Well written answer IMO. The DNA will not lie.
Well written answer IMO. The DNA will not lie.
Thanks Jon ... great bedtime reading. Any suggestions for making DNA testing more accessible to breeding groups?Originally Posted by Jon
Some useful pdfs:
Drone mother colonies -numbers and positioning
https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rc...VepXrZP2qTcrKg
Drone mother stock -selection and drone quality
https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rc...1XPXlYvcTnDxrw
Drone honey bees -rearing and maintenance
https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rc...90237346,d.bGg
Drone Saturation for small scale operations
https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rc...NTiHEmhPjDGJBA
Last edited by prakel; 09-04-2015 at 09:30 AM.
More bedtime reading ... indeed maybe no time to sleep! Thank you, those of you who are so generously educating me more fully. I really appreciate it.
Wonderful! Thanks. I especially like the last one by Larry Connor with its suggestion of using drone holding colonies made up with alternating drone and worker brood plus a caged virgin to keep their appetite for looking after the drones. Similar to our discussion last autumn on the possibility of keeping drones in a mating apiary at the time when drones were being thrown out - I wonder if a queenless colony with a caged virgin might be useful then.
A big concern for many of us - though not, I hope, for Kate - is controlling Varroa in drone-raising colonies. These are the ones likely to succumb, something that was not of concern for the Australian authors of course.
A question concerning the mini plus hives. Is there less absconding compared to smaller mini-nucs? (I assume so)//
Hi, my experience with ever increasing numbers (we're using about 40 mp sized boxes at present) over almost ten years has been that I can only really say that I've ever seen one attempt at absconding and that was with a badly composed family unit -due to beekeeper error and some general bad luck.
In our first season with them I had troubles with swarming but that was simply a case of them establishing and building up much quicker than I thought they would combined with a need for me to work away at the time.
Overall, they make very nice stable colonies. Beekeeping in minature. As an off topic thought, I reckon that they'd make a brilliant 'introduction to beekeeping' hive for a young child.
I was thinking much the same thing last week while going through my mp hives and evaluating the brood, very pleasing liliputian beekeeping, they do seem to attract an awful lot of slugs and worms when placed on the ground though.
That's true. Did think that the principle could be transferred into a useful way of catching slugs in the veg plot...
*Now* you tell me!!
However many are destined to be lifted up on the specially designed stand, created by a talented collaborator. The cross-bars are set apart the right distance so that two Apideas can straddle the bars on each side, sitting on the outer and middle of the three bars. Or one mp each side. Can't write that in capitals, other connotions.
These are indeed levelled with a spirit level (for the benefit of those mp top feeders), just that the land slopes. Based on a sturdy 6' 3"x3" post. We'll tell you later if the design lasted the season and if the local slugs didn't bother climbing the rough (and treated) timber posts. As you can see sheep have found it already.
And if anyone is wondering whether we operate at the opposite extreme to Liliputian beekeeping, J is just normal size. A good piece of that 6' post is underground.
Last edited by gavin; 10-04-2015 at 02:41 PM.
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