Good article on smaller queen producers

[BjornBee]

In the March issue of ABJ, page 229, Larry Conner has some good information on smaller operations and setting up a queen rearing model. (This is the second part of this article) It touches on Dave Tarpys research in drone diversity in breeding queens. If you never heard Dave talk, he discusses "bet-hedging", and how genetic diversity is a positive for queens in dealing with disease and other issues.

I think the points of maintaining separate drone colonies by different lines, the rotation of the breeding stock, and other issues, are worth reading.

It should be noted that other less than involved techniques for raising queens can be successful for the individual beekeeper. This deals with not being satisfactory, but attempting to produce the best queens for yourself or potential sale to others.

[NeilV]

I am still too green to even contemplate queen rearing, but I was wondering . . . .

I understand that anybody can raise a queen with one hive or a nuc box. How many hives/yards do you think a beekeeper needs to maintain a breeding "program" that actually accomplishes anything?

[BjornBee]

I am still too green to even contemplate queen rearing, but I was wondering . . . .

I understand that anybody can raise a queen with one hive or a nuc box. How many hives/yards do you think a beekeeper needs to maintain a breeding "program" that actually accomplishes anything?

Here are three "levels' I'll mention.

1) Anyone can raise a queen, relying on the feral population or other beekeepers in the area with as little as one hive. The problem is that no control over good or bad genetics is accomplished, and mother nature produces both in varying degrees, and of course selects on criteria that we may not find desirable. And any queen rearing system at this level would have a greater risk of inbreeding.

2)The article takes in one step further and suggests that for minimum control for one's own "program", and perhaps selling small scale, that at least 6 different lines needs to be maintained. It suggests starting out with 6 lines from 6 different breeders, to accomplish crossing that would not promote inbreeding. I'm not sure if the article suggests after a few years if new stock should be brought in or not. (I don't have the mag with me.)

3)The next level would be a completely self sufficient breeding program, sustainable long term, with no outside genetics brought in. I think the number thrown around the most is something in the number of 20 lines.

I think that option 1, is not a "program" as you suggest and is not really sustainable and does not allow for selection through numbers, does not promote "bet-hedging", and for the most part is only something that a beekeeper might attempt every so often to re-queen his own hives. Option 2 would be the minimum for any quality program. The lines would need to be maintained, or genetics would need to be brought in from other outside sources. Option three would be the largest of breeders or associations set up like the Russian program.

Anyone can raise queens. Its the selection part, recognizing inbreeding, and sustaining the quality, is the part that is hard. I suspect many raise queens, but I'm not sure if they are really kicking out quality versus an average queen, that may be a step up from what they had previous anyways. Many will mention that they have never did anything but breed with the local stock, and have found success. And I'm sure some have good genetics. I however do not take this approach in my selection process, and would be hesitant to spend money on a breeder that has nothing more than this as criteria in his protocol. A backyard beekeeper can do what he wants. But if your asking about a "program", being sustainable, and producing high quality queens for yourself or others, a little more goes into it.

Hope this helps. ;) (I'm glad you only asked a couple questions ;) )

[tecumseh]

ndvan writes:
I am still too green to even contemplate queen rearing, but I was wondering . . . .

tecumseh replies:
ah... just do it ndvan.

you can accomplish the same ends by driving your stock with early feeding (creating the urge for natural swarming and splitting) or learn some grafting or non grafting method. the focus in queen rearing at is quite different from keeping bees for some honey crop... but I think every bee keeper should give it a try. there is nothing like catching that first laying queen that you grafted and putting a tab of paint on her back. there is signicant detail to the total process but if nothing else (especially if you try queen rearing at some volume) it will educate you as to why queens ain't cheap.

numbers... I think we discussed this issue once before via a question from chef issac. my quess (and I would suspect the number could vary widely) if you utilize some swarm box/grafting process at a minimum each batch of cells (some number between 25 and 50) likely requires about 10 hives minimum to accomplish the task.

[NeilV]

"I'm glad you only asked a couple questions"

Bjorn, when you don't know anything you have a lot of questions :) I would say that I'm trying to stop making posts that look like final exams, but the truth is I have the flu and I'm too tired to ask much.

Now that I've rested awhile, how many hives does it take to maintain a separate line in a breeding program?


ndvan

[BjornBee]

Hope your taking that honey.... ;)

That number varies I guess. You need to have enough hives to raise a fair amount of daughters from year to year, evaluate, and continue the line. Some lines are easy to figure as you have them as drone colony lines and by the sheer number of hives used, you have a good number to select from, etc. I know whether I bring in outside stock, or raise daughters from a breeder queen for next year, the number usually is between 25 and 50.

I think that for most, anything more than 4 lines is very hard to do. I'm not talking about having 4 queens from breeders, I'm talking about "maintaining" 4 lines. That's where outside sources of genetics comes into play, and may be necessary.

I would say that between 50 and hundred hives per line would be minimum for a sustainable program and to continue the lines from year to year in a high quality manner.

Interesting question. I never though about it from a pure numbers aspect, if there is such a thing. It would be interested to hear others who are maintaining lines from year to year.

Please understand that these numbers are different than what was stated above by tecumseh. He is mentioning the numbers needed to properly mate queens from drone colonies. Traditionally, most books mentioned between 4 and 10 drone colonies per 100 queens raised. But if you understand "bet-hedging", the very cycle of colonies and how they raise drones(not all colonies raise constant numbers of drones), and take into account the possibility that many drone have mite and viral issues, and are required to be healthy to compete in mating, and that some may not be able to mate with the issues effecting bees nowadays, than that number should be adjusted accordingly. I think having numbers in excess of the high traditional number of ten, would be better served to guarantee successful matings in the numbers we now know should occur for genetic diversity, "bet-hedging", and other factors.

[tecumseh]

sorry to hear of your condition ndvan.

I would not disagree with anything bjorn has suggested above (but I am scratching my head and trying to find something there with which to disagree... ha). the current thinking (which I agree with, although I don't think the analogy to hedge betting is in any way adequate) about maintaining drone genetic diversity 'via maintaining 5 distinct drone lines' would make my estimation a bit higher rather than lower.

[BjornBee]

sorry to hear of your condition ndvan.

I would not disagree with anything bjorn has suggested above (but I am scratching my head and trying to find something there with which to disagree... ha). the current thinking (which I agree with, although I don't think the analogy to hedge betting is in any way adequate) about maintaining drone genetic diversity 'via maintaining 5 distinct drone lines' would make my estimation a bit higher rather than lower.

Lets be clear for everyone then.....

The 10 hives per 100 queen cells were the traditional thoughts on support hives in getting enough drones in the air to consider an area saturated enough to consider good mating. Many books never mention drone diversity, bet-hedging, and items that we now consider relevant that were not in the past. Bet-hedging has to do with getting a diverse amount of drones from different genetic lines. So although I mention the suggestion of using more than the traditional 10 hives for proper drone saturation, it does not equate into having every drone colony separate from the next. You may have 15 drone colonies, coming from 5 different lines. That is drastically different from the traditional idea of 10 support colonies but from a single genetic drone source.

*"Bet-hedging" is allowing your drone colonies enough selected genetic material to allow the colony to deal with impacting disease and issues, via the mated queen. If all your drones were from one source, and an issue came up regarding chalkbrood, or any other disease, all your brood offspring would have the same chance of having the same disease. With "bet-hedging", you are achieving a mixture of sperm from multiple high quality (selected) sources, and if one of the drone sources is susceptible to a disease, a smaller amount of off-spring will be effected, thus lessening the impact.

Dave Tarpy has an excellent presentation on this, and corresponding research with results. Not sure if you can pull this up or not.

[tecumseh]

bet hedging is one (of several) terms that has certain meaning to me based on my business background (I think I would have simply called it gentic diversification and compared this to asset diversification). how you look at the term (or behavior) is quite different depending on how you view risk and what you might be wishing to accomplish.

if someone (and that someone certainly ain't me) desired to inbreed stock and really isolate some specific trait that you knew was valuable, then genetic diversification from the drone side of the mating would be something to avoid at all cost.