rossbyjove
House Bee
- Joined
- Mar 29, 2022
- Messages
- 411
- Reaction score
- 326
- Location
- Hilperton Wiltshire
- Hive Type
- National
- Number of Hives
- ONE
I was offered a swarm from someone a few days ago.Is a lot of 'queen failure' is attributed to the local drone population, or lack thereof?
i was slightly dismayed to see in our area/association magazine a group advocating the forking out of drone brood, all in the name of varroa removal and IPM. Surely by the time the bees are raising the critical winter bees, any varroa removed by drone removal earlier in the year will have been replaced?
Couple that with hives stuffed with only worker foundation, we really are doing our best to mess with half of the genetics!
I got my swarm from her last year.
At out last club meet she said she lost three colonies due to what she suspects are poor queens.
I told her that my swarm has superceded twice and I am now on my third queen.
So I said there may be something going on with local genetics and hoped the gentics of this swarm were better than the last.
She took offence at me insulting the genetics of her bees and refused to give me the swarm.
She also kills all her drones.
I'm thinking it could be a blessing in disguise ?