Does size matter?

[Speybee]

I’ve just got a wee mated U.K. bred Buckfast queen to replace a previous drone layer.
She is wee and not anywhere near the size of previous queens.
Does size matter?
Does this mean she was poorly mated or is she just normal with nothing to worry about?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

nothing to worry about, had some tiny queens over the years which have layed like trains

 

[Speybee]

nothing to worry about, had some tiny queens over the years which have layed like trains

Ok thanks for the reassurance.
I have still to make up the Nuc which unfortunately the weather up here has gone cold and drizzly.
Hopefully tomorrow is a better day so I can make the Nuc up.

 

[HarryO]

The tiny queen I had laid tons of eggs and produced lots of brood. The only problem was she could get through the Queen excluder and insisted on making the two supers her brood nest. I keep putting her back in the B.box. If she is back in the supers next visit she is a gonner despite being prolific and lovely colours. I will unite the colony with another and get the supers hatched and cleared!

 

[Speybee]

Today has been a great afternoon weather wise.
A lovely dry 15C.
I had dobbed in the drone layer blue dot queen and in the post came her replacement
This afternoon I made up a Nuc with 3 deep brood, 1 stores and inserted the queen cage between the frames of brood and removed the tab.
A rapid feeder with 1:1 syrup was given.
Moved her 3 miles away and will wait patiently.

 

[E&MBees]

Bee keeping is full of mountain top highs and deep despairing lows! Good luck, I hope they like her.

 

[Murox]

Today has been a great afternoon weather wise.
A lovely dry 15C.
I had sobbed in the drone layer blue dot queen and in the post came her replacement
This afternoon I made up a Nuc with 3 deep brood, 1 stores and inserted the queen cage between the frames of brood and removed the tab.
A rapid feeder with 1:1 syrup was given.
Moved her 3 miles away and will wait patiently.

Where did you get her from ?

 

[Curly green finger's]

Does size matter.. I've big Italian mongrel queen's and purish Amm queen's that are smaller, and some in between queen's x mainly.
And while my Italian bees build up quicker my smaller black queen's slowly get there and produce more honey in bad weather.
All in all IMHO size makes no difference
To how your queen will perform.
Although I've had a Italian colony that has had two nucs taken from them and still produced 4 supers of honey three in the spring and one in August.

 

[Speybee]

Does size matter.. I've big Italian mongrel queen's and purish Amm queen's that are smaller, and some in between queen's x mainly.
And while my Italian bees build up quicker my smaller black queen's slowly get there and produce more honey in bad weather.
All in all IMHO size makes no difference
To how your queen will perform.
Although I've had a Italian colony that has had two nucs taken from them and still produced 4 supers of honey three in the spring and one in August.

Next season I will compare my bee record started today and see how she’s done.
Great to hear you’ve taken off honey.

 

[Speybee]

Where did you get her from ?

I sent you an email.

 

[Curly green finger's]

I sent you an email.

Black queen?

 

[Speybee]

Black queen?

I did not open out the plastic cage, just the tabs.
All I could see was a blue dot and various legs.
I will see her fully in Spring as all I’m interested in just now is that she’s accepted and starts laying.

 

[Antipodes]

Clarence Collison, National Honey Show lecture 2018, sheds light on the issue. "A closer look at factors affecting queen quality". Worth a look.

 

[Show me the honey]

The tiny queen I had laid tons of eggs and produced lots of brood. The only problem was she could get through the Queen excluder and insisted on making the two supers her brood nest. I keep putting her back in the B.box. If she is back in the supers next visit she is a gonner despite being prolific and lovely colours. I will unite the colony with another and get the supers hatched and cleared!

Why not just give her the space she needs?

 

[HarryO]

Why not just give her the space she needs?

I might do just that, I really do not like the idea of dispatching a well performing queen. I might let her run through winter and see how she brings the colony through. But it is (for me) a complication to the national and supers system that I use. I have a ton of national B.boxes and supers. I do not want the the heavy lifting of double brood boxes or non inter-changeable equipment creating problems of storage, cost, complications with hive/colony manipulations.
It is a hobby for me I do not want it to become a chore or all time consuming (it already is at certain times of the year but I ‘enjoy’ those peaks). To change to Rose hives or others would mean eventually getting rid of 10 plus B.boxes and tons of supers etc. After 15+ years I have just got myself into something resembling a manageable routine/system. I am looking to winding down now but it is hard to leave beekeeping alone!

 

[drdrday]

Running on double brood needn't be heavy lifting. My bees seem to like having double broods, for the space, but also the opportunity to create a long shaped brood nest. However, I'm currently making insulated dummy boards to fit either end of each brood box. This will reduce each box down to 8 frames, giving a total of 16 across both boxes. It should make the brood boxes lighter to lift, and will also add a bit of insulation at the sides of the wooden brood boxes which can only help them through winter. I'll have to see how it goes, but that's the plan anyway

 

[beeno]

Clarence Collison, National Honey Show lecture 2018, sheds light on the issue. "A closer look at factors affecting queen quality". Worth a look.

Makes sense to me.

 

[Ian123]

None have yet mentioned she’s a queen in transit could well have been banked and out of a mini nuc maybe. So no surprise she’s small really, check what she looks like when she’s up and running.

 

[Speybee]

None have yet mentioned she’s a queen in transit could well have been banked and out of a mini nuc maybe. So no surprise she’s small really, check what she looks like when she’s up and running.

Unfortunately she was a drone layer, so was dobbed in as I had given her the best part of 6 weeks to get laying and all I got was drone brood.
She was small and so I came to the conclusion that her size was the main factor, contributing to her being a drone layer.
Surprising, despite being a bought in newly caged mated queen, but she’s since been replaced last week with another.

 

[Michael ECB's]

I collected/harvested a wild swarm a short while ago and was surprized to see such a "small - eish" queen ruling over such a large colony..... Then cutting deeper into the comb I started seeing all the queen cells that had been made.... I figured being so small she must have been a recent supersedure queen that didn't quite work out as planned... (But eating away was the fact this colony had so much capped brood - So why replace her?) On my first two week inspection, she (The same small lady) was huge and had a great laying pattern.... I believe the colony was about to swarm and the queen had gone off lay or placed on a diet...??
Well, that's what I have convinced my self of anyway...

Queen cells were removed and framed in with capped brood and brood stock from another colony - so was not a new mated queen.. (New Split)

My apologies for side stepping the thread,,, not a drone laying queen,,, but rather to highlight the fact that even what i thought to be a WELL mated queen can loose condition fast and bounce back to be a well "rounded big bummed" laying machine....