I try and sort the wheat from the chaff by selecting the dozen best honey producers from between 150 and 200 hives which are mostly headed by grafted queens and yet the percentage of non-grafted queens in the top dozen each season is disproportionate despite my best efforts at selecting the best stock to breed from and attempting to raise the best queens possible.
Hi MBC
Are you running that many colonies yourself or is that the total number in a breeding group? A lot of work involved either way.
Hybrid colonies are more vigorous in the F1 generation and will likely produce more honey.
I had one in the garden last year headed by a black queen which had mated with a lot of yellow drones and it produced a really good honey crop and I took several nucs from it as well. I would not breed from it though as I know the genetics will be a total mix in the next generation.
It is working as a queenright cellraiser at the moment and started about 20 grafts I did yesterday.
I only want to select from the best of the near pure amm colonies to avoid any effect of heterosis.
What worries me about supersedure queens is that you lose control of the genetics as the bees chose the larva to make the next queen from and it could carry DNA from any one of the dozen or more drones her mother mated with - an unknown quantity.
Right then, because I'm going for the General Husbandry Assessment next year I'm trying to be organised about this and have created a tick sheet to work from. I'm sure I've messed up some of the timings please, so knives at the ready:
As I was putting it together and bearing in mind jobs and time to get up to the apiary and so on:
Given that the queen cells are caged, what are the implications around leaving them a day or even two late (day 17 on the queen cell timeline) to get them into apideas?
Again, once we're satisfied with the timings and so-on I'll be happy to make it available as a pdf or Word Document.
Last edited by Neils; 23-05-2012 at 10:39 PM.
When using the Ben Harden system what do you do if/when you find cells in the bottom box? Last year I had no such problems but this year - with the recent improved weather - the colonies have taken off. I have successful grafts which should be sealed on Saturday, but the box is beginning to look rather busy. No QC's yesterday. Fingers crossed!
With thanks.
Hi Neil.
Nearly there.
1.Don't put the rollers on until 2 days before emergence. It might complicate keeping the cell at the right temperature during the crucial day 4-8 day stage after grafting.
2.if you think some might hatch early or you may have to get to them late put 2 or 3 bees inside the roller as you put it on. This is easy as the cell is covered in bees anyway.
3. Check the apidea 1-2 days after the date the queen should emerge to check that she is out of the cell. If the queen is dead in the cell replace it with another one asap.
4. Only open the apidea if the queen has emerged.
5. Check apideas once a week. You get queens lost on orientation flights from 5 days onwards so no need to lose 3 weeks before checking if it is queenright. Again put in another queen cell asap.
6. Keep a record sheet under the lid of each apidea to record checking. I use one based on the one Adam D devised.
Page 2 seems like a good thing to stuff under the lid then! I'll update it and post it up again.
obvious question, I've got 5 apideas, where am I keeping all these queen cells bursting to emerge/just emerged to go into them when the initial queen cells fail?
even if we assume that I production line queen cells, with a finite number of apideas, what do I do with surplus queen cells/vrigins?
Last edited by Neils; 23-05-2012 at 10:58 PM.
I would put the queen cells into the apideas a day earlier than you i.e ten days after grafting. I also keep the mini-nucs closed in a cool dark place for 3 days and spray water into them a couple of times a day before moving them to their final positions and opening. Having said that many people open the mini-nucs immediately and seem to get away with it. Be careful to position the mini-nucs a long way from your other hives and all facing different directions.
Rosie
Last edited by Rosie; 23-05-2012 at 11:08 PM.
This is the advantage of getting a group together and grafting a batch every week.Originally Posted by Nellie
If you have extra queen cells you will find any amount of takers for them.
Worst case scenario just discard them. last summer there were a couple of times I had 30 or 40 cells due to hatch and I always found a home for them.
Get a mailing list together of interested members of your bka and put the message out.
I have got 30+ on a mailing list of attendees at our queenrearing group sessions. If you offer queen cells grafted from good stock you get your hand bitten off. I have about 75 cells to find homes for by the end of next week and i bet i don't have to discard any.
Our association is in the throws of buying a carricel specifically for this purpose. I think the only real way to be effective when trying to improve local bees is to work together in large BIBBA-type groups or as an association.
Rosie
Steve. I have found that you don't have to make up the apideas 3 days before cell introduction and keep them in the dark. I do it a day before and don't get cells torn down. I put the rollers on at day 9 or 10 and try and introduce on day 11. May not be standard practice but it works for me. I don't open apideas until I have checked that the virgin is out of the cell. In an ideal world you fill them on one site and set them out on another but I mostly fill them and set them out on the same site maybe 40 feet away from the main colonies. The key to avoiding drifting back is to wait until the virgin is out of the cell.
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