queen rearing question

[thurrock bees]

Hi all
What is the difference between rearing queens from your best queen and buying a ''breeding queen''??

 

[mbc]

Rigorous record keeping and painstaking observation versus spending a lot of money on someone else's efforts.

 

[Walrus]

Hi all
What is the difference between rearing queens from your best queen and buying a ''breeding queen''??

In my case with only a few colonies even my best queen may be fairly average compared to somebody who specialises in queen breeding and has hundreds to compare to before selecting their best. What looks great to me is based on a small sample size.

However, even with amazing genetics in a queen I can't control the drones. And ultimately to get good daughters from the breeder it really matters how well fed & looked after the developing larvae are - great genetics can't make up for poorly nourished or shaken about larvae.

IMO to get the very best queens everything has to be "the best" - both genetics and the environment in which the new queens are raised. But to get queens that I'm happy with, probably not "the best", I sometimes buy queens (not breeders) and sometimes raise my own.

 

[moo]

Why not pool together with people in your area and breed from the best of your locals... You can all decide on the qualities you score each hive on, then choose your breeder queens and subsequently your drone raising colonies to flood the area with drones you want. But even more important.. cull the bad queens!

 

[For want of a better word]

Why not pool together with people in your area and breed from the best of your locals... You can all decide on the qualities you score each hive on, then choose your breeder queens and subsequently your drone raising colonies to flood the area with drones you want. But even more important.. cull the bad queens!

This is what BIPCo are attempting to achieve with Cornish AMM, using the Rame Peninsular ( and other areas) in Cornwall as the drone rich area.
The one difficulty it seems is the beekeeper... for what ever reasons.. who insists on not joining in and actively importing stock queens!

BIBBA have some excellent advice on record keeping.

Breeding your own queens is certainly a most satisfying addition to your beekeepering expertise....... but if you do buy in queens PLEASE make sure they are bred in the UK.

Before our Meddditerranean fiend gets arsey about my spellins again....

( If you are outside the UK... buy from wherever you like, but bee aware some countries DO have LEGLISLATION in place as to what type of bee you can keep!)

 

[pargyle]

Why not pool together with people in your area and breed from the best of your locals... You can all decide on the qualities you score each hive on, then choose your breeder queens and subsequently your drone raising colonies to flood the area with drones you want. But even more important.. cull the bad queens!

Its a great idea but you would have to get all the beekeepers in the area enlisted - it's impossible to get three beekeepers together who agree on anything, so I think the options are limited.

Our association is embarking on a limited queen rearing exercise but unless you are into Ii then you have the problem of where the drones the queens mate with come from.

Some people tolerate really bad tempered bees because they believe they are productive ... and the problem proliferates if the genes are passed on by these drones.

 

[pargyle]

Rigorous record keeping and painstaking observation versus spending a lot of money on someone else's efforts.

Yep ... that put's it in a nutshell !!

 

[Norton]

Icanhopit: I'm only trying to help you improve yourself - really, honest. As they say here:
You can take the donkey to water, but can't make him drink if he doesn't want to.

 

[Finman]

Hi all
What is the difference between rearing queens from your best queen and buying a ''breeding queen''??

I have had about 20 hives all my life.

It is difficult to find a good mother queern from that amount.

Best hives are mostly hybrids which genes spread if yiou tale daughters from that.

Professional breeders have 300-1000 hives. It is much more easier to find a splended hive from that gang than from 20 hives.

Then we have 5 hives. What they are? Very difficult to say.


Inbreeding is a big proplem in a small yard. You take several daughter from your best hive and then they are all sisters next year. And drones are brothers.

Luckily bees mate freely and when hive density is big, like in UK, inbreeding is not a problem. Self made queens are so more or les hybrids. And daughters from hybrids are what ever. From edge to edge.

,

.

 

[Finman]

but if you do buy in queens PLEASE make sure they are bred in the UK.

Before our Meddditerranean fiend gets arsey about my spellins again....

( If you are outside the UK... buy from wherever you like, but bee aware some countries DO have LEGLISLATION in place as to what type of bee you can keep!)

It is terryfying to see how forum allows this kind of attack onto somebody's professionals livelihood. This is not a hobby of "Meddditerranean fiend", he gets his living with making hard work with bees.


And based on what?

To earn living for himself and to family it is hard work. It is never a joke, - unless if you are not a stand up comedian.

.

.

 

[Little John]

Hi all
What is the difference between rearing queens from your best queen and buying a ''breeding queen''??

Price. Significantly so.

LJ

 

[beekeeping4you]

(...some countries DO have LEGLISLATION in place as to what type of bee you can keep!)

Hi icanhopit,
Maybe youcantopit by telling me which countries?

Regards
Reiner

 

[mbc]

Hi icanhopit,
Maybe youcantopit by telling me which countries?

Regards
Reiner

Parts, or is it all, of Slovenia, many German islands, a French island, possibly some Danish islands off the top of my head.

 

[Finman]

Hi icanhopit,
Maybe youcantopit by telling me which countries?

Regards
Reiner

Very few. I know only Romania.,,,And Tamar Valley Kingdom.

 

[beekeeping4you]

(...some countries DO have LEGISLATION in place as to what type of bee you can keep!)

Parts, or is it all, of Slovenia, many German islands, a French island, possibly some Danish islands off the top of my head.

Hi mbc,
I'm sorry, but I think that's wishful thinking 'off the top of your head'. You can keep whatever type of bee you want in all parts of the European Union, what looks like an exception is always related to the following, so let me offer my bits of information:

Germany
Seven Carnica mating islands: 1-Borkum, 2-Juist, 3-Langeoog, 4-Norderney, 5-Spiekeroog, 6-Sylt, 7-Wangerooge
Five Buckfast mating islands: 1-Baltrum, 2-Ruden, 3-Greifswalder Oie, 4-Langeness, 5-Hooge
Netherlands
Two Buckfast mating islands: 6-Ameland, 7-Marken

This makes 14 mating islands - seven Carnica and seven Buckfast together in the Baltic and the North Sea.
The running of these mating islands does not involve LEGISLATION, it is based on a 'civil' agreement between groups of beekeepers - beekeeping associations!
(Our breeding stock over the last years came from Baltrum and Ameland, next year I would like to try Marken...)

Denmark seems to be a different story, maybe because the whole thing was started by a single Mellifera beekeeper:

In 1993 the whole island was made a conservation area for the “Brown Bee of Laesoe”. A few beekeepers on the island were, however, against this conservation - claimed that the conservation was against the general rule of free trade within the European Union.
Several years and court rulings later, the European Court stated that it was acceptable to make a small area like Laesoe a conservation area
Just after this verdict, Denmark changed government, and the new Liberal government opposed the conservation.
The law was changed again to allow other bee races on the island, except for some small restricted areas. (protected mating!)
As a result, the Ministry of Agriculture decided to reserve a small part on the eastern end of the island as a mating area for the “Brown Laesoe Bee” and leave the main part of the island free for other subspecies of bees.
(Complete text here: http://nihbs.org/?page_id=516 )

The best you can get nowadays in Europe is a relatively small protected area for the mating of your bees and I think that and nothing more is the case with the much to often quoted 'Carniolans' from Slovenia... they are not a subspecies 'protected by law', the guy who is producing 10 000 queens arranged a protection for his business?? Maybe someone who is in contact with him could ask and try to find out how he did it... arrangement between beekeepers or 'legislation'?

Regards
Reiner

 

[Finman]

.
British Isles seems to the last resort to Black Bee. In other places that Ice Ace Original bee, which last arrived to Europe, is vanishing.

The whole story of Black Bee is humbuk.
.

 

[Norton]

If you are outside the UK... buy from wherever you like, but bee aware some countries DO have LEGLISLATION in place as to what type of bee you can keep!)

Why don't you do us all a favour and go and live in one.

 

[madasafish]

. but if you do buy in queens PLEASE make sure they are bred in the UK.

[/I]

So UK breeders can supply queens in quantity in April?

The BBKA utter the same meaningless platitudes and do nothing about helping UK supply so it's just a bad joke..

Look at most - not all - UK suppliers of UK bred bees - this year. They have no stocks.. and when they do they are sold out within a couple of days.

That's hardly likely to work when there are lots of queenless hives.

I'm sorry but it's rather like a political party attacking millionaires when their leader is .. a millionaire.

 

[Little John]

The best you can get nowadays in Europe is a relatively small protected area for the mating of your bees and I think that and nothing more is the case with the much to often quoted 'Carniolans' from Slovenia... they are not a subspecies 'protected by law' [..]

They were protected, by imports being prohibited (Article 70 of the Slovenian Animal Breeding Act, 2002) - but that was prior to Slovenia joining the EU, where: "The problem will be when Slovenia joins the EU and the principle of the free flow of goods, capital and services is enacted." Slovenia News, June 10th 2003.

LJ