Bee Breeding Yard Number Confusion

[Bean]

Hello – My question is about the bee yards needed for queen rearing. I’ve read a number of excellent books, and informative posts on this and other sites, but I’m wondering if I’ve got the idea right (at times the concepts are expressed quite differently). So please, all corrections and comments are really appreciated:

There seems to be 3 concepts of bee yards for raising queens:

1) One yard is fine, as long as one adds new queen stock periodically. But one is reallyy depending on feral bees in the area and/or other people’s bees to supply the genetic diversity.

2) Have one main yard where the virgin queens are bred and reside, which is at the center of a circle with a 2-mile radius. Along that circle are 2 to 6 other yards. Each yard stocked with the same “race” of bees, but from different suppliers.

3) Have 3 or 4 yards each separated by more than 3 miles (and separated from any other bee yard as well). Each yard stocked with the same “race” of bees, but from different suppliers. Virgins from one yard are taken to another yard for breeding then returned to the original yard. One would seem to need 4 yards for this technique, to avoid inbreeding. Queen progeny from Group A queen bred with group B drones would need to be bred to group C drones, and their queen progeny would have to go to group D drones before their progeny could go back to Group B drones.

I’ve been doing a “let them raise their own queens” in the style of option 1. And am going to try queen rearing on a more “formal” basis this year. From what I’ve read, I’m probably losing bees to inbreeding – there’s only one other beekeeper up here and he’s about 2.5 miles away over a small mountain.

Option 2 is appealing, but I’ll never make a circle, because we’re in a river valley with mountains, and the “top” of the circle has no people, but lots of bear, and the bottom is a big river.

Option 3 seems really complicated for my minor needs (I have 20 hives and am working towards 30 by doing splits)

So any and all corrections and comments are really appreciated.

[Putz]

I have to work within my means...
That means I've got one yard, my back yard at the house here.

I have 4 strains of bees.

I raise queen cells off one strain while drone combs are in the other strains.

If I want queens from one of the other strains, I just change the drone combs in the hives and may raise queens from strain#2 with drones being raised from the other 3.

This is about all I can do in my situation and it seems to be working out just fine for me.

My 4 strains are: Carniolan, Cordovan, MHI and VSH

[Bean]

Thanks Ray - That makes sense...guess I was just getting it too complicated in my mind.

[bee_wrangler]

I just read 'Bee Sex Essentials' a good read for the new queen producer. It was suggested in that book that drone mother colonies placed 0.77 mikes away from the mating nucs had the best success. Now this year i had 80% success in mating with drone mother colonies 150yards away. I also had excellent weather conditions during that time. I have given thought about changing my mating yard configuration for next year. By placing drone mother colonies in a circle 0.5 mi. radius away from the mating nucs. I dont think it wuold be a perfect circle or always the same distance but i want only the strongest drones and queens to mate. And 150 yards away like i did this year while still successfull could be improved upon.

any thoughts???

Dan

[Putz]

I've read that book, BeeSex Essentials as well, it's a good book to read in my opinion. But, I'm fairly certain there are no, or at least extremely few hives withing 3 miles or more of me. If a queen goes out to mate and no DCA's are found 3/4 mile or more out, seems to me she'd still mate with drones from the local yard which would be in DCA's 1/2 mile or less out. After all, she has the urge to mate and so do the drones, so I doubt she'd be willing to come back on empty if there was any chance for her to mate at all.

[sierrabees]

I read some research, which of course I can't remember who it was by, where they suggested that queens tend to fly much further away from their home yards than the worker bees do. The figure six miles comes to mind. That doesn't mean that if they run into a DCA that is closer they won't be attracted to it, but it does suggest that it is more difficult than it appears to control the drone stock in an open breeding program. In many ways that may not be such a bad thing.

[adamf]

I read some research, which of course I can't remember who it was by, where they suggested that queens tend to fly much further away from their home yards than the worker bees do. The figure six miles comes to mind. That doesn't mean that if they run into a DCA that is closer they won't be attracted to it, but it does suggest that it is more difficult than it appears to control the drone stock in an open breeding program. In many ways that may not be such a bad thing.

I agree with sierrabees. However, to make progress in selecting (breeding) for specific types of bees: some control over matings are necessary. If one has the luxury, saturating an area greater than a six-mile radius and mating from the center would be the most optimum. How many colonies are needed for saturation?

I wrote Jennifer Berry at UGA: http://www.ent.uga.edu/bees/Research/breeding.htm and asked her how they saturated. I'll post what she answers.

Adam Finkelstein
www.vpqueenbees.com

[rainesridgefarm]

Queens will fly as far away from their own hives as possible before mating to prevent mating with their offspring. If you are raising queens you should worrie about what your queens are mating with. We do not give enought credit to what the drones add to the gene pool of a hive. You could be rasing great queens and have poor drone stock and have a hive that does not do what you want. Or worse just sits there. At Marla and Sue's classes they both said to circle the mating yard with drone mother hives .5-.75 miles away because no one is sure where the DCA is. But I do remember a 1 drone producing hive for every 10 queens you produce for good mating

[sc-bee]

I have read the articles about DCA's and distances drones should be from your mating yards etc.

I agree it is far above my experience level but heard a commercial queen breeder make the statement:

He had watched queens more than one time mate right above the hive she came from (or in the yard). Anyway you get the general jest of it.

[WG Bee Farm]

items to consider:

Approx 6000 drones need to be in the area where 100 queen bees are mating during the few days that mating takes place to ensure that each queen bee mated with a minimum of 12 drones.


4-10 drone mother colonies are required for each 100 mating nuclei. I have heard of people using 1 drone colony per 10 nucs

Drones need to be between 16 and 28 days of age for each queen mating

Most recommends drone mother hives to be located at approx 1-1.5 miles raduis around the mating yard. Remember you can not have to many DC.---(Think spokes of a wheel)

Larry Conner has talked several times about drones and DCA's. They can follow "lay of the land" and many other changes. Drones may even follow tree lines on their way to DCA's and may mate with queens before they get to the DCA

I try to keep my yards within 1 mile of each other so they can support eadh other and try to keep a min. of 5-6 drone producing hives @ each yard. With the additional beeks in the area I manage to have plenty of drones.


Frank Wyatt