Advice needed on dealing with 'swarmy' colonies

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Why would you requeen a colony that has a good queen? I have many colonies headed by 2 and 3, and sometimes 4 year old queens. I have many colonies headed by supercedure queens that go on, year after year, supercede when they need, and produce fine honey crops.
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I know professionals who keep 4 years old queen. They want to see, do they try swarming at old age. I do not breed queens. I only rear them. Very few I keep 2 years.

I have seen during decades that supercedure queens are under average. Same are old queens.

I rear real queens, what I have selected.

My hives are not senior homes

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Apologies, from your posts it sounded (to me at least) as though the breeding group are telling you what to do and what you can't do.

Well, the German breeding system is very thorough. This brings positives and negatives. On the one hand, it may appear prescriptive but (because it is so well thought out) it really just ensures that everyone is working to the same rules (guidelines). At the end of the day, if you don't want to follow the rules, you can do it - but the progeny are then not part of the breeding population. If you want to play the game, you have to follow the rules. I think most people would agree with that.
I don't want to create the impression that the breeding rules are bad. Far from it, they are very well thought out. The few occasions that I've disagreed with something, it was because I hadn't understood the full story. Once someone explained what I hadn't grasped, I was content with the reasoning.
 
B+ is working with a closed population breeding system. As such, bringing in outside genetics is verboten. Supersedure queens mate with random drones which would reduce the effectiveness of the breeding program over time if they were used in the breeding program in any capacity other than to produce drones. The only exception to this would be if the supersedure queen were mated in an isolated station where the only drones were of selected genetic background. Even then, genetic gain could be compromised if the queen that produced the supersedure queen were not of high breeding value.

In the German system, highly selected queen mothers produce eggs that become queens mated to highly selected drone mothers. There is no exception for bringing in untested stock in such a system. It should be noted that the Achilles heel of this system is inbreeding and that the island mating system used is especially vulnerable to concentration of duplicate sex alleles. This is why the inbreeding coefficient has to be calculated and monitored closely. IMO, they need to test each queen to identify the sex alleles she carries so she can be mated with a diverse group of drones carrying other alleles.
 
It should be noted that the Achilles heel of this system is inbreeding and that the island mating system used is especially vulnerable to concentration of duplicate sex alleles. This is why the inbreeding coefficient has to be calculated and monitored closely. IMO, they need to test each queen to identify the sex alleles she carries so she can be mated with a diverse group of drones carrying other alleles.

A great deal of care is taken to make sure this doesn't happen. We're all audited. My stock (and records) were last examined two years ago (https://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/album.php?albumid=751&pictureid=3734) but they're reviewed by the breeding supervisor at the end of every breeding year.
There is a project to establish the relationship matrix using DNA testing (https://www.researchgate.net/projec...and-genetic-diversity-in-the-honey-bee-GeSeBe). This is likely to become more the norm in the future.

What Fusion is missing is that the supercedure queen would be unmarked. Therefore, it couldn't be asserted that she was the daughter. If you can't prove the ancestry, she really has no place in the breeding programme. Even my drone mothers emerge in an incubator and are marked for life within a couple of hours (i.e. exactly the same as my queen mothers)
 
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We started to handle 3 hive owner's finding, that he seems to have too swarmy colonies..
 
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We started to handle 3 hive owner's finding, that he seems to have too swarmy colonies..

Yes, and as frequently happens, you took the thread off on an amusing tangent with your blanket statements about your 100s of hives! :D

This amused me no end as, although you contributed greatly to the thread, you also said that this forum provides no help!

At least you do not get help from this forum.
:D
 
Yes, and as frequently happens, you took the thread off on an amusing tangent with your blanket statements about your 100s of hives! :D

This amused me no end as, although you contributed greatly to the thread, you also said that this forum provides no help!


:D

This forum is out of rails.
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Now I have 15 hives, but I know everything.
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Expert is X which is an unknown quantity in algebra and a spurt is something that is released under pressure. So an expert is an unknown quantity released under pressure.

Evidence suggests finman is not making crops consistent with his forum posts. This implies that he is subject to the vagaries of weather and random chance. In other words, he is human..... I think.
 
Expert is X which is an unknown quantity in algebra and a spurt is something that is released under pressure. So an expert is an unknown quantity released under pressure.
In the version of this that I heard. X = a drip

Therefore, the "expert" is a drip under pressure.
 

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