What're your bee related winter plans?

[Neils]

I'm doing the module 3 exam so we've got a workshop running in the new year. I've got a couple of talks to do (also available for weddings and Bar Mitzvahs) and write and I dare say I'll try and pick up a couple of new books to chew through.

Think it's time to start learning a little more about the internals of our little friends so that's my aim for this winter.

Finally, if I ever get the time I want to pull apart the database I put together last year and refine it a little more. It worked out reasonably well, but was far too complicated and asked for too much information. A couple of days experience with a bee inspector really opened my eyes to just how much/little information you actually need to record to get a decent picture of what's going on in the colony.

[gavin]

Excellent that you are doing talks already. One thing you should learn very soon is how to say no. I haven't mastered that yet so I've already done 4 this year and it looks like I may be doing another 4 before the winter season is out. I'm hoping to get away with the one talk for all 4, but that one needs written first. Usually I end up taking the day off work to write it in those last few hours before I have to set off to some far corner of Scotland, but this time I *will* be more organised (honest).

Main thing for the winter is to get our association apiary properly underway. Things are being held up at the moment thanks to planning permission issues for a shed, but once that is sorted it will be full steam ahead.

Then there is the bee breeding workshop in Fife later in November. There is quite a lot to do for that, and getting properly to grips with the wing morphometry of some of my colonies will be part of that. And helping get an SBA Varroa survey underway. And there's that possibility of running classes in Perth to help get the association there revitalised. Oh, and install Tapatalk on SBAi! Which I'll bet is really easy and quick once you decide to do it.

I've been trying to lose responsibilities, and the load just seems to grow. Something will have to give.

[Neils]

Excellent that you are doing talks already. One thing you should learn very soon is how to say no. I haven't mastered that yet so I've already done 4 this year and it looks like I may be doing another 4 before the winter season is out. I'm hoping to get away with the one talk for all 4, but that one needs written first. Usually I end up taking the day off work to write it in those last few hours before I have to set off to some far corner of Scotland, but this time I *will* be more organised (honest).


Doesn't feel excellent at the moment. I've actually managed a half decent slideshow, I'm just struggling getting what I want to say down in a conherent manner but it's been a good 15 years since I last gave a presentation and that was using acetate slides!

Saying no would be nice but all talk requests come through me so if I can't give it to someone else then I have to do it!

The talks I'm working on at the moment, all aimed at non beekeepers, should become standard talks that we can hand out with a projector and a memory stick. So we can hopefully spread things around a bit.

[beebreeder]

hi nellie and gavin
suprised that more kit is not on your lists, I have another 20 plus nuc boxes to make and as many hives as time allows, never seem to have enough, I do like the idea of standardising talks, give everyone a subject and just email it to anyone that needs a new subject whether its for beekeepers or non beekeepers, personally I avoid that sort of thing like the plaque, just a loner by nature.
kev

[gavin]

I've got boxes of spare kit in the corner of the room here from Thornes sales which will also occupy time this winter. Brood boxes for Bailey comb changes which I didn't need as my winter losses last year were too high. Extra supers which I haven't needed but *will* need in 2011. Also fancy trying making some of Jon's correx nuc boxes, or maybe ply if I can't find the recycled election material.

The best talks are rather personal to the speaker I think, and often use few words on the screen. Most of it has to be in your head, and the pictures just illustrate those points. Sometimes I let others have copies of the talks I've done - somewhat reluctantly - and wondered just how well they used them. So yes, offer PPTs on memory sticks but I hope that users will tailor them and make them their own. Maybe someone should write a guide to actually delivering talks (not another winter for me though).

cheers

Gavin

[Jon]

Most of it has to be in your head, and the pictures just illustrate those points.

I think that's the key thing.
It's fair to assume your audience can read, and does not need the speaker to read out 5 bullet pointed statements on every slide.

I have to do talks and fundraising stuff quite regularly for the charity I work for and I mainly use photographs as memory joggers which remind me of the key points I want to make.
To talk about rural urban migration I use a photgraph of a woman with a baby on her back begging at traffic lights. It better than putting up slide after slide of stats.
There is a Dilbert cartoon called 'Death By Powerpoint' which shows the audience all curled up dead on the floor like over etherised fruit flies while the speaker continues pointing to a bar chart.
I actually did my first bee talk last night, but not with Powerpoint. It was to a non beekeeper audience (Belfast Winemakers Circle) so I brought along a few props such as a queen excluder, an Apidea, a drawn frame of comb, two bottles of mead, and honey samples to taste. I had a jar of ivy honey from two years ago and everyone loved it.


Jon's correx nuc boxes

I made 15 this year and have 13 in use at the moment.
I am scheduled to do a talk on this at my bka within the next couple of months.
I have about 10 sheets left.
I see Nellie mentioned Shep on another thread.
I intend to do this in true 'here's one I prepared earlier style' only using gaffer tape instead of sticky back plastic.

A friend of mine got John Noakes to autograph his T shirt and he was so pleased with it he got the signature carefully sewn in.

I have whipped up a frenzy about bee breeding in my bka and have promised to coordinate the various stages so I have to get all of that sorted out.
I need to work out how to cover costs and allocate tasks. There is a good thread on the bbka site where Roger Patterson gives a lot of ideas about organising courses.

[GRIZZLY]

Come on Gavin ,don't forget that you're coming to our "far flung corner" soon .I expect your talk to be REALY polished by the time you get down your list to us !!!!. As for winter activities I plan to buy a bulk load of W.R.Cedar,let it season for a bit,then start some serious hive and neuc making with a view to expanding my beekeeping again.I want to get in before the hike in V.A.T .I need also to make a decent warming cabinet and an efficient solar wax extractor in place of the cobbled up gear I've used this year.I also MUST make up frames EARLY this year rather than the usual last minute scramble.

[Roger Patterson]

I have another couple of talks planned, but disagree about sharing. I believe beekeeping is much richer for the personalities that are in it, and whether it is classroom or apiary teaching I think the character of the person giving it is much more important. There are the standard titles "Queen Rearing", "Swarm Control", "Wintering" etc, and each speaker has a different story to tell and information to give. Let it stay that way please. There is a growing view in beekeeping that all you have to do is produce the material and anybody can teach, which I disagree with.

Nellie, I think you will need to be careful as you will always get the clown who will try to rip you to bits. A good Chairman should deal with this swiftly, but so many are soft. If you have a load of experience you can deal with it yourself. I would stick to what you know, and be prepared to say what you don't know. On several occasions I have been asked questions that may appear innocent, but are often asked to embarrass someone or to make a point for political reasons.

I have a list of 19 things I would like to do, and as usual I guess most won't get done. It's a good job I'm young enough to say "perhaps I'll do it next year".

I have just had an invitation from a publisher to write a beekeeping book, that's on top of the one I'm mapping out on queen rearing. I read slowly and don't write much quicker, so I guess that will take up most of the winter.

Roger Patterson.

[Jon]

I have just had an invitation from a publisher to write a beekeeping book, that's on top of the one I'm mapping out on queen rearing. I read slowly and don't write much quicker, so I guess that will take up most of the winter.

Roger Patterson.

Hi Roger.
Why don't you invite suggestions for a working title?

'Supersedure -my struggle!'
Or what about
'Queen for a day'

I hope you aren't going to write a chapter slagging off Apideas.
You know they make sense!

[Calum]

make 25kg of comb sheets, make 40kg candels, make a larger solar wax melter, buy 50kg of wax (anyone got any for sale?)
sell 90kg honey, get my oxalic acid treatment done at the right moment, buy a self turning extractor, make 50l mead, get 5*8 candle dipping jigs made, revamp the club website,
buy a hive scale, organise a lease on a 30 hive bee house with extraction room I have my eye on, buy and resell 20kg honey, if I manage 80 % of that I'll be satisfied!

[Rosie]

I will soon be working on preparations for our next local queen rearing groups meeting. At the meeeting we will review the progress made last season, discuss the genetics that each of our groups hold and set out our plans for next year.

On the equipment front: I hope to build a queen rearing arrangement based on the Van De Kerkhof Ventilated Hive.

On the education front: prepare for modules 3 and 7. Continue to put together a facility for teaching beginners at my home apiary.

Find a new apiary to replace the one I have just abandoned at 1200ft that produced no honey and was too hard on my poor old knees.

Rosie

[Jon]

Hi Steve.

Don't give up on queenright queenraising.
It worked really well for me this year.
My colony 31 from the drawWing thread was may cell raiser colony and I got over 100 queens hatched from it by shifting about frames from top to bottom brood box during June and July. Sometimes the take was 2/20 but a day or two later maybe 15/20.

[Rosie]

Hi Jon, it's true that I haven't had much luck with queenright queenrearing but the Van de Kerkhof system has TWO queens in so I've hardly given up on it!

Rosie

[Jon]

You caught me there with your fancy dan talk! I'll have to read up on that.
One queen in the bottom box of a 2 box colony does the job for me.

[Neils]

I have another couple of talks planned, but disagree about sharing. I believe beekeeping is much richer for the personalities that are in it, and whether it is classroom or apiary teaching I think the character of the person giving it is much more important. There are the standard titles "Queen Rearing", "Swarm Control", "Wintering" etc, and each speaker has a different story to tell and information to give. Let it stay that way please. There is a growing view in beekeeping that all you have to do is produce the material and anybody can teach, which I disagree with.
It's a truicky balance to reach. I don't want to be handing out a slideshow and a line for line script and that's not what I'm trying to do. The Course in a case principle is closer to what we're trying to achieve. As I suspect with a lot of associations we've a few people doing a lot of work at the moment and the hope is that by providing some standard materials that we can take some of the "fear factor" out of getting involved and spread some of that workload around.



Nellie, I think you will need to be careful as you will always get the clown who will try to rip you to bits. A good Chairman should deal with this swiftly, but so many are soft. If you have a load of experience you can deal with it yourself. I would stick to what you know, and be prepared to say what you don't know. On several occasions I have been asked questions that may appear innocent, but are often asked to embarrass someone or to make a point for political reasons.

Roger Patterson.
I'm certainly not putting myself forward to talk to other beekeepers as an authority on beekeeping. For a good few years yet at least. I do however feel comfortable that I can talk to non beekeepers about bees and beekeeping and after the lack of tea breaks in this year's beginner's course I'd be quite happy to talk as the "New Beekeeper" during that too. When it got round that I was in the same position as them the year before lots of people wanted to talk to me about it and that's where I'm quite happy to position myself for a while yet. I'm definitely not afraid to say "I don't know (but I'll find out)" it's part and parcel of my job for a start and I'm certainly not presumptuous enough to assume that I'd have much of interest to talk to the great and the good of beekeeping about when it came to the bees themselves.


suprised that more kit is not on your lists
Having priced up what I want to buy (rather than what I will end up buying) I quickly closed down the web browser and had a lie down. I think I need to get better at woodwork :)

But if we're going down that route my minimum requirement is: 4 14x12 hives (floors, brood boxes etc), 10-20 supers, enough frames (I like a few spares),a few other associated nick-knacks, a solar extractor would be nice, I've been meaning to build one for two years so maybe I just fork out the cash and be done with it. A couple of Nucs would probably come in handy but it might be time to go find some correx.

So do I take the plunge before the VAT goes up on the basis that if disaster strikes over winter I'll at least be able to shift the supers for what I paid for them come May-July or sit tight for a bit and see how the bees come through winter first.

Choices choices. That should however sort out my immediate kit requirements. 10 hives is the absolute maximum I want to go to and I'm an apiary site short of being able to hit that number so 6-7 for the next couple of years looks a decent number to settle on.

[edit] I don't normally remove something I've posted after the event, but what I wrote wasn't actually the point I was trying to make which got lost in translation somewhere and might have been taken as a dig at people, which wasn't my intention. As it's not been replied to I've removed it.

[nemphlar]

I have a mixture of second hand cedar wood and the home made marine ply smith hives, I thought I would try to make my own smiths from cedar wood but have been struggling to find a supplier, can anyone help?

[Roger Patterson]

Nellie,

It seems to me you have got things planned about right, but I would question your purchase of 14 x 12s. If you had proper bees you can get away with proper brood chambers!! Perhaps you should add queen rearing and selecting to your list!! Or get someone to talk to your BKA about the Local Queen Programme!!

Don't pile into him too quick chaps, nice and gently will do!

Now Rosie has mentioned a queen rearing method I will as well. When I visited his group earlier in the season someone mentioned the Morris Board, so I will make one of those.

Roger Patterson.

[Neils]

Nellie,

It seems to me you have got things planned about right, but I would question your purchase of 14 x 12s. If you had proper bees you can get away with proper brood chambers!! Perhaps you should add queen rearing and selecting to your list!! Or get someone to talk to your BKA about the Local Queen Programme!!

Don't pile into him too quick chaps, nice and gently will do!

That's fightin' talk that is ;)
Sorry Roger I know you like your Nationals but I'm sticking to my guns with my choice to go with 14x12 Brood boxes. I do happen to think that 14x12s are a little on the large size for my bees, I also think that a National is just that little bit too small. By going with 14x12s I give my bees the space they need to do their own thing and I can view the supers as "mine" and I don't end up with the first super full of pollen.

As for the bees themselves there's three other hive sites/apiaries within 400 meters of my own that I know of so I'm open to suggestion as to how I even consider a controlled queen raising excercise. My three colonies were raised off the one that survived winter and unless the worst happens and I lose all three over winter, any increase I make will come off the survivors again. The hive in my new apiary which is perhaps the best located for queen raising is also, currently, the colony I'm least inclined to propagate from. While they're far from fiesty in comparison to some I've inspected this year, they are by far the most "twitchy" of all my colonies and the queen there was mated on that apiary.

I have to be honest and say that for the next couple of seasons, assuming my colonies continue as they have done, any form of "controlled" queen raising exercise is not high on my list of priorities. that's not to say that I don't take an active interest in how my colonies fare when it comes to queen replacement but that I am very much hands off unless there is an obvious problem right now. I started with bees of an "unknown heritage" and I've no illusion that they're anything but local mongrels. Survivors that show any inclination to cope with varroa will suit me very nicely thank you very much.

[Jon]

Hi Roger and Nellie:
I think the jury is still out re. ideal brood box size.

My colony 31 (http://www.sbai.org.uk/sbai_forum/showthread.php?153-Your-gallery-of-2D-plots&p=1226&viewfull=1#post1226) which is 85% amm according to drawWing was a double brood box colony in May - 18 frames of brood to be precise.
This queen is the mother of those colonies whose scattergrams I posted last week (http://www.sbai.org.uk/sbai_forum/showthread.php?153-Your-gallery-of-2D-plots&p=2438&viewfull=1#post2438) which are showing as near 100% amm.
The thing is - it only needed the double brood box for two months out of 12.

Personally, I don't mind a bigger colony. I just set on a second national brood chamber if they need it.
Most of mine fit happily into one national though.

[Neils]

That's the clincher for me at the moment, I really don't like double brood personally and I don't think that splitting the brood is that great an idea either. I can't really elucidate that any more than as a "hunch" that they're better off having "too big" an area to raise their brood in than being cramped and then split vertically across multiple frames.

Ask me again what I think in about 5 years time.

[Jon]

I used that colony as my cell raiser as it was so strong.
I kept the queen in the bottom brood box below a queen excluder and rearranged the frames once a week to put all the frames with empty cells down below with the queen.
Single brood colonies are definitely easier to manage, but a big colony is nice if you want to rear good queens.

[Neils]

I was sort of waiting for that to be raised and it is a point that I accept around double brood. When and if queen raising becomes a particular interest I might well refine or even change my opinion. Right now I have to accept my own limitations. I know a lot more than my experience can cope with and I have to temper what I "know" with what I actually understand. I can manage on single national brood boxes, but it is much easier at this stage of my beekeepings to give the bees 14x12 size frames and right now, my personal feeling is that it is better for them as it protects them from me as much as anything.

[Roger Patterson]

Nellie,

I like your approach. There aren't too many beekeepers who think of the bees, and are prepared to modify what they do based on experience gained.

I think it takes so little time to consider selection that you can do it as part of your management anyway. There will be many opportunities when you have a choice of queen cells from different colonies. My approach is simple. I mentally split my colonies into two equal groups, the better and the poorer. Unless I have no choice I will only use Q/Cs from the better group.

Roger Patterson.

[Neils]

Granted and it's already been considered. Last season I was just starting and more concerned with not killing my colony that anything else, this year with a choice of a single colony to start with my best was also my worst but fortunately I've got pretty nice bee all things considered.

Now I'm up to three colonies selection is now on the agenda. Out of three colonies I'd happily increase from two of them, the third I'm less sure about. I guess in some respects that seemed like such obvious "common sense" that I hadn't really considered it part of a Queen raising programme as such. For the next couple of seasons at least my selection criteria is pretty much as stated. The "nicest" bees from the colonies that survive winter. That's about the limit that my current knowledge and experience can handle. I'd like to attempt selection for tolerance to varroa too but I'm a way off having even enough data to make wild assumptions on that front let alone anything more substantive.

[Calum]

Now I'm up to three colonies selection is now on the agenda. Out of three colonies I'd happily increase from two of them, the third I'm less sure about. I guess in some respects that seemed like such obvious "common sense" that I hadn't really considered it part of a Queen raising programme as such. For the next couple of seasons at least my selection criteria is pretty much as stated. The "nicest" bees from the colonies that survive winter. That's about the limit that my current knowledge and experience can handle. I'd like to attempt selection for tolerance to varroa too but I'm a way off having even enough data to make wild assumptions on that front let alone anything more substantive.

To select you need at least 20 colonies. And the process lasts generations of queens - you need to rate them over 2 years (the standard deviation of improvement is diminishing with each generation). Best to work on these 3 criteria to start of with: survived the winter strongly. Friendly. Honey crop. In that order I would say (or friendly and overwinter equally).
I am guessing that you are not sending your queens to breeding sites or inseminating - this makes selection more or less futile - drones from other sites will add their sauce..
soo try to get your hands on a pure bread queen, or a frame of good stock for additional good queens.
Let the chemicals take care of varroa for now and just enjoy having bees while you work out how many hives you want to manage! It seems to be a common issue that new beekeepers build up more hives than they really want to manage in the euphoria of breeding success. This leads to too much work - I keep 7 colonies now, but am overwintering 21. What survives will be sold off or united until there are only seven left. I have not the time for selling that much honey! It seems there is plenty of demand for bees in Scotland just now.

[Roger Patterson]

Calum,

In theory you may be right, but in practice I have shown otherwise. At one stage 10 years ago, most of the colonies in my area were horrible stroppy "British Standard Mongrels", but by logical selection, heavy culling and producing queens to distribute locally, mainly by me, we now have some very good bees in our area. I accept there are occasionally ones that are a bit difficult to handle, but nothing like what they were only a short time ago.

With a simple plan you can produce good bees, and you don't have to wait very long. As soon as a queen is mated you can tell what the temper of her offspring will be like, even before any of them emerge.

I want to get people to think about improving their bees, not forget about it because they read that it can't be done.

I accept it is easier with more colonies and most beekeepers have <5, but get together. That's what the Local Queen Programme is about.

Roger Patterson.

[Calum]

Calum,

In theory you may be right, but in practice I have shown otherwise. At one stage 10 years ago, most of the colonies in my area were horrible stroppy "British Standard Mongrels", but by logical selection, heavy culling and producing queens to distribute locally, mainly by me, we now have some very good bees in our area. I accept there are occasionally ones that are a bit difficult to handle, but nothing like what they were only a short time ago.

With a simple plan you can produce good bees, and you don't have to wait very long. As soon as a queen is mated you can tell what the temper of her offspring will be like, even before any of them emerge.

I want to get people to think about improving their bees, not forget about it because they read that it can't be done.

I accept it is easier with more colonies and most beekeepers have <5, but get together. That's what the Local Queen Programme is about.

Roger Patterson.

Hi Rodger,
If you start with very poor stock in an area where everything else around is poor the results are going to be much the same- good queens mating with poor drones will not bring improvement. You cannot polish s**t.
Your proposed method of heavy culling will help to begin with but improvement is based in diminishing returns.
Also a full evaluation of a queen has to include a winter (will she survive, and how does the colony thrive in spring.
IMHO judging the quality of a queen on the basis of how her colony behave is not well thought through. Her daughters are the product of her and the drones she mated with, the next generation of queens will reflect this (thus controlled mating essential). Watch this for some basics on the subject (http://www.iwf.de/iwf/do/mkat/details.aspx?GUID=544D412D000000000000000000000000 2CF44C8689651A1718010000E57ED20C&Action=Schnell&SearchStr=honey%20bee%20selection). For a new association or beginner your approach is far less practical than buying a high quality queen for 30 pounds (or even 50) and using her daughters for the next two years and her daughters daughters for another two years needs. Successful queen breeding in a scottish climate is hard enough without having to cull extensively as well. We will have to disagree.

[Rosie]

I'm with Roger, sorry Calum. I'm also with Calum, sorry Roger:).

Anyone who introduces a pure queen into a recently hybridised area will be in for several years of grief due to bad matings and defensive stocks. He or she will have to cull just as much as Roger did when he was improving his local bees. On the other hand, if the local stocks are predominantly a single race but show room for improvement then Calum's approach will save some years of struggling.

In our area we have had members selecting for AMM traits for many years and have also imported AMMs to the area with success. This means we can feel relaxed about improving what we have and importing good outside stock at the same time. Provided we all aim at selecting or importing the same race we feel we are cooperating with each other, regardless of the methods we choose individually.

Rosie

[Stromnessbees]

Hi Calum

I thought you were Scottish, but then you write this:


For a new association or beginner your approach is far less practical than buying a high quality queen for 30 pounds (or even 50)

... where's your thriftyness? Have you replaced it with Germanic thoroughness?

I personally like to work with what's available nearby and improve it as much as I can. It's a challenge, of course, but you can be sure that what you end up with will be suitable to your local conditions and your own methods.

I had a look at the IWF video, the link you posted earlier didn't work, this one should: http://www.iwf.de/iwf/do/mkat/details.aspx?GUID=544D412D000000000000000000000000 2CF44C860F411A1718010000DC7ED20C&Action=Schnell&SearchStr=bees&Offset=0

(click Flash abspielen in the box on the right where it says Englische Version)

I listened to the English version and thought all along "I hope I don't sound like that ..."

There are some nice details like the explanation of the inbreeding ratio and the scales for the hives. But when it comes to the bees: I wouldn't want these bees here in Orkney.
They have been bred to build up huge colonies, the queen gets full marks for a corner-to-corner broodnest. 2 broodboxes and 20 kg winter food minimum are a given.

Yes, they are docile, but with selective breeding we can achieve the same without giving up on our local stocks.


Doris

[Calum]

Hi,
I have nothing against local stock, nor would I recommend importing carnica queens to northern scotland.
Buying a high quality queen from a local breader will save you years of selection from poor stock. Pinched pennies dont always save pounds.
The effort in materials and time to raise queens to cull in a time where there are nought bees to be had seems counter intuative to me. Even here in Germany we have poor years for queen breeding (like this year) where beekeepers are thankfull if they can just replace their stock queens with fresh ones.
The prospect of years of trying to breed out viciousness from colonies is enough to make a novice give up if he / she has mongrel bees.
In a good area where there are plenty of passive productive bees queen breeding and mating at the bee site can be no problem.
Do you have breeding sites in the UK? (Areas where no bees are at all. Selected colonies are brough there for their drones, beekeepers bring their unmated queens for mating with these purebread selected drones.) Doris why are you not doing this on the Skerries yet? :)

[Jon]

The prospect of years of trying to breed out viciousness from colonies is enough to make a novice give up if he / she has mongrel bees.
In a good area where there are plenty of passive productive bees queen breeding and mating at the bee site can be no problem.

I don't think it is that difficult to breed quiet bees if you breed from queens heading quiet colonies and avoid hybridization.
Anyone trying to raise their own queens should be flooding their area with drones and giving queens or queen cells to beekeeping neighbours.


Do you have breeding sites in the UK? (Areas where no bees are at all. Selected colonies are brough there for their drones, beekeepers bring their unmated queens for mating with these purebread selected drones.

There are none that I know of although it should be possible on offshore islands . Scotland is spoiled for choice and Ireland has quite a few as well.
As a compromise you can bring queens in Apideas to get mated in Apiaries where there are good drones.

[Roger Patterson]

I have been told by geneticists that what I have done won't work. I don't know the reasons, and I may have been lucky, but the bees in my area are now very much improved.

Most of you here know what I did and it was based on observation and logic, not with any knowledge of the finer points of breeding or genetics.

I mentally split my colonies into 2 groups, the good and bad. I am constantly replacing the bad with anything from the good.

I started by addressing temper, and that improved incredibly quickly, then I could include the other characteristics as it became possible to do. I don't have such a long list of characteristics as some.

The characteristics of bees in my area are now totally different. We can keep them in single BS B/C's, not have to resort to emergency feeding, and can handle them without gloves.

Roger Patterson.

[Trog]

none that I know of although it should be possible on offshore islands . Scotland is spoiled for choice and Ireland has quite a few as well.


I'm not so sure those of us on Scotland's offshore islands would be terribly happy if folk started bringing in bees from outside for mating or any other purpose! It's easy to assume there are no bees in a seemingly remote area but quite often there are ferals from way back, or one beekeeper quietly minding his or her own business and bees, and not on any official lists.

[Calum]

There are many roads to Rome.
I had two really nasty hives last year, bred from good queens, but mated with bad drones from next doors site.
They were great for 1 year and then just went bad.
I replaced them with queens from their sisters mated in the mountains.
Dont use gloves or a hood, and only smoke from time to time.

[Jon]

I'm not so sure those of us on Scotland's offshore islands would be terribly happy if folk started bringing in bees from outside for mating or any other purpose! It's easy to assume there are no bees in a seemingly remote area but quite often there are ferals from way back, or one beekeeper quietly minding his or her own business and bees, and not on any official lists.

Hi Trog
I was thinking more of uninhabited islands, like those in the Baltic which the Germans use for mating their Carnica bees.

[Calum]

St Kilda is probably free of ferals. Skerries up Doris's way are up for sale (ooh if I had the money...)- I doubt they could support ferals.
My concern would be accelerating the spread of varroa through the drifting of bees at such a mating site.
So varroa free areas would probably want to work out a seperate solution.
To check if a remote area is free of drones is easy enough - just set up 5-6 queens in single frame nucs (drone free of course) and see if they are mated. Isolated glens are also used here in southern germany and austria as sending queens to the baltic islands is not practical.

[Stromnessbees]

Doris why are you not doing this on the Skerries yet? :)

Hi Calum

... the simple answer is: because I don't need to. :)
My queens are free to mate with whoever they fancy. The bees here in Orkney are all of near-native stock, and as long as we replace the worst of queens with daughters of better ones we should be making progress.

The only concern I have is to provide my virgins with a wide range of drones in order to keep up the number of those sex alleles. This can be a drawback in queens mated at isolated sites, as there will rarely be a high enough number of drone colonies present to provide future diversity. When you breed daughters form your £ 30 (or £ 50) queen, many of them will be full siblings, which can lead to inbreeding problems in the next generation. (Haven't we discussed that already somwhere else?)

And when it comes to selection for winter hardiness: nature does that for us. It's really difficult to breed from colonies that didn't survive the winter. :cool:

So where are these Skerries that are for sale? (Not that I have any money spare though.)

Doris

[gavin]

Have to say that I'm enjoying the banter between an Austrian lady with distinctly Scottish characteristics and a Scotsman who seems to have gone native in Germany. Someone should write a sitcom about such a pair ....

[Calum]

Hi
no problems with diversity, my queens either mate around my site (within 3km are about 80 other hives beloning to 7 other beekeepers), or they are sent to the begattungsstelle up in the mountains. The drones supplied there are from selected hives chosen by the beekeepers association for Bavaria. Their offspring are then pure bred too (and bred for performance) - they use different ones every year.
Sending them there costs 5€ but increases their resale value by 10-15€.
Gavin, a sitcom would be fine, I suspect Doris and I would just argue about frame sizes and best varroa treatments (not a barrel of laughs).

Odviously we are coming a little from differing directions - my local beekeepers club has 56 members with 520 colonies (in reality it is probably more) that is for an area about the size of Dingwall and catchment area. 6km across the boarder in Austria is another club with 40 members , north and east are big clubs withing 20km... Beekeeping is common here, the greatest problem is that beekeepers are dying out, PS3 or Nintendos are more popular for youngsters, and 20-50year olds dont want to be tied down in the summer - they all want their holidays in far off lands.
The situation in Scotland is very different, also the climate and forage available. I try to consider this in my statements.

Doris, I was thinking about buying an island somewhere where pure colonies could be maintained and where beekeepers from all over scotland could deliver queens for mating with these high quality drones. If the dark bee was recognised as a rare breed there might be EU money in it (the postie would have fun)... The outer Skerries were up for sale 620acres right next to the Shetlands 250K. Own ferry service and airstrip!
My own evil island, just needs a volcano.....

[gavin]

Hi Calum

Rather than everyone send their mininucs to one place I'd rather that a network of more regional mating sites were available. It seems likely that there are differences in the ideal genotypes in different areas with winters being more continental or oceanic, and the local forage being predominately spring, summer or late summer (as for the heather areas). There are the beginnings of such groups in some areas, and we hope that a workshop in Fife next month will increase the interest and give local breeding a boost. What would make a big difference is one of the commercial beekeepers seeing the business opportunity and converting part of their effort to raising quality local native queens and stock for sale.

Or of course a returning Scot, having made his fortune elsewhere ...

[Calum]

Hi Gavin
the thought had crossed my mind, but the property prices are still in outer space and the beer is still inexplicably poor (ales are a different matter though).

I think bees are very oppertunisic and will forage and expand whenever the weather and crops allow. Dark bees are much better at this than carnicas on the northern fringes and mountainous areas mainly because they do not get so large and go out of brood very quickly when the nectar flow stops.
Bees adapted to local conditions - I dont think they specialize that much they are just generally hardier & frugal.
The biggest challange that I see is getting the dark bee strain to be prodomonent in areas, and improving its quality. You are right that there need to be numerous mating sites, and it needs to be considered that remote bee free areas are probably bee free due to the poor prevailing weather - not good for mating flights...
Raising large numbers of queens from good stock does not seem to me to be a big issue - a strong queenless colony properly prepared will bang out 80-120 queens in 2-3 weeks.
Getting these queens mated with quality drones is the biggest challange. If this can be met the rate of improvement should increase dramatically.
Even with a loss rate of 10% at each stage (queen starting, finishing, mating) this is still quite a few queens, at a reasonable price of 20pound per mated queen thats still over 1000 pounds in exchange for the honey crop from one strong colony. So there is a strong argument that it would pay well..

[Jon]

Hi Calum:



Raising large numbers of queens from good stock does not seem to me to be a big issue - a strong queenless colony properly prepared will bang out 80-120 queens in 2-3 weeks.
Getting these queens mated with quality drones is the biggest challange. If this can be met the rate of improvement should increase dramatically.
Even with a loss rate of 10% at each stage (queen starting, finishing, mating) this is still quite a few queens, at a reasonable price of 20pound per mated queen thats still over 1000 pounds in exchange for the honey crop from one strong colony. So there is a strong argument that it would pay well..

80-120 in 2-3 weeks is pusing it with an AMM type colony but I suppose you could use something more prolific as a cell raiser.
20 per week is probably more realistic and you can always use a couple of colonies.
I took advantage of any colonies which tried to swarm by removing the queen to a nuc, waiting 6 days, then removing all queen cells and introducing a frame of grafts.
One colony gave me 12 queens from a frame of 20 grafts and they were the biggest ones I saw all summer.

Re. the success rate, the easy part is hatching queens.
I reckon I hatched something like 110 out of about 125 cells started.
My overall success rate for mated queens was just over 60% but this was my first year trying with larger numbers. Others have told me that a good year can give 80% success.

Of those I monitored closely, the majority of failures were disappearances between week 1 and week 2 after hatching, ie on an orientation flight or a mating flight.
I didn't see a single queen with deformed wings this year.

[Calum]

Hi Jon,
even with the AAM, if you take out all their open brood and replace it with brood that is about to hatch you have a colony bursting with young bees with no brood to feed.
With a good honey and pollen flow 30 - 40 queens should not be an issue. As soon as the cells are closed transfer to an incubator, or in the second super in another strong colony (in queen cadges) - (I use an old egg incubator works brilliantly) and restock the colony with eggs in queen cups and a couple of frames of closed brood.. After the 3rd cycle they run out off steam so I am told, never tried three cycles, two were always enough for my needs.

[Calum]

Does Anyone know where I can get my hands on more of the equipment in the attached picture? (http://www.sbai.org.uk/sbai_forum/album.php?albumid=2&attachmentid=478)
No points for guessing its use!