Late Winter, 515 AV
Kavala had been talking to Collin Fallingsun lately. He was the Beekeeper that had gotten her started into Beekeeping. Their main topics of conversation where often about breeding better bees. Where they differed in opinions mainly fell with what they considered better bees. Collin liked aggressive bees. They seemed to do better, in his mind, than the more docile bees Kavala preferred. He took the stand that the aggression transferred over to many other behaviors that were important to bees. For example, colonies of honeybees in his Orchards that fell to predators could often fend off raccoons and bears as long as they were re-queened with more aggressive queens. The queens would transfer that attitude to the colony and it would defend the colony better.
That was the thing about beekeeping though. Half of it was mental. The bees basically kept themselves. The art of being a beekeeper was observation, small corrections, and knowing ones bees. Kavala got to be the beekeeper she was halfway because she was busy observing and studying her bees to know them better and now she’d have to design tests to rate them. They weren’t in the same scenario Collin’s bees were. Hers had a unique situation.
Kavala preferred to shelter her bees away from the temptations of predators. And she felt, rather than aggression, other behaviors were far more important like hygiene. Hygienic bees groomed off some of their attackers – like mites – and kept their colonies more safe than aggressive bees did. Collin had valid points, but Kavala was more scientifically minded and strongly felt hygiene, grooming, perhaps shorter brood development periods, longer periods spent as adults, brood pattern, brood viability, temperament, and resistance to predatory insects like mites might be a great deal more important than aggression. And ultimately for her, honeycomb production and honey production itself was more important than anything.
Collin’s bees were in place to fertilize his orchards and thus increase fruit production. He was delighted with honey, but it was a secondary concern to him. Hence the reason he liked aggressive bees. His bees got his pollination done. Kavala understood that. But their divergent agendas had her worried about where she and other like-minded beekeepers were going to get their Queens. Getting them from Collin meant that she’d have to deal with the aggression. She simply did not want to deal with it. So because of the source for local queens having such a differing opinion, that meant there needed to be another source.
Kavala intended to be that source. She knew the basics for breeding bees and raising queens thanks to Collin. However, his selection methods and her selection methods were going to be different. She’d breed for the traits she wanted to breed for, aggression not being one of them. And to that end, she needed to select colonies to be the donors for her queen breeding and rearing program. To select said colonies, Kavala devised a few ‘tests’ to perform on her hives to see which Queens stood out with the traits she wanted. She had extensive notes on temperament already, so that wasn’t a problem, but for the rest of it, there needed to be true tests.
And once she’d selected said breeding stock, she’d start raising queens that were gentle yet extremely hygienic which were good producers of honey and incredibly clean in terms of grooming and dealing with pests. Kavala had started with five hives a few years ago. Not counting losses during the winter months nor losses to disease, and after she’d split or captured swarms, Kavala had ten strong hives. Collin had more, but then his initial stock pool was far larger. The Orchards required hundreds of hives between the fruit and the grapes. Her bees, however, served a different purpose. She used the honey. She used the beeswax too. So Kavala sat down and made a list. She already had file cards for each hive, ones that fit into a small wooden box that kept records on when she inspected, when she harvested honey, etc. But now she needed to plan so much more. Now each needed a new card and on those cards would be ratings.
Hive Number: 1-10
Hygiene: % hygienic
Brood Viability: % of Empty Cells out of 100.
Temperament: Gentle, Acceptable, Aggressive
Brood pattern: Good, Fair, Poor
Grooming: Observed Y/N
Brood Development Periods: Long, Normal, Short
Resistance To Pests: Pest Load Test
Kavala nodded in satisfaction. Now, to devise a test for hygienic Behavior. That was the hard part of beekeeping. How to rate the hive? How to manage it? These tests would be core to her operation, for sure.