I used that colony as my cell raiser as it was so strong.
I kept the queen in the bottom brood box below a queen excluder and rearranged the frames once a week to put all the frames with empty cells down below with the queen.
Single brood colonies are definitely easier to manage, but a big colony is nice if you want to rear good queens.
I was sort of waiting for that to be raised and it is a point that I accept around double brood. When and if queen raising becomes a particular interest I might well refine or even change my opinion. Right now I have to accept my own limitations. I know a lot more than my experience can cope with and I have to temper what I "know" with what I actually understand. I can manage on single national brood boxes, but it is much easier at this stage of my beekeepings to give the bees 14x12 size frames and right now, my personal feeling is that it is better for them as it protects them from me as much as anything.
Nellie,
I like your approach. There aren't too many beekeepers who think of the bees, and are prepared to modify what they do based on experience gained.
I think it takes so little time to consider selection that you can do it as part of your management anyway. There will be many opportunities when you have a choice of queen cells from different colonies. My approach is simple. I mentally split my colonies into two equal groups, the better and the poorer. Unless I have no choice I will only use Q/Cs from the better group.
Roger Patterson.
Granted and it's already been considered. Last season I was just starting and more concerned with not killing my colony that anything else, this year with a choice of a single colony to start with my best was also my worst but fortunately I've got pretty nice bee all things considered.
Now I'm up to three colonies selection is now on the agenda. Out of three colonies I'd happily increase from two of them, the third I'm less sure about. I guess in some respects that seemed like such obvious "common sense" that I hadn't really considered it part of a Queen raising programme as such. For the next couple of seasons at least my selection criteria is pretty much as stated. The "nicest" bees from the colonies that survive winter. That's about the limit that my current knowledge and experience can handle. I'd like to attempt selection for tolerance to varroa too but I'm a way off having even enough data to make wild assumptions on that front let alone anything more substantive.
To select you need at least 20 colonies. And the process lasts generations of queens - you need to rate them over 2 years (the standard deviation of improvement is diminishing with each generation). Best to work on these 3 criteria to start of with: survived the winter strongly. Friendly. Honey crop. In that order I would say (or friendly and overwinter equally).Originally Posted by Nellie
I am guessing that you are not sending your queens to breeding sites or inseminating - this makes selection more or less futile - drones from other sites will add their sauce..
soo try to get your hands on a pure bread queen, or a frame of good stock for additional good queens.
Let the chemicals take care of varroa for now and just enjoy having bees while you work out how many hives you want to manage! It seems to be a common issue that new beekeepers build up more hives than they really want to manage in the euphoria of breeding success. This leads to too much work - I keep 7 colonies now, but am overwintering 21. What survives will be sold off or united until there are only seven left. I have not the time for selling that much honey! It seems there is plenty of demand for bees in Scotland just now.
Calum,
In theory you may be right, but in practice I have shown otherwise. At one stage 10 years ago, most of the colonies in my area were horrible stroppy "British Standard Mongrels", but by logical selection, heavy culling and producing queens to distribute locally, mainly by me, we now have some very good bees in our area. I accept there are occasionally ones that are a bit difficult to handle, but nothing like what they were only a short time ago.
With a simple plan you can produce good bees, and you don't have to wait very long. As soon as a queen is mated you can tell what the temper of her offspring will be like, even before any of them emerge.
I want to get people to think about improving their bees, not forget about it because they read that it can't be done.
I accept it is easier with more colonies and most beekeepers have <5, but get together. That's what the Local Queen Programme is about.
Roger Patterson.
Hi Rodger,
If you start with very poor stock in an area where everything else around is poor the results are going to be much the same- good queens mating with poor drones will not bring improvement. You cannot polish s**t.
Your proposed method of heavy culling will help to begin with but improvement is based in diminishing returns.
Also a full evaluation of a queen has to include a winter (will she survive, and how does the colony thrive in spring.
IMHO judging the quality of a queen on the basis of how her colony behave is not well thought through. Her daughters are the product of her and the drones she mated with, the next generation of queens will reflect this (thus controlled mating essential). Watch this for some basics on the subject. For a new association or beginner your approach is far less practical than buying a high quality queen for 30 pounds (or even 50) and using her daughters for the next two years and her daughters daughters for another two years needs. Successful queen breeding in a scottish climate is hard enough without having to cull extensively as well. We will have to disagree.
Last edited by Calum; 18-10-2010 at 04:42 PM.
I'm with Roger, sorry Calum. I'm also with Calum, sorry Roger.
Anyone who introduces a pure queen into a recently hybridised area will be in for several years of grief due to bad matings and defensive stocks. He or she will have to cull just as much as Roger did when he was improving his local bees. On the other hand, if the local stocks are predominantly a single race but show room for improvement then Calum's approach will save some years of struggling.
In our area we have had members selecting for AMM traits for many years and have also imported AMMs to the area with success. This means we can feel relaxed about improving what we have and importing good outside stock at the same time. Provided we all aim at selecting or importing the same race we feel we are cooperating with each other, regardless of the methods we choose individually.
Rosie
Hi Calum
I thought you were Scottish, but then you write this:
... where's your thriftyness? Have you replaced it with Germanic thoroughness?
I personally like to work with what's available nearby and improve it as much as I can. It's a challenge, of course, but you can be sure that what you end up with will be suitable to your local conditions and your own methods.
I had a look at the IWF video, the link you posted earlier didn't work, this one should: http://www.iwf.de/iwf/do/mkat/detail...=bees&Offset=0
(click Flash abspielen in the box on the right where it says Englische Version)
I listened to the English version and thought all along "I hope I don't sound like that ..."
There are some nice details like the explanation of the inbreeding ratio and the scales for the hives. But when it comes to the bees: I wouldn't want these bees here in Orkney.
They have been bred to build up huge colonies, the queen gets full marks for a corner-to-corner broodnest. 2 broodboxes and 20 kg winter food minimum are a given.
Yes, they are docile, but with selective breeding we can achieve the same without giving up on our local stocks.
Doris
Hi,
I have nothing against local stock, nor would I recommend importing carnica queens to northern scotland.
Buying a high quality queen from a local breader will save you years of selection from poor stock. Pinched pennies dont always save pounds.
The effort in materials and time to raise queens to cull in a time where there are nought bees to be had seems counter intuative to me. Even here in Germany we have poor years for queen breeding (like this year) where beekeepers are thankfull if they can just replace their stock queens with fresh ones.
The prospect of years of trying to breed out viciousness from colonies is enough to make a novice give up if he / she has mongrel bees.
In a good area where there are plenty of passive productive bees queen breeding and mating at the bee site can be no problem.
Do you have breeding sites in the UK? (Areas where no bees are at all. Selected colonies are brough there for their drones, beekeepers bring their unmated queens for mating with these purebread selected drones.) Doris why are you not doing this on the Skerries yet?
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