Easy Queen rearing

[Ely]

"My brother is a medical student and he has spent the last two years on wards getting hands on experience with guidence from Doctors like every other medical student."

hands on experience of what exactly? phlebotomists take blood, nurses give ivs, drains and lines are all inserted under imaging guidance. all routine jobs of junior docs (and to some extent medical students) in the past.

As part of his training on the wards in the final year of Leeds medical school he takes blood, fits catheters give IV, takes histories among a lot of other things under guidance. He has never stepped foot into pretend lab. Perhaps not all medical schools are the same and Leeds is a particularly good one.

 

[Barley]

I am going to try queen rearing for the first time this year. Your clear instructions have given me more confidence and I shall be trying it this springtime. Thank you.

 

[Little John]

Yes Tim, I have two coloies which have Buckfast Cecropia queens which I bought last year to requeen two very swarmy Cariolans. I intend to rear queens from these to replace the remaining Carnie royalties and also split three colonies so will need queens for these also.

dave W

I'd be very interested to know: how are you going to mate the virgins to retain that Buckfast Cecropia line ?

LJ

 

[beekeeping4you]

I'd be very interested to know: how are you going to mate the virgins to retain that Buckfast Cecropia line ?

LJ

Hi Little John,

1. Maybe Dave intends to retain a pure Buckfast Cecropia line and knows a place where his Buckfast Cecropia virgins can mate with Buckfast Cecropia drones?

2. Maybe Dave is happy with local open mating and the effects of a bit of crossbreeding, the drones of his 'F1' queens will still be pure Buckfast Cecropia drones allowing him to make interesting plans for his queen breeding in 2014?

3. Maybe Dave does not want to retain a pure line and wants to find out more about the painfully familiar saga of the 2. generation aggression of open mated Buckfast bees which will 'burst the tyres of his car'? Maybe there are other Buckfast beekeepers around him who have told him that this will not happen and that he will get decent colonies from his virgins?

Regards
Reiner

 

[dpearce4]

I'd be very interested to know: how are you going to mate the virgins to retain that Buckfast Cecropia line ?

LJ

Looking at when he posted on this thread march 2012, and the fact he now has 6 hives, maybe it should be how did you manage so well with last years rubbish weather and produced queens.

 

[Little John]

Well, the reason I asked is that he only gives his location as 'UK'. Maybe he lives near moorland ? Dunno.

I've spent ages, plus a small fortune in petrol looking for a suitable isolated area, and I have now found one which looks reasonable - but only the results will bear out my choice (or not ...).

I had considered using Spurn Head, but the Humber Bridge tolls are too excessive.

The alternative is to mate at home, which for me would be a very chancy business.

LJ

 

[Dusty Rhodes]

The alternative is to mate at home, which for me would be a very chancy business.

LJ

I'm told Relate is very good in these circumstances.

Dusty

 

[BeeJayBee]

The alternative is to mate at home, which for me would be a very chancy business.

Or you could investigate moonlight mating.

No, really!

Post #12 in this thread http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=19427&page=2

 

[Little John]

I'm told Relate is very good in these circumstances.

Good one ...


Or you could investigate moonlight mating.

No, really!

Post #12 in this thread http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=19427&page=2

Strange thing is - yes, I know about M/Mating - but then forgot all about it as I started to scour the landscape for isolated areas. Must be the early signs of Alzheimers ? (I know one shouldn't joke about such things, but this 'lapses in memory' stuff is happening to me all too frequently these days.) So thanks for that. Guess I'll have a go at both.

My situation is I've got some cracking Carnie-crosses which came from a north Lincs farmer who's beekeeping father died last year, and I'd really like to keep this strain intact as far as humanly possible - but down here in south Lincs, or at least in this immediate area, we're saturated with Italians.

I guess this kind of problem is replicated all over the country - big pity we can't control the mating a bit more, but then again - seeing as we humans have mucked up just about everything else we've played with so far, maybe it's just as well we can't !

LJ

 

[Gilberdyke John]

The tolls have been reduced but transporting from Boston to Spurn seems excessively dedicated or am I missing something here?

 

[Little John]

The tolls have been reduced but transporting from Boston to Spurn seems excessively dedicated or am I missing something here?

That depends upon whether you're a beginner (in Queen-rearing) with scant knowledge of the basics, or an AI enthusiast trying to start an argument ...

If you're the former, then I suggest reading: http://www.bibba.com/group_eastmids.php , in which Spurn Point is mentioned along with other remote locations, together with the reasons for using such sites, and the considerable mileage invariably involved in doing so.

If you're the latter, then kindly note that I will not be drawn into a dialogue with anyone on this subject, period.

LJ

 

[jeff33]

From the best queen you have or have access to take a frame of young larvae. Cut a strip of them out and shave with a very sharp knife a strip of them. You can usefully cut the cells back by a good third so the bees can flare the cells out easily.

Cut your selected cells into units of one, and using bees wax stick them to a flat piece of wood so that there is a good inch between them. To offer 18 to a colony depending on your frame, modify a brood frame to support this strip at each end, and consider you may need 2 or even three strips.PH

Great thread PH thanks. I am looking to raise 3-4 queens this year using the Demaree method which should hopefully also help managing the swarming tendency. I was going to let the bees raise emergency QC from the brood available when splitting boxes but your method gives more control over which larvae are used and where the QC are. I assume the beeswax placed on the wood must be hot ish for it to stick? Does it also need to be warm to attach the strip of eggs or cold would do the trick?

 

[oliver90owner]

If you demaree, you will not get emergency cells. They will be few and well formed, not multiple cells converted to queen cells by the sudden and total loss of queen pheromone (with her demise).

Demareeing is an easy method for those who require only very few new queens over a few weeks. Late queens in small colonies is not good news for beginners, if the wasps take hold....

 

[Hivemaker.]

Here is a discussion about the future evaluation of the colonies headed by the new queens produced.
http://www.pedigreeapis.org/biblio/artcl/PJevalua01en.html

 

[Poly Hive]

What I cannot understand is why our islands have been so neglected. The Germans and Dutch seem to be able to utilise them but us? SFA.

As for excessive costs well the bottom line is we are all peddling individual dreams, no one clubs together to get organised and the whole situation is a total dogs breakfast. The Germans have been doing it for over what now 70 odd years and you can order virgin x select the blood line to mate her too as if it were pedigree cattle, and off to the appropriate island she goes and on her return to you you KNOW what she is.

Us? Total shambles.

PH

 

[madasafish]

What I cannot understand is why our islands have been so neglected. The Germans and Dutch seem to be able to utilise them but us? SFA.

As for excessive costs well the bottom line is we are all peddling individual dreams, no one clubs together to get organised and the whole situation is a total dogs breakfast. The Germans have been doing it for over what now 70 odd years and you can order virgin x select the blood line to mate her too as if it were pedigree cattle, and off to the appropriate island she goes and on her return to you you KNOW what she is.

Us? Total shambles.

PH

I reply: matchsticks. (And caustic soda)

Beekeeping in the UK is in the Dark Ages.

 

[B+.]

I reply: matchsticks. (And caustic soda)

Beekeeping in the UK is in the Dark Ages.

with you both
Particularly, regarding the point about pedigrees. The Germans have beekeeping institutes that co-ordinate a lot of the breeding work but we don't seem to invest in our beekeeping. It is left to individuals.
I have to say that I notice a much more co-operative attitude in the Dutch BeeBreed group than I even notice in my own local association.

 

[Poly Hive]

I fully believe it. The only so called org that was doing anything seem to have betrayed their principles and frankly quit.

Of course the very first issue is which bee to breed and it falls apart right there pretty much. The bucky boys want thiers, the AMM (if it exists say many) want that and the Carnie peeps want that one.

Tricky innit?????????????

PH

 

[B+.]

Tricky innit?????????????

PH

Perhaps, because we are concentrating on the things we disagree about rather than the things we gain by working together.

 

[Poly Hive]

Without picking a bee there can be no progress. The only way I can see that happening is by government making it so. And then of course the Welsh will say oh no and so will the Scots and ................................back to square one.

PH