Virgin Queens still a bit small, Nicot Method.

Marisa and Silvana have been working hard trying to develop some good, strong Queen bees that will make it through cold Northern climates.  They have had some success so far.  Replacing Queens can be expensive and it seems like a lot of the stock purchased isn’t exactly hardy in many ways!

New Queen Bee!  Can you see her there in the middle?

So far they have had success raising 15 new queens.  The main thing is that they are experimenting and learning a lot.  There is a need for good quality queens and eventually we hope to never have to buy any queens again.  We can hope…… !  They sold the very best new queen to a neighbor lady and at some point, they can start selling more queens but that is down the road a way.  Beekeeping is one big learning experience.

A queen cage with an empty queen cell from which one of the new queens emerged.

The girls were out caging the queen cells.

Adding a caged queen cell to a colony without a queen.

 On another honey sweet note………….Clayton became engaged to Angelica Ostry on the 10th of July, Peter and Frenchy’s 5th Anniversary.  I thought that was kind of special.  He tied the ring onto the mane of Apache; how sweet is that?  Coming from a horse trainer, that should have been expected!  We are all very excited and happy.  The wedding will be next spring.  Life continues to be good and we are very thankful for all our blessings. 

Clayton Callens and Angelica Ostry engaged July 10th, 2015.  Life is good by golly…this is proof!!