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  1. #1
    Senior Member Kate Atchley's Avatar
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    Default Q rearing by numbers

    Our Ardnamurchan Amm bees are doing well and we hope to welcome a further 12 queens from Colonsay later this year. Meanwhile I'm planning the queen rearing for this year with the 5 colonies we have so far. Would those of you who've done lots of queen rearing with native bees please share your wisdom/experience re the following:
    • is it important to use different colonies for providing larvae for queens and drones for mating (broader gene pool expected next year)?
    • drone flooding – best to use frames filled with drone foundation or will wired foundation for supers fitted into brood frame do?
    • drone flooding – how many 'drone' frames (of whichever kind you recommend) per colony?
    • mini-nuc numbers: how many queens to be mated from mini-nucs at any one time, with these 5 colonies?
    • any other suggestions?

    Lots of beekeepers out there so bracing myself for even more different strategies!

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    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    1. You could graft from just one queen but it is good to have a wide variety of unrelated drone producing colonies. If you have several good queens to graft from, better still.
    2. both will do. I try and get at least 2 drone combs into every drone producing colony, more if it is a double brood colony.
    3. Re mini nucs, you should be able to set up hundreds if your 5 colonies are producing thousands of drones each.

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    Senior Member Kate Atchley's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jon View Post
    3. Re mini nucs, you should be able to set up hundreds if your 5 colonies are producing thousands of drones each.
    Thanks Jon, to the point as ever. Better get a new mortgage for the MNs!

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    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    I bought another 50 in February. Order from Swienty. There is a great Sterling/Euro rate at the moment. Mine worked out at less than £16 each including the carriage from Denmark.

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    Senior Member Kate Atchley's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jon View Post
    I bought another 50 in February. Order from Swienty. There is a great Sterling/Euro rate at the moment. Mine worked out at less than £16 each including the carriage from Denmark.
    See what you mean. Thanks. Tempting to buy lots as the per-item cost is scaled!

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    Administrator gavin's Avatar
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    Some of us are using Lyson MiniPlus nucs instead (or at least I will be once they arrive). Again, cheaper in bulk and sometimes with a bit of haggling. Cheaper per queen mated than an Apidea and with a top feeder as part of the unit. Several people have said that wintering is easier in these boxes (after the partition has been taken out) than in Apideas, with one BKF poster saying that his winter losses were the same as larger hives.

    Abelo for a UK supplier, also sold by Icko in France (if you can get them to talk to you!) and Wilara in Lithuania where prices are particularly keen at the moment.

    There is another design of MiniPlus for sale without the partition and with only entrance, be careful you get the right one if queen rearing is your aim.

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    Senior Member prakel's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kate Atchley View Post
    [*]drone flooding – how many 'drone' frames (of whichever kind you recommend) per colony?
    This is one which might deserve some further discussion. Back during the winter 'Duncan' who's a man who knows a bit about queen rearing posted a comment about limiting the number of drones per queen to maximize their vitality which really, when you think about it, is exactly what we do with our selected breeder queen (on the daughter line); keep her ticking over but not working to her maximum output.

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    Senior Member Kate Atchley's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by prakel View Post
    This is one which might deserve some further discussion. Back during the winter 'Duncan' who's a man who knows a bit about queen rearing posted a comment about limiting the number of drones per queen to maximize their vitality which really, when you think about it, is exactly what we do with our selected breeder queen (on the daughter line); keep her ticking over but not working to her maximum output.
    Very interested in the "further discussion".
    Meanwhile I'd been inclined, before I put up the questions, to add super-depth wired (worker) foundation hoping the bees will create about half a brood-frame of extra brood beneath this, and graft from all 5 queens to keep the genetic spread. With only 5 Amm colonies this year (more coming later), this seemed a pragmatic way forward rather than select queens either for queens or for drones. What do you think?

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    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    Everyone worries about inbreeding but you will find that the problem is the opposite, drones from other subspecies somehow getting into the mix.
    Finding an isolated spot and setting up as many drone colonies as possible in the area is probably the best strategy.
    Re the number of drones per queen issue raised by Prakel, the key factor there is going to be nutrition. A colony with access to good forage including a wide range of pollens will sustain a healthy population including a large drone population. When times are hard the drones are the first to suffer.

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    Andrew on colonsay says inbreeding hasn't been a problem so far for his bees, and his are a very small and isolated population which has had more genetic scrutiny by top scientists than any others I know of, makes me think that inbreeding is only a problem with II or in extreme cases of low bases and isolation.
    +1 for the mini pluses and overwintering, some of mine are at the point of needing extra space already, I intend to pop my new boxes on them next week and give them a feed to help draw the foundation, it will be a nice novelty doing the first round of queen rearing without taxing the production colonies for bees
    're. Drone production, I'm a great believer in allowing colonies to maintain their own (hopefully optimum!) balance of bees so I don't add special drone foundation frames, but do allow space in a couple of frames in each hive for them to build freestyle and they usually build this out as drone comb at this time of year.

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