virgin queen mating with drone/ own drones

[irishguy]

I was just thinking about my virgin queen mating and wondering is it from the drones that came from her own hive or goes on the lookout for other drones not related to her. I have 2 hives with virgin queens and seeing as there's no beekeepers in 3 miles from my hives, the queens will have to mate either with each others drones or do with out.

Insaying that, my neighbour is bringing a hive onto his land soon. Would it be in my best interests to get it down now so my queens have more drones to choose from to mate

 

[MuswellMetro]

I was just thinking about my virgin queen mating and wondering is it from the drones that came from her own hive or goes on the lookout for other drones not related to her. I have 2 hives with virgin queens and seeing as there's no beekeepers in 3 miles from my hives, the queens will have to mate either with each others drones or do with out.

Insaying that, my neighbour is bringing a hive onto his land soon. Would it be in my best interests to get it down now so my queens have more drones to choose from to mate

virgin queens mate with up to 25 drones and the more the better becasue if she mates with her own drones she is mating with herself, the male haploid drone is from an unfertilised egg

if she only mates with her own drones then 50% of her fertilsied eggs are non viable diploid drones rather than workers, so if you have a poor brood patern with lots of holes, it can be becasue she has mated with her own drone

 

[ratcatcher]

so your area is a no fly zone for wild bees?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Read up a bit on queen mating and drone congregation areas

 

[irishguy]

so your area is a no fly zone for wild bees?

Suppose so lol. Thou if I remember correctly, I'm near sure that when I was at the beekeeping course, the beekeepers doing the course said that we don't have wold bees here in the west as they've all died out. Either that or I've picked it up wrongly.

 

[Finman]

.
Inbreeding is serious then when genepool is sensitive to nosema, chalkbrood or to EFB.
You can avoid it when you buy new queens outside your yard.

 

[ratcatcher]

Suppose so lol. Thou if I remember correctly, I'm near sure that when I was at the beekeeping course, the beekeepers doing the course said that we don't have wold bees here in the west as they've all died out. Either that or I've picked it up wrongly.

so every swarm that swarms from keepers hives, are caught and housed, none ever slip past and set up wild colonies

 

[Excession]

Simple way to check, seal up your hives after dark, then go check the forage for honey bees the next day.
If you see some, they ain't yours!

 

[pargyle]

I was just thinking about my virgin queen mating and wondering is it from the drones that came from her own hive or goes on the lookout for other drones not related to her. I have 2 hives with virgin queens and seeing as there's no beekeepers in 3 miles from my hives, the queens will have to mate either with each others drones or do with out.

Insaying that, my neighbour is bringing a hive onto his land soon. Would it be in my best interests to get it down now so my queens have more drones to choose from to mate

Queens can fly up to 5 miles to Drone Congregation Areas and Drones can also fly that distance to DCA's as well ... some say even further ... so you are not looking at bees in your back yard - you are looking at bees that could be in a circle with a diameter of 10 miles and that's a huge area. Drones are also notorious for hive hopping so there should always be a sizeable gene pool around unless it's a very tightly managed mating area.

The queen will select the healthiest drones she can find .. often those that fly the highest are the ones that she will mate with ... so your mate's hive may have a selection of suitable drones and thereagain - it may not ! Bit of a lottery open queen mating ... might be better to buy in a proven laying queen when you need one ?