Some colonies are determined to swarm

Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum

Help Support Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Well, that's what LASI call them......
I suppose they have to have a name instead of just a description
Lassie come home?
 
Well, that's what LASI call them......

No. They don't claim the daughters are hygienic. Only the mothers. The daughters are sold as virgins.
If you have seen/heard them make those claims about the daughters, I'd be interested to hear about it

I would also love to hear of anyone who has these queens who is actually testing them.
 
Last edited:
Virgin Daughters of Hygienic Breeder Queens
Virgin daughters are also reared from the same hygienic breeder colonies. They will be mailed to beekeepers when they are a few days old to introduce into a queenless colony and then to mate when aged about one week. Although virgin queens less often sold by queen rearers, we plan to do so to increase the supply of hygienic queens. In addition, there are two other potential advantages for a beekeeper: 1) they are cheaper; 2) by mating with local drones the resulting workers will have a combination of local genes from the drones and hygienic genes from the queen.


Yes, you are right, the sentence in bold might be construed to mean that daughters are hygienic but it is worded quite carefully to only infer that they might be.
 
Virgin Daughters of Hygienic Breeder Queens
Virgin daughters are also reared from the same hygienic breeder colonies. They will be mailed to beekeepers when they are a few days old to introduce into a queenless colony and then to mate when aged about one week. Although virgin queens less often sold by queen rearers, we plan to do so to increase the supply of hygienic queens. In addition, there are two other potential advantages for a beekeeper: 1) they are cheaper; 2) by mating with local drones the resulting workers will have a combination of local genes from the drones and hygienic genes from the queen.


Yes, you are right, the sentence in bold might be construed to mean that daughters are hygienic but it is worded quite carefully to only infer that they might be.

I think there is some very carefully worded sales talk in there.
The bit that I have highlighted in red states that the workers WILL have a combination of local and hygienic genes.
Since the queen is diploid, the most they should say is that the daughter queen May carry the hygienic traits which would be passed to the haploid drones. Of course, she may not. It is subject to the heritability of the trait

Incidentally, hygiene and VSH are measured on a scale(%). In that sense, all colonies are hygienic and have VSH...even if only at a very low level, but, I doubt many people would want queens whose colonies only cleared 1/100 cells
 
Last edited:
Tremy How is the hygienic queen doing? Must say I'm a little disappointed about the langstroth - I assume this is your flow hive colony? I was looking forward to a flow hive grand opening tea party at yours.

She is laying Obee1 ...beyond that I cannot say. I will have to think of a different name for her until she has proven her worth.
To replicate the test I thought of using the liquid nitrogen from a wart kit to freeze a small area of sealed brood....and then see what the bees do about it. That will have to wait though until there is a lot more brood. I am loath to add an extra frame from another hive as I want only her bees in there...so the colony is small ATM.
I have ordered a new queen for the Flow hive as they are messing about making QCs. Naughty girls. They have no eggs ATM so can't make any more and I left them an open QC. I need to test them for queenlessness before adding the new queen though.
Unless we get some more good weather we won't get any honey to harvest. I don't enjoy the lovely gardens and OSR your bees have been slurping. However, if there is a chance of harvesting...you will get an invite!
Thank you Millet...I'm on the mend but no lifting...which is no hardship! For 6 weeks. However, I was able to do the inspection but I think I will split the hives and nucs and do them on separate days to lessen the load. OH is fab at the donkey work.
 
Last edited:
To replicate the test I thought of using the liquid nitrogen from a wart kit to freeze a small area of sealed brood....and then see what the bees do about it.

I am not sure that this will work Tremyfro. The LN2 in those cryotherapy kits are intended for spot treatments and may not be enough to properly kill enough pupae.
 
Last edited:
I am not sure that this will work Tremyfro. The LN2 in those cryotherapy kits are intended for spot treatments and may not be enough to properly kill enough pupae.

aree, i was quite surprised how much liquid nitrogen LASI ladled into the baked been tins to kill the brood. i would dry and get some dry ice and use that
 

The criticism of that method is that too much comb is damaged around the section that is removed (particularly if the wired foundation typically sold in the UK is used). It signals to the workers that there is something wrong with that section of brood.
The recommended test in Europe is the pin-killed brood assay (http://www.coloss.org/beebook/I/queen-rearing/3/3/4/3)
 
Yes...that would work...if you got them to lay in a special box in the comb which could be removed intact without breaking other brood or signalling to the bees something was wrong. That was why I was thinking of the liquid nitrogen. If you use the one with the applicator which looks like a big cotton bud...you can get them to drip....would that be good enough B+? Then you wouldn't have to remove anything. Otherwise it might be tricky to test her. Any other ideas?
 
If you use the one with the applicator which looks like a big cotton bud...you can get them to drip....would that be good enough B+? Then you wouldn't have to remove anything. Otherwise it might be tricky to test her. Any other ideas?

If you could get enough LN2 on to kill them...yes.
I'm not sure how much comes in the gizmo you have but the coloss protocol says 3-400ml. I'm guessing this is much more than you get in a kit.

Incidentally, I don't think the Coloss protocol mentions it, but, the pupa should be at the pink-eyed stage or older. If the pupae are too young, the bees will remove all of them without any trouble and it won't be a proper test. When I did the pin-killed test last year, my readings were too high to get a proper dispersion over the range because I left them for 12 hours (the recommended range is 8-15 hours). I had to reduce it to 8 hours
 
Last edited:
I'm a broad-shouldered target, so I'm happy to take the flack, but unless you are part of some national research, can I ask why!?
It's all sounding a bit Hammer House of Horrors at the mo!
 
It will be a while before I can test them....so enough time to wok something out. In the meantime I have supplied mops and buckets for them to clean the nuc prior to moving into a hive...when the time comes.
 
I'm a broad-shouldered target, so I'm happy to take the flack, but unless you are part of some national research, can I ask why!?
It's all sounding a bit Hammer House of Horrors at the mo!

Lasi are claiming that not only do their open mated queens deal with varroa but so do their daughters supplied as Virgin queens to be mated away from the Sussex drones. It is useful for all of us hobbyists,for those who have bought them, to have some feedback. No point in buying them if lasi's claims are not what they seem
 

Latest posts

Back
Top