If they are having difficulty getting in through only 3 slots you can cut up a plastic excluder to make these to pin to the front.
apidea-mesh4.jpg drones-behind-apidea-excluder.jpg
If they are having difficulty getting in through only 3 slots you can cut up a plastic excluder to make these to pin to the front.
apidea-mesh4.jpg drones-behind-apidea-excluder.jpg
Hi Drumgerry
thought you might be interested in these about bee breeding
of the 5 links check out the 4th one its about how to line breed with less risk in inbreeding
http://www.beesource.com/resources/u...imal-breeding/
http://www.beesource.com/resources/u...and-variation/
http://www.beesource.com/resources/u...-bee-breeding/
http://www.beesource.com/resources/u...d-hybrid-bees/
http://www.beesource.com/resources/u...hybrid-queens/
Heres a little snip
There is some evidence that gentleness in bees is dominant over viciousness. In one of our experiments the hybrids of a cross between a vicious and a gentle line were gentle rather than vicious.
I don't like getting bogged down in this stuff but I think this helps by clearly explaining the issues involved
Stung in the butt yesterday 3 times by badly bred invaders to my realm
Last edited by The Drone Ranger; 20-06-2013 at 03:11 PM.
DR.
Those articles are from the ABJ in 1951.
A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then.
The Ruttner stuff on hybrization, which I rate, dates from the 70s and 80s.
You don't agree with their breeding suggestions then Jon ?
I'm not a worrier on that score myself because I mostly just Snelgrove
Every hive raises a queen or three
Any hive that has blotted its copy book gets one of the spare cells
Graft a few and cell punch a few for backup
Most of what I read seemed sound enough even though it is dated.
It was your quotation about gentle being dominant over vicious made me raise an eyebrow.
Many honey bee traits seem to be polygenic and a claim about something complicated like aggression, from the 1950s, is likely to be fairly dubious.
Ruttner claimed the opposite and he measured the increase in aggression between crosses and the reciprocal crosses between various bee races.
Crossing a queen from one race with drones from another does not produce the same results the other way round, ie the queen from the other race crossed with drones from the first one.
Hi Jon
Brother Adam says the same about reciprocal crossing giving different outcomes
Good behaviour is fairly easy to get though if you have a few hives
I wouldn't want to have one hive and lose my queen then find her replacement bad tempered, because if I removed her the next one would meet the same local drone pool and be bad as well probably
That's why I can understand people buying a queen to fix that problem
Last edited by The Drone Ranger; 20-06-2013 at 11:11 PM.
Thing is, I like to put the cells in the apideas just before the queens come out.Originally Posted by drumgerry
If you put them in say 3 days before emergence some get chilled and fail to emerge.
In an ideal world the queens have less than 24 hours to go before emergence when they go into the apideas so the rollers are essential.
When I put the rollers on the cells 3 days before emergence I also include a couple of workers on the inside so that an early emerging virgin queen has company. They are not always fed from the outside of the roller but seem to be ok if there are a couple of workers inside.
If you use roller cages you can introduce cells at the last minute and the odd virgin which emerges early in a roller gets put in an apidea with a scoop of wet bees on top.
[QUOTE=Jon;19330................................... .................................................. ...............................emergence I also include a couple of workers on the inside so that an early emerging virgin queen has company. They are not always fed from the outside of the roller but seem to be ok if there are a couple of workers inside.
.................................................. .................................................. .................................................. ...........................[/QUOTE]
A little honey; not difficult to obtain if one knows someone who keeps bees, placed in the recess in the cage floor has been known to assuage the initial royal thirst.
In an Ideal world I wouldn't be staring at a forecast for bucketing rain Saturday and Sunday Lol!
I'll bear it in mind for next time though
I know, but it works far better if you put a couple of workers in as well. They can groom the queen and feed her. When a queen is on her own if she gets sticky from honey or fondant she can't clean herself.
There is usually a bit of food left over inside the queen cell but she will go back in there after the food and die in the cell with her head in it.
Last edited by Jon; 20-06-2013 at 11:45 PM.
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