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  • F0,F1,F2 generations

  • General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
 #7682  by Liam
 09 Jun 2020, 16:29
Correct me if I’m wrong. I’m new to bee keeping and would like to understand more about breeding queens and re-queening. I have had my bees since March.
From my understanding:

100% F0 buckfast queen (these can only be 100% from isolation stations or island mating. (Not sure genetics are still 100% buckfast but using this as base)

If you breed a queen from f0 you have now have an F1 queen who is also 100% buckfast but:

She gets open mated in your area with mongrel local bees. Her daughters will be 50% buckfast and 50% mongrel. This cross generally still has good potential for good natured productive bees.

NEXT GEN PROBLEMS:

Any queen derived from an F1 will only be 50% buckfast and her offspring (daughters) will be 75% mongrel genes.

Colours:
F0 and F1 bees will be Tan/ Tawny colour
F2 bees will be very black

So avoid F2 bees.
I know this all depends on drones in the area and is just general assumption.

So.. I started with a nuc of 5 frames of bees, stated as an imported queen. I was totally new to bee keeping, but the bees came from a large reputable bee supplier in Oxfordshire. Unfortunately, it does seem many suppliers give very little info on the bees sold. I have since learnt the importance of knowing what you are getting. I have no idea what generation the queen would be, infact they didn’t even tell me what bees they were, but I know they only sell buckfast packages and buckfast and Italian queen bees only, that are imported.

I have since made a swarm prevention split, which has gone smoothly, but let the original hive re-queen them-self. As my learning has progressed, it’s more out of interest to me to have maximum knowledge of my bees, so I do consider re-queening at some point, so I know exactly what I have. Unfortunately, as a beginner, I fell into the trap of ‘these are bees, they make honey’. Now I’m so into bees I want understanding and knowledge for the future of my own bees. I have explained a little about my situation but my real question is about the F0,F1,F2 generations. So far all is well in my hives.

Many thanks
 #7683  by NigelP
 09 Jun 2020, 17:37
Welcome to the forum Liam. Yes, you use the same nomenclature as I would for F0, F1 and F2. Technically it is slightly wrong as the F1 cross is the Island/Station mated cross. But I think it works better for beekeepers to think of those as F0's.
And again you are spot on the F2's offspring are now 75% local and a lot depends now on the temperament of the local bees in the area you live.
In general mine are quite horrible and F2's are a toss up (and very dark coloured). However I am starting to have a little success with F2 matings by setting up another apiary within about 1/4 of mile of another one in a fairly isolated part of the country. Queens fly further than drones to mate to avoid any inbreeding with their own drones.....or so the science has shown.
A book well worth reading is "Mating Biology of Honey Bees" by Koeniger. All the latests science in an easy to understand format.
Last edited by NigelP on 10 Jun 2020, 11:19, edited 1 time in total.
 #7684  by Liam
 09 Jun 2020, 18:41
We have a few local people here who keep bees. I dont think they manage them, more of a "we have bees, they do as they please". I havent seen any of them colonies kill anyone yet lol, and as they swarm, I guess they have produced many queens over the years. Bee population here seem very freindly but then again I havent been inside wild bee hives. I would love to be able to do some form of sustainable queen rearing, as at £50 a go, it soon adds up when re-queening. My main objective tho is docile bees, so expenses to benefit my own experience and enjoyment isnt so bad.

I guess I wont fully know what my area's population of bees are like until its tested and I can go from there.

I like the idea of setting up another hive of good genetics further away to mate.

Thanks for the help and the suggestion on the book, I will go see if i can find it now.
 #7690  by AdamD
 10 Jun 2020, 10:01
My understanding of a F1 hybrid was that it would be the first cross from the seperate mother and father lines. But I am happy with this being referred to as F0 - as you say Nigel, it seems to work better for bees.
Temperament isn't just the quality of local bees according to Brother Adams "Beekeeping at Buckfast Abbey" he point out that two well-behaved strains can produce 'difficult' offspring.

I am not sure that the colour is hugely significant and you will probably see a fair variation. Nigel has some shocking local bees he tells us, mine are generally decent so I breed from my best each year and have a fair few drones around from a couple of apiaries. Some of those will mate with other queens rather than my own, but I guess I get my genetics back in later years with drones that fly in and mate with my queens. I am trying to get bees that sit in the local area and work well. As you point out Liam, they are not 'just bees' in the same way as a cow isn't 'just a cow' and they have varying qualities.

(For a book that I would not recommend is Eigil Holm's "Queen Breeding and Genetics" unless there's a second edition. Some of it is OK however the translation is confusingly poor and there are obvious errors).
 #7693  by NigelP
 10 Jun 2020, 11:28
AdamD wrote:
10 Jun 2020, 10:01
s according to Brother Adams "Beekeeping at Buckfast Abbey" he point out that two well-behaved strains can produce 'difficult' offspring.
He did indeed. IIRC he mentioned (And I can't remember the cross) if the drones where strain X and the queen strain Y very poor tempered, but reverse the cross Drones Y queen X they were fine.
I've noticed that hive temperament is a bit of Ying and Yang. Sometimer the queen influences it strongly and sometimes it's the genetics of the worker bees. As queens mate with several drones you only need one "bad" drone and you get an approx 10% aggressive workforce. Bit simplified explanation but near enough.
 #7694  by AndrewLD
 10 Jun 2020, 12:34
AdamD wrote:
10 Jun 2020, 10:01
Temperament isn't just the quality of local bees according to Brother Adams "Beekeeping at Buckfast Abbey" he point out that two well-behaved strains can produce 'difficult' offspring.
Carniolan bees are known for being able to produce horrendous little devils if the they breed out of strain and Brother Adam expands on the question of temper in "In Search of the Best Strains of Bees".

Bearing in mind that the original poster is new to beekeeping and going through the same questions I had when I started, it might be worth making some general points (as opposed to the finer detail of queen breeding).

Bees can often be described as bad tempered when their temper is affected by external factors that are nothing to do with their genetics; poor handling, handling when conditions indicate that it is inadvisable (e.g. thundery weather), handling when the bees are stressed by a lack of nectar flow or queenlessness or during re-queening.

At one time I was buying in queens from a national dealer but gave that up. Too many instances of queens that had obviously travelled for too long, premature failure etc. But in the end I realised that buying in was rather pointless because I could not control supercedure which could happen un-noticed if I didn't see the queen every inspection. After a number of £40 failures I decided to leave them to it, helping where I could if the colony didn't succeed and quickly culling colonies that went nasty on me, which has thankfully been a rarity. My biggest nuisance this year has been a colony that was actually a locally collected swarm - I wonder if the beekeeper let them go because he didn't want the hassle.
 #7696  by NigelP
 10 Jun 2020, 13:47
Basic definitions of what is a bad hive...when several bees greet you and start attacking and pinging off your veil as you enter your apairy. No handling required. If they boil out of the supers and start attacking you as you crack open the crown board. A bit of curiosity is normal when you open most hives.
Following you for considerable distances as you leave the apiary.
Really bad when you can barely see through your veil and can smell bananas as the buggers are trying to get to you. This can be quite frightening.

Bad handling will get them going, you need to move slowly and gracefully, no knocking banging etc. Wish I was perfec t, I still drop odd frame, occassionally jerk queen excluder off etc etc...all cause negative reactions in the bees.

One of the biggest causes of aggression from the bees during an inspection is wearing leather gloves. They give a false sense of protection as you don't realise you may already have acquired several stings that are now emitting alarm pheromone as you waft your hands about. This simply leads to escalating levels of aggression even from what would have been docile bees.
For a bee to sting anything it first needs to be able to gain a strong foothold with its legs to give it enough mechanical leverage for the initial penetration of the sting (which then self digs in once inserted). It's the main reason I wear relatively thin mechanics nitrile gloves. Their smooth outer surface doesn’t allow the bees to gain a grip and sting you easily. You can feel them bouncing off your hands when they are attempting to defend themselves. With leather they get an easy grip and sting, on nitrile it’s far more difficult. Most of the stings I take these days are when I accidentally trap a bee under a lug as I lift a frame.
You can immediately tell when you have been stung…now waft that single sting over the top of a brood box and watch the bee’s reaction….

When you are really in trouble is when they manage to get enough stings into your nitrile glove that they can hang onto the stings themselves to give them the leverage they need….…..this is a really evil hive.
In which case you need to man up (or woman up) and go commando and wear very thick leather gloves and work as fast as you can…..no pain but lots of bee aggression.

My good hives need no smoke to inspect, other than to move bees off the boxes edges when restacking.

Buying in queens….. Caveat Emptor. There are a lot of stack ‘em high sell them cheap merchants out their advertising in the glossy’s. It pays to shop around until you find a decent breeder and stick with them. Generally their queens are more expensive than the rest, but you tend (with odd exceptions) to get what you pay for. I have 2 Danish Island mated queens on order, arriving next month….£250 for a pair.
They are a bargain; they will repay that initial outlay in surplus honey gathered alone. Plus they form the basis of my breeding stock for queens the next few years. I use their eggs and larvae to generate open mated Buckfast F1 queens that are simply excellent and are far superior to some of the queens many are getting ripped off at £40 a shot from the less scrupulous dealers.

Sorry for long diatribe :)
 #7701  by Patrick
 10 Jun 2020, 17:09
I honestly can’t remember the last time I used leather gloves - awful things. When the going gets tough I pull an extra pair of nitriles over the pair I have on and that makes a significant difference.

I completely agree, baffled why they are still often given as free giveaways with suits. A nightmare to clean and act as a sponge for mess and sting pheromones.
 #7710  by MickBBKA
 11 Jun 2020, 01:31
I never smoke my bees unless they need moving to stop squashing them. I do sometimes wear nitrile gloves but that's to stop propolis getting on my fingers. They are not honey monsters but don't do so bad given the local weather patterns. I wear the same suit for months at a go, this stuff about gloves carrying attack pheromones is a red herring as far as I am concerned. If they are attacking you gloves you have a bee problem, not a glove problem. My garden bees are 6 feet from my back door. We are friends..LOL. All open mated, I have had 1 defensive ( not aggressive ) colony in 7 years.

:D
 #7712  by NigelP
 11 Jun 2020, 08:26
It's not a red herring Mick, it can cause well behaved hives to appear very bad tempered, as you don't notice any stings received in thick leather gloves that are giving off alarm pheromone.
I was asked to look at some aggressive hives for a mate of mine. Turned out they weren't that bad until the moment he he came over to lift a few frames .....they went ballistic. His gloves were covered in 100's of previous stings.