Apidea update

A very odd thing.

The apidea with the virgin queen in was empty. See above.

The apidea without the queen now has a laying queen. Photos to follow.

Either my memory is faulty or the queen went on a mating flight and returned to the wrong apidea.

Anyroadup, a result!

Carbon Dioxide Experiment

A very experienced beek who I heard talk the other days said that CO2 would anaesthetise bees. This can be very useful when conducting artificial insemination.

Now you don't need me to tell you that I'm not planning any of that stuff - the clue is in the title of the blog :-)

But I am always fascinated by gadgets, and I am nervous about handling queens, so I bought a CO2 spray that is intended for cleaning cameras, etc. See photo below. Your for £10 from ebay.

I then put ten bees in a tupperware box and gave them a good squirt of CO2. Result: apparently dead bees. See next photo.

Ten minutes later ........



Mortality rate: 0%.

So I shall use this technique for putting queens into queen cages. Very useful for someone as hamfisted as me.