Jon

New queen, grafts already

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Jon
, 23-06-2013 at 10:03 PM (3584 Views)
We got a batch of new Galtee queens on Monday morning which had travelled up North from Tipperary with a local beekeeper who attended the GBBG queen rearing demonstration.
I was expecting 2 but 13 arrived.
These were ones we ordered and paid for in January for distribution among members of the queen rearing group.
I introduced two to nucs I had made up the previous day and when I checked earlier this evening both were out and laying.

I also introduced two to queenless colonies at the association apiary on Monday afternoon.
The tabs on the cages were opened on Tuesday afternoon.
One of the cages was empty on Wednesday when I checked.
This evening I noticed small larvae in this colony so I took 30 grafts from it.
I theory I could have virgin queens emerging 18 days after introduction and mated queens 10 days after that.
Wishful thinking but time will tell.

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Comments

  1. gavin's Avatar
    It just can't be natural, all that acceleration of the generations .... there'll be trouble!
  2. drumgerry's Avatar
    Great stuff Jon! And Gavin I'll be grafting from those virgins you sent me before July is out!
  3. gavin's Avatar
    ESBA1 will be a grannie when she's only a year old!
  4. Jon's Avatar
    I'll post you some virgin queens at some point Gerry.
    There are times in the group when supply exceeds demand so there are spare cells/virgins.

    Gav, I am a bit wary about grafting like this as good practice would be to graft from a 2 year old queen you know something about. Thing is, the GBBG has 22 years of selecting from the best breeder queens so you are unlikely to get a complete duffer. Everyone in the area keeps AMM so than chance of a dodgy drone is minimal.
  5. Jon's Avatar
    I think that queen had only been laying in an apidea less than 2 weeks as well
  6. Jon's Avatar
    I checked this evening when we had our queen rearing group and there are at least 20 grafts started.
  7. drumgerry's Avatar
    Thanks Jon. And Gavin I'll not go too mad this year and only raise a few queens from them.