Waiting for mating.....

[Jimmys Mum]

This weather is so frustrating. I've got 6 AS virgins due to emerge from tomorrow (ish) and through the next week or two. As far as I can see, the forecast for at least the next 10 days is not great. If it carrys on like this,I'll end up having to reunite using my old 2014 queens!

Can somebody remind me what sort of temperatures are needed for mating flights to happen? ......generally?

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

This weather is so frustrating. I've got 6 AS virgins due to emerge from tomorrow (ish) and through the next week or two. As far as I can see, the forecast for at least the next 10 days is not great. If it carrys on like this,I'll end up having to reunite using my old 2014 queens!

Can somebody remind me what sort of temperatures are needed for mating flights to happen? ......generally?

I thought it was 20C but all I'll say for sure is my boys are not "wating for mating" but have brushed up their game, shone their shoes and teeth and are out there looking for it anywhere close to that temperature. Click my other posts for a picture of them coming back on Monday 4 May. They seem to be finding a window most days. I have 4 virgin queens running around and I'm not worried. I know I'm in a bit of a microclimate but less of one at this time of the year.

 

[beeno]

This weather is so frustrating. I've got 6 AS virgins due to emerge from tomorrow (ish) and through the next week or two. As far as I can see, the forecast for at least the next 10 days is not great. If it carrys on like this,I'll end up having to reunite using my old 2014 queens!

Can somebody remind me what sort of temperatures are needed for mating flights to happen? ......generally?

20C is usually banded about. Monday-Tuesday looks hopeful! Good luck.

 

[B+.]

20C is usually banded about. Monday-Tuesday looks hopeful! Good luck.

Interestingly, there are swarms about with mated queens. How do you suppose they were mated in the temperatures we've been having?

 

[oliver90owner]

Interestingly, there are swarms about with mated queens.-

That would be casts you are considering, of course?

Shirley nearly all swarms at this time of the year would be primes? Natural prime swarms would all have mated queens, leaving virgins to emerge in the parent colony?

How many times do people need to read that these early queens are a mating lottery, before it actually sinks in? Not thinking and sticking one's head in the sand will make no difference. Think why so many queens are imported from afar, from warmer climates. It is really simple.

 

[B+.]

That would be casts you are considering, of course?
...
Think why so many queens are imported from afar, from warmer climates. It is really simple.

Yes. I was referring to casts. The point I was trying to make though was that virgin queens can mate at lower temperatures and in gaps between bad weather. It takes suprisingly little time.

It is a lottery with all naturally mated queens in this country. Even if you know the mother colony is good, you don't know what the virgin queen went out and mated with.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Yes, I have two. One emerged a few days and the other still a QC.
There are quite a few drones raring to go so I suppose we will have to bet on AVMs......
Not even grossly optimistic Accuweather has 20˚ for here in it's whole monthly forecast

 

[For want of a better word]

The seasons seem to have changed.. the weather in March was more like February, and our clematis and wisteria that is usually bursting with flower in April and over by May is only just in bloom !
Plants respond to local environmental climatic conditions.... so it seem do bees?
[Unless recently dragged buzzing and humming from somewhere in the sunny Mediterranean!]
Remember most of the beekeeping books were written in the first half of the second part of the last century... or cut and past from them!
I do not really think about beebreeding activities until our walnut is in full leaf... and that is only just showing the first shoots of leaf.

Patience will be rewarded methinks!

Yeghes da

 

[For want of a better word]

Yes, I have two. One emerged a few days and the other still a QC.
There are quite a few drones raring to go so I suppose we will have to bet on AVMs......
Not even grossly optimistic Accuweather has 20˚ for here in it's whole monthly forecast

Best bet would be AI... if you can find any mature drones.... how about a couple of huge IR lamps on the breeding colonies?

Yeghes da

 

[mbc]

The point I was trying to make though was ...

Primes have mated queens from previous years and casts have virgins, whatever point you're trying to make doesn't make any sense, unless it was that the bees feel confident that their virgins will get a chance to mate.

 

[YorkshireBees]

... using my old 2014 queens! ...

That's not old!

I have a couple of 2012/13 Queens still going strong!

ps. BTW however did bees managed without us for all that time!!!!

 

[B+.]

Primes have mated queens from previous years and casts have virgins, whatever point you're trying to make doesn't make any sense, unless it was that the bees feel confident that their virgins will get a chance to mate.

Whats so hard to understand about this
"virgin queens can mate at lower temperatures and in gaps between bad weather. It takes suprisingly little time."

Would you have us believe that queens only fly off to mate when it is above 20 degreec C?

 

[Hivemaker.]

There is some very strange weather conditions at the moment. Some colonies swarmed weeks ago and are sending out after swarms now with mated queens.

Where is this happening, is it with your own bees?

 

[mbc]

Whats so hard to understand about this
"virgin queens can mate at lower temperatures and in gaps between bad weather. It takes suprisingly little time."

Would you have us believe that queens only fly off to mate when it is above 20 degreec C?

No, but I would have thought this year's newly mated queens are few and far between as yet even in areas a week or so more advanced than down here in wet and windy west Wales.

Edit, and I've just seen your post quoted by hm above, are you ok?

 

[B+.]

Where is this happening, is it with your own bees?

No HM. I rephrased what I was saying and you jumped in in the mean time
I was referring to people having swarms weeks ago while the weather here was totally unsuitable. I think you mentionsed starting queenrearing 2 or 3 weeks ago?
I saw a smallish swarm yesterday that had a mated queen. It certainly wasn't a prime swarm

 

[Hivemaker.]

No HM. I rephrased what I was saying and you jumped in in the mean time

Sorry for asking too soon, i will leave it for longer in future, give you more time to edit out what you have originally written.

 

[B+.]

No, but I would have thought this year's newly mated queens are few and far between as yet even in areas a week or so more advanced than down here in wet and windy west Wales.

Edit, and I've just seen your post quoted by hm above, are you ok?

Yeah. It so easy to miss-read a post and answer completely the wrong question on here.

 

[Jimmys Mum]

That's not old!

I have a couple of 2012/13 Queens still going strong!

Yes I do agree, 'old' in this instance was not written to imply aged!

I have one of Exmoor Bees buckfasts now in her 3rd year going great guns - no sign of slowing down yet. I do have another on order though, to be waiting in the wings so to speak.....!

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

What I don't get is this insistence that a 'smallish' swarm must be a cast swarm and not a prime. It's pretty simple in my poorly educated view - a swarm (regardless of size) headed by a mated queen is a prime and a swarm (large or small) headed by a virgin is a cast (or colt, whatever)
To judge a queen's state of deflowering by the size of her attending throng isn't science but based on sorcery

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

Sorry for asking too soon, i will leave it for longer in future, give you more time to edit out what you have originally written.