Does A.I. have any relevence in Scottish Beekeeping?

[Eric McArthur]

Question: Is Murray MacgGegor the only thinking progressive beekeeper in Scotland? At the SBA Council Meeting at Perth on Saturday 15th November, Murray gave a talk covering important issues concerning Scottish beekeeping; things like the SHB threat - I personally do not agree with Murray regarding honey bee imports, but concede that at this present time commercial beekeepers UK wide are caught between a 'rock and a hard place' - import or go bust! Importing bees will without doubt incur the entry of SHB into these islands and this incursion will result in the devastation, if not the decimation of Scotland's fragile honey bee population. Considering the lack lustre response by beekeepers to the two recent 'Ban The Beetle' petitions; the SHB is being 'invited' into Scotland through an 'open door'!
Murray also mentioned some of the problems relative to successful beekeeping in Scotland; among them the difficulties of queen rearing, due to the vagaries of our Scottish weather, which dictate the need for imports. At this point in Murray's talk I found myself thinking A.I. I turned to Gavin, who was sitting next to me and suggested the solution to the weather problem is simple: Artificial Insemination! I stuck up my hand to put the A.I. question to Murray - to be told; the Meeting is now closed! Nothing daunted I approached Murray and put the question of A.I. to him suggesting that with his clout and expertise, as Scotland's leading Bee Farmer, especially considering the skills of his gifted assistant; funding for such a project could be achieved. He countered with "Aye fine, but the problem is that in 'good' years when mating is highly successful - nobody wants queens." Okay, so we do nothing! Consider, when the SHB gets established here colony losses will be astronomical (if 'astronomical' is possible with a base population of only some 22,000 colonies in Scotland!). Varroa compounded by the SHB will result in constant (high!) losses of colonies year on year in Scotland - do we sit on our thumbs, or do we test the temperature of the political will for funding for a Nation wide' Save the Honey Bee' project. By establishing a Scottish Apicultural Centre of Excellence including an A.I. facility; who knows what we could achieve - controlled propagation of A.m.m country wide, even!!

By the way; revisiting my opening question - Murray told me during our conversation that had already considered A.I. and his gifted assistant was already 'on the case' with a proposed session with the leading world authority on A.I. - Susan Cobey, Head of the Honey Bee Research Laboratories, Ohio University and the University of California.
Is A.I. the way forward for Scottish Beekeeping?

[Jon]

II is useful for having close control of breeding lines but it is not really a technique for mass production of queens.
The bad weather excuse is over egged as well. A queen can fly and mate in 15 minutes and it is rare for the weather to be so bad for 3 weeks that a queen has no chance of taking a mating flight.

[mbc]

In his book "Bee Sex Essentials", Larry Conner describes a little of his work for Genetic Systems, Inc., where he was responsible for maintaining and producing for distribution queens of the Starline and Midnight grafting stock and also mass producing II queens for production colonies. They produced tens of thousands of II queens for four years, but ultimately he states "...the plan to mass produce thousands of instrumentally inseminated queens and sell them at a price comparable to naturally mated queens was flawed. Simply put, we did not have all the answers to key questions about bee biology regarding queen sexuality and development.
Some thirty years later, many of these same questions remain unanswered."
Pretty damming from a man who has been there, done that. Later on he goes on to say "As popular as the hybrid bees were, the extremely high labour costs are one reason they are no longer available."

[EK.Bee]

The SHB petition on 38 degrees is up to 650 sigs and increasing https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/stop-the-small-hive-beetle-spreading-to-britain

I think we lost out when Susan Cobey had to cancel her Dumfries talk, hopefully she'll come back at some point

Maybe the SBA will consider running a course on AI at some point ? To attend a commercial training course is an expensive business

I hope Murray's plans to reduce his dependence on imports are successful

[Pete L]

II is useful for having close control of breeding lines but it is not really a technique for mass production of queens.
The bad weather excuse is over egged as well. A queen can fly and mate in 15 minutes and it is rare for the weather to be so bad for 3 weeks that a queen has no chance of taking a mating flight.

I agree, and if the weather is not reliable enough in Scotland, then large mating stations could be set up in the south of England where the weather is likely to be more reliable for good matings.

[Eric McArthur]

Hi Jon
Good to hear from you! Sorry that you have such a low opinion of A.I (aka as I.I). It is a well proven technique and capable of producing thousands of viable queen bees annually - if properly funded! Better preparing to do something positive than just hoping that this summer of 2014 was on not a 'one off'. Murray acknowledges as do most beekeepers in Scotland who undertake to raise their own queens that the unreliability of the Scottish weather is a major setback to queen mating. I.I will provide a fall back, when the weather 'plays up' in a crisis situation, as and when the SHB, Varroa and AFB and perhaps also T. clarea combine to test us.

[Eric McArthur]

E.K.Bee wrote:
The SHB petition on 38 degrees is up to 650 sigs and increasing https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitio...ing-to-britain.

How many beekeepers do we have in Scotland with hopefully families that are interested in our bees? There should have been an instant and spontaneous reaction of protest against the SHB. England have many more beekeepers than Scotland where is the protest of England's thousands. Apathy wins and the honey bee loses - again!!

[Jon]

Eric. I am not against II and I have been offered a lend of a Schley apparatus which I intend to learn how to use when I have time but I don't see it as a tool for mass production of queens.
I live pretty far north and I have always managed to produce at least 2 mated queens per season per apidea in use.
This year with the good weather a lot of them produced 3.
The weather is not a major issue unless it is exceptionally bad for several weeks.
In perfect weather the queens are laying 8 days from emergence and in poor weather it can be 20+ days which does make a difference to the number of queens you get in a season.

[Pete L]

England have many more beekeepers than Scotland where is the protest of England's thousands.

Melon sales drop 75% in the fourth quarter.

[Eric McArthur]

Jon wrote:
This year with the good weather a lot of them produced 3.
The weather is not a major issue unless it is exceptionally bad for several weeks.
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I am not against II and I have been offered a lend of a Schley apparatus which I intend to learn how to use when I have time.
................................................

Point taken!

I.I however if practiced at beekeeper level as you have implied would go a long way toward self reliance and self sufficiency at local association level!

[Calum]

Hi
i dont see how its a problem to raise hundreds of queens a year. A beekeeper proficient in transfering larve, that is willing to sacrifice a strong colony for the job of raising them should have no difficulty. An egg brooder is a great help there for hatching them out. A.I. is nice for selective breeding, but if you have 1 good queen, and the rest of your stock is ok, you are better letting nature do the rest. At least that way some of the weeklings will be culled in mating flights, reducing later losses

[Eric McArthur]

Hi Calum
"......but if you have 1 good queen, and the rest of your stock is ok, you are better letting nature do the rest". This is a recipe for inbreeding!!
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I.I is a fall back when a crisis is compounded by prolonged unfavourable weather. When did you last 'summer' in Scotland; prior to 2014?

[mbc]

Hi Calum
"......but if you have 1 good queen, and the rest of your stock is ok, you are better letting nature do the rest". This is a recipe for inbreeding!!
.................................................. ...............................
I.I is a fall back when a crisis is compounded by prolonged unfavourable weather. When did you last 'summer' in Scotland; prior to 2014?

II is always going to present more of a risk of inbreeding than "letting nature do the rest", and II as a fall back is a pretty clumsy idea as it needs a good deal of lead time to prepare drone rearing colonies etc. by which time nature will have more than likely provided an adequate mating window. The only advantage of II is the ability to choose the drones.

[gavin]

Melon sales drop 75% in the fourth quarter.

Post of the week! :D

As for AI/II I know of two native bee guys in Scotland seriously thinking of using it, but I think in both cases it is for controlled crossing and the maintenance of breeding lines rather than raising production queens.

Our own breeding group managed to get off the ground (no pun intended) in 2014. Like Murray, queen matings failed completely in August (due to poor weather) but were good in June and July. In September matings were back on in Strathmore for Murray, but our mating site is at a higher elevation and the drones had mostly been thrown out by the end of August.

I suppose II could have rescued some of the queens that didn't get mated in August before their 3 weeks was up as we watched weather forecasts with little hope for mating windows, but in most summers there will be good months as well as poor ones.

[Eric McArthur]

MBC wrote:

"II as a fall back is a pretty clumsy idea as it needs a good deal of lead time to prepare drone rearing colonies etc."

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The 'beauty' of I.I is that sperm can be harvested, frozen and saved over time - thus the necessary sperm will be readily available 'at point of need'!

[Eric McArthur]

Gavin wrote:

"I suppose II could have rescued some of the queens that didn't get mated in August before their 3 weeks was up as we watched weather forecasts with little hope for mating windows, but in most summers there will be good months as well as poor ones."
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I.I could work like a 'flywheel' - by smoothing out the erratic time scales of the weather windows and save a lot of nail biting; which I experienced many times during the mid 70s up till I hung up my Queen cages in 1992, when Devon got its first tasted of Varroa

[Jon]

Eric. Why don't you try II and report back before proclaiming that it is a panacea.
Sure, it has its place but is not the route for mass production of queens.
If you want to produce 200 queens buy yourself 100 Apideas.
You might even get more than 200 in a good year.

[busybeephilip]

As I have said sometime in the past, the main use for II is to maintain breeding lines but here in Northern Ireland no-one seems to be really interested in getting involved. The impression I get from some queen raising persons is that queen rearing involves taking a new queen, often straight from an apidea, then breeding from her in the next season before she has been properly tested. Testing involving scoring the many traits required such as temper and especially honey production as we all want honey at the end of the day. A breeder queen should have several years under her belt and her progeny also assessed before she can earn the qualification of a breeder queen. A breeder qualifies as a breeder when every virgin raised from her is guaranteed to have predictable qualities that as a prof queen breeder you can stand over.

II is time consuming and you do need to be organized which probably puts most persons off the idea as its a lot easier to open mate from apideas, the problem being you never know what she has mated with given drones can fly 20 miles to mate - how can you seriously use this as a potential breeder queen. The post above mentions freezing sperm, this is not even necessary as semen is stable for several weeks under controlled conditions so can be harvested, stored and made ready as queens reach insemination age

[Jon]

Thing is Phil, most here are reluctant to pay £30 for a queen let alone £300+ for a breeder queen.
And very few drones fly 20 miles. I know they can but a lot of queens mate right over the apiary so they are mating mostly with your own drones.
It is important to maximise that aspect.

[mbc]

I don't see storing sperm, either frozen or under other stable conditions, are going to improve the success rate of II, and every failure pushes up the already onerous work load per successfully mated queen. Even seasoned professionals working under laboratory conditions struggle to get anything like the level of success found in nature. I'm no expert but from what I've seen harvesting semen is troublesome, inseminating virgins is fraught with difficulty, getting them to lay isn't guaranteed and then keeping them alive quite tricky, those that get that far then often turn into drone layers or get superceded, not much bang for your buck for a run of the mill production queen but worth it for a guaranteed parentage breeder queen.

[Calum]

Hi Calum
"......but if you have 1 good queen, and the rest of your stock is ok, you are better letting nature do the rest". This is a recipe for inbreeding!!
.................................................. ...............................
I.I is a fall back when a crisis is compounded by prolonged unfavourable weather. When did you last 'summer' in Scotland; prior to 2014?

Inbreeding can easily be overcome if beekeepers would share more of their queens amongst each other (doing that more and more here).
An alternative are queen mating sites organised by the local beekeeping association.
When did I last summer in Scotland? - It has been a while, keeping bees and summering away are a bit mutually exclusive. I assume your summer was as bad as ours. We only had good mating weather, max 2 good weeks per mont in the season. - That is always the case, you don't know what weather you'll get for mating when you start raising.
Thats why we start in April and continue each week raising 20-50 queens cells a week till we have the number of mated queens we need/can sell plus about 20 for just in case.
We work as a group of 3 beeks with usually 1 or 2 novices helping out and learning. We considered AI kit, but its 3-5000€ for a decent set - thats a lot of queens to sell to make up that expense. And as already posted, AI queens are delicate creatures, often as not they go tits-up within 12 months.

[Eric McArthur]

Inbreeding can easily be overcome if beekeepers would share more of their queens amongst each other (doing that more and more here).
An alternative are queen mating sites organised by the local beekeeping association.
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We need to foster this kind of cooperation in Scotland! I tried in 2007 but few takers!
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
.............you don't know what weather you'll get for mating......Thats why we start in April and continue each week raising 20-50 queens cells
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Staggered batch rearing is a great ploy.
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

We work as a group of 3 beeks with usually 1 or 2 novices helping out and learning. We considered AI kit, but its 3-5000€ for a decent set - thats a lot of queens to sell to make up that expense. And as already posted, AI queens are delicate creatures, often as not they go tits-up within 12 months.
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I am wishing for government funding for I.I. kits. In a crisis situation a one season queen is better than no queen! Many imported queens only last one cycle! So a precedent has already been established!

[Jon]

Eric.
It is easy to raise queens in volume without II.
The main problem is organising drone saturation or isolated mating sites.
The weather can be a short term problem but is not the main obstacle.

[mbc]

Pembrokeshire bka got lottery funding for II equipment a few years ago and it's been of no use at all in reality, sits idle in one of the members utility rooms gathering dust. I agree with Jon, the thousands spent on the II equipment would have been of much more practical use spent on mini nucs for the use of members.

[fatshark]

It is easy to raise queens in volume … The main problem is organising [snip]

Jon, I think you underestimate the excellent work groups like your own do in the preparation and organisation of the fundamentals for queen rearing. Grafting on particular days, populating the mini-nucs, checking mated queens etc. Whatever the weather. This takes a considerable amount of time, quite a bit of experience and a lot of dedication. Certainly drone saturation and isolated mating sites are desirable, but many associations are not even close to being able to co-ordinate the basics.

I don't know enough about II to determine whether it's useful for large scale queen rearing. I do know what it takes as an individual (with a job) to generate 10-20 mated queens per year. I'd like to see the national associations encouraging the development of organised queen rearing at a county or local association level - providing the training, timetables etc. My experience of running queen rearing for our association is that it's like herding cats …

[greengumbo]

MBC wrote:

"II as a fall back is a pretty clumsy idea as it needs a good deal of lead time to prepare drone rearing colonies etc."

.................................................. ....
The 'beauty' of I.I is that sperm can be harvested, frozen and saved over time - thus the necessary sperm will be readily available 'at point of need'!

I have been talking to some of the top I.I. people recently and freezing sperm still has huge issues. Problems with viability and storing are currently hampering its use.

[Jon]

My experience of running queen rearing for our association is that it's like herding cats …

Needs a bit of organisation all right but a big group can get by if there are three or four competent members who carry out most of the key tasks.
We have about 50 in the group and only two of us graft on a regular basis.
The key thing is to get each member to take responsibility for his/her own apideas with regard to feeding and checking.
I organise all the stuff via a gmail mailing list so members know when there are cells available and when they need to leave off apideas.
Most of the group would not be confident about clipping but there are several who are competent and some nights are spent marking and clipping and caging queens one after the other.
The advantage of a group is that no-one needs to master every single aspect of queen rearing. Different members compliment each other.

[Calum]

Hi John,
I agree with your points, its handy to have a group of 3-4 core members.
But there is not that much work in it is there? If you have 1 colony for starting, and 3-4 colonies for finishing and supplying apideas with bees, it's a bit like a factory production line...
Or maybe that why my wife shakes her head an laughs at me when I say "I'm off to the bees, see you soon"

[busybeephilip]

Yes, long term storage does have problems, no beekeeper that I know would have the facility needed for controlled rate freezing of honeybee sperm in liquid nitrogen so no point talking about that. There is plenty of short term methods that work without loss of significant viability allowing the beek to harvest well before virgins have been even grafted.

I think there is still a general misunderstanding between queen breeding and queen rearing. Commercial or sideline queen rearing is raising a load of queens in apideas for sale using breeding material that has quite often not been tested fully(at least 3 years) resulting in a lot of variation in the final products. Some many say this is genetic diversity and a good thing to have others may disagree but the queens will vary in quality and performance and you maybe be disappointed in performance due to inter batch variation especially if you buy several queens that can be compared. I bet many of you have experienced this.

Queen breeding involves rigorous testing of potential queens to be used in a future breeding programme, these would be II mated (single drone matings) to guarantee the parentage giving solid parental data going back many generations, the best of these queens would rarely be sold but kept by the breeder for queen rearing giving virgin queens that will have definite characteristics and little variability - ie genetics has been fixed with little diversity. The procedure is complicated using many different inbreed lines which are hard to keep alive but it is the offspring from these lines that are evaluated for quality. In this case if you buy queens raised from a proper breeder you get what you pay for.

Using II as a method to rear a load of queens (eg 200/season) is not viable unless you are unemployed and single with plenty of time on your hands. II is a breeding tool, not a queen rearing tool. Commercial queen rearers do not use II but open mate virgins from a properly tested breeder with a known dual parental pedigree in isolation and highly saturated specific genetically selected drones - a cross that guarantees that every queen sold is 90% identical. NO-one I know of in the UK is remotely close to this type of operation and nor would I.

So...the question is.. Do the associations or other bodies want to get into setting up lines of bees that can be used for queen rearing, this would take a lot of time, dedication and extensive record keeping and many disappointments for many years before stable breeding lines could be established by ii . Also a minimum of 50+ hives would need to be managed. The general feeling I get in Northern Ireland is that no one is prepared to dedicate the time and expense to such a project, which would involve a group of dedicated young active persons with plenty of free time. I run approx 50 hives, employed and wife, there's no way I'd have the time for it, too old and just not going to even try it. Don't throw away the apideas or single frame EWK nucs and stick to the old fashioned methods of rearing a queen from a reasonably good queen and see what happens - its all we've got to go forward on at the moment, also, you need to be in the right area - your choice of yellow or black else you're wasting you're efforts.

So its a dream, it wont happen unless we get a dedicated bee research institution government funded. I'd love that job! Ranting finished - Phil

[mbc]

Or maybe that why my wife shakes her head an laughs at me when I say "I'm off to the bees, see you soon"

Lol. My wife thought I was having an affair, so now I double my initial estimate, add an hour and say I hope to be back at that time if I don't encounter any problems along the way!

[mbc]

Queen breeding involves rigorous testing of potential queens to be used in a future breeding programme, these would be II mated (single drone matings) to guarantee the parentage giving solid parental data going back many generations, the best of these queens would rarely be sold but kept by the breeder for queen rearing giving virgin queens that will have definite characteristics and little variability - ie genetics has been fixed with little diversity. The procedure is complicated using many different inbreed lines which are hard to keep alive but it is the offspring from these lines that are evaluated for quality. In this case if you buy queens raised from a proper breeder you get what you pay for.
Phil

A very restrictive definition of queen breeding which excludes 90% of all breeders past and present. I think as soon as assessments, records and selection are used then you are "breeding". The keeping of different inbred lines is /has only been practiced by a very few, and neither is it universally accepted as the best way forwards with queen breeding by all either.
I'd have thought in the Scottish context it would be more suitable to have lots of different groups simply breeding from their best, culling the worst and a bit of interchange where necessary to raise the bar a bit.
There's nothing like talking about keeping lots of inbred lines going to switch Joe Bloggs the beekeeper off from giving a bit of improvement a go.

[Eric McArthur]

Hi mbc
Check out Susan Cobey!

[Eric McArthur]

Hi Phil
"So its a dream, it wont happen unless we get a dedicated bee research institution government funded."
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That was my target a "Centre of Excellence". Scotland could expand Auchinruive - if we as beekeepers had the will and stamina to convince the politicians of the benefits of such an establishment! The subject has had good airing!
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On a slightly different tack but still cogent to the I.I issue. Gavin, I heard a program on the radio some time ago about the production of Bombus sp., for pollination purposes, on an industrial scale in Eastern Europe . The report discussed the numbers of queens being produced as some 35 000. Interestingly it was mentioned that the "Hutton" was involved in this project. Do you have information about this, which I am sure would greatly interest the SBAi members? My understanding of the project was that these queens were subject to I.I. procedures! Any answers? The interviewee was a lady who was engaged as a co-worker in the project!

[mbc]

Hi mbc
Check out Susan Cobey!

Why, is she fit?

[gavin]

....... The report discussed the numbers of queens being produced as some 35 000. Interestingly it was mentioned that the "Hutton" was involved in this project. Do you have information about this, which I am sure would greatly interest the SBAi members? My understanding of the project was that these queens were subject to I.I. procedures! Any answers? The interviewee was a lady who was engaged as a co-worker in the project!

Hi Eric

No, I don't know anything about this and would be a little surprised if there was relevant expertise. I do know someone who knows a key figure with links to the commercial bumble bee world, so if I get a chance I'll ask her.

G.

[greengumbo]

Hi Phil
"So its a dream, it wont happen unless we get a dedicated bee research institution government funded."
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Devils advocate but is that not the NBU. Yes they don't do queen rearing / breeding research but maybe that is fair enough given their very limited public funds for what is a fairly small industry that at the moment is not overly concerned by the lack of queens OR hobby beekeepers who generally speaking, outside a few faithful (and good on them!) have the same attitude.

We should be gearing up as associations for purchasing isolated mating stations after land reform anyway ;)

[mbc]

Devils advocate but is that not the NBU.

Absolutely, if things were as they should be, but considering it costs the taxpayer~£200 quid for the nbu to look under each hive lid, I cannot imagine there'd be much of a call for £240,000,000 a piece queens.

[Calum]

So is anyone using this to register, track and improve their stock? (http://www2.hu-berlin.de/beebreed/ZWS/Startseiten/englisch/Bienenzucht-Start.html)

[Eric McArthur]

Hi Greengumbo
Read all you wrote - including: "We should be gearing up as associations for purchasing isolated mating stations after land reform anyway"! This is forward thinking and worth investigating! Buy land; involve 'crowd funding' and who knows what we could achieve? Scotland has been a self defeating country for many years - lets use the recent new found confidence to achieve the 'impossible'. Think, but BIG!

[gavin]

-snip- Think, but BIG!

Bee Improvement Group!

G.

[Eric McArthur]

Hi Gavin
The lady in the interview obviously had detailed knowledge of this project - I tuned in late! I missed the country involved. However she was able to state that an exhaustive search had been made of hundreds of Bombus colonies to find the best breeding material - resulting in the selection of only 6 breeder queens of the same race. The resulting progeny was as I stated; in the tens of thousands. The implications for I.I are enormous.
Incidentally Mathew Allan was (is) involved in a similar breeding project involving the red tailed mason bee in England some years ago! Worth talking to him! Any Ideas where he is now?

[Duncan]

lets use the recent new found confidence to achieve the 'impossible'. Think, but BIG!
Big Imagination Group would be more fitting.

[mbc]

Big Imagination Group would be more fitting.

I agree, be ambitious and aim high!
vsh Scottish amm with bells on, free to all beekeepers courtesy of taxpayers.

[greengumbo]

I agree, be ambitious and aim high!
vsh Scottish amm with bells on, free to all beekeepers courtesy of taxpayers.

Watch this space ;)

[Eric McArthur]

Ah weel! Considering that the Scots are subsidising English taxpayers to the tune of 100s of million£ - what difference would the few hundred thousand£ spent on Scottish beekeeping which would ultimately benefit the Scottish economy make!

[gavin]

Careful folks. Here is a fine line:

__________________________________________________ ______________________

Above it ^ looks like banter to me. Banter is good.

Let's make sure that below it -v- we don't stray into serious political stuff. G.

[Duncan]

I'm watching the space - can't see anything new.

[busybeephilip]

I'm watching too ! I'm afraid to comment further

[gavin]

I'm watching too ! I'm afraid to comment further

Good call. Eric is on the wind-up and we're all too smart to fall for it, aren't we?!

Eric: haven't had a chance to speak to my colleague yet. Not sure about Matt Allen or Chris O'Toole, the owner of the Oxford Bee Company. Their website says their products are now exclusively distributed by a wild bird seed company.

[Eric McArthur]

Good call. Eric is on the wind-up and we're all too smart to fall for it, aren't we?!
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Hey! No wind up! It wis'nae me wot mentioned taxpayers first! It would be good if solutions could be found that went some way to getting us a National Beekeeping 'home' and alleviating 'bottlenecks' in beekeeping - like the frequent intervals of poor mating weather.


Eric: haven't had a chance to speak to my colleague yet. Not sure about Matt Allen or Chris O'Toole, the owner of the Oxford Bee Company. Their website says their products are now exclusively distributed by a wild bird seed company.
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What she has to say could be of great interest and game changing. Time is not of the essense!

[Adam]

I think there is still a general misunderstanding between queen breeding and queen rearing. Commercial or sideline queen rearing is raising a load of queens in apideas for sale using breeding material that has quite often not been tested fully(at least 3 years) resulting in a lot of variation in the final products.

Queen breeding involves rigorous testing of potential queens to be used in a future breeding programme, these would be II mated (single drone matings) to guarantee the parentage giving solid parental data going back many generations, the best of these queens would rarely be sold but kept by the breeder for queen rearing giving virgin queens that will have definite characteristics and little variability - ie genetics has been fixed with little diversity. The procedure is complicated using many different inbreed lines which are hard to keep alive but it is the offspring from these lines that are evaluated for quality. In this case if you buy queens raised from a proper breeder you get what you pay for.

Phil

Few queens survive for 3 years now.

In order to breed decent, productive, well-behaved local queens you don't need to go to the lengths suggested. Even Ruttner does not think so.

Just keep in breeding from the best and elliminating the worst. Ideally this would be in a group but doesn't have to be - provided you don't have someone importing cross-breeds (sorry hybrids!) next-door and the local beekeepers are a passive lot - that might even accept the odd queen from you.

I do like the idea of II as it would mean that I could get queens mated early in the year - I have had some that have been too old to mate due to weather - but for a hobby, it's a bit too expensive and time-consuming for just me. Where the weather is poorer, then II might well make sense.

[Pete L]

Few queens survive for 3 years now.


The majority do around here, often the best queens are three years old, maybe it is only in this area though, and not a widespread thing these days.