... and with the kindly cooperation of hundreds of thousands of brown Apis mellifera mellifera (and their close hybrid derivatives), alive and well in Fife.
We saw queen raising in starter and finisher colonies, and queen raising using the queen-right method commonly called the Ben Harden method. Ben acknowledges that the method is one from Wilkinson and Brown of the NBU and full details are described there.
Do you never sleep! I was also on the SBA bee breeding course and can say this was the best instructive and hands on course I have ever attended. Terry, Enid, John and all the helpers from Dunfermline should take a bow. I would recommend that this type of course should be run annually or at least bi-annual
I am off to the bees now to do my queen breeding properly!
The bees were supplied by Enid Brown and John Durkacz both who are interested in the conservation of native black bees. John and myself have also been working on morph samples from other beekeepers in Scotland.
I am trying grafting for the first time this year.
I just set up a second queen right cellraising colony last Friday.
I have been having very mixed results.
The first attempt we got 9/20 started but subsequently it has been 2/20 or similar.
I have got about 15 cells on the go, the first due to hatch tomorrow but I am doing an inordinate amount of repeat grafting to get this far.
Apart from the obvious, which is that my grafting technique leaves someting to be desired, what are the top tips from the course to increase success?
SBA Queen raising workshop
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