis really great. It was hands on.
Does your husband is he? Youknow? Are you like his queen?
I mean, are you the queenof your hive there at home?

(02:34):
I think all women are, ofcourse, of course, you know,
you know it. If the queenain't happy, nobody's happy. All right,
So let's talk about queen bees.First of all, the queen's they
do, they do dictate what goeson in the hive. Yes, yes,
they do. So everything happens,and she's because of the queen and
she's the mother of all the beesbasically that are in that hive. Yes,

(03:00):
yeah, around twenty twenty five hundredeggs a day a day. M
hm wow, all female workers,all females, we're why not the boys.
But she'll lay drones in the spring. She'll lay about five hundred drones
in the spring, so that thosedrones can carry her genetics and her DNA.

(03:24):
So oh, I see. Sothe oneever they are called upon to
breed with another queen. Her genesgo along to the new queen. Yes,
and that's what keeps the diversity going. Got it. So here's the
riddle, who has no father buthas a grandfather? That would be the

(03:45):
poor drone, the poor drone,the male b I had to think about
that one for a long time,but then I find good one. I
like that. I'm going to usethat. Have you ever heard of queen
piping before? No, like piping. You've never heard. When you open
up a hive, the pipe,Oh yes, is that live? That's

(04:09):
a live queen piping. No way, She's in a cage and that.
And when I take them to thepost office, I take them later in
the afternoon in case I have aqueen that pipes all day. It bothers
everybody. Yes, that's what.That's what she sounds like when she's piping.
And that's just to let you knowshe's there. So you hear that.

(04:31):
When you open a hide, youhear that piping noise. Right,
you know you have a queen inthere. Wow, that's pretty cool.
Talking with Nina Bagley. Her websiteis Ohio queenbee dot com. Lots of
great information. Check it out,Ohio queenbee dot com. So, you
know, so the folks understand whatyou're doing. Then, so through all
of your master beekeeping classes and becominga master beekeeper, all you started focusing

(04:57):
on raising queen bees and raising queenbees. Yes, and you know,
it's kind of funny that I didthat, and now that I'm researching for
the be Culture magazine and writing thesearticles about women from the eighteen hundreds,
a lot of these women raised theirown queens and sold their queens. So
nothing's really changed. I'm just kindof following in their footsteps. So what's

(05:19):
old is new. It's not new, it's soll thing's been going on for
a long time, for a longtime. Interesting. So what you do
so folks understand is that so thenyou actually raised queen bees. And from
what I understand, most of thisis done in the springtime rather than anytime
the rest of the year that areavailable for folks to buy that don't have

(05:42):
a queen or willing to start theirown hives. You sell the queen and
that's called a nuke. Correct,Well, I'll sell a nuke with a
queen in it, right, Okay, just buy a queen. You'll get
a queen in a cage whet fiveor tenants, okay, right, so
they take that home and put thattheir hives, and it's literally it's a
little bitty cage that she's in withfive attendants, and then they take that

(06:05):
and they take care of her andthen the whole nine yards. Or you
can actually buy the nuke where youget the queen and how many There's quite
a few bees that come with anuke, right, Yeah, a lot
of bees, and at least youcan see what her brood pattern looks like.
When you buy a nuke, youcan see what the performance of the
queen is doing, as opposed tolike a package you can't really tell what's

(06:26):
going on. Yeah, they comein a little cage with find it candy
and that five attendants inside will starteating the candy out, and when you
put it in your hive, that'squeenless. Their bees will start eating at
the other end until they recognize herpheromone. And once they've eaten that candy
out, she'll come out that littletube and out into the hive. They'll

(06:47):
accept her and start taking care ofher. Wow, pretty well, have
things ever gone wrong before? Yeah? Like sometimes, you know, they
might not like the queen because you'veintroduced her to spin and no baller,
and it's they'll just gang up onher and it's like a bad fight and
they'll just start ripping parts apart onher and you can, yeah, it's

(07:11):
awful, it's ugly, and youcan break up the fight and you'll see
the Queen is there and she mightend up with a gimp leg or something,
or they might kill her. Butyeah, it's called balling, and
that's because they're not ready to accepther use. So you put her back
in the cage and put some tapeon the end of that tube where that
fonding is so that they don't comeout, she doesn't come out too quickly

(07:35):
again, and then that way theyget to know her pheromone more and then
they'll accept her. Got it,So you can reintroduce her and then continue
on from there. Interesting talking withNina Bagley is a she raises queen bees
as well as has multiple hives allaround the city here as well. So

(07:57):
all right, so walk me throughthis process. So how do you how
do you where do you? Howdo you start raising queen bees? I
mean, so you've got the hiveand you've got a queen, then where
do you go? Well, yougot to have your good hive, which
is your starter hive that you likethe genetics? You though, where do
I go? Yeah, to getthe next queen? How do you where

(08:18):
do they come from? Well?If I get the next queen, I
go out and look and find outwho I like that overwintered, Well,
okay, who have good genetics?And if I like everything about her,
I'll just start grafting from her andmaking up a bunch of queens. Now
what does that mean by grafting fromher? Well, we have a Chinese
grafting tool, we have a Germantool, and you go down into the

(08:41):
cell of the frame. You pulla frame out with larvae on it,
and uh eggs and young larvae.It looks like the egg as soon as
it hatches, it looks like it'ssitting in oral jelly. It's like floats
in like a oil. Well,tapy yoka would be the best way to
describe bit. It's royal jelly,but it looks like the sell the Sorry,

(09:03):
the larvae is floating and tappy oca. But it's the royal jelly,
and that's what you want. Youscoop all of that up and you put
that into a cell cup and putit on a bar, and then you
put all those queens that you graftedthe cells and you put them down in
your cell builder where there's no queen, and they know they're queen list,

(09:26):
so they'll start making a bunch ofqueens. Wow, queen needs the royal
jelly. The queen needs everything fromthe beginning, all the nutrition. Right.
So now you've got this group ofqueens that you're developing. So how
do you know when it's time thatthey're good to go, that they're ones
that you want, that you youwant to keep, or that you want

(09:48):
to send to somebody. How doyou determine that they're good to go?
Well, once I see a goodbrood pattern, and I see that they're
laying eggs really well, and thepattern looks great, then I can and
go ahead and take her and shipher off or sell her to someone.
But if I say thirty queens,all right, and say all thirty of

(10:09):
them are drawn out, and fivedays they'll be capped over and it looks
like a peanut shell, like alittle peanut, then you have to realize
you've got thirty, so that meansyou have to find thirty mating nukes.
Now, so that means you haveto get thirty boxes and put brood and
pollen and honey in there so thatyou can place that sell in there so

(10:31):
that they can finish her off.And then in the sixteenth day she'll come
out and emerge, and then she'llwait about five days for her or her
skeleton, her kite and to gethardened. Then she'll take a mating flight,
come back. In another five daysshe'll be laying. So if you
grabbed one or two cells, thenyou only need two boxes. But if

(10:52):
you grafted a lot, you haveto remember you've got to have enough resources,
enough bees, and enough equipment.And that's what happens with people.
They run out of equipment and resources. Got it. So when she leaves
and does the mating flight, obviouslyshe flies and she mates with quite a
few of the males correct m correctand then comes back. And then when

(11:15):
she comes back and they either dieafter the mating or they can come back
and hang out, but they getkicked out in October because they're useless.
But so when she comes back,then she starts laying eggs right and goes
from there she always is. Thenfrom that point on her eggs are fertile
then and she never mates again.Correct, correct, Yeah, she's a

(11:37):
good Queen's got a great pattern.Then you've got a great queen. And
now you just need to build herup and give her some sugar water and
you know, get her going.How long does how long does the queen
usually live? Usually, like wehad talked about, it used to be
five years, right, there's justa lot going on with their nutrition and
with the drones, so it's aboutthree years now. Wow. So if

(12:03):
you're queen, If I've got acouple of queens out there that are about
three years old and they still looknice, but this year and towards the
end of July, I'm going torequeen them with new queens. That way,
I'm guaranteed that I've got a goodqueen going into the winter that's laying
like she would be in the spring. I know she's going to be good.

(12:24):
Re queening meaning taking her out andputting in a new one. I'll
pinch the other queen and take herout, got it height failing, and
I'll put a new queen in.Talking with we're talking with Mina Bagley.
It's a rough business being a queenBee. For a Queen Ei, there's
a hive, there's no doubt aboutit. Her website is ohioqueenbee dot com.

(12:45):
Quick break, we come back,we'll find out more about how you
can. She's teaching this. Nowdo your own queens here on the garden.
We're on Whistle on news radio six' ten WTVN. It's the day
I'll always remember talking queen Bees hereon news radio six' ten WTVN,
and Nina Begley is with us thismorning. Her website is Queen Ohio queenbe

(13:07):
dot com. So Nina, realquick, you know only one queen per
hive, right, one queen perhive, so you can't gra Okay,
go ahead, Well I was goingto see. So you got this queen
and she's now the new queen.And if there's other queens that are coming
along, what happens there? Survivalof the fittest, the strongest one will

(13:31):
rain, she'll kill them, She'llgo kill them. So she so she
goes and kills all the other onesso that she doesn't have any competition.
Correct, So if you don't graspyour larvae's all at the same time,
the same age. She say,I make a mistake and grasped one a
little older, and I don't checkmy cell builder. That one queen will

(13:54):
come out first, and then she'llgo down the line and kill all of
my cells that I grafted. Geeze, kill them all ruthless, ruthless queens.
They're ruthless. But if you ifyou can't grasp and you don't have
a queen, you can still thebees will make a queen for you.
You can put them together and putsome young larvae and eggs in that box,

(14:16):
and they all know that they arequeenless, so they'll start making queens.
They'll pick a sell and they'll makea clean from it. So they're
actually better than I would be pickingout a cell to graft. Well,
now, from from what I understand, then, you know you've done this
for years and you've been you've doneit. You've raised a lot of queens
and sold a lot of queens.But you're getting a point now where it's

(14:37):
a lot of work and you've startedto back off. So your goal now
is to get out there and teachbee keepers how to raise their own queens.
Yes, so they can be sustainable, and they don't have because it's
hard for people to find queens.I sell out quickly in my waiting list.
I have a waiting list. Mostpeople don't have queens. So the

(14:58):
best way is a learn how tomake your own queen so that you can
keep your operation going. And sothat would be available for folks that would
a're interested to have you come aroundand do that. I know you're doing
a lot of classes now as well. Do those kind of slow down during
the summer and pick back up,wouldn't you know? If folks want to
get more involved, I know theycan go to your website and find out

(15:18):
when you're going to be talking.But is that more of a spring in
the summer thing or pretty much yeararound? Yes, yes, spring and
summer. I'm going to do onemore class and another two weeks and then
i think I'm done for the summer, and then I've got people that are
signing up for next year. Cool. So yeah, but like I said,
if they can make it, it'scalled a walk away or a dirty

(15:41):
split. You take your bees withouta queen or anything, and you've got
the right combination of the larvae andeggs and they'll make their own queen for
you. They'll reclean themselves. Sothat's a way to go. I think
there could be names for new drinksand walk away in a dirty split.
Yeah, I like the dirty Split. I'll take one. I love Teresa.

(16:04):
I think Barbara Teresa would agree withme, take the dirty Split.
I tell you what you do,you the three Stingers. I don't know
how anybody could handle all three youtogether in the same place at one time.
You guys are crazy anyway. Uhso you know you were a four.
I brought this up early. Youare a former designer and seamstress and
you have to actually designed and youmake custom made uh winter beehive covers.

(16:30):
I do, and they work outreal well. M h. Yes.
I've got a guy he bought abunch last year in Chicago and he's buying
more of this year from me.He loves them. You know. They're
not for everybody, but they work. But they work and that's what counts.
Hey, Nina, that's what Icount. Every time I talk to
you and or a bar and youguys give me all this b information,

(16:52):
my head just spinds. It's crazy. I mean, you guys, it's
unbelievable. I learned something new everytime. My head just spinds and it
just goes with all the b information. But you guys, you know,
you do such a great job andI can't thank you both enough for what
you do sharing all your information withall the beekeepers out there. I know
it's a lot of hard work,but keeping everybody informed and you make fun

(17:15):
with it, and you know it'stry to get more people involved as well.
And I can't think both of youenough for all that you guys do.
Yeah, it's it is hard work, but with all of us,
with Treasa, Barb and I,we enjoy it and it pays off.
So it's fun. We need ourbees and it's good to educate people about

(17:38):
them, yep, and I did. I didn't throw Teresa in there,
and I should have, but youknow, we think we've never had it
on our show. We have todo that sometime and have her on to
talk about her beekeeping skills as well. The three of us were full of
knowledge and we still have a lotto learn. I'll even beekeepers you know
that are ninety They even tell methey don't know it all and they will

(18:00):
have a lot to learn and I'mlike, wow, well, you've always
got to keep learning. I mean, there's always new info out there,
and you know, you learn moreand more all the time. But I'll
tell you what what bees do andall the things you guys have taught me
over the years. It just totallyboggles my mind that they know how to
do all of this stuff. Mothernature is is a very interesting, interesting
thing. The way that things likethis happen, it's just it's crazy.

(18:22):
But thank you for sharing your knowledgewith us. Thank I appreciate you spending
time again. The website is ohioqueenbeedot com. And maybe someday we'll get
all three of you on the showat the same time and I'll just turn
the mic off, let you guyshave at it. Well, we'll be
piping. We'll be a bunch.You'll be piping through the whole show,

(18:45):
all right, And thanks for sharingthat with us. That was pretty cool.
You like that. I'm glad,I do. I do, all
right? Thank you, good talkingwith you. Appreciated. Have a great
fourth of July, the weekend,all right, everybody, take care.
Nina Bagley again Ohio Queen b dotcom. And yeah, I will sometime
we'll get the three of them onthis show. Uh, Ali, you
can just turn the MIC's off,let them have at it, and uh

(19:07):
we'll just have to remind them whento take a break. That's about it,
all right, quick break. Wewill come back. Rose. You're
coming up next. Phone lines areopen for you at eight two to one
wtv IN. Here on news radiosix ten wtv in. All right,
talking to your arding here on newsradio six' ten at wtv in talking
about the weather. Uh don,thanks for holding on. You're in the

(19:30):
garden with Ron Wilson. Yes,Ron, I have a question regarding a
red maple arms red arm red maplearmstrong tree. Yes, how do you
how do you maintain prune? Um? Wow, shouldn't be too much pruning
necessary? What is it? Isit a young one? Yes, it's

(19:52):
a young one. Let's probably aboutfun inch trunk in diameter. Okay,
it's bold. I'm just curious tosit on the good branches or a top
it or did grow or what youknow. And in most cases you would
just let that grow. Now inthe nursery, they may do a little
topping just to get it to fillout more, you know, and then
they would watch where they did thatto make sure you don't have two or

(20:14):
more going off at that point,you just have one more growing up.
But otherwise, you know, atthis stage, I would say, without
seeing it, you're going to justleave it go. The only thing you
would be looking at doing would belimbing it up, so you know,
you get it off the ground ashigh as you want to get those bottom
branches to be. So as thetree continues to grow every year, maybe
at the end of the year youtake off a few branches here and there

(20:37):
that you want to keep working itup. Other than that, you know,
if you've got you know, ifyou had any dead branches, you
would take those out. But otherwisethey're pretty good about forming a nice head,
doing their job as far as creatingthat look. So I can't see
that you're going to have a wholelot of pruning to do after that,
besides a little constructive pruning like limbingit up and things like that. Otherwise,

(21:00):
I can't see you doing a wholelot to it. If you're not
sure, as I've always invited folksto do, take a picture of it
and email it to me. I'lltake a look at it and tell you
what I do. If anything atall by looking at the picture. But
besides limiting it up, I can'timagine two offully much you'd be doing to
it from this point forward. Okay, thanks very much, Ron. All

(21:22):
right, Don good talking to you. Appreciate the call. Have a fourth
of July and can you believe that'scoming up next week? Wow? Four
day weekend. I'm sure there's alot of folks gonna be taking four days
off next weekend. Pat, goodmorning, Good morning, n Ron.
We have some pepper plants that arein our raised bids. They've been in

(21:44):
for about five weeks and they lookhealthy, but we don't have any blossoms.
Do you have any suggestions? Youknow what, There isn't anything you
can do to force them to bloombesides give them more time. And I
think that one thing I do wantto tell folks, and I get this
this time of the year tomatoes,peppers, is make sure you're not overfeeding

(22:07):
them. I think that's the bigthing. We don't want to promote a
lot of new growth at this stage. Feed them as needed, lower down
on that nitrogen so we're not pushingso much growth. But otherwise just let
them do their thing. At thispoint, and then there's nothing you can
do as far as root pruning oradding something that would encourage into flour.
Obviously, if you did like abloombuster, you know, it's a little

(22:29):
bit higher than phosphorus, that canmaybe help you out a little bit.
But I think it's a matter oftime and weather conditions. Are there the
same peppers you've grown in the past, same selections, yes, yes,
and you typically probably had peppers bythis point typically yes, yeah, lots
of them. Yeah. So youknow, again I can't other than that,

(22:52):
there's nothing you can really do besideswait and see what's going to happen.
But just make sure you're not overfeeding. That's a big thing. And
you know, let them maybe evenlet them get into more dryer so you
know, if you know, theylike it when it's dry, so maybe
let them get dry and then givethem a good soaking, dry soak,
uh and and just give them moretime and hopefully those peppers will eventually come

(23:15):
on. You got still got plentyof time. And again, keep me
posted. What kind are they?There were some California wonder and some banana
peppers and just the normal kinds ofthings, and all of them okay,
and all of them are doing thesame thing. Yes, yes, yeah.

(23:37):
The only thing I would suggest,and they're in full son obviously,
and you've done it before, soyou know all that. The only thing
I could I could suggest would bepossibly too much nitrogen, just growing too
well, back off on that alittle bit, keep them a bit more
on the dryer side. See ifthat helps encourage some flowering. That's about
all I could suggest you do.Okay, sorry, all right, let

(24:00):
me posted how they do. Allright, good talking with you, And
that's at this stage in the game. Do remember, if you're out to
local garden center or whatever and theyhave still some peppers left and some tomatoes
left, whatever, you can stillplant. I've always planted right up to
the fourth of July. You geta late crop, no doubt, but
you can still do that. AndI know some folks that have some issues
with their tomatoes and they wound uplose them, so we're out for the

(24:22):
season. Well, if you canfind the plants, you can still plant
the peppers. You know, ifthey don't look like they're going to flower,
you know, you can always graba couple of containers and go out
and get some some from a localgarden center that's still left over and try
to see if you can get thosea flower. A lot of times they're
already in flour when you buy them. I usually pick those off and let
it get self rooted in a littlebit and then let it flour. But

(24:44):
you know, there's still time todo that, still time to plant cucumbers
from seed and squash from seed.Zucchini obviously you can you know if you
need more of it, things likethat, So you still can plant from
seed if necessary. But you canstill plant the tomatoes and peppers too if
necessary. Matt, good morning.Hey, I've moved into our house out

(25:04):
in Morango. Got a few acreslast year, maybea discovery a couple of
weeks ago when we cut back awhole patch of wild onions, mowed them
down basically dirt, and last weekwe started seeing asparagus coming up. So
we're letting them go to fern hopefully. I don't know how they are,

(25:26):
but they seem pretty well established,huh. I boxed them in so I
don't accidentally mow them over. Butoutside of boxing them in, can I
add a little bit of soil tothe top, maybe some malts? What
would be your suggestion no, AndI say that no because you know,
we don't want to make them anydeeper. And again we don't know how
deep they are or how long that'sbeen established. But I don't know that

(25:49):
i'd be adding more soil over thetop at this stage. You know,
if it was an established bed atone time, they would be at the
proper planting depth. So I'd becautious about doing that. As far as
malching, youn always do a lightmulching around asparagus that does work, so
that would be possibility pre ing orsomething like that for pre emerging nerbside will

(26:11):
keep weed seeds from coming up,and of course when there's no fronds up
there, you can use you know, non selective vegetation killers such as kills
all some of the organic vegetation kills. You can use those in spray to
get rid of any weeds that areactually growing around them, as long as
there's nothing else from the asparagus growing. But I think if they were in

(26:33):
mine, I probably would not beadding more soil on top. I'd keep
the terrain as the original terrain aslevel as it is right now. I
think i'd just be looking to possiblyfeed it and then now would be a
good time. You could still dothat with a little bit of a higher
nitrogen fertilizer, cleaning out the weeds, really light, composting for the maulch
on top, and just boxing offsso you don't moment and see what happens,

(26:57):
see what you get from it,Say a higher a nirogen fertilizer.
Can you recommend something brand or numbersn you know, when you go to
the garden center and look for something, it would be like more of a
ten to five to five, justthe opposite, not not a five to
ten ten, but actually a littlebit higher because they look, it's the
greenery right now with those fronds comingon that you're trying to feed. Even

(27:19):
a ten ten ten or a twelvetwelve twelve will be fine. But if
you get something with that first number, you know, at least you know,
I would say up in the tenrange would be great. Just sprinkle
that in, get it watered inreally well, and other than that,
I think that's bet all I do, and then sit back and see what
happens. See what you get that'sgreat. Do you think I'll get anything
else this summer? Or no?Now, this is it. Now?

(27:41):
You're gonna let those fronds grow anddo their thing. Finish out the year.
You can leave the fronds there inthe springtime, make sure you cut
those off before they start to sendup the spears. Otherwise you're good to
go. Hey, we got togo. Appreciate the call and good luck
with them. Keep me posting.Thanks everybody, Thanks to our callers,
Thank you ELL for all of you. Now do yourself a favor. I
have a great weekend, and byall means, go out and make it

(28:03):
the absolute best week fourth of Julyof your life. See you