Introduction of Virgin Queen into mini nuc

[fatshark]

Just to add something to this thread on keeping virgins after emergence and before introduction …
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%...l.pone.0050150
indicates wooden cages, honey and attendants can achieve 100% survival for 7 days. They also report 80% acceptance to 5 frame nucs of 7 day old virgins by smoking the colony … however, critically, they only check 24 hours later.

[Jon]

Yep. the virgins are often ok for a day or two but seem to disappear within a week.

[Little_John]

Thought I'd revive this thread to ask those of you who use mating NUCs repeatedly - that is, having extracted the mated queen then introduce another virgin to the same box - whether you use fresh bees each time, or whether there's a way of re-using the same bees, say once or twice, without them rejecting the virgin - as my experience thus far has been limited to only using mating NUCs for one-off matings.

thanks,
LJ

[fatshark]

Absolutely. Use them 2-3 times in a season ... it's the only thing that makes the pain of filling the darn things in the first place worthwhile.

I take the Q out, leave them a few hours and then pop in a new QC. I even try and time my grafting to prevent the mini nucs getting overrun with bees, or remove a frame of brood as appropriate.

[Jon]

Same here fatshark although it is often only half an hour between queen out and new queen cell in.
You have to move frames about between apideas or provide more space.
An apidea with 3 frames of sealed brood is an absconding accident waiting to happen.
I find it far easier to work with queen cells than all the messing about running in virgin queens.

[Little_John]

Ok - so you guys use QC's ...

I was really wanting to use virgins, but can find very little advice 'out there' - seems that most people use QC's if they're into serious queen production.

Found one interesting paper:
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/lifesci/hugh...techniques.pdf
in which they were using re-used and artiificial queen cells to introduce virgins, with good results: >90% acceptance.

The researchers concluded:
[...] our results suggest that queen introduction via queen cells is a superior method for requeening queen mating hives. It is quicker and has a higher success rate than using cages. It also gives a higher overall success rate than using ripe queen cells, the normal method used in commercial queen rearing, because a significant proportion of the queen cells fail to emerge. Because artificial queen cells can be used, and can in fact be made by simple modifications to existing equipment such as queen cell protectors, the queen cell method is also practical.

But - dunno whether to stay with what works well for others, or have a go at using this artificial queen cell malarky.

Decisions, decisions ...

LJ

[prakel]

I was really wanting to use virgins, but can find very little advice 'out there' - seems that most people use QC's if they're into serious queen production.

have you seen this one?

Comparing alternative methods of introducing virgin queens (Apis mellifera) into mating nucleus hives by Juan Antonio Perez-Sato, Francis L.W. Ratnieks.

http://www.apidologie.org/articles/a...6/05/m6044.pdf

[mbc]

I introduce virgins in a jzbz cage with a candy plug if I have to, this has proved more reliable than any running in/wetting technique for me. Virgins can be popped in at the same time as harvesting the mated queen with a fair degree of success with this method.
I agree with Jon though, queencells are less hassle, and give a better return despite the odd one being a duff and not hatching without you knowing.

[Little_John]

Yes, thanks Prakel - that's the first of 3 papers by those authors covering this topic.
That one was 2005, The second was the 2006 paper I linked to, and the last in the series (afaik) was their 2007-8 'Direct Introduction with Smoke' paper - which was pretty poor science, in my view.

I agree with Jon though, queencells are less hassle, and give a better return despite the odd one being a duff and not hatching without you knowing.

I think that kind of pragmatic approach is the one I'll be adopting, rather than trying to re-invent the wheel.

Which pretty-much confirms what those authors wrote in their 2007-8 paper:
"One possible reason why beekeepers normally use a method of queen introduction that is not the best method is that, for the most part, beekeeping is not based on using methods that have been carefully compared with alternatives in scientific experiments. Rather, beekeeping is largely based on doing what experience has shown to work."

I think "carefully compared" is a bit of a joke statement, but there you go ...

LJ

[Jon]

How long do you think an apidea needs to be queenless to successfully introduce a virgin.
With a queen cell you can take the queen out and put a cell straight in. If you try this with a virgin they ball her.
Even using a cage they often kill the virgin in my experience.
I suspect the apidea needs to be queenless for at least a couple of days to get a better percentage success rate introducing virgins.