Virgin and apidea

[MuswellMetro]

When i have used Apidea i have found the queen gets pushed out to mate in a hurry by the house bees

Does anyone keep their virgin queen in for 8 days with the Q EX or does this cause other problems

 

[einsteinagogo]

When i have used Apidea i have found the queen gets pushed out to mate in a hurry by the house bees

Does anyone keep their virgin queen in for 8 days with the Q EX or does this cause other problems

Well this year, mine must have been lazy - because I waited 4-5 weeks.

I only put on the queen excluder on the front of the box, once mated, and laying. (to stop her absconding). That's hoping she's not laying drone brood!

 

[B+.]

When i have used Apidea i have found the queen gets pushed out to mate in a hurry by the house bees

Does anyone keep their virgin queen in for 8 days with the Q EX or does this cause other problems

I have been using 5 frame nucs this year for open mating. They have taken a little longer than in Apideas.
The Qex on the apidea is intended to keep the queen locked in after she would naturally go out to mate so that she can be instrumentally inseminated

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

I don't know the answer but I got a nice little Q apparently nicely mated in an Apidea, pinned in the QE and they pushed it out and absconded so whatever you do, a pin is not enough in my (extremely limited) experience.

 

[itma]

When i have used Apidea i have found the queen gets pushed out to mate in a hurry by the house bees

Does anyone keep their virgin queen in for 8 days with the Q EX or does this cause other problems

Q rearing class today with Terry Clare & Bob Smith.
Terry shuts the front QX until 3 days after emergence (ie until Q is sexually mature) and I didn't get a proper explanation of why he thinks it necessary. Bob claims he has never shut the front QX. Me, I've not seen any point in closing it.

Where does your 8 days come from?

 

[B+.]

Q rearing class today with Terry Clare & Bob Smith.
Terry shuts the front QX until 3 days after emergence (ie until Q is sexually mature) and I didn't get a proper explanation of why he thinks it necessary. Bob claims he has never shut the front QX. Me, I've not seen any point in closing it.

Where does your 8 days come from?

The information I have is that it takes 5-7 days (6 day average) for a virgin to become sexually mature. Of course, this doesn't mean she will fly to mate that soon (I have one that took over a month to start laying this year).
Closing the entrance for 3 days (with micronucs like Apidea, etc) is to encourage them to focus on comb building and to accept the virgin as their queen. Otherwise they might desert the nuc and return to their old hive

 

[B+.]

Where does your 8 days come from?

I think he meant until they are sexually mature. After this point the queen could be caught and instrumentally inseminated

 

[itma]

The information I have is that it takes 5-7 days (6 day average) for a virgin to become sexually mature. Of course, this doesn't mean she will fly to mate that soon (I have one that took over a month to start laying this year).
Closing the entrance for 3 days (with micronucs like Apidea, etc) is to encourage them to focus on comb building and to accept the virgin as their queen. Otherwise they might desert the nuc and return to their old hive

Two quite different things.

Shutting all the bees in to make them cohere into a new colony. (Ideally 3 days in a cool dark place.)
And closing the QX on the entrance to keep Q (but not workers) inside.

For open mating (rather than II), I cannot see any point in closing the QX at the entrance. At all, never mind for the 8 days that MM was asking about.

 

[B+.]

For open mating (rather than II), I cannot see any point in closing the QX at the entrance. At all, never mind for the 8 days that MM was asking about.

There is no reason to do that for open mating

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

Another consideration is that a QE will keep drones out. I do not know enough about mating theory to know how important that is; I simply observe that drones participate in the mating flight (beyond the obvious) and enter my apideas when they can.

 

[B+.]

a QE will keep drones out

Drones drift from hive to hive so they are not usually a problem. In a small colony such as an Apidea, they may be a slight distraction to the workers feeding them (as there are so few of them) but, not enough to warrant the QE on the front

 

[Hivemaker.]

Another consideration is that a QE will keep drones out.

Yes it is, we use queen excluder... or preferably drone excluder over the entrance of many of the mini nucs that are going to the isolated mating apiaries, queen excluder is obviously removed on arrival, drone excluders can stay in place.

 

[B+.]

we use queen excluder... or preferably drone excluder over the entrance of many of the mini nucs that are going to the isolated mating apiaries,.

Same idea as the ewk then?