Absconding bees from Apidea

[Jon]

Too much artistic license with the venation.
Don't look like bee wings.
So what have you got on your knees? John Daly on one and a potato on the other?

[masterbk]

The Galtee Bee Breeders have been using an 8 oz cut comb container with the end removed, for many years
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Ron Brown started using the cutcomb containers in his Apideas in 1995 and mentioned this in his booklet "managing mininucs" published in 1998.

[The Drone Ranger]

These knees are much too handsome to be mine. The bees are almost good enough to do morphometry on if anyone is up for it.

they must be carnies AMM would only need one knee and they would just have wings on one side

[Beefever]

That stuff you read about filling with bees and leaving in the dark for 3 days is completely unnecessary.
How do you do it then Jon? Do you not confine them at all? Are the bees from a different apiary? Do you add a queen cell or a virgin when making up your Apideas?

[Jon]

they must be carnies AMM would only need one knee and they would just have wings on one side

The Germans cut the wings off their Carnica.
They use a similar spreadsheet which accepts higher CI values.

[Jon]

That stuff you read about filling with bees and leaving in the dark for 3 days is completely unnecessary.
How do you do it then Jon? Do you not confine them at all? Are the bees from a different apiary? Do you add a queen cell or a virgin when making up your Apideas?

I usually fill the apideas with young bees, stack them up in the shade and add a ripe queen cell 12-24 hours later.
And if you fill them with bees from the top box of a cell raiser you can put the cells in right away.
The key thing is to keep the apideas closed until the virgin has emerged from the cell.
I remove the cells and check that the queen is definitely out before setting out the apideas and opening them.

hatched queen cells.jpg queen cells after queen emerged.jpg

If you open them before the virgin has emerged a lot of the bees will abscond.
I usually keep the apideas in the same apiary although moving a few miles away solves the problem of bees drifting back.
If the bees are young and the virgin is out you don't get too many drifting back to the hive they were taken from.

[The Drone Ranger]

they do I know

something I wonder about
If bees revert to mainly black when left to their own devices
and the Queen mates with maybe 15 or 20 drones in a good year
could grafting be counter productive except in certain areas
I mean if the bees choose the larva prior to swarming or even in swarm board conditions
Doesn't it make sense for them to choose one which is 75% related to the queen
whereas by grafting you make the choice and could be raising a commoner to the nobility
bet some smarty pants has studied this at some point

You have encouraged me to dust off the (two) apideas and the other horrible white ones and have another go
Thank you Jon

[Jon]

I'm not sure bees do chose the larvae although some have speculated that they do.

Any way, none of the larvae are 75% related to the queen.
You must be thinking about the 'super sisters' business.

Two workers which have the same drone father should share 75% of their genetic material. Two workers which have different drone fathers should share 50%.

The speculation is that a worker would favour the selection of an larva for turning into a queen which has the same father as herself.

[Beefever]

Thanks Jon. I've always used workers from the supers, in the past, a la Ron Brown, so if I use very young workers from the brood nest then I might (and I mean might) get less absconding. All good stuff, eh?

[Jon]

The key thing is waiting until the virgin has emerged before opening the apidea.