Rearing queens

[Thymallus]

My working definition is a Buckfast queen of known pedigree crossed with Buckfast Drones with known pedigrees as listed in the Buckfast breeders association Gemeinschaft der Europäischen Buckfastimke.

 

[Stiffy]

What is a pure Buckfast?

If you follow B. Adam, Buckfast are a continuing mix to find the best traits. I would recommend buying only queens with a genuine pedigree showing breeding lines.
S


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[Finman]

If it's any help and I can only speak for Buckfast. All my F1s are as good as gold. Most of the F2,s

With good quality starting queens you should get 2 to 3 generations of good bees,with open matings and few problems. .

That is not possible. In F3 generation there are only 25% original genes left. It is quite zero when thinking Buckfast. 75% mongrels. How do you explain that?

Why to take third generation if you can use first with same efforts?

 

[Finman]

What is a pure Buckfast?

And pure Buckfast hybrid?

 

[Finman]

.
I bought just 2 buckfast queens from beekeeping company which has 1500 hives.
I do not mind about bedigree. I trust that they are good. I bought 10 Italians too. Good to compare.

£ 26/queen from Central Finland.

I want to get rid of swarming.

 

[Thymallus]

That is not possible. In F3 generation there are only 25% original genes left. It is quite zero when thinking Buckfast. 75% mongrels. How do you explain that?

Why to take third generation if you can use first with same efforts?

Shows the good dominant influence of the few remaining Buckfast genes If only mated with locals then it should only be around 12% at F3, although the Buckfast drones from my other queens may have had some influence on the final outcome. But unable to test this, so mere conjecture.
I don't normally go beyond F1, but trialed some F2's and F3's out of curiosity from a few good F1 mothers. One F2 was quite mad, the others are fine tempered. Perhaps not as fecund as the breeding stock or the F1's.

 

[Finman]

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Tupla

 

[Finman]

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Difficult to know pencentages because own drones are nearest.

And when you breed, you select best what ever the they are.

But in hybrids swarming tendency is easy to return


I bought mated queens because so I avoid drone influence, when I think next summer. Another possibility is to take larvae from non swarmed queen stock, but drones will brought genes from my recent stock.

 

[Thymallus]

I may never find this out as the intention is to replace them with some "pure" Buckfast strains or F1's next spring.

A lot of people talk about F2 aggression in downstream offspring from bought in pure Races/strains. But they are often repeating what someone else has told them with no real experience of it themselves.
I now have some experience in that direction.
To date, my only bad tempered Buckfast F2 was no worse than my average locals that I kept for comparison purposes and was not as bad tempered as some of them.
My suspicion is that if you only ever had good tempered Buckfast/Carniolans/Italians in your apiary the bad tempered offspring would stand out as being exceptionally aggressive. But in comparison with my local bees they (so far) are no worse.
People tell me they have good gentle local bees in there area. Not where I live.

 

[Thymallus]

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I bought mated queens because so I avoid drone influence, when I think next summer. Another possibility is to take larvae from non swarmed queen stock, but drones will brought genes from my recent stock.

You can only try and see what happens.
I know I have to keep buying good Queens if I want to keep these big productive hives that I like. But I also enjoying learning how to rear good queens. And so far my F1's have generally been as good as my Bought in queens. One was out of my league (at the time), I'd never had a queen that was capable of filling 3 national brood boxes with brood. I made a mistake and left her on 2, she swarmed (got her back as clipped). Let the first F2 develop and was pleasantly surprised by their gentleness and fecundity. So I've bred a few more. Not all have been this good. I'm intending to try and use a few queens (from different sources) as nothing more than drone factories next year to saturate the area. I don't know if it will work or not....but it will pee off the black bee men around here no end

 

[Finman]

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I explain to myself that defensive and swarming are bees' natural features and good habits in nature.
Calm and slow swarming are gene errors selected by humans. In crossings errors are healed and colony gets bees original habits.

When I buy queens, there is no quarantee are they selected at all. I have got all kind of bugs.

Crossings between Elgon and Italians have been very bad. One colony was really dangerous. I got 170 stings to my face through sade screen in 3 days when I tried to take honey off from the hive. IT was dangerous to bypassers.

 

[B+.]

My suspicion is that if you only ever had good tempered Buckfast/Carniolans/Italians in your apiary the bad tempered offspring would stand out as being exceptionally aggressive. But in comparison with my local bees they (so far) are no worse.
People tell me they have good gentle local bees in there area. Not where I live.

I completely agree with you: you have to experience bad character to know what good character is like. I would go further and say; what any of us considers a "good" character is only as reliable as our experience to date. I might have a very good colony which I consider perfect, but, there may be a better one just around the corner. Thats the problem with subjective assessment. Its all too personal.

 

[Thymallus]

.
I explain to myself that defensive and swarming are bees' natural features and good habits in nature.
Calm and slow swarming are gene errors selected by humans. In crossings errors are healed and colony gets bees original habits.

I think you summed it up very well. The characteristics that beekeepers desire in their bee's are not necessarily the same as wild bees would need to survive unaided.

 

[Thymallus]

Thats the problem with subjective assessment. Its all too personal.

It's why I like to keep a few different types of bees so I can make assessments based on comparisons in my own apiaries. It still has a certain amount of my subjectivity to it, but is more accurate than the usual hearsay.

 

[For want of a better word]

You can only try and see what happens.
I know I have to keep buying good Queens if I want to keep these big productive hives that I like. But I also enjoying learning how to rear good queens. And so far my F1's have generally been as good as my Bought in queens. One was out of my league (at the time), I'd never had a queen that was capable of filling 3 national brood boxes with brood. I made a mistake and left her on 2, she swarmed (got her back as clipped). Let the first F2 develop and was pleasantly surprised by their gentleness and fecundity. So I've bred a few more. Not all have been this good. I'm intending to try and use a few queens (from different sources) as nothing more than drone factories next year to saturate the area. I don't know if it will work or not....but it will pee off the black bee men around here no end

How very considerate of you...

 

[Stiffy]

You can only try and see what happens.
I know I have to keep buying good Queens if I want to keep these big productive hives that I like. But I also enjoying learning how to rear good queens. And so far my F1's have generally been as good as my Bought in queens. One was out of my league (at the time), I'd never had a queen that was capable of filling 3 national brood boxes with brood. I made a mistake and left her on 2, she swarmed (got her back as clipped). Let the first F2 develop and was pleasantly surprised by their gentleness and fecundity. So I've bred a few more. Not all have been this good. I'm intending to try and use a few queens (from different sources) as nothing more than drone factories next year to saturate the area. I don't know if it will work or not....but it will pee off the black bee men around here no end

Don't you realise that a black bee takes precedence over everything else?
S


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[Finman]

Don't you realise that a black bee takes precedence over everything else?

Yes they took when they were here. Varroa killed them all 20 y ago.
I nursed black bee mongrels 30 years. Varroa is easier to handle than black bee.

 

[Thymallus]

Don't you realise that a black bee takes precedence over everything else?
S
/QUOTE]
Not around my apiaries

 

[Stiffy]

Nor mine !

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