Assessing new queens?

[wayacoyote]

So we've finally been successful in rearing our first "batch" of queens (we've been raising them as individuals in splits for years). So we want to assess them for keeping and culling.

With winter around the corner and the only potential foraging time to be the goldenrods of September, we're against the wall. We can't keep all of them and need to decide which are keepers and which are cullers.

As of today (sunday, August 17, 2008) all have patches of capped brood save one. The patches cover 1-3 faces of a medium frame.

We intend to check for:

1) brood pattern
How long does it take for a new queen to establish her laying pattern? Some of them look good except some eggs are misplaced. I wouldn't want to pinch a queen before she had time to sort things out

2) aggressiveness
Necessarily, we'll have to wait until the nuc hives have converted over to more of the new queen's progeny as I ASSUME that it is a measure of the workers' attitude more than the queen's effects on the hive (am I right/wrong?). That will be cutting it close to the end of our season I'm afraid. But

3) hygenic behavior with the pin-prick method

We'll probably wait until October to do any combines, so that will give us the flow of September, if it occurs, to see who grows fastest, etc... but other manners and modes of assessing queens would be appreciated.

[stangardener]

my "technique" for this year will be to give them all the time i can and then just go with my gut feeling of who i feel is doing best.
3) hygenic behavior with pin prick method - i've heard that this technique is not as effective as freezing. freezing does not uncap the brood, not even a pin hole. the behavior of cleaning out capped damaged brood is a differant behavior than cleaning out uncapped brood.

[tecumseh]

wayacoyote writes:
Some of them look good except some eggs are misplaced.

tecumseh: this is a fairly common problem of newer queens. this problem will typically resolves itself in a fairly short period of time.

2) this sounds about correct although the behavior is really about how the queen is mated. steve taber suggested that if a queen mated with even one drone from a fairly hot hive the entire hive would be more aggressive.

3)my understanding is about as strangegardener describes... at one time it was supposed that there was one a set of genes for uncapping and a set of genes for removing the diseased/damaged brood. genetics currently seems to suggest that instead of two set of genes being involved in the process that there is something like 7 sets of genes.

[Michael Palmer]

So we've finally been successful in rearing our first "batch" of queens (we've been raising them as individuals in splits for years). So we want to assess them for keeping and culling.

With winter around the corner and the only potential foraging time to be the goldenrods of September, we're against the wall. We can't keep all of them and need to decide which are keepers and which are cullers.

So. what are they laying in at present? Couldn't you winter them on those combs?

[BjornBee]

Whether you use the pin prick or freezing or anything else....it comes down to you actually doing SOMETHING, which will be doing something more than the other 99% out there.

To even distinguish between pin pricks and freezing is not about thinking one is more correct than the other. Because neither one actually simulates the actually distress of the brood which puts off signals for bees to go in and clean out a cell. The brood puts off pheromones, and some have even suggested that other communication signals may be used.

In a real world situation, cells are uncapped because the bees sense a mite overload, perhaps smell from too many mites, or other trigger mechanisms, from within the capped cells. So whether you pin prick or freeze, nothing is simulating what is happening naturally within the hive.

So look for several factors in your attempt to select the best queens. Look at the bottom board for house cleaning, add a paper towel with a scent (thymol, menthol, etc.) that will interfere with the queens pheromones, pin prick an area and time the removal, do mite counts (enough to assess on a chart), and so on. I do not want to freeze entire frames of brood. And I do not have the means to freeze round sections of the comb as demonstrated by the Ontario group or other more research minded folks. And so yes, there may be benefits to doing a freeze-test over other simpler tests, but I find the average beekeeper not able to complete the freeze test anyways, which makes comparing or minimizing other "less" tests about questionable at best.

Looking for a host of things will indeed be your best option. So if you can not do a freeze test, don't sweat it. I look for a combination of factors. Last year when we were doing queen evaluations, one of the hive was a winner from all indications. From ...perfect brood pattern, queen, temperament....everything was perfect. And as I was discussing the hive with a couple beekeepers who had volunteered to partake in the days event, out pops a wax moth larvae from the frame and it falls on the ground. My only comment was "I guess that failed" as I placed the frame back in the hive.

So look at as many things as possible.

[wayacoyote]

Thanks everyone.
Michael P., We ARE going to over winter some nucs thanks to your guidance. I just don't have the equipment to winter them all. We're going to let them go through the goldenrod flow, if there is one, in September and then decide who to keep as best as we can. (My thinking is that, having 4 nucs of queens laying simultaniously will hopefully result in 2 stronger hives once we combine their forces. There will still be plenty of time for them to arrange things and for us to top them off with feed if need be.)

[BerkeyDavid]

Coyote
The main factor for me here is that they overwinter. So I am keeping all of my queens unless they are unfit. I have them all in 2 frame mating nucs. Build them up to 5 frames. I will shake in some bees from other hives and feed after the fall flow to build them up. Let old man winter sort em out!

[Yuleluder]

The main factor for me here is that they overwinter. So I am keeping all of my queens unless they are unfit. I have them all in 2 frame mating nucs. Build them up to 5 frames. I will shake in some bees from other hives and feed after the fall flow to build them up. Let old man winter sort em out!

Exactly what I do!

[wayacoyote]

THanks, Everyone. I think that's what I'll do as well. This will be the winter for experiments and mistakes.