Setting up a mating station.

[Curly green finger's]

Hi, one of my plans for next season is to set up a mating station in the black mountains.
I've four amm colony's and my menor has 8 , these colony's will be used to take stock from .

I was thinking half a dozen mating nucs to start with ... I'm looking for advice on what to buy in preparation and your experiences pls..

I also plan to buy more overwintered nucs to add to our stock and I'm using standard national hives.
Cheers.

 

[Repwoc]

If you are intending that your mating station is for controlled mating (ie with the drones you provide) then you need to test your site first to make sure there are no other drones in the area. You'll need to put some VQs up there without any drones - if they remain unmated then there probably aren't any other bees in flying range.

 

[Swarm]

It helps if other beeks in the vicinity are on the same wavelength, drone flooding the area is much easier that way. Some very remote areas in the Black Mountains, I hope it goes well.

 

[Murox]

I guess you have already had a look around for info - have you read this

www.coloss.org/standard-methods-for-rearing-and-selection-of-apis-mellifera-queens/

 

[theeggman]

You could try a direct PM to Hivemaker, Pete was running some of Brother Adam's old mating stations on Dartmoor a while ago and maybe still is.

 

[Poly Hive]

I would suggest reading Mating in miniature as you are quite short of bees.

 

[For want of a better word]

Hi, one of my plans for next season is to set up a mating station in the black mountains.
I've four amm colony's and my menor has 8 , these colony's will be used to take stock from .

I was thinking half a dozen mating nucs to start with ... I'm looking for advice on what to buy in preparation and your experiences pls..

I also plan to buy more overwintered nucs to add to our stock and I'm using standard national hives.
Cheers.

The Native bees do not behave in the textbook fashion that were written from observations of imported exotics and hybrids from them.

Best results ( so far in last 7 years of trials) have been at an isolated place on Dartmoor using 2 well nourished sister queen colonies( fed continuously) as drone providers, and very well stocked ( in my case Keilers) with selected queens ( grafted from best quality colony) introduced to the mating nuc on site as queen cells.... we shall call the pedigree, Buckthorn.

Now in Paynes polly nucs on 6 frames to overwinter... to test in the coming season!!

Chons da

 

[Beefriendly]

Be careful is what I would suggest. I though I had found the ideal isolated mating site in a remote and rarely visited head of a dale. Three farmhouses, one of which gave us permission to site hives there, a church, a ruined chapel and bugger all else but moors for about 8 miles in any direction.
All the virgins (I took 6 nucs up there) got mated .....so where were the Drones coming from?
Turned out the other two farms kept a couple of hives of local bees, there was a feral colony in the church belfry (been there for years the vicar told us....restocked with swarms from t'other farms me suspects...) and lo and behold we found another feral colony in the eaves of the chapel....
No chance.

I'll bet Cheers would find the same at his "isolated" site....unless it is the mating's HM has been doing with his bees?...Isolated mating stations are rare as rocking horse droppings in mainland UK.
Now a remote island off the coast of Scotland might suit....but as Murex keeps on mentioning the weather is not ideal for matings....

If I was really serious about maintaining racial purity I'd head down II as fast as I could, reliable, easy to perform (so I'm told) and no worries about interracial breeding's.

 

[mbc]

In John Connor's little book, bee sex essentials, he concludes drone mother colonies should be placed roughly 2 k from the mating site, obviously geographical features like mountains or coast can be used to lessen the need to have apiaries all round.
I've always been happy to accept a certain dominance of drone air space rather than imagining total exclusion of outside drones, which would be very hard to achieve in most places if open mating.

 

[SDM]

In John Connor's little book, bee sex essentials, he concludes drone mother colonies should be placed roughly 2 k from the mating site, obviously geographical features like mountains or coast can be used to lessen the need to have apiaries all round.
I've always been happy to accept a certain dominance of drone air space rather than imagining total exclusion of outside drones, which would be very hard to achieve in most places if open mating.

Seems to work for me. Mating apiary is almost on the beach , 4 apiaries with 49 drone mother colonies are 1-2 miles inland in an approximate semi circle around the mating apiary. Mating flights are 10-12 minutes
Not perfect , but not bad.

 

[For want of a better word]

Be careful is what I would suggest. I though I had found the ideal isolated mating site in a remote and rarely visited head of a dale. Three farmhouses, one of which gave us permission to site hives there, a church, a ruined chapel and bugger all else but moors for about 8 miles in any direction.
All the virgins (I took 6 nucs up there) got mated .....so where were the Drones coming from?
Turned out the other two farms kept a couple of hives of local bees, there was a feral colony in the church belfry (been there for years the vicar told us....restocked with swarms from t'other farms me suspects...) and lo and behold we found another feral colony in the eaves of the chapel....
No chance.

I'll bet Cheers would find the same at his "isolated" site....unless it is the mating's HM has been doing with his bees?...Isolated mating stations are rare as rocking horse droppings in mainland UK.
Now a remote island off the coast of Scotland might suit....but as Murex keeps on mentioning the weather is not ideal for matings....

If I was really serious about maintaining racial purity I'd head down II as fast as I could, reliable, easy to perform (so I'm told) and no worries about interracial breeding's.

 

[Curly green finger's]

Thanks for the replys , I'm not going to quote any one post as I'd have to reply to all .
Some details where the mating station will be it is at the head of a valley and there is mountain behind to the left and right , there is three properties and two farms in the valley one of which is ours and the other is our neighbour also where my mentor lives and keeps her bee's .
Between the two farms the distance is a mile and a half .
The three properties are holiday lets and no bees here.
Ill keep this thread up dated and will get some photos so folk can see what I mean .
If it's ok ill pm some of you for some more infomaton/ help knowledge sharing if you like Cheers .