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  • Queen breeding specialism discussion forum.
Queen breeding specialism discussion forum.
 #1560  by AdamD
 19 Dec 2018, 17:22
Being in flattish countryside, I can't tell where my queens fly off to for mating. I really should put a ring of colonies each with plenty of drone brood around my home mating apiary to increase my own drone numbers.

There are a few local bees that came from my stock but not really enough to singificantly affect mating genetics considering the number of possible apiaries indicated by Beebase. (Although I have no idea whether those apiaries are empty or historic as some of them will be).

Nigel, what will you do with any unpleasant colonies in Spring ? As we know they will only get worse as they get bigger.
I get the odd colony of less-than perfect temperament. I don't like to allow these queens to produce drones so they are either given a little 'nip' in spring and united to another colony or I keep the dodgy colonies small - nuc size - by harvesting brood, so they are small enough that they are not going to raise drone brood and are easy to manage and then I use them by inserting a queencell at the appropriate time and despatching the queen.
 #1562  by Jim Norfolk
 19 Dec 2018, 18:46
Nigel what happens if you try for an F3 generation and beyond?
From what I have read F2 is the most aggressive and after that it is claimed to get better.
When I started I brought in a colony of bees from nearby but even then aggression developed in my second year. I persisted, removing queens from aggressive colonies and eventually it all settled down.

I currently have 57 apiaries in a 10 km radius according to beebase. I know where 4 are. Where I was before there were 153. I started with new bees from 20 miles outside my area last spring and I think I will encounter problems when I get to F2. I plan to increase my drones by adding two foundationless frames per colony in the spring and hope for apiary vicinity mating.
 #1566  by NigelP
 19 Dec 2018, 21:38
Jim Norfolk wrote:
19 Dec 2018, 18:46
Nigel what happens if you try for an F3 generation and beyond?
From what I have read F2 is the most aggressive and after that it is claimed to get better.
F3's are usually back to normal small colonies of local aggressive bees.
The few F3'a I've had are back to small colonies, covering 6 frame max bees. Aggressive but not worrying. The F2's need double brood boxes and consequentially there is a larger proportion of aggressive bees.
 #1567  by Patrick
 20 Dec 2018, 10:38
The F2's need double brood boxes and consequentially there is a larger proportion of aggressive bees.
[/quote]

A large colony of aggressive bees - sounds just peachy. I would love to buy some of those off you Nigel..👍

I once dealt with a similar colony owned by someone who had got so scared of them she had simply added boxes without excluders to form a giant stack in which they had scattered emerged QC’s all over the place and everything was welded with brace comb., meaning the jarring of cracking everything apart really improved their spirits.

They had not been inspected for at least a year but they did not want to get rid of them. I would not have been surprised if there was more than one queen laying but was in no mood to start looking as taking a pasting was dulling my normal investigative nature..

A pain to sort out in every meaning of the word and one where everything definitely gets washed thoroughly afterwards and why they invented cold beer..
 #1568  by NigelP
 20 Dec 2018, 13:29
AdamD wrote:
19 Dec 2018, 17:22

Nigel, what will you do with any unpleasant colonies in Spring ? As we know they will only get worse as they get bigger.
A lot of depends really Adam.
One is next door to another colony so will probably squish and unite. Depending on eaee of finding queen. I'm not the best queen spotter, particularly when unmarked...
One is on it's own so will probably Snelgrove (method 1) and add frames of eggs from Island mated queens and destroy any other queen cells they raise. I like this way as it means i keep workforce and honey. And the queen cells are raised as suipercedure rather than emergency cells.
Or I might squish and unite with spare nuc, depending on what's available at the time.
 #1570  by DianeBees
 21 Dec 2018, 16:24
Chrisbarlow wrote:
18 Dec 2018, 18:51
I agree with your comments Diane, initially when I first started beekeeping I just thought all bees were like mine, when I finally started keeping really calm bees it was quite a revelation at how calm some bees can really bee.
Yes it's a right shock when you go to someone's apiary and they were expecting you to get stung just walking near their bees.
If I'd started with grumpy bees I've have not kept bees long at all!
 #1874  by DianeBees
 06 Feb 2019, 15:10
Is anyone going to the one this Saturday in Frodsham?
I will be there!

https://bibba.com/sustainable-bees-queens/