Better Queen mating

[Bryanthebee]

well another year past and queens turned out evil again, new plan is next year to take the queens out off area, so mating can take place with a large bee keepers catchment area as we are one of few in our area, with the hope of getting a better calmer strain of bee, any thoughs would bee welcome.

 

[For want of a better word]

I often wonder if there is an "EVIL" Allele..?

Perhaps requeening is not the answer if the EVIL allele is passed on from the drone and even if your new unrelated queens have the PLEASANT allele their offspring of queens in the next generation may inherit the trait via the drones in your apiary.

The concise book of bee genetics is full of empty pages!

 

[VEG]

you wont find out unless you try it. It has to be worth a go.

 

[Bryanthebee]

Veg how do your Queens come through after mating, because we are thinking of putting mating nuc`s down Aberkenfig area for a shot next year.

 

[VEG]

Mine are fine there are a few beekeepers around that area.

 

[Bryanthebee]

i think its worth a try then.

 

[sherwood]

well another year past and queens turned out evil again, new plan is next year to take the queens out off area, so mating can take place with a large bee keepers catchment area as we are one of few in our area, with the hope of getting a better calmer strain of bee, any thoughs would bee welcome.

Does no one in your society do queen rearing, if so have a word and explain your problem you may find that next year he/she might be willing to let you have a few mated queens or even let you have the older queens they are replacing the new ones with.

 

[itma]

well another year past and queens turned out evil again, new plan is next year to take the queens out off area, so mating can take place with a large bee keepers catchment area as we are one of few in our area, with the hope of getting a better calmer strain of bee, any thoughs would bee welcome.

I'd suggest that you consider bringing in some better genes.
At the end of the summer there are usually quite a lot of beekeepers squashing perfectly good, but superfluous, mated and laying queens.
You may not have quite missed all the opportunities of this autumn.
But hey, they can even be bought, ...

By all means, breed your own queens - but start from a better baseline!


If your queens are so evil, culling your drone brood (carrying the evil queens' genetics) from time to time would be doing everyone a favour!

 

[dilys]

In my experience bad behaviour is rarely due to genetics but hybridisation instead. Bringing new bees into the area will just make things worse unless they happen to be compatible with what's already there. The answer is for your local association or interested parties to work together at breeding and selecting from what you have locally.

 

[itma]

... Bringing new bees into the area will just make things worse unless they happen to be compatible with what's already there. The answer is for your local association or interested parties to work together at breeding and selecting from what you have locally.

To clarify - I think that the op should find some better bees as locally as he can - and only then bother with queen rearing, which could indeed be done in concert with others in the vicinity and in his association.

But because he has just two colonies, both evil and producing evil queens, I think that requeening from better stock would be a worthwhile preliminary to any efforts at raising more of his own queens.

 

[Hivemaker.]

Bringing new bees into the area will just make things worse unless they happen to be compatible with what's already there.

To be compatible with whats already there they only need to be plain nasty stingy horrible things then, by the sounds of what Brian said in one of his previous posts about the other beekeepers bees near to him. And this beekeeper likes them this way.

 

[kristin..]

never mated a queen nore read all this but can any one say what the chances of mating a queen and it being nice and gental ? is it really that hard ? well from what i read it seams that way but why is this ? shawly most bee keeppers have gental bees now ? so why do bees fined the one what wants to be a bugger to every one lol or is it more to the point drones ante nothing like the mother hive they come from ?

 

[Anduril]

To clarify - I think that the op should find some better bees as locally as he can - and only then bother with queen rearing, which could indeed be done in concert with others in the vicinity and in his association.

But because he has just two colonies, both evil and producing evil queens, I think that requeening from better stock would be a worthwhile preliminary to any efforts at raising more of his own queens.

Easier said than done. Oh for beekeeping utopia. BTB has said in another thread. There be devil bees in the other valley.

 

[Poly Hive]

If the majority have good bees then the minority who may indeed be silly enough to prefer nasty ones find that slowly but surely things change.

PH

 

[mbc]

If the majority have good bees then the minority who may indeed be silly enough to prefer nasty ones find that slowly but surely things change.

PH

I'd suggest that you consider bringing in some better genes.


By all means, breed your own queens - but start from a better baseline!


If your queens are so evil, culling your drone brood (carrying the evil queens' genetics) from time to time would be doing everyone a favour!

 

[masterBK]

Dilys "In my experience bad behaviour is rarely due to genetics but hybridisation instead".

Excuse my ignorance, but surely hybridisation is all about genetics with the hybrid of two different genetic strains showing an increase in aggression due to gene interaction and heterosis.

Also when called out to help other beekeepers deal with their stroppy bees I sometimes find the bees turn out quite gentle ie it is a matter of perception as to what is evil and at other times it is the the way the beekeeper handles them .

 

[dilys]

Dilys "In my experience bad behaviour is rarely due to genetics but hybridisation instead".

Excuse my ignorance, but surely hybridisation is all about genetics with the hybrid of two different genetic strains showing an increase in aggression due to gene interaction and heterosis.

Also when called out to help other beekeepers deal with their stroppy bees I sometimes find the bees turn out quite gentle ie it is a matter of perception as to what is evil and at other times it is the the way the beekeeper handles them .

I agree with both those points but the point I was trying to make was that you can have 2 genetically gentle strains that produce absolute killers when crossed together if they are from different races. Hence importing gentle bees is usually just a temporary fix because if they differ from the dominant race in your area they will turn as bad as all the others, usually after 2 generations. The only sustainable way to fix the problem is for everyone in the area to cooperate together and improve what you have got. In addition many bought-in queens will be from good, gentle stock but will have been open mated in an area where the drones are incompatible. That will mean that the colony they produce will be F1s which are reasonably gentle until the next generation when you could find yourself back to square 1.

 

[Anduril]

BTB has stated in previous posts that the beekeeper with the nasty bees has had between 8 to 10 hives. If it is the one I am thinking about then there are more hives than that. BTB is in the minority in the area unfortunately outnumbered at least 5:1 but the figure is higher than that.

 

[Bryanthebee]

Just to give some history about what has gone on in the last three years, we started with buckfast and the first year of bee keeping they swamed and we were left with second generation queens mated local. They were evil, but as bee keepers we were very gentle at all times but they stung us every were you can think of this became a very bad time and we though do we really want to keep bee`s, but we stuck with it and culled them got a new nuc and requeened the other. but again we missed the swam and we got second generation queens local mated, guess what they too were evil, so we got two new queens this year and one was accepted the other was not this was done only two weeks ago, so if this happens again we need to go out of area to try mating second generation to see how it evolves.
The problem with our area is as already mentioned that a local bee keeper has evil bee`s in which he likes.
he has been bee keeping for 30 years plus and has far more hives than us, hence going out of area for the queen mating to try and feed the area with better drones for a long period, in the hope of turning this whole problem around in our favour.

 

[itma]

Second generation Buckfasts, from random drones, do have a bit of a reputation - regardless of your local wild man.
I wouldn't think you'd be best advised to look for a better mating site for your Buckfast daughters. Rather to think in a different direction.