From: deelusbybeekeeper <deelusbybeekeeper@excelonline.com>
Date: Sun Dec 17, 2000 6:12pm
Subject: Re: girls on small cells, regressing bees

Hi to all on Biological Beekeeping for e groups:

John Sewell wrote

> foundation. I'll feed honey watered down to stimulate brood
> rearing, and hence the need for cells.

Question:

John, why are you watering down the honey instead of just liquifying it? On
liquid honey bees will take it up and stimulte brood rearing and also comb
building.

> I'll feed Pollen or protein too, any ideas?

Various pollen substitute formulas are published, but even C.L. Farrar
himself did not recommend feeding substitutes for more than 6-8 weeks
maximum in his study. If you can feed real pollen it doesn't have the assoc
problems.

> As soon as all frames are drawn and laid in I will Snelgrove the nuc
> with full frames of 4.9 foundation, choosing the best drawn 4.9 comb
> as my central frame. I'll probably cage the queen in at this stage
> too, depending on drone production.

John, Why are you caging the queen? This would seem unnecessry. Cannot you use queen excluders to act as queen includers until sufficient brood and
combs are drawn? Then when the queen is laying on 2-3 frames of newly drawn 4.9 comb you pull the queen excluder and then keep supering as needed. This would be especially true if feeding honey and pollen to stimulate for colony growth and conversion. I do not under stand what you are doing here?

> I want to propogate from the best adapting colonies, and feel that
> getting queens raised from an already downsized colony/nuc is
> important. Hopefully 3 day inspections will keep me on top of things.

John, why three day inspections? That would tend to disrupt the bees too
much from intended work. Why don't you schedule at weekly or better-yet, by weekly intervals except for filling the feeding packets with liquid honey
and just let the bees work and come on

> I need help with selecting my breeders. Any thoughts on determining
> which colonies will be the best for grafting from and which for drones?

John, for temperate zone go for the smallest blackest hives with workers you
have for raising queens.Then since drones are a direct compliment of the
queen, take these from the darkest queen colonies you have. With luck you
will have good small black workers with a good small black queen and can use same both ways.

> Is there anything other than dumb luck at work if I inbreed?

John, if you truly believe in a natural system of beekeeping always remember that inbreeding never occurs in nature except under incest conditions by manipulation and forced limited mating areas i.e. islands or yards surrounded by high mountains. Please do not think this route as it is a road to failure in the long run and will defeat your purpose.

> I'm only going to select for 4.9ers to start. How do I decide the best?

Use your ruler and measure the combs in the colonies for the smallest and
then check the colour of the bees inside.

Sincerely,

Dee A. Lusby
Tucson, Arizona,USA