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Thread: Bee breeding/improvement groups

  1. #1

    Default Bee breeding/improvement groups

    I'm considering the possibility of trying to set up one of these (with native bees being the breeding focus) either under the auspices of BIBBA or not and either under the auspices of my local association or not.

    It would be really helpful if any of you who already run or participate in one of these groups in your own locality could describe the format under which the group operates. The sort of thing I'm interested in is how you recruit members, what the members contribute and anything else you can think of

    Where I live there are very few beekeepers and I'm pretty sure I could ensure to a large extent that the group's queens mate with native drones. Ideally I'd like to find an upland mating apiary to base the group's activities but my own apiaries would suffice in the early stages of the group's life.

    I haven't even tested the waters to see what the level of interest might be but my attitude is that even if I can't form a group I can do this on my own to a lesser extent.

    So any help/advice you can give would be a great help.

  2. #2
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    It is definitely a good idea to set up a group as you may then be working with potentially over 100 colonies as opposed to a couple of dozen.
    The group needs at least one very enthusiastic person to drive it on - in this case you have elected yourself.
    You need a site where the cell raiser/drone colonies are located and another to set out the apideas. This could be the same place but in our group the sites are about 300 metres apart.
    For the apideas you need shade and we don't have that at the cell raiser/drone site.
    A minimum of about 10 drone colonies is necessary.
    We have a site given to us by the National Trust and we also have a key to their offices if it is raining.

    In our group, everyone chips in a tenner to cover costs. I have about 35 people on the list and have got the tenner from more than half of them at this stage. Could not possible make any comments about the Scots at this point!
    People buy and look after their own apideas.
    Last year I made the mistake of volunteering to look after apideas and I ended up looking after 60 which at 10 minutes each is 10 hours work per week.
    I learned a lot from it but I don't have this much time free.

    I got an e-mail address from everyone and set up a separate gmail account to keep all the correspondence together.
    I send out message re. work to be done, dates grafted cells are ready and when apideas need to be filled.

    We meet once a week, usually Monday, where I try and demonstrate something related to queen rearing.
    This week it was how to determine if a colony is queenless. (see blog)
    I have also demonstrated how to set up a queenright cell raiser colony, how to graft, how to fill apideas, how to assemble apideas, putting rollers on cells due to hatch, etc.
    If it is raining you can demonstrate stuff like morphometry or dust off some of the powerpoint presentations on queen rearing and bee genetics.
    Later on we will be doing marking and clipping queens, how to get a queen out of an apidea into an introduction cage, methods of requeening etc.

    In our case recruitment is by word of mouth and we have members from Belfast BKA and two neighbouring ones. We also have a couple of members from the INIB which is a rival organization to the UBKA which is the one I am a member of. If you are allowed to say that bees don't read the books you can also say that bees do not get involved in internecine struggles!

    Re Bibba, there is good advice on the website and you could probably arrange a visit from Terry Clare or Roger Patterson who are permanently on tour.
    We have several Bibba members in our group including one who is an executive committee member.

    Problems
    You have to push to get people to participate and take responsibility.
    There will always be a few who are just looking something for nothing although I have to say in our case I am very happy with how people are contributing.
    We have several beginners and if they don't have the skills yet to do bee stuff they can strim around the apiary or check fondant levels in apideas and other tasks like that.
    You need to be wary of some of the older guys, the 40 year beekeepers, as they are invariably unteachable as they think they know everything and could possibly be disruptive. Some of them also have an agenda against bee breeding as they have never done it and feel threatened. These are the guys who have never practiced swarm control either and they will stand at the back and snipe.
    Luckily in our case they largely stayed away.
    I would definitely encourage the beginners. We even have a top bar beekeeper in the group.

    Thanks for starting the thread Gerry as I am interested in how people like Steve/Rosie and Gavin are set up and I know several others are interested in starting a group of their own. Doris has a group on Orkney. Jimbo has a good thang goin' in Rosneath.
    Last edited by Jon; 23-06-2012 at 08:56 PM.

  3. #3

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    Thanks for a great reply Jon. Just the sort of info I need.

    It sounds like you have quite a set up there. I can foresee my effort being maybe a little more modest in the first couple of years. But one thing about me is I'm keen and a reasonably quick learner. And we have some great isolated territory in the upland/inland areas of Moray.

    Right now my thinking is that I want access to top quality native queens and the best way to go about that in the long term will be to breed my own. And the best way to do that is, as you say, as part of a group. I'm hoping there's more like me in Moray with a similar outlook.

    I'm thinking of initially approaching the Forestry Commission or Crown Estate to see if they can help with a possible site or sites. If that doesn't work I'll move on to the big estates.

    And if anyone else could chip in with their setups that'd be great as well!

  4. #4
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    If you set the thing up people will bite your hand off to get involved.
    There is a real interest in bee breeding and queen rearing but people have nowhere to go and don't know where to start.
    I started the group last year and have since realised there is only one other group in NI.
    Apart from that there are just a handful of individuals queenrearing on their own, maybe half a dozen beekeepers.

  5. #5

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    It's a bit like that here Jon. I can think of maybe 5 or so beekeepers rearing their own queens. Hope you're right about the interest levels I can expect!

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    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    Encourage the beginners.
    A typical comment I get is something like' I would love to get involved but I don't know enough, I only got bees last year.'
    The most important thing is being interested, willing to learn and having an open mind.
    These are the folk you want to get involved.

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    Senior Member prakel's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jon View Post
    I started the group last year and have since realised there is only one other group in NI.
    Apart from that there are just a handful of individuals queenrearing on their own, maybe half a dozen beekeepers.
    Half a dozen individuals rearing their own queens in NI? Any idea how many beekeepers, total, there are in NI?

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    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    Bout 1000, best guess

    The UBKA has 10 member associations, some with over 100 members
    The INIB has a couple of hundred members as well.

    Most people rear queens through an absence of swarm control and the colony then makes its own queen but I would not consider that proactive queen rearing.

    When I started this I assumed lots of beekeepers were doing it but that is not the case.
    I wonder how different Scotland is?

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    Senior Member prakel's Avatar
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    Interesting, I also pretty much just assumed that a much higher percentage are rearing their own queens. After all, queen rearing has got to be one of the most beneficial aspects of managing our own bees.

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    Great thread, I stalled trying to get a group going this year and my own personal queen rearing also went off on a bit of a tangent but im still keen to get something going.

    I think many of us are passively rearing queens through swarm control, or lack thereof. This year I've been a little bit more organised around it but still making the most of the bees urge to swarm.

    I want to be more organised and with more people. There's nearly 150 apiaries within 10 miles of me so aiming for a "pure" bee type is probably fruitless, but I do feel that with just a few other people working together we could make a big difference to our bees so I'll also he keeping a close eye on this thread to pick up some hints and tips.

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