has anynbody started Qrearing yet?

[protheroe]

Got my cell builder ready and seen a few drones out so I am grafting next week.I have 30 empty hives that I want to fill this year.my cell builder is double brood that's really full so I hope they don't decide to throw one before I start the grafts.I hope the two empty supers will keep them busy for a few days.

 

[B+.]

Not one of your queens mated already Shirley?

Don't call him Shirley

 

[Into the lions den]

The wonders of the south......might do first grafts in about 10 days.........no point until there are abundant drones........earliest queens are often less than perfect, so for our own use best to wait until optimal conditions.

 

[B+.]

The wonders of the south......might do first grafts in about 10 days.........no point until there are abundant drones........earliest queens are often less than perfect, so for our own use best to wait until optimal conditions.

Absolutely! I don't usually start until at least 1st May. Even then, a starter colony might not make a good job of the first graft

 

[mbc]

Absolutely! I don't usually start until at least 1st May. Even then, a starter colony might not make a good job of the first graft

Raising cells early isn't the problem, getting the queens mated properly is.

 

[protheroe]

The weather for may isn't looking good on the forecast but then again they rarely get the long range forecast right.our guess work would be better than their computers.

 

[B+.]

Raising cells early isn't the problem, getting the queens mated properly is.

Raising good drones is the biggest problem IMHO.
I am not really tied to the weather for natural mating as I do II, but, a queen will mate in short gaps between bad weather if necessary. I don't think mating is the problem. I think it comes down to the availability of strong/healthy drones with a good semen load. This comes down to diet and nursing by the nurse bees (i.e. the same things you look for in a queen raising colony)

 

[mbc]

Raising good drones is the biggest problem IMHO.
I am not really tied to the weather for natural mating as I do II, but, a queen will mate in short gaps between bad weather if necessary. I don't think mating is the problem. I think it comes down to the availability of strong/healthy drones with a good semen load. This comes down to diet and nursing by the nurse bees (i.e. the same things you look for in a queen raising colony)

+ healthy colonies. How do you produce enough healthy drones when going treatment free? Drone brood is the first to suffer when they're starting to suffer from varr.oa

 

[B+.]

How do you produce enough healthy drones when going treatment free? Drone brood is the first to suffer when they're starting to suffer from varr.oa

I keep a batch of colonies that I can transfer frames of sealed drones into above a queen excluder. These colonies act as nurse colonies for the drones. The drones need to be a couple of weeks old before they're mature so stopping them from getting stuck in the queen excluder is a problem (some do but enough survive to maturity for my needs).

I try to select colonies with low mite counts anyway but I would rather delay until my colonies can give me what I need than start the process too soon. I need approximately 20 mature drones per queen (In theory you get 1microlitre/drone but some give less or are contaminated and can't be used).

 

[aberreef]

It's going to be a few weeks up here in the hills before I even think of queen rearing. 4 of my colonies came through winter pretty strong but the other three are still small on the small side, making progress though and I'm confident they will catch up in a few weeks time.

There's only a few drone cells in even the biggest colony which had a second BB added last week due to the risk of getting blocked with nectar. This current run of glorious weather will be doing great things for the bees I'm sure, especially since the dandelions and blackthorn started blooming this week.

Here's to the start of a new season