I'm not sure that he's suggesting that you shouldn't buy in good stock, he himself has mentioned using breeder quality queens from elsewhere. I think the message was not to get tied in to a cycle of buying 'bulk' queens for making increase/re-queening en masse but to get on with raising our own. Not my place to put words in his mouth of course, but that's how I understood the message.
I got 12 triple zero sable paintbrushes on e-bay for £9.50.
For a small operation, if you want to rear queens you could buy in a good pure race queen in year one and requeen as many colonies as possible with her daughters.
This sorts out your drones for the following year as they will be pure race irrespective of what the daughters mated with.
In year 2 use an unrelated queen of the same race to graft from.
I know people who use this system and it works well. It works even better if you can get your beekeeping neighbours working with you as your drones start to dominate in the local area.
It is very difficult to keep pure race crosses if you have a mish mash of different races in your area.
In some areas the only solution is likely to be sourcing a new queen to graft from every year or two.
Last edited by Jon; 17-07-2014 at 11:06 AM.
My 'sub-text', as it were - although extremely well-disguisedOriginally Posted by prakel
- was for anyone thinking of raising queens for sale, to not give up with the prospect of a fast approaching scenario of every man and his dog starting to raise their own queens, as there will always be a market 'out there' for good quality stock. Some people can't be arsed to raise their own queens, some consider it too difficult, and many are stuck with stock of poor behaviour, and would much rather buy-in queens with proven characteristics.
When he started rearing his own queens, Mike Palmer had one helluva'n advantage having so many colonies to choose his breeders from - very few people are in that fortunate position. So what I was really commenting on was the 'do as I do - 'cause it's easy' message really needs to be watered down - just a little - to take into account those with just a handful of hives.
It's actually a very small criticism of an otherwise excellent talk - albeit I think targeted at the more ambitious queen producer - I particularly liiked the way in which he created his own version of pollen combs ! The guy is very thoughtful and inventive.
One of my favourite on-line masters of the black art.
LJ
I am selling queens but I still organise the queen rearing group every Monday evening and do most of the grafting for the 50 members.
They have more than 60 apideas set out at the mating site at the moment and have got loads of mated queens already.
As you say LJ, there will always be a market for good queens and the more people who rear their own, the better.
I think untill you can supply yourself with quality queens you are just a beekeeper.
Once you can proficiently select and raise queens you can call yourself an aparist.
I guess I am probably wrong tho...
So Jon, are you grafting into plastic or wax, wet or dry with your teeny brushes? (I have just ordered some BTW).
Dry grafts into cupkit
Jon I thought aparist was Latin for beekeeper
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I'm just ever so slow!My 'sub-text', as it were - although extremely well-disguised
I agree with you that he had a numerical advantage when it came to making his initial selection -the one thing which is certain is that we're never going to get anywhere fast by breeding from dross. While I'm all for the idea of 'local' bees I equally reckon that we need to be prepared to bring in something useful if we can't find it amongst the local stocks.
He is very good, preaching a good message too.The guy is very thoughtful and inventive.
One of my favourite on-line masters of the black art.
Apiarist ... "One who keeps bees, specifically one who cares for and raises bees for commercial or agricultural purposes. Also called a beekeeper"
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