Beginners' own queens or not?

[Finman]

Lets look first, how much queen rearing takes time if you are going to do a nuc with own queen.

Brood period 2 week -----matin 2 weeks----first worker generation 4 weeks--new foragers 2-3 weeks vk = 10 weeks[/b] = 2,5 months.

It means that if you start queen rearing at the first week of June, the first forager generation starst to fly at the middle of August. It is almost time to make winter beeds then...The nuc has not much time to grow.

 

[Norfolk]

.........and your point is ?

I'm probably a not voter.
Seems like a specialization, almost a hobby in itself.

 

[For want of a better word]

Lets look first, how much queen rearing takes time if you are going to do a nuc with own queen.

Brood period 2 week -----matin 2 weeks----first worker generation 4 weeks--new foragers 2-3 weeks vk = 10 weeks[/b] = 2,5 months.

It means that if you start queen rearing at the first week of June, the first forager generation starst to fly at the middle of August. It is almost time to make winter beeds then...The nuc has not much time to grow.

Above true for ligurian type of bee..... I managed one lot of 20 or so successful queens to nucs, now overwintering in polly HIVES.
Second attempt.. around beginning of July just failed. And this seems to be about the same for others breeding their own ligurian type bees in this neck of the woods... semi sub tropical Tamar Valley in SW UK ( Cornwall)
Foraging went on well onto the end of October

Different story for the Cornish Black bees ( Apis mellifera mellifera)
definitely a boom year... managed to requeen almost all the buckhybrid locals

 

[user 6228]

Lets look first, how much queen rearing takes time if you are going to do a nuc with own queen.

Brood period 2 week -----matin 2 weeks----first worker generation 4 weeks--new foragers 2-3 weeks vk = 10 weeks[/b] = 2,5 months.

It means that if you start queen rearing at the first week of June, the first forager generation starst to fly at the middle of August. It is almost time to make winter beeds then...The nuc has not much time to grow.

but if our season is from beggining of march/april to end of october...(we have heather then the ivy) and you have them in insulated hives they go fast. Even this year when spring was late the swarms and splits have mostly done very well.
We had run out of kit before mid june, housing all the splits and swarms. The new queens had been started early- mid may in a year that that started a month late.

 

[Finman]

but if our season is from beggining of march/april to end of october..

.

It is same waste of time. Nothing to do with climate. When you get one brood cycle during 10 weeks, you get 3 cycles if you buy mated queen.


.

and you have them in insulated hives they go fast. .

The shedule is exactly the same in every hive. Nothing to do with insulation, climate or bee race, what I wrote just now.


If you are honest, you weathers are changing all the time, and if you think last 3 years, they have not been best for mating.

I can tell that I have got all queens mated during last 3 years. And I need not say that my queens are poorly mated.

 

[Norfolk]

It is same waste of time. Nothing to do with climate. When yiu get one brood cycle during 10 weeks, you get 3 cycles if you buy mated queen.........

On that basis keeping Bees is a complete waste of time.
I can pop down to my local greengrocer and buy a jar of honey for £3.50 and it's 5 mins down the road.

 

[Luminos]

On that basis keeping Bees is a complete waste of time.
I can pop down to my local greengrocer and buy a jar of honey for £3.50 and it's 5 mins down the road.

Do greengrocers sell honey now?

 

[Finman]

-
Early queens:
- unsure mating
- from where you get enough nuc bees.
- you must make queenless hive

Middle summer queens
- you may rear queens in swarm fever hive, which is willing to do queen cells as side product
- hives are big and you have more bees to the nucs.
- good mating weathers

 

[Finman]

On that basis keeping Bees is a complete waste of time.
I can pop down to my local greengrocer and buy a jar of honey for £3.50 and it's 5 mins down the road.

And a free advice. You do not even need that honey. So do 99% of folks.
Save that 3.50

 

[Norfolk]

Do greengrocers sell honey now?

Mine does, and Jam, Pickled Veg, Eggs even Flowers all kind of things actually.

 

[user 6228]

It is same waste of time. Nothing to do with climate. When you get one brood cycle during 10 weeks, you get 3 cycles if you buy mated queen.


.

The shedule is exactly the same in every hive. Nothing to do with insulation, climate or bee race, what I wrote just now.


If you are honest, you weathers are changing all the time, and if you think last 3 years, they have not been best for mating.

I can tell that I have got all queens mated during last 3 years. And I need not say that my queens are poorly mated.

The build up of hive population is faster with insulation (according to the research and ITLD), yet brood cycle times are the same. Thus less bees per unit brood must be needed to support each cycle.

Therefore you can potentially get to the same population level with fewer cycles. its Maths...

 

[Finman]

Thus less bees per unit brood must be needed to support each cycle.

Therefore you can potentially get to the same population level with fewer cycles. its Maths...

In this case you are totally wrong. I just said that it has nothing to do with temperature.

This is a minimum cycle from queen cell larva to forager.



And foraging does not mean that you have one worker, they are needed them quite much.

 

[Finman]

The build up of hive population is faster with insulation (...

Emerged bees will be more, even 3 times more at the end nof that 10 weeks, but it is not faster.


Make your own calculation, what happens when you start to rear 1 days old larva to a queen.

Question was not about population size.

Population size depends on how much the nuc have bees at the start when the queen starts laying. Do you give 3 frames, 6 frames of whole box.

One frame of brood gives 3 frames of bees, - if the brood frame is full. In 3 frame nuc brood areas are mostly half size of frame.


Lets look at a swarm. When you put swarm into a hive, and it has laying queen, after 3 week swarm gang has deminished 50%. It takes one week that new bees substitute the lost gang and then the colony start to expand.

With virging queen it takes time ----

- mating 7-10 days
- 4 brood + emerging
- 2-3 weeks emerged transforms to foragers-
Summa 7-8 weeks, that new foragers are bringing pollen

.
.

 

[mbc]

It is same waste of time.

This is the crux of most British beekeeping, it is simply an absorbing hobby, and much more absorbing and fun if you set out to raise your own queens.

 

[user 6228]

Emerged bees will be more, even 3 times more at the end nof that 10 weeks, but it is not faster.


Make your own calculation, what happens when you start to rear 1 days old larva to a queen.

Question was not about population size.

Population size depends on how much the nuc have bees at the start when the queen starts laying. Do you give 3 frames, 6 frames of whole box.

One frame of brood gives 3 frames of bees, - if the brood frame is full. In 3 frame nuc brood areas are mostly half size of frame.


.
.

Another rhetorical device from the pen of Finman... posting two partial quotes, that appear together, yet missing out the vital middle clause from the original sentences.

"The build up of hive population is faster with insulation (according to the research and ITLD), yet brood cycle times are the same. Thus less bees per unit brood must be needed to support each cycle.

Therefore you can potentially get to the same population level with fewer cycles. its Maths..."

 

[alanf]

This is the crux of most British beekeeping, it is simply an absorbing hobby, and much more absorbing and fun if you set out to raise your own queens.

Agree.

If we didn't have bees to play with we'd have to go on the internet and pick arguments. No, wait...

 

[Finman]

Therefore you can potentially get to the same population level with fewer cycles. its Maths..."

I made foragers, not population

 

[user 6228]

I made foragers, not population

This year we tried to make Nucs and failed... they were all too big for a nucs they all had to depart in full hives, the last one left at the beggining of August.
Its obvious that this cant happen cos Finman says so.

 

[mbc]

Agree.

If we didn't have bees to play with we'd have to go on the internet and pick arguments. No, wait...

A whole sentence in smilies, I must be bored.

 

[Finman]

This is the crux of most British beekeeping, it is simply an absorbing hobby, and much more absorbing and fun if you set out to raise your own queens.

It is same in Finland. A guy who got his first hive this year , he is now planning to rear own queens, splitting his only hive and everything what a beekeeping book has inside.

But perhaps nature is faster and the hive will filled with rape honey and swarm escapes in few days. Without experience he does not know what is going to happen in the hive.

That is why I wrote that schedule story here.

My friend a beginner bought this year's spring 10 hives. Hives were normal but he was able to rear hives only up to 2 boxes high. What happened? I do not know. At same time I reared 6 hives from 3 frames nuc to 6 box high.

I suppose that he kept so wide ventilation that hives too cold to build up.
Or propably, he ought to extract sooner the hives, because early raspberry yield stuckef brood areas and brooding went to minimum.



.