Queen mating problems? Really?

[Jon]

I see the usual suspect is posting drivel with no evidence at all that queen mating problems are caused by neonicotinoid pesticides used on oil seed rape!

Just to inject some reality into the situation, I have stacks of grafted queens mated and laying now and so do other members of our queen rearing group.

I made up 8 four or five frame nucs with new queens about 10 days ago and these queens are out of the cages are now laying in the nucs.

I have a similar number of mated queens still in apideas and another 25 apideas with virgins waiting to fly and mate.

Our group has about 90 apideas set out at its mating site and a lot of these should be laying soon as Wednesday and Thursday of last week were good flying days.

The last batch I grafted had 39/40 queens emerge successfully in the apideas of group members. Another 15 apideas were set up last Friday evening and these queens should be out now.

And yes, I have oil seed rape right beside my mating site most years including this year. Would be about 400 yards away.

I am actually surprised that queens have flown and mated so successfully this year as the weather has been atrocious apart from 2 weeks at the end of May and the first queens only emerged from cells on 2nd June.
They have managed to fly and mate during brief breaks in the rainy weather.

apideas-minnowburn.jpg

How is the queen rearing going on neonicotinoid free Orkney?
I imagine there are hundreds available by now with such favourable conditions.

[drumgerry]

Maybe not representative as it's such a small sample but here in Speyside, of 10 queen cells given to Apideas and a couple of Kielers, I now have 7 mated and laying queens - 3 are now in introduction cages in other colonies and their mininucs have been given a new queen cell each.

No sign of any neonic induced malady here!

[Jon]

Hi Gerry
The guys in our group who have had poor success rate have been the people who do not look after their apideas well, letting them get to starvation point rather than topping up the feeder would be the most common problem. Bees die or drift to neighbouring apideas leaving a non viable amount of bees in the apidea.
Others put too many bees in, not enough bees, bees the wrong age etc.
These are all issues I am trying to address and it is a good teaching point to look at those who are doing well compared to others who are not, using the same grafted cells and the same mating site.
People can compare results and see who is doing things right.
With apideas you can really increase your success rate by attending to them properly.
Having said that, I have a stack set out and I am away for nearly 3 weeks so if the weather stays bad I will have to get someone to feed them.

[drumgerry]

And it's actually quite nice attending to them Jon. The bees seem pretty calm and it's a doddle to slip a chunk of fondant into the feeder by flexing the little crownboard (like you advised me to do!).

I'd do the feeding for you mate but it'd be too much of a commute!

[Jon]

Grizzly would be handier in Stranraer.

I ran out of fondant and have been using ordinary sugar sprayed a bit.
Everything got topped up to the hilt at the weekend and the apideas with laying queens have 5 frames in the bottom (feeder removed) and a super up above with a kilo of sugar in it.
I like to let the queens lay 2-3 weeks in the apidea before removing them to cages.
The nucs I made up, the queens were only laying about a week on average but I needed to free up apideas for more cells.
I enjoy looking after the apideas as well and you get a buzz a few days after a decent spell of weather when you find several laying queens.
I hope I am not counting chickens as poorly mated queens can turn drone layer relatively quickly.

I have a couple of queens mated from apideas in their third season now so the apidea is not a problem per se.

[kevboab]

I made up half a doz nucs with single cells inserted. Of the six, four have mated very well, one drone layer and a tiny runt which has since been superceded. Haven't had a problem getting queens mated and neither have beekeepers around me although they have taken slightly longer to get going as there has hardly been a full dry day here for months.

[Jon]

Most of my first batch took a full 3 weeks to mate but the seem to be ok so far, touch wood.

[Rosie]

I have had about 90% success rate with my nucs so far so I am doing reasonably well considering the awful weather although not quite as well as Jon. I don't have the benefit of neonics though so that proves that neonics must be good for bees. My conclusion is obvious and indisputable so anyone who doesn't agree with me must be a soil association shill.

Steve

[Jon]

I stopped short of attributing magical mating powers to the fields of yellow peril in our midst.

I have had a drone layer, a laying worker apidea and a couple with laying queens abscond but that is par for the course with queen rearing from apideas.

It's great to see the beginners using apideas for the first time getting a queen or two mated.

[Adam]

My mini-nucs have generally done well - 2 - 3 days after good weather and there are eggs. Nucs have been OK too. The exception is one location where the queens never come back. I won't use that spot again - I'll just park-up old queens there instead as they are sometimes useful. However queens mating from large colonies have consistently failed this year. Usually the large colonies mate OK and I see a bit of queen-hopping in smaller colonies as they return from flights and go into the wrong hive - site too congested I think. (A yellowy queen that appears in a hive that previously had a dark one is a fair give-away)!

Jon, I agree it's always nice to see fresh eggs in a hive.