They are simply adding their own comments to yours, Popz. Babelfish would be handy for translation, perhaps, then you'd know what they're saying about you. [fair enough: you're commenting on them, why shouldn't they comment on you?]
They are simply adding their own comments to yours, Popz. Babelfish would be handy for translation, perhaps, then you'd know what they're saying about you. [fair enough: you're commenting on them, why shouldn't they comment on you?]
Eric will be along in a minute to tell us how we are all wrong as he has 40 years experience using the correct size and texture of record sheet with a special column for recording pepperpot brood and inbreeding, as discussed in the prestigious journal Die Hybrid-Bienen von Glasgow (also adapted for the Scottish Beekeeper Magazine circa 1973.
Hi
Jon I'll try and pipp Eric to the post on the correct way to do it.
It really is a comparison of the colony performance (what Mellifera Crofter put so well already) so additionally to all of the stuff mentioned already
a measure of how friendly they are
a measure of their tendancy to swarm
honey harvested
and whatever else is important to you when you are doing queen selection (cleaning tenacity if you can be bothered with the 100 pin test)
There is a great list I could post if anyone is interested from the german queen breeders association, I also have a weighting matrix spread sheet somewhere so that queens in the same site can be compaired and the best selected for breeding.
Last edited by Calum; 21-02-2011 at 09:47 PM.
Beowulf Cooper's old bibba record sheet which Grizzly mentioned is an elaborate piece of paper. It was reproduced in one of the bibba quarterly magazines last year.
I record temperament on a 1-10 scale every time I open a colony. If they are not scoring 1 or 2 every time I make a note to replace the queen when possible and I certainly would not ever use a queen heading a feisty colony for breeding.
Roger Patterson always says that breeding calmer bees is one of the things anyone can do quite quickly as long as you are ruthless about culling and you don't start mucking about with hybrids between different races.
What's the 100 pin test?
It's a test where you kill 100 larvae by inserting a pin through the wax capping of each cell before checking 24 hours later to see how many of the dead larvae have been removed. It is a measure of hygienic behaviour in a colony.
You can also do it with liquid nitrogen applied to an enclosed area of 100 cells.
Last edited by Jon; 21-02-2011 at 10:23 PM. Reason: omitted one of those crucial apostrophies.
take a frame of freshly closed brood place a precut mask on the frame that leaves a diamond containing 100 cells.Originally Posted by EmsE
pearce the 100 cells and return the frame to the hive.
After 24 hours count the number of cells the bees have cleaned out.
Bees that are better at cleaning are better at keeping foulbrood free and apparently are better at recognising brood that has varroa and removing it.
Last edited by Calum; 21-02-2011 at 10:33 PM.
Hmm.....I think I'll give that one a miss.
I think it suffered from design by committee in some respects and posting updates in public and watching a lot of what was described in it turn up in what's now commercial software took the wind out of my sails a little I fully admit. It might just be great minds thinking alike but hey ho.
The inspection side of it did get too complicated and with another year's experience I think I much favour a system that can be held in the head of the beekeeper during the inspection with the sheet completed afterwards.
The queen side of it I actually quite like and strikes the right balance so I might have another go at when I get some spare time (the other killer over the last year).
Nellie your databank was a great I was really looking forward to the next release.
I look forward to it becoming a really great tool for novices and breeders alike.
not sure how statistically evaluating the data would be achieved but I have no idea about databases.
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