Making a 'Brood Viability Parallelogram'

[DulwichGnome]

Hi all,

I'm doing some queen rearing at our club this summer and have looking at ways of assessing the quality of the new queens and I came across this site, http://www.glenn-apiaries.com/breeding.html.

I know that you can get a good idea by looking at a patch of brood but I was planning to making a Brood Viability Parallelogram (not sure if it goes by any other name) to get a measurement. Has anyone used one and was it worth it? Doing some quick calculations this one is for cells about 5.1-2mm across.

Thanks,
Mike.

 

[For want of a better word]

p 87 Breeding Super Bees Steve Taber 1987 Northern Bee Books

ISBN: 978-1-904846-09-3

Good test for how much interbreeding has occurred, but queen may relay eggs in dud or canabalised cells and give a false reading... cell size is also a factor, but in UK most beeks change / replace foundation regularly, not allowing it to become black and undersized.