Best bees for next year?

[PBee]

Any beekeeper that lets their kids handle bees without protective clothing
is a .............................parent. I will let you fill the in the missing words yourselves.

progressive?

Assuming a good quality docile Buckfast

 

[Norton]

I often don't even bother lighting the smoker anymore. It is not needed.

 

[For want of a better word]

I often don't even bother lighting the smoker anymore. It is not needed.

Interesting....... have noticed with all types of bee pure line or not that blowing smoke into an otherwise calm colony caused an aggressive response !

Maybee the "smoke before you poke" mantra is wrong !!

​

 

[Finman]

Next year we would like to nice to less
Swarmy good temperament bees. What is your view for the best queens to replace?

this has been my wish last 45 years. Sometimes I may taste it and mostly not.

If you have 10 or 20 hives, it is impossible to keep you yard as you wish. They just mate with neighbours.

Good temperature is easy to select. You have spare queens and then you kill every queen which shows your sting too much.

Non swarming feature is difficult to find out. At least it is too late. If you keep swarmed queens, it is 100% sure that it continuesin your yard. And it is natural habit. Difficult to get off when neighbour hives surrounds your yard.

.a third feature what I look after now is hybrid influence. Too much breeded bees loose their vigour. I can see it only when I bye new queens and compare them to my recent colonies.
It had happened too many times.

.but when you bye "good queens", the is no quarantee what they are.

But this all makes beekeeping interesting after 50 years. If bees had been easy like chicken, i would have stopped this 40 y ago.

.

 

[Bob Bee]

this has been my wish last 45 years. Sometimes I may taste it and mostly not.

If you have 10 or 20 hives, it is impossible to keep you yard as you wish. They just mate with neighbours.

Good temperature is easy to select. You have spare queens and then you kill every queen which shows your sting too much.

Non swarming feature is difficult to find out. At least it is too late. If you keep swarmed queens, it is 100% sure that it continuesin your yard. And it is natural habit. Difficult to get off when neighbour hives surrounds your yard.

.a third feature what I look after now is hybrid influence. Too much breeded bees loose their vigour. I can see it only when I bye new queens and compare them to my recent colonies.
It had happened too many times.

.but when you bye "good queens", the is no quarantee what they are.

But this all makes beekeeping interesting after 50 years. If bees had been easy like chicken, i would have stopped this 40 y ago.

.

 

[Stiffy]

I often don't even bother lighting the smoker anymore. It is not needed.

Yes, I have many colonies that don’t need smoke and apart from when it comes to working, I sometimes wonder if they have been smoking something they are so laid back !

Just hope they pass this trait onto some of the bees flying in my neighbourhood but then according to some they only pass on a bad attitude
S

 

[Stiffy]

progressive?

Assuming a good quality docile Buckfast

And thats the key...... good quality

 

[For want of a better word]

bad attitude ................. bad neighbours?

That sums it all up for me !

Finnman has hit the nail squarely on the head...... unlike keeping chickens, you can not always be sure what the mix will be in your bees or what abominations you neighbours care to keep!

Best bees for next year ?..................... this argument will rage on ad infinitum

 

[Norton]

Opening the hives without using smoke is a very important part of our selection process. You can see the whole range of reactions which also vary according to temperature and general weather conditions. Some Buckfast lines don't really like being disturbed in cool and windy conditions, whilst others just carry as normal and ignore us.

 

[Finman]

That mix.....the queen mateswith 16 different drones...

Then you get a super hive and you take from there handfull of splended virgins.
Next summer all hives are sisters. You not far from inside insemination and you do not know what happens next.

One year I bought 3 new queens. After winter I noticed that I had a bad sensivity to nosema.
The new queens kept their cluster size but my earlier stock lost lots of bees.

Net step was that new queens brought a huge tendency to swarming.

One year i bought mite tolerant bees. They crossed with Italians and I got killer bees.

I have tried many times Buckfasts (what ever they are). They have never been good.

.

 

[PBee]

ad infinitum[/I]

Surely the whole point of the forum

 

[madasafish]

I open all my hives - except one - without smoke.

I use bare hands on all - except the same one .

Anyone who keeps bees that need thick gloves needs to requeen them.

It's a great pity in the UK there is no national plan to breed docile placid bees. The only breeding plan is for AMM... and most of those are tended by men who need gauntlets, full suits . (and often beards.

Anyone who keeps aggressive bees should not keep within 2 miles of any human habitation - apart from their own..(in my view of course).

Those that defend gauntlet wearing should try sadomasochism - the effects are similar on hot days.!

 

[PBee]

Those that defend gauntlet wearing should try sadomasochism - the effects are similar on hot days.!

You're telling us more than we need to know!