Queen Specialist

Work description

Queen Specialist will perform the following duties: ● Helps spot breeder queens from hives that are qualified through the appropriate strength, weight, and health. ● Organizes and prepares the cleaning and maintenance of nucs that are needed for starting the queens. ● Pouring the appropriate amount of bees in the three different sizes of nucs we run. ● Misting the bees with water - enough to no kill them, but to avoid them from flying in the nuc barn while we are preparing the nucs. ● Staging the nuc barn with the appropriate equipment needed to prepare the nucs: drivert, bees, cells, nucs, water pump, wheelbarrows, shovels, and gloves. ● Understanding the work dynamics in the nuc barn, separation of days when nucs are being stacked on top of each other. Labeling the different breeds of queen cells that are going into the nucs. ● Understanding and executing the moving out of the nucs from the nuc barn to the field. Proper loading techniques to allow for proper air circulation on the trucks and the urgency to get the nucs on the ground so they don’t overheat and die. ● Catch queens by analyzing the fertility of the queen and observing the queens posture (legs and wings). Queens not properly mated are pinched or are left a few more days to mate if the weather has been affecting the mating flights of the queens - using best judgment for this. ● Catch queens in nucs accurately and carefully according to breed type. ● Marking the queens with paint in their thorax by gently holding them by the wings or by the thorax. ● Prepare and maintain the grafting room ensuring all supplies are ready and in good working order. ● Monitor cell builders for health and productivity. Maintaining the hives healthy by continuously and constantly checking them for nutrition and nurse bee population. ● Changing the cell builders routinely when the brood is no longer viable and to many old bees are in the cell builders to take care of the developing cells. ● Monitor breeder boxes for health and productivity. Continue to move around frames from these hives to allow the appropriate age of larva to be viable for grafting. ● Communicate and support queen sales crew with marking queens for sale, packaging queens. ● Maintaining queen banks for health and productivity - adding brood, bulk bees, or putting them on established hives for overwintering. ● Communicate consistently and clearly both verbally and in writing with all TA team members. ● Notice where there may be holes in operations and collaborate on solutions to fix them ● Any additional Tauzer Apiaries beekeeping responsibilities given.