Queen problems

[Red Bee]

Hello all,

When I started frequenting online beekeeping forums back in 2008, I started on the BBKA forum then moved over to this excellent forum. When on the BBKA forum there was alot of posts from one person about queen failure. It was talked about quite a bit but I havent read as much about it on this forum. Does that mean it was over exaggerated? Or are people experiencing it but not mentioning it on here? Just wondered is all.

Thanks.

 

[oliver90owner]

They all fail sooner or later. What sort of failure? DLQs, short life, supeceded early, rejected on introduction?

RAB

 

[Red Bee]

Have you not been on the BBKA forum.

 

[Hivemaker.]

Does that mean it was over exaggerated?

I don't believe it was over exaggerated,as Roger was/is finding lots of problems with queens from many different parts of the country,problems that he had not encountered many years ago....and has written rather a lot about these problems in various places,cannot say that i have had any real problems with queens myself,but do hear of them obviously.

Some of Rogers imformation below...........................

http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/rogerpatterson.html

PS......i believe nosema may have a lot to answer for,plus varroa and our lovely climate.

 

[Poly Hive]

My take on this.

I think, and this is merely my thoughts not proven, that Roger has found via the web and his travelling a genuine problem with queens failing.

However what he has found is nothing new, just improved communications bring it to light.

Years past I found that x amount of queens mated, x amount failed and x among started well and then failed. What did I do. Muttered into my dram and set up more starter boxes.

Now I have a dram, for morale you understand, and come on here and bore you to death with the gory details, so suddenly there is an "issue"

You get the drift.

PH

 

[Red Bee]

I get the drift .

 

[Hebeegeebee]

I've not been keeping bees long enough to confirm Rogers views but from his experience and of others, there does seem to be an increase in problems of early supercedure of young queens although I have been OK with mine.

 

[theengraver]

I put it down to the vast amounts of imported queens there rubbish i have always belived you get exactly what you pay for!

 

[Hivemaker.]

And lots of the imports from certain places, have been nosemic.

 

[Bcrazy]

Hi Hivemaker,
You say some seem to bee nosemic, but how is that as its my understanding that the exporters of bees must have a clean bill of health to send bees abroad. There lies the problem who if anyone will bee inspecting the colony the queens come from?
Breed your own queens its great fun and a great sense of satisfaction.

Mo

 

[Hivemaker.]

Well there you go Mo,just go's to show it does not work.

 

[Poly Hive]

I think it's more than a little unfair to say improted queens are rubish.

Not in my experience limited though that is. I hae used in my bee career if I can call it that some 40, and the one I lost was my fault not hers poor lass.

I agree though that queen rearing is great fun and we all should do more.

I would love to see some isolated mating stations set up but until we as a group can agree as to what is best for us I hold out no hope at all.

PH

 

[Hivemaker.]

Of course they are not all rubbish,but then i never said they were did i,only the one's with nosema would be rubbish,but that could also apply to queens produced in this country,but not many of them marketed in the same volume as the imports.

 

[theengraver]

Queen imports are pile them high sell them cheap many exporters are only bothered about the money. they have to be its there business every queen what ever the condition is profit
if we did not import queens and bees how many little pests could you cross of the list? how healthy would our own bees be?
you say you would love to see some isolated mating stations set up
The whole country used to be one great big isolated mating station.
We are the bees worst enemy how long will it be before we bring in small hive beatle of some other exotic pest or virus to add to the list

If we dont buy imports there would be no imports!

 

[Hivemaker.]

Think we may be able to perhaps cross of some viruses,depends really where the queens were coming from,but regards SHB well,that is more likely to arrive in a shipment of fruit or a pot plant. Not so sure about cheap either regards some of the queens,island mated buckfast from denmark around £100 each,open normal mixed mated £50ish,more for a breeder queen £350,£450...or more even.
We have been importing queens and bee's into the country for over 160 years,maybe more,so we should have some good genetic diversity.
Be good to be just self sufficient though, and produce all our own i agree,athough i do rather like the sound of some of the Irish bee's,not aware that they have any diseases or viruses that we don't already have.

 

[oliver90owner]

I agree with Hivemaker, but sadly 'the grass is always greener on the other side' applies. A lot of beeks look no further than the end of same. Most(?) bee farmers just go the most 'money in the pocket' route and re-queen regularly with imports (can one blame them for that?).

The imported queens likely do have the traits claimed - docile and productive. Trouble is the story doesn't end there although the importers would like you to believe that. Traits are numerous and if they fail all the rest (regarded by most as not important) is it surprising that next generation queens are vile tempered; that production falls; that they are not particularly disease-free or pest-tolerant; that they brood half way into next year (using up most, or all, their winter stores); fail to do much in a poor UK summer; fail to over-winter well, etc etc.

The last thing to note is that in a poor summer, home produced queens would likely be late, poor or insufficient to satiate the demand. I would like to see controlled importation, as in simply introduction of tried and tested strains (for all traits), but that could never happen.


It is just the way of some beeks - want now - uck the rest. Personally, I never want to import queens, although I recognise that my gene pool is likely prevalent of the same.

Regards, RAB

 

[theengraver]

Good points
but there are too many jumping on the band wagon with imported queens and bees from here there and everywere too many new beeks have not got a clue were there bees come from. many when asked say there british and there a lovely bright yellow and a bit swarmy as they bought them from a local source and then that source turns out to be one of the importers.

They requeen with £20 imported queens because in many cases there beekeeping in based on price and that price is the lowest price out there
im not knocking the beeks that are on a budget but where theres a market there will be a supply could you imagine if you could sell queens on flebay
starting bid at 1p BIN at £4.99.
As beekeeping gains popularity in the UK over the next few years there will be more and more small scale importers poping up undercutting each other.
and that will be when quality hits rock bottom soon it will be hit or miss if the queen has been mated the seller wont have a clue what hes selling as all he knows is some bloke in the back of byond just sends him a load in a jiffy bag
and he wont be bothered as long as theres a market to sell to.

and this is already happening finding a supply a few years ago on the internet was a hard slog today it will take you a few minutes there are loads one site claims to have stock in the 1000s of imported Italian queens and hundreds of from Slovenia
In 50 years time beekeepers will look back and say this is the time it all started to go wrong more time should have been spent looking into the can of worms we were opening
The Honey bee is in big trouble a few isolated pockets here and there that are unaffected for the moment over the last 20 years the world has become a much smaller globel market place in most cases a fantasic thing and a massive benift to many but in a few cases a massive disaster
Take a look at the USA at current rates of decline they will be Extinct by the year 2035 according to the channel 4 program "The Last Beekeeper"

 

[Chris B]

According to DEFRA/Bee Base imported queen numbers are typically around 10k per annum if I remember correctly. For most importers or secondary purchasers the major attraction of foreign queens is simply getting them early, at a time when you could not get any newly mated queens here. I would guess 99% of nucs sold before the end of May would contain either a foreign queen or a previous season's queen.
You only have to read the websites of large scale nuc suppliers to know this is true.

 

[Poly Hive]

Given that in principle importing queens is not a good thing.

How do we solve the problem?

We have masses of islands we could use for line mating. No one bothers.

We have some very good genetics about. No one bothers.

So?

PH

 

[MJBee]

Good point PH - I wanted to start an "apathy society" but I couldn't be bothered