When queen rearing what traits do you look for?

[blackbrood]

My main goal this year is to raise at least one new queen (hopefully more) assuming my hives make it though Winter that is but lets be positive.

Most threads on here are geared towards styles of queen rearing but what I want to know...

When rearing new queens what traits do bee keepers on this forum look for in your existing colonies?

I think I know one or two of the more obvious traits like honey production, gentleness, low winter food consumption, what others are there to look out for?

Does any one look for hygienic behaviour? or varroa resistance? or other traits, if so how do you go about it?

This is a poster from the UoM about testing for hygienic behaviour , click here

and here is an article about the Swindon super bee thanks to Ron Hoskins, click here

Just looking for inspiration that's all.

BB

 

[BKF Admin]

Is it true that Ron Hoskins has been nominated for a Nobel prize ?

 

[oliver90owner]

Docility, staying steady on the frames, non-following, disease resistant, varroa tolerant, non swarmy, good foraging, early starters & late finishers for the day's work, early strong build-up, good laying pattern.

Probably most of them. I am particularly looking for varroa tolerance at present time, docile bees for the garden colonies. The others can be weeded out if not satisfactory.

Regards, RAB

 

[blackbrood]

thanks RAB, some extras in there I hadnt considered like early build up and early starters/late finishers

What do you mean by steady on the frames?

is that when they do not run around quickly all over the frame or do you mean when they hang on to the frames when they are lifted out of the hive in a free hanging line of bees or both

How do you go about checking for varroa tolerance?

Is this down to low varroa fall counts on omf?

I know I read an article about Ron Hoskins and he actually looked at the varroa that dropped to see if they showed signs of being attacked by the bees and also for white varroa that had been pulled from capped cells , he used a microscope for this on 40x magnification and then selected for the best varroa killer bees. I annoyingley cant find that article though to reference.

BB

 

[drstitson]

I presume Rab means " when they do not run around quickly all over the frame" ie calm when being inspected.

 

[Finman]

.
As long as you have couple of hives it is better to bye 2 queens every year from professional beekeeper. You may take one daughter generation from those. But not more.

When i have had 15 hives, it is very difficult to find a good mother queen from that group.
So i have bought 3 queens every year from some professional beekeeper. His possibily to find a good breeding queen from 400 hives is something else than among 15 hives.


Oliver tells quite a collection of features what queen breeder may run after. Some of them are out of horizont like varroa tolerancy.

Oliver, you should have hundreds of hives if you run after those features. And if the breeding is serious, you need insemination tools. Dreaming is allowed to all.

 

[Chris B]

1. Non-swarmy
2. Good Temper

After those 2 everything else is less important to me. If they don't swarm they will make honey.

 

[Finman]

1. Non-swarmy
2. Good Temper

After those 2 everything else is less important to me. If they don't swarm they will make honey.

well said. It is hard work to keep even those features.

Good yield comes from good pastures.

 

[mbc]

1. Non-swarmy
2. Good Temper

After those 2 everything else is less important to me. If they don't swarm they will make honey.

I would agree but I'd add a 3. A clean brood nest
Very easy to look out for and in certain circumstances can be a good indication of a number of things like disease resistance, hygiene, varroa tolerance and egg viability.

 

[RoofTops]

Good temper above all else. I keep my bees in my garden in a town and calm well mannered bees make beekeeping much more enjoyable.

I also always select from a strong colony. You need a strong colony for queen raising but the larva can come from another colony if you felt the strong colony did not have the characteristics you wanted. However, if the colony donating the larva was not itself strong this would suggest to me there may be something wrong with it - i.e. undetected disease.

There are books written on queen raising which lists main qualities to select for but all but a few of these qualities are difficult for the beekeeper with only a few hives to select from. For example, how do you tell if the colony is thrifty with its winter stores? Is it the colony with lots of stores left over in the spring - it might be but this colony also might be very weak and slow to build up. Likewise honey gathering - are they good foragers or good robbers?

My suggestion would be learn to raise good queens first, selecting from what you think is your best colony in terms of temper and overall strength and lack of obvious diseases like chalk brood. The varroa question is a hard one as there is a suspicion that colonies which seem to cope better with varroa may actually have varroa which breed at a lower rate. I've read that this may be due to the influence of the queen but I don't think this is wholly accepted yet. The problem with selecting for varroa "tolerance" is there are a great many variables and it has been tried before by a lot of people with varying results. Ron Hoskin's work is interesting but it is still work in progress.

Don't forget the drones. If you want to have more control then you need to select drone rearing colonies and bring these on early so there are plenty of drones when the queens come to mate. The problem is breeding drones also breeds varroa so you need to be on top of your varroa control methods otherwise you will have problems later in the year. I've been there and lost all 4 drone rearing colonies in the following winter.

 

[Finman]

Abilyty to bye good is the most important. Even quuen breeder does that.

I suppose that most of beekeepers do not select their queens. They take what ever which has long hind legs.

When i read how to rear own queens in a little nuc or how the hive rear its emergency queen. It is horrible reading under tittle of "queen breeding".

 

[oliver90owner]

Finman,

My list was not even exhaustive, but I put down the two I am looking for at the present time. I agree for all those, one might not find a suitable stock in lots of hives.

The other traits are secondary and if I am lucky enough to get a couple of queens that are varroa resistant (hygeinic?) and docile, I am happy, letalone some of those other traits. The rest will get changed/relocated if they are not/are worth keeping. The problem is, as always, which to remove from the gene pool! The nasty bees are often the prime targets for removal, but they may have some of the good traits!

Regards, RAB

 

[Finman]

The other traits are secondary and if I am lucky enough to get a couple of queens that are varroa resistant (hygeinic?) and docile,

Regards, RAB

as far as I know, you may bye them from France. the price is huge and as I was told, very agressive.

Question is, many try to breed varroa resistant bee stock but how much it cost to play that game?

In New Zealand they informed that they have allready succeeded in varroa game, but now two years it has been very silent.

Again this: our guy wants to rear at least one own queen. Lets prey together that it will be varroa resistant.

my advice is "give first oxalic acid and then trust on resistancy ( loaned fron Muhammed)

 

[PaleoPerson]

I collected a swarm late last year and the colony is showing some very favourable traits. So far they they have displayed:

1/ Very gentle - do not need smoke or gloves.
2/ When inspecting, they totally ignore you on the frame.
3/ Highly defensive against wasps - they will attack them in mid air.

So far looking good for breeding stock, will see how they fare.

 

[winmag270]

I collected a swarm late last year and the colony is showing some very favourable traits. So far they they have displayed:

1/ Very gentle - do not need smoke or gloves.
2/ When inspecting, they totally ignore you on the frame.
3/ Highly defensive against wasps - they will attack them in mid air.

So far looking good for breeding stock, will see how they fare.

you won't like bee such as that one little bit - better let me take them off your hands!!

 

[Haughton Honey]

you won't like bee such as that one little bit - better let me take them off your hands!!

Tsh Tsh.......you've already got a colony like that.

You bought them from me, remember!

 

[blackbrood]

.
As long as you have couple of hives it is better to bye 2 queens every year from professional beekeeper. You may take one daughter generation from those. But not more.

Thanks for all the food for thought folks, some really interesting points made.

I will politely disagree with Finman though , I do have 2 hives and I am still going to raise my own queen. If I dont get stuck in now there will always be excuses.

BB

 

[winmag270]

Tsh Tsh.......you've already got a colony like that.

You bought them from me, remember!

ah yes, very true....

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

Thanks for all the food for thought folks, some really interesting points made.

I will politely disagree with Finman though , I do have 2 hives and I am still going to raise my own queen. If I dont get stuck in now there will always be excuses.

BB

I've got a 2009 queen in one hive and her 2010 daughter in the other. Both my hives are slightly aggressive (admitedly nothing too bad), and the 2009 one at least is swarmy. Not traits I would like to encourage.

The 2009 queen will need replacing this year and when that happens I think I'll be going down the route suggested by Finman rather than perpetuating undesirable traits - though it was a special moment last year when the 2010 one started laying.

 

[RoofTops]

BB - you can certainly raise queens with two hives, you can do it with one of coiurse providing it is nice and strong.

The big question is what do you do when you have the queen cells ready? One method which I have used is simply to take the cell raising colony apart and distribute all the frames to nucs arranged in a circle around the site of the old hive. I would also keep the old queen and put her in a nuc as well so you can use her again if the new queens come out the way you want.

The alternative approach is to fill mini-nucs which will require less bees and will usually allow you to keep the donor colony and let it re-build. With mini-nucs you can then reject any queens which show chalk brood for example or which simply fail to mate and then only make up sufficient full sized nucs to meet your needs and giving away/selling any surplus queens. If you are just starting I suggest giving them away so no one can come back at you if they do not perform.

If you want to improve your stocks a good solution is to take the nucs/mini nucs to another site for mating. Our Branch apiary has well tempered bees and this is what I have done for a couple of years and the results have been good. I put them in a small enclosure about a 100 yards from the main apiary in the hope they will be less troubled by robbing and that seems to work as well.