Paying for Queens from Slovenia help required

[madasafish]

. To use your phrase, 'I also get a grip' and produce my own queens. Due to the inclement weather in the spring every queen I produced between mid May to mid June failed to mate properly. Alot of time and resources used up for no result other than a number of drone layer nucs.

Exactly the same experience as I had.. And forced to use an incubator as a number in hives/mating nucs failed to emerge from QCs due - I assume- to some cold nights..

It's is nearly August and my first successful attempts this year in volume are July ones....

I'd love to see UK queen rearers succeed... but relying on our weather is a recipe for bankruptcy..Unless you are blessed with the Gulf Stream!

 

[maddydog]

Exactly the same experience as I had.. And forced to use an incubator as a number in hives/mating nucs failed to emerge from QCs due - I assume- to some cold nights..

It's is nearly August and my first successful attempts this year in volume are July ones....

I'd love to see UK queen rearers succeed... but relying on our weather is a recipe for bankruptcy..Unless you are blessed with the Gulf Stream!

Not sure without relying heavily on II how it would be possible here and you are a bit higher than me.

All mine failed whether they were various types of splits or incubated qcs put into mating nucs as virgins.

 

[sipa]

I'd love to see UK queen rearers succeed... but relying on our weather is a recipe for bankruptcy..Unless you are blessed with the Gulf Stream!

Well I think the Gods must be with us !
We just fell lucky with the early good weather and got a lot of early queens mated well so we could supply the "early rush". then during the awful wet cold spell we didn't bother putting cells out until we could see a good chance of mating success.
Overall we have had a good season producing queens, several hundred up to now and a lot more in the pipeline.

Only three so far reported as drone laying, which we obviously replaced FOC.

 

[madasafish]

Well I think the Gods must be with us !
We just fell lucky with the early good weather and got a lot of early queens mated well so we could supply the "early rush". then during the awful wet cold spell we didn't bother putting cells out until we could see a good chance of mating success.
Overall we have had a good season producing queens, several hundred up to now and a lot more in the pipeline.

Only three so far reported as drone laying, which we obviously replaced FOC.

Newbury has a rather more benign climate than North Staffs and probably a lower altitude..(171 meters here)..

I know the Beeman in Scotland has gone all AI due to prior mating issues.

 

[sipa]

Newbury has a rather more benign climate than North Staffs and probably a lower altitude..(171 meters here)..

I know the Beeman in Scotland has gone all AI due to prior mating issues.

Yes, we do seem to escape the absolute worst of the weather.
If we had a really terrible time getting queens mated properly we would do all II queens too, but the price would have to go up substantially.

 

[bingevader]

Quite
How are we all going to learn what suits us best without trying.
Personal recommendation goes a long way too.
Provided there is no disease issue surely we are all free to experiment

As long as you don't mention it too loudly in this forum.