| How we are working to
diversify our Honeybees and make them stronger and healthier
without the use of chemicals. |
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Update : 1
January 2007 |
Read our 2006 Plan |
| We successfully grafted 100
queens from a instrumentally inseminated breeder Russian
queen that we purchased from Glenn Apiaries. We received the
queen, in great condition, on May 5th and she was
immediately accepted by the bees. She was a prolific layer
and her laying pattern was beautiful. We received a second
Russian breeder queen from Glenn Apiaries in August and she
will be our breeder queen for 2007.
Glenn Apiaries
Web Site. |
| In May, during a raging rain
storm we drove to Vermont and picked up (10) Russian nuc’s
from Kirk Webster. After picking up the bees we promptly
turned around and drove back to New Jersey. We arrived home
at 2:00 am and went to bed; then got up at 5:00 am to move
the new bees into our yard. The bees are a welcome addition
to honey bee project.
Article on Kirk Webster in Orion Magazine |
| The weather this past Summer
and Fall made things more difficult for our bees to produce
extra honey with the monthly precipitation going above and
below the average norms throughout the honey season. Finally
the Fall started off with a very cold September which
greatly impacted our bees honey production. We are getting
many reports of New Jersey beekeepers who are feeding their
bees so they can make it through winter. Our Fall honey crop
was almost non existent this year; we normally get over
1,000 pounds of Red Bank Raw honey during the fall. |
| This past year was pivotal
for Mary and I. We were very successful in our 1st full
season of grafting honey bee queens and we continued our
program to develop a stronger honey bee without using
chemicals. But during the year we had many debates about the
propensity of the Russian Honeybee to swarm more then other
races of honeybees; something that we have observed and
lived through during the past four years of our program. We
compared this negative Russian Honeybee trait with its
positive trait of being able to handle mites without the use
of chemicals. |
| We finally came to a decision
that we would add New World Carniolan HoneyBee stock (NWC
Breeding Program) to our program in order to modify this
Russian propensity to swarm and to also add additional
genetic diversity to our bees. So in 2007 we will be adding
NWC Nuc’s and NWC queens alongside our Russian Bees. |
| In addition we decided that
we would add an instrumental insemination (II) component to
our program. Our plan is to buy the II equipment, take a
basic II course in 2007 and start basic II in 2007. Our aim
is fully integrate instrumental insemination into our Honey
Bee Project by 2008.
The Development of Instrumental Insemination |
Since we began migrating our
Honey Bee yards to Russian Honey Bees in 2003 we have not
used the following chemical medications: Apistan, CheckMite
and Terramyicin.
Our Honey Bees have been getting stronger since 2003 and we
hope during this year, 2007, our program will continue to
make our bees even stronger!! |
|
Read our 2006 Plan |
| Mary & Ed Kosenski |
