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  • BBKA Queen Rearing Training - anyone heard anything??

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Queen breeding specialism discussion forum.
 #283  by Jim Dunne
 13 Aug 2018, 12:00
From the BBKA;
Queen Rearing

Training for Queen Raising

It is intended that we run six basic skills queen raising courses - for people who can be trained to rear queens in their own branches as association activities. A total of 72 people trained at this level is what we envisage initially.
This initiative fits in nicely with the new proposals by Defra for much more reliance on good local queen supplies therefore diminishing the number of imported queens.

We hope to start the theory sessions during the winter. This programme ‘queen rearing for beginners,’ will concentrate on beekeepers with a small number of colonies and use the likes of the Miller method. There will be no grafting involved.

It is hoped that from this beginning members will start their own queen rearing groups. We realise that many AAs already have their own queen rearing programmes and we are not in any way trying to usurp or interfere with those. However a lot of members are asking us about queen rearing so this programme is designed for them. More information will be available soon in BBKA News and on the website.

Training More Queen Raising Trainers

Thinking wider than just the 72 competent people as will be provided as above, and then to extend the queen raising abilities to as many associations and branches as quickly as possible, we plan a higher level training to provide for the ‘Training of Trainers,’ to equip them with higher level skills and a variety of queen raising competencies, who can then train others in the basic skills. There will be 4 higher level skills courses of 10 people. This will likely appeal to General Husbandry (GH) and Advanced Husbandry (GH) qualified people.

It is intended to run queen rearing courses where there will be six centres where twelve people per centre can be trained to rear queens in their own branches. We are hoping to cascade this out across the country if it is successful, so we are putting plans in place to start this early next year in order to take advantage of the season in 2019.


Seems a bit odd that grafting will not be covered, very odd! It also seems (to me) to be three steps back, trying to raise 'local' bees from poor stock, and the known aggression problems after just one or two generations.
 #287  by Patrick
 13 Aug 2018, 17:07
Hi Jim

Welcome to the Forum!

I know no more than you do about this initiative, but on the face of it it looks like an idea to encourage beginners to raise their own cells from their best stock, rather than mass produce larger numbers. I wonder if the Miller method was chosen as an example as it involves little equipment and not a lot of dexterity or indeed particularly good eyesight?

I assume that grafting maybe comes into the second tranche of training the trainers sessions maybe - as you say it would be strange to overlook it completely?
 #288  by AdamD
 13 Aug 2018, 17:53
I have not heard anything myself. And I was one of the guinea pigs for the new BBKA Queen rearing certificate last year - which I passed.
One of the requirements I was asked to demonstrate to the assessors was grafting. It's actually not too difficult as long as you can see what you are doing and you are not too ham-fisted!

Over a number of years I have selected from the best and my bees have gone from swarming most of the time to swarming little of the time and are usually well-behaved and (fairly) productive.

I think Roger Patterson is probably one of the few who goes around the country encouraging beekeepers to have a go with his Bee Improvement for All talks.
 #290  by Jim Dunne
 14 Aug 2018, 12:49
I think that choosing to 'teach' the Miller method is very odd - it is harder to cut out cells from a frame of foundation and transplant them to another hive/nuc without damaging them than it is to graft, or even use a Nicot box.

I have raised queens for a few years now, I have Keld Brandstrup and Dr. Peter Stofen breeder queens, and I swap queens with others who II them so that we can increase the depth of our respective queens gene pools. Apart from my own needs, I raised and sold 120 queens this year - not a massive amount granted, but that's 120 queens that were not imported.

I know that the queens I use to produce those queens were imported, but you have to start somewhere, and with decent genes/stock.

It just seems that the BBKA appear to be thinking that a couple of hundred, two hive beekeepers can produce good enough queens in their back gardens to sustain the queen requirements of the UK, discounting all the research and development by bee breeders over decades, especially when the requirements of the BBKA queen rearing certificate state you need a minimum of eight colonies in one location to apply for the assessment.

The UK has a temperate climate, which is why so many strains of bees do well here. We do not have the extremes of weather, such as experienced in central and Eastern Europe for example, and there is no reason why any strain of bee found across Europe should not do well in the UK. I think that beating the 'local bees used to local conditions' is a tired old tune, and will knock queen rearing back decades.
 #291  by Patrick
 14 Aug 2018, 19:48
Hi Jim

My understanding of the Miller method is that is based on cutting back a laid frame to the appropriately aged larvae rather than punched cell transplanting, but that may be a matter of terms.

Sounds like you have a good queen rearing programme going and I get the system you are working to. Not my place to debate the merits of different lines of bees I haven't personally tried. But I do have considerable sympathy for the very real conundrum for most hobbyists selecting their best queens descendants but then at the mating stage there enters the wild cards of multiple mating (polyandry) with local drones from potentially multiple sources and the potential good or bad consequences for the offspring.

From the other end of the telescope, if there are issues in your apiary then Local beekeepers can minimise propagating from their worst colonies with a little effort. It can seem more difficult with only a narrow gene pool to choose from, as you suggest, but that is not to say one should not bother to try.

.
 #298  by Jim Dunne
 15 Aug 2018, 10:54
Hi Patrick,

I wasn't referring to cell punching, rather that the queen cells raised by using the Miller method have to be cut off the foundation and transferred to the hive/nuc where the queens are needed. There is no way to protect each individual cell raised from being destroyed by the first virgin queen to emerge, unlike other systems where they can be protected by 'roller cages' etc.

This means that the fragile QC's have to be cut off the foundation, and the handling involved could/will very easily squash and kill the developing queen therein.

The Miller method is ok as an emergency method, but no better than placing a donor frame of eggs into a hive needing a queen. It is not suited to raising multiple queens, so by default, not suited to any queen rearing programme.
 #309  by AdamD
 16 Aug 2018, 15:10
As we know Jim, timing is important in queen-rearing, so we would hope that anyone using the Miller Method would harvest the queens before they are due to emerge and maybe leave one in the hive to take over the colony. A good sharp knife is essential rather than trying to cut using a hive tool.
As you say, the Miller Method will usually result in just a few queencells. Maybe enough for someone to use for their own apiary or to give to a friend; not much more.

I suppose the more people at least try to do something will mean that the number of imports are reduced. And rearing queens is fun and should be encouraged in my view.
I don't get the assumption that aggression will result from local queen-rearing. Arguably the opposite is the case if we are talking of crosses with imported hybrids. Although Nigel - who was on the previous BBKA forum regularly - would argue that his local bees are so badly behaved and so unproductive that breeding from or with them is quite pointless and a road to alcoholism and misery! I hope that his experience is a rare one. and to have bees that are selected from the local area that perform well seems a good idea to me.
 #315  by AdamD
 16 Aug 2018, 19:36
An email came in from DEFRA which includes this:-

"You may be interested to know that an article appeared in the August issue of Bee Farmer magazine summarising the results of the survey; further articles may follow. The results have also now been published on Bee Base. http://www.nationalbeeunit.com/public/N ... .cfm?all=y

We are continuing to analyse the survey results in conjunction with the Queen Rearing Working Group and hope to be in contact again when we have information about next steps. The Queen Rearing Working Group is chaired by Defra with representatives from the National Bee Unit (NBU), the Bee Farmers’ Association (BFA), the British Beekeepers Association (BBKA), the Bee Improvement and Bee Breeders’ Association (BIBBA) and the National Diploma in Beekeeping (NDB)".


So it would appear that the bee breeding initiative is being run by DEFRA.
 #611  by HoneyBeesUK
 13 Sep 2018, 23:38
Having read the survey results on Queen Raising it's interesting to see most beekeeper's believe that they are buying queens from English raised stock possibly either misinformed or possibly misled? The reasoning for this is for the 10s of thousands of Queens being imported into the UK and either resold or introduced to nucs and sold on.
English queen raisers like myself rarely can provide queens early in the year. English mated queens being sold before the end of May are likely to be from foreign origin.