We always have questions posted about isolating lines and breeding pure bees etc. It is true that most commercial queen breeders in this country are open mating and there is a high probability that the offspring of the queens may have some crosses mixed in.
Most of us cannot afford to own a remote island and there are very few areas remote enough to isolate matings without high fuel bills involved.
The European Buckfast Breeders association uses a method developed in Germany called mondscheinbegattung which basically means moonlight mated.
They literally open mate their queens at night. I have not tried this yet and from what I have been told and read it takes some very careful timing to do successfully. The virgins must be ready to mate on or near the full moon, so your grafting needs to be corresponding with the moons time line. The nucs that house the virgin queens are placed in a cool dark place, use AC units if necessary. The drone colonies are also closed up during the day and kept cool. On the afternoon that the queens are to be mated, the drone colonies are taken out at dusk and opened up first, this gives them the chance to get to the congregation areas before the queens. The queens are taken outside and released later. The change in temp from the cool storage place to the outdoors it very important as this is what stimulated the virgins and drones to fly at night.
From what I have read (my German is poor) this method does not get 100% of your queens mated, but it will get them mated with the drones you want them mated with. It is used to propagate lines only and mondscheinbegattung queens bring breeder queen prices because of the high failure rate.
Most of us cannot afford to own a remote island and there are very few areas remote enough to isolate matings without high fuel bills involved.
The European Buckfast Breeders association uses a method developed in Germany called mondscheinbegattung which basically means moonlight mated.
They literally open mate their queens at night. I have not tried this yet and from what I have been told and read it takes some very careful timing to do successfully. The virgins must be ready to mate on or near the full moon, so your grafting needs to be corresponding with the moons time line. The nucs that house the virgin queens are placed in a cool dark place, use AC units if necessary. The drone colonies are also closed up during the day and kept cool. On the afternoon that the queens are to be mated, the drone colonies are taken out at dusk and opened up first, this gives them the chance to get to the congregation areas before the queens. The queens are taken outside and released later. The change in temp from the cool storage place to the outdoors it very important as this is what stimulated the virgins and drones to fly at night.
From what I have read (my German is poor) this method does not get 100% of your queens mated, but it will get them mated with the drones you want them mated with. It is used to propagate lines only and mondscheinbegattung queens bring breeder queen prices because of the high failure rate.