Which strain of Queen

[Crg]

Surprises with queens makes beekeeping interesting.

I'm the kind of person who doesn't like surprises I like having reliable, low maintainence, good tempered bees, with low swarming tendancy and good disease resistance.

It means I can spend my spare time sitting back in my garden and relax with a coffee in the morning, or cold pint in the summer evenings, and watch the bees at work. Which is what I find interesting.

Being in a very urban area, I'm pretty sure my neighbours wouldn't be too interested in "surprises" either.

 

[Finman]

I'm the kind of person who doesn't like surprises I like having reliable, low maintainence, good tempered bees, with low swarming tendancy and good disease resistance.

.

WOW! That battle I want to see! Unfortunately bees do not know what you want. And drone swarm high in your blue sky, which are waiting your fresh tame virgins.

I have not met reliable hives.
But if you have insemination tools, you are perhaps closer to your aims.

If yuo have 20 hives, it is mostly difficult to find a good mother queen for breeding.
From 500 hives alternatives are good.

 

[marcros]

Next year I intend to expand into an out apiary all being well and will be looking to build up my stock over time the thing is I know very little regarding the various strains of Queens available and want to learn more so I dont end up mixing strains that may produce bad tempered bees so if anyone has any advice from your experiences it will be appreciated.

Sorry will be away from my computer after this post so if i dont reply to any advice till tomorrow dont think of as rood

Tom,

Have a look at this- towards the bottom of the page.

http://bickerstaffs-queens.blogspot.com/

Admin, I hope that this is not considered spamming- I have posted this link on another thread, but it is pretty useful for queen characteristics...

 

[hedgerow pete]

i ve looked down his list of differing queen types very very impressive has anyone any dealing with them , whats there quality like

 

[Tom Bick]

Thanks marcros

Have seen the Bickerstaff website befor it was mentioned in an other thread sum time ago and as my surname is Bickerdike it might be a distant relative

Right just going to do the photos for the box now

 

[Black Comb]

Anyone any experience of his BuckfastxCecropia?

I also see he offers AMM.

 

[hedgerow pete]

i looked into getting some queens to start the breeding line off, but there was no feed back on whever his quality was anygood, also i found the style and type of bee i was looking for was at home in the uk

 

[JCBrum]

I've got a 2008 Bickerstaffe queen Pete, ......

The bu**ers swarmed as soon as I got 'em. They raise brood quite quickly but haven't produced any more honey than slow bees do, but I have double the quantity of bees.

My experience is too little to be reliable but I suspect Finman is right, when he says the quantity of honey produced depends on the forage available rather than the specific type of bees.

 

[BDaddy]

I started with a Carnica nuc and like yours they did very well. They are prodigious breeders and start producing brood very early often mid Jan and certainly by mid Feb. Swarming is an issue, but I used this trait to produce more nucs which grew into full sized colonies very quickly.

 

[Black Comb]

I started with a Carnica nuc and like yours they did very well. They are prodigious breeders and start producing brood very early often mid Jan and certainly by mid Feb. Swarming is an issue, but I used this trait to produce more nucs which grew into full sized colonies very quickly.

But when you're up to the number of colonies you want do they produce much honey?

 

[Finman]

The bu**ers swarmed as soon as I got 'em. They raise brood quite quickly but haven't produced any more honey than slow bees do, but I have double the quantity of bees.

It is difficult to say, is the hive lazy or not.

A vigorous layer use all honey to raise new bees. It grows to the maximum and then it needs time that those masses are at the age of foraging. Then it is ready to catch yield.

If the beekeeper is not accustomed that style, he does not know to give quickly room and the colony swarms.

Carniolan makes often big hives, as big as Italians. But carniolans are quicker to swarm.

 

[Finman]

I started with a Carnica nuc and like yours they did very well. They are prodigious breeders and start producing brood very early often mid Jan and certainly by mid Feb. Swarming is an issue, but I used this trait to produce more nucs which grew into full sized colonies very quickly.

When I started feed Italians with pollen patty in Spring, the colonies grew as fast as carniolans. = 10 years experience.

 

[JCBrum]

10 years experience.

Very valuable, and very hard to acquire ......

JC.

 

[Finman]

Very valuable, and very hard to acquire ......

JC.

Yes, I stopped with them 10 years ago. What I learned from them is protein feeding in Spring.

I have noticed too that best hives are best pollen foragers too. With that ability their brooding goes over bad weathers.

Pollen foraging is hereditary feature too. Yes, probably you say that you have allways pollen, but if weather lets bees forage it.

 

[Hawklord]

Pollen foraging is hereditary feature too. Yes, probably you say that you have allways pollen, but if weather lets bees forage it.

What was their honey collecting and consumption of stores like? I'm guessing they would not collect as much as other strains due to placing more importance on pollen, and they would use very little stores.

 

[Finman]

What was their honey collecting and consumption of stores like? I'm guessing they would not collect as much as other strains due to placing more importance on pollen, and they would use very little stores.

Remember. The honey yield depens on how much nectar is in flowers = long bees must spend time and energy to get stomach full.

If the distance to the nectar field is over 1 km, 50% of yield goes to travelling.

Pollen is collected quite near the hive.

However, I have found my best honey foragers has been best honey foragers. I have had never pollen stores to cast away.

It is not so simple, pollen or nectar.

Bee never use stores more than they need to live.

****************

Every one is clad about Carniolans' good spring build up, but it simply is based on good pollen stores over winter.

.

 

[match]

I was at an interesting talk last night on the Black Bee, but the guy giving it went off into various discussions about queen selection on a small scale.

The following points were raised, and I think I agree with most of them:

• You can't really breed strains of bees unless you have >50 colonies to be selecting from.
  
• Pure strains will (as Finman has pointed out) be 'watered down' by local stock within 3 years.
  
• Pure strains often become very aggressive when hybridised.
  
• Hybridised bees are often very prolific, but not continually prolific and may fail after a few years (hybrid vigour).
  
• Bear in mind that any colony which produces a large excess of honey is not doing something 'natural' - bees in the wild don't need to gather hundreds of pounds of honey in a season, so those that do are probably overworking themselves.
  
• Successful breeding isn't about increasing the yield and survival of any one colony, it increases the yield and survival of the apiary as a whole over a number of years.

If you buy a pure strain queen, and want to keep her that way, then you have to expect to buy in a new queen every few years. Otherwise the best an amateur can do is to try to bring on a selection of queens each year (including taking virgins to other apiaries), study wing morphology and other characteristics, and swap out the 'worst' 60% queens from your apiary each year, keeping th best 40%.

As well as the beekeeping-friendly traits you're looking out for (good yield, low aggression etc), also be on the look out for:

Prolific pollen storage, including under the brood.
Small, tightly packed winter bundling.
Low temperature foraging.

As these are signs that the colony will survive well through the winter.

Hope this info is useful, if a little off topic!

 

[Finman]

.
Match, half of your features are not true.

"low temp foraging". I have not seen them. They are all alike.

If weather is bad, the nectar is so moist that it is better to saty at home.

In Australia and Finland bees need 16C temp that they can forage pollen with good loads.

Mostly if weather is bad, flowers do not sectere nectar.

 

[Finman]

.MATCH: Bear in mind that any colony which produces a large excess of honey is not doing something 'natural' - bees in the wild don't need to gather hundreds of pounds of honey in a season, so those that do are probably overworking themselves.

During my life time bee colonies have grown 3 fold size and the main reason is that swarming tencendy = reproduction has been eliminated via selection.

Bees colect honey as far as they can store in their hive and then they swarm.

In Australia wild colonies produce normally 2 swarms in a year, like domestic hives. They natural dead rate is 20%.

The lack of proper holes to make the hive is one point n the size of colonies.

If you have a big hole, the heat escapes and it does not protect in winter.
If you have a small, colony must swarm often, but too collect honey storage for bad times.

If the hive swarms on youyr yard and swarm escapes, the rest of colony will not get surplus for long time.

.

 

[match]

.
Match, half of your features are not true.

I'd be interested to know which ones I agree that some of the points seem more true, and some more speculation...

"low temp foraging". I have not seen them. They are all alike.

There's obviously a cut-off below which all bees stop working, or at which there's nothing useful for them to gather. But from experience I have 2 hives side-by-side which have very different looking colonies. One forms tight balls in winter, very low in the hive, and they'll be out flying and bringing pollen in down to around 8-9C. The other forms very loose balls higher up across the frames, and seem to stop foraging around 13-14C. The former colony always consumes less stores over winter, and seems to get going in spring quicker. I know which one I'll be preferentially using queens from this year.

If weather is bad, the nectar is so moist that it is better to saty at home.
Mostly if weather is bad, flowers do not sectere nectar.

Agreed, but then we do get very cold, crisp dry days up here in Scotland (rarely, I know!) and its interesting how only some of the hives take advantage of them, especially for pollen.