How to encourage the Queen to lay male bees?

[Murox]

Is this the one where they talk about DCAs and virgin queens avoiding where her brothers congregate ?

Yes and then there is Larry Connors stuff and he refers back to the Koenigers frequently.

 

[Wilco]

Just thinking... If you're just after drones and presumably from a specific queen, wouldn't it be possible to prevent a virgin daughter queen from her mating and introduce into a colony. Then she shold only produce drones and they'll have the mother's genetics. You could switch in frames of brood from a healthy colony to keep the workers going longer term, amd putting frames of her eggs into the donor colony may also mean more of her drone offspring get raised and fewer of theirs.

 

[Boston Bees]

Just thinking... If you're just after drones and presumably from a specific queen, wouldn't it be possible to prevent a virgin daughter queen from her mating and introduce into a colony. Then she shold only produce drones and they'll have the mother's genetics. You could switch in frames of brood from a healthy colony to keep the workers going longer term, amd putting frames of her eggs into the donor colony may also mean more of her drone offspring get raised and fewer of theirs.

They'll just constantly try to supersede her, won't they?

 

[Wilco]

They'll just constantly try to supersede her, won't they?

Dunno. They can't if you only put capped brood in...?

 

[Patrick1]

Verry difficult to achieve what you need from just 4 hives. Some of the problems are:-

First job is to get the varroa levels as low as possible, they breed exponentially in drone brood.

For virtually 40 days you will need to add frames of emerging brood to the drone raisers, depleting other strong hives.

If you increase the drone levels above the natural balance of the hive. You need to give the drone rearing hives extra young bees to nourish the drones, or you will have lots of drones firing blanks.

Even if you do this in late May or June foraging will be decreased because of the extra pressure to feed and care for them, a lower number of foragers on balance than would normally be available in the hive, a good supply pollen sub and syrup will need to be added.

You can forget any ideas of doing anything else with these hives for the season, the recovery ready for winter will be the best you can achieve.

Unless you are going to rear 100 queens it is probably best to separate the colonies into apiaries of preferred hives for breeding, let nature take it course.

 

[elainemary]

There's no silly questions in beekeeping right?

So, I too am looking to add drone foundation to my hives this year. I have 4 hives, 2 are hives which I want to keep their characteristics, the other two I am replacing the queen. Lets call them A's (good hives), B's (Bad hives - not too bad but not as good as A's).

I plan to raise queens from one of the A's, and drones from both of the A's.
I thought I'd place one drone frame from each A's, once laid, into B hives removing B's drone brood first.

Therefore, hopefully, flooding the area with my A drones.

Q1. However, I'm wondering how the virgin queen knows which are her brothers, is it distance (flying further to mate)? hive smell/pheromone?
Q2. I do have apiaries 3 miles apart and hoping to maybe have somewhere else by then. Is this worthwhile doing?

Think it’s a v good idea and I plan to do the same. If everyone, small scale or large, added either a drone comb, a foundationless frame or a super frame for the bees to build what they want in our best hives, we’d all benefit, achieve better mating, plus improve our local bees.

Also have read adding just one comb per hive makes little difference to honey production due to the extra care needed to support drones. Larger commercial beekeepers I understand add 2 drone frames to their best.

Heard Jonathan Getty describe how he makes up Nucs with extra drone brood and takes to his mating apiaries to improve genetics. Clearly different scale to us.

Given all the issues everyone talks about with queen mating success seems a no brainier - as they say ‘every little helps’!

 

[elainemary]

Just thinking... If you're just after drones and presumably from a specific queen, wouldn't it be possible to prevent a virgin daughter queen from her mating and introduce into a colony. Then she shold only produce drones and they'll have the mother's genetics. You could switch in frames of brood from a healthy colony to keep the workers going longer term, amd putting frames of her eggs into the donor colony may also mean more of her drone offspring get raised and fewer of theirs.

Problem here if not mated is she would lay drone eggs in worker cells on normal combs so produce small drones. Less fit - not as strong fliers, whilst still biologically capable of mating unlikely to be able to compete with ‘normal’ drones produced in drone cells.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Problem here if not mated is she would lay drone eggs in worker cells on normal combs so produce small drones. Less fit - not as strong fliers, whilst still biologically capable of mating unlikely to be able to compete with ‘normal’ drones produced in drone cells.

But is that true? I would hazard that most beekeepers in the country use worker foundation. Before I started introducing FF frames it's all I ever did and my drones looked perfectly large to me.

 

[elainemary]

But is that true? I would hazard that most beekeepers in the country use worker foundation. Before I started introducing FF frames it's all I ever did and my drones looked perfectly large to me.

Really don’t know good point, other than to say normal drone brood tends to be on edges doesn’t it and towards the base, so maybe they’re able to make the cells bigger vs in the middle of combs. Also seems a waste of a nice virgin. Think better results from adding an old super comb then they can build what they want below. Combine this with Murrays idea of adding worker foundation in autumn when winter feeding - only get worker cells and then ‘help’ the bees with drone making in a specific comb for that purpose in summer?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

normal drone brood tends to be on edges doesn’t it and towards the base,

I've seen just as much drone brood slap bang in the centre of frames which had worker foundation

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

First job is to get the varroa levels as low as possible, they breed exponentially in drone brood.

can you direct us to any papers on this 'exponential' increase in drone brood?

 

[Swarm]

Really don’t know good point, other than to say normal drone brood tends to be on edges doesn’t it and towards the base, so maybe they’re able to make the cells bigger vs in the middle of combs. Also seems a waste of a nice virgin. Think better results from adding an old super comb then they can build what they want below. Combine this with Murrays idea of adding worker foundation in autumn when winter feeding - only get worker cells and then ‘help’ the bees with drone making in a specific comb for that purpose in summer?

I think the bees are able to create drone comb wherever they want it by reshaping wax. Think of those old combs disposed of due to the amount of drone cells
I do give them some foundationless frames but they still enjoy building little groups here and there.

 

[masterBK]

Problem here if not mated is she would lay drone eggs in worker cells on normal combs so produce small drones. Less fit - not as strong fliers, whilst still biologically capable of mating unlikely to be able to compete with ‘normal’ drones produced in drone cells.

Absolutely. The workers determine to a large extent which cells a queen lays in by cleaning and "polishing" them and because there has not been any eggs laid for a while (an unmated queen doesn't tend to start laying until about 3 or more weeks after emergence) will prepare mainly worker cells for her. The queen will then lay in them and worker cells do indeed produce small drones

in photo red = undersized drone green = drone with DWV yellow = undersized drone emerging from worker cell

 

[elainemary]

But is that true? I would hazard that most beekeepers in the country use worker foundation. Before I started introducing FF frames it's all I ever did and my drones looked perfectly large to me.

Been thinking about this…. the colony decides how much drone brood is made rather than the queen, so they adapt the cells first, then queen measures the cell & as now bigger lays an unfertilised egg. A DLQ / unmated virgin measures worker cells, her spermatheca probably still opens but as no sperm, an unfertilised egg is laid in a worker sized cell, leading to smaller drones. As shown in photo from @masterbeekeeper.

 

[Patrick1]

There is a lot of articles on line regarding the relationship between varroa and worker V drones’ cells. This is just one example Reduce varroa mites by culling honey bee drones

For more information you may wish to visit Beetradex on 12th March, listen and ask questions of Michael Collier or Clive Du Bryn and BIBBA’s Jo Widdicombe all specialists in the bee breeding area, all free.

 

[Erichalfbee]

There is a lot of articles on line regarding the relationship between varroa and worker V drones’ cells. This is just one example Reduce varroa mites by culling honey bee drones

For more information you may wish to visit Beetradex on 12th March, listen and ask questions of Michael Collier or Clive Du Bryn and BIBBA’s Jo Widdicombe all specialists in the bee breeding area, all free.

Do you do this?

 

[Patrick1]

Do you do this?

NO !!!!! just used to point out the drone numbers.

 

[Patrick1]

First, I should say I think drone culling is the worst of all the practices some beekeepers use, it definitely affects the balance and mating of queens in a much wider area than the apiaries in the immediate location.

My queen rearing is based around 30 colonies, dedicating 10 of the very best hives to drones, 10 to workers used for topping up the drone hives, the second best the 10, I try to find the best queens based on several indicators.

 

[Buzzlodge]

Over the next few months I'll be converting changing all colonies (5) to Buckfast - right now I have 2 Buckfast and 3 black. My 'thinking' was that going forward if I increase the Buckfast drone population any virgin queens will have a higher change of mating with Buckfast drones than otherwise.

This might be a silly question because I have no experience of them, but do buckfasts breed true?
I have seen it described that that they are hybrids, or at least were in Bro Adams time, and in other animals breeding hybrids with each other can give you unpredictable results.

 

[Erichalfbee]

This might be a silly question because I have no experience of them, but do buckfasts breed true?
I have seen it described that that they are hybrids, or at least were in Bro Adams time, and in other animals breeding hybrids with each other can give you unpredictable results.

They are a hybrid so no but with controlled mating you can make more Buckfast.
I keep them and when they get too black I get a new queen..... but I do keep black bees as well, and grey ones.