selecting best colonies?

[beeboybee]

After a continued flurry of swarms, some my own and some not, i now have jumped to 7 colonies, i have a very productive hive but they are very agressive and follow 50mts sometimes and then hang around for ages...

one of my other original hives is perfect temperament but not much honey....

i need to combine back to 3 or 4 colonies (time & Kit reasons) what and how do people asses the colony whether its a keeper or a goner?

i need to sort the aggressive colony Asap is buying a queen always the best option or should i risk uniting with something else to see how they change?

 

[VEG]

Is the colony always aggressive or are they on the OSR for instance. If they are constantly aggressive then it comes down to, can you cope with that for the honey they produce.
I wont put up with aggressive colonies as they are no fun to go through, but they have to be constantly aggressive for me to sort the queen out.

 

[beeboybee]

unfortunately i have to admit they are continually aggressive since a late supercedure last season, i also don't mind a little pinging when inspecting but can not have followers as my bees are tucked away across the field but with them following for 50mtr they are into garden territory....

 

[oliver90owner]

It is very simple. If you are selecting for temperament, you keep the young queens - if their traits are good - and an older quiet colony if there are not enough good new queens.

You pick the desired traits and just do the best you can. If not so good, tryagain next year. Or buy in. Your choice.

 

[beeboybee]

Rab, are we talking killing bad queens and then uniting or killing queens and seeing what temperament is of any emergency queens raised.
whats the best option, i really want to try queen rearing at some point but want to improve my stock as much as possible to start with.

cheers

 

[Apple]

I think what was meant was to cull nasty or unproductive queens and then unite the queen less colony with one of better attributes, and rear new queens from that line.
The problem is, as my sister seems to find is that if your queen of wanted traits, mates with someone else's horrible drones, you could be back to square one!

James

 

[oliver90owner]

Emergency queens from an aggressive colony is likely to produce another aggressive queen? I don't like rearing queens from emergency cells like that. Better, if the colony is very strong, is to remove queen, wait until there are no more viable larvae for queen material and insert a frame with a few eggs, from a docile colony, for them to draw a few queen cells only.

Or alternatively use a frame with a queen cell, from a better colony. Assess the queens - the rest will be gone in a few weeks time.

Several ways of achieving the best of a bad job with aggressive colonies.

You have too many colonies? Uniting is clearly the way to go as long as you have enough queens of good temperament.

 

[beeboybee]

yep, i think uniting is the best way for me... thanks for the input. i am feeling a little reading up on bee genetics & queen rearing would be useful, really want to get my head around different ways to do queen rearing...

 

[Barbarian]

I made a list of the good and bad traits I might see in the hives on my apiary.

Some points were ...... no following, quiet on the comb, good wintering, good honey crop, suitable colony size for a single National brood.

I cull any queens with poorer traits and replace them with home bred queens from my more acceptable hives. At present, I have two colonies on the replace list. One needed to be fed over winter and the other is was making patchy brood.

I note that you have some unsure source swarms in the apiary. I do not use these as part of breeding. I tend to pass them on to newbees.

 

[oliver90owner]

Eight colonies is about right for sensible selection. Six is about the minimum, I would say. Below that the options are very limited...

I used to retain the incomers and integrate them into my selection procedure - if and when they demonstrated any good traits I wanted in my colonies. Always good to widen the gene pool as much as possible, IMO.

 

[beeboybee]

i have the space for 6-8 and plenty around for them to gather,
this is a how long is a piece of string question..... how lone do you thing 6-8 would take to inspect and swap supers etc...

when i was only able to have two hives i seemed to take two hours including getting ready and packing up.

my only worry with 6-8 is that it becomes a lot of time... then might become a bit hard to find the time they need.

thanks for the good tips, Re selecting good colonies