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Requeening with purchased "open mated" queens

2K views 15 replies 6 participants last post by  wayacoyote 
#1 ·
I might have should put this in the forum about queens, sorry.

My question is instead of buying open mated queens, why don't I just take the eggs of my favorite variety of queen and make my own? Is there some advantage to buying a mated queen from an area that has drone saturation of my favorite variety? I'm sure in my area all we have are ferals (nothing wrong with that MB) italians, and hair pulling russians.
 
#2 ·
There's every advantage to using your own stock for raising queens and no real downsides IMO unless you're in an area with africanized bees, then you might be better off buying queens from someone else and hope those girls haven't been hanging around with the wrong crowd. The only other reasons I can see for buying queens is out of immediate need or, as you point out, to obtain the genetics you desire. Is that worth it? I think I'd rather have a locally produced queen over an imported one any day and plan on raising my own, but I'm sure, from time to time, I'll want to bring in some fresh blood.
 
#4 ·
I am questioning whether growing my own queens is a good idea. Where I live, April-June is pretty iffy weather-wise. It seems that my queens just don't last that long.

I don't personally have a lot of hives (5) and in two directions is government forest land. It seems that there aren't enough drones. I have had great queens, but 1 out of 2 will last less than a year.

I had one from last spring that stopped laying at some point. It is kind of hard to tell in the fall whether they are failing or just stopping early. This spring the hive just dwindled while I waited for a new queen. I finally just combined them.
 
#5 ·
>1 out of 2 will last less than a year

Bdt, that seems to be a common complaint with spring-raised queens, especially those raised in northern areas of the country. This likely has to do with the availability of a suitable number of mature drones as much as with the weather which is usually cold and wet. Later in the year there are generally more drones around, and the weather is more apt to cooperate. Early-summer queens raised for late summer requeening would seem to be the way to go in northern areas of the country. You're also more apt to have well built up colonies more suitable for queen production later in the season than earlier on. Most of my colonies are not quite filling 2 deeps now. Here in Maine, people don't generally try to rear queens until the end of May and even then it doesn't always pan out.
 
#6 ·
I'm an advocate of the locally produced and mated queen. Very much an advocate. Saturday, i'll be attending a local field-day with a local queen breeder. (I hadn't heard of this facility prior to now. but I suspect there are a number of them out there.)

I see a need for association members to work together for meeting their needs. Some associations are doing that, with clear defined objectives and group projects.

I was impressed when a friend and associate member told me that he had loaned a frame of drone comb to another beek. He hopes that he can bring the frame home and introduce some new genetics to his area.

George has some good advice there. I say go for it. See what you get. Good luck.

Me, I'm curious about the benefits I've heard regarding fall requeening. I'm interesting in spring build-up for our early flow. For this, I'm hoping fall requeening will give me a better build-up and great spring survivability of the queen. We're having a number of people looking for replacement queens in the spring. Not a good time to be queenless.
Waya
 
#7 ·
I had a queen hatched last July that took the place of a great queen that had hatched a little over a year ago the previous spring. That spring queen made my largest hive. I am thinking that my lack of drones(particularly on cool days)lead to my short-lived queens sometimes.

Last July I found a supercedure cell and let her hatch. She seemed to lay okay for a few weeks, but by October the hive was in trouble.

I think everyone should try to raise their own queens if they can. I am just not sure that I can where I am. With 5 hives a couple of weak queens can put a dent in honey production. I will still let them raise there own when they want to, but in a couple of weeks, if she isn't performing, I will replace her.
 
#8 ·
>I'm curious about the benefits I've heard regarding fall requeening.

Fall requeening if you're far enough south, late summer requeening if you're in more northern areas of the country. This gives your colonies a chance raise sufficient healthy overwintering bees and to build up on the fall flows. You then head into spring with young queens and strong hives that are perhaps less likely to swarm on you just when the main flows start. At least it sounds good in principle


It seems that if you want to stop the dependence on imported queens and raise your own bees, a shift from the norm is necessary in northern areas of the country- away from the traditional spring splitting and requeening towards late summer splitting and requeening and the subsequent overwintering of nucleus colonies. It just makes sense given that our winters are so long, our springs so cold and wet, and our summers relatively short but intense. I'm hearing more and more about people up this way doing this sort of thing.

At the last Maine State Beekeeper's Association meeting they had a presentation by a Vermont beekeeper by the name of Michael Palmer who talked about his method of over wintering nucs. Unfortunately, I missed the meeting but I got his handout and have corresponded with him about his methods. I'm going to give them a try this year.

Maine ranks 50th in the country for honey production with an average per-colony honey yield of around 34 pounds. I've often wondered how much this has to do with the traditional spring split approach to making increase and how much on the shorter season and supposed lack of forage. We're splitting our colonies and heading into our main flow with hives that are full of foundation when they should be booming. Wassup with that?
 
#10 ·
Well, this is as good a place as any to report that I read some on Brother Adam last night. In the writing (I THINK it was a translation of his original work Breeding the Honeybee) he didn't give a lot of credit to aclimitization as I have understood it. This really surprised me.

I'm still looking into it.

Waya

PS George, can I get some info on Michael P.'s stuff?
 
#11 ·
>No one that I contacted had any queens to sell last fall.

I got a few from Mike Singleton (Cold Mountain Queens) and one from Michael Bush in early October. They're around.

>George, can I get some info on Michael P.'s stuff?

Sure.

He puts 2 four frame nucs in a single deep body separated with a home made division board feeder which is divided in half with entrance slots on opposite sides so each nuc can access it's own compartment. The bottom board (I just made 2 of them today) is 1/2" plywood with a 1 1/4" tall by 3/4" rim around it and separate entrances on opposite ends. He winters over these double nucs on top of a regular colony.

He splits after the main flow is over and says the main trick is keeping them from swarming on the fall goldenrod flow. He also says the actual nuc woodenware arrangement isn't all that important
I'll look over the handout again later and post any additional pearls I find.

I've got 2 copies of the handout, if you want one, pm me your snail mail address and I'll send you one.
 
#13 ·
>I'm confused on what you're prescribing for getting away from the norm written above. Can you elaborate?

Can I elaborate? Can I ELABORATE? CAN I ELABORATE???

Sure. I can elaborate, but I'm not sure I'll make a lot of sense. I've been mulling this over but I can't say I've got it all figured out.

Basically, the "standard" approach to beekeeping here in Maine (and many other places) seems to be to order queens for May delivery and make splits after your colonies have built up sufficiently. This is usually in late May but might be as late as early June which is our traditional swarm season. If you're lucky you might have some colonies built up sufficiently to split in early May, but that is way too early to think about raising any queens- the weather usually sucks, as it's sucking now (5 days into 7+ days of cold rain) and there aren't any drones around.

This approach makes increase to replace your winter losses and short circuits the swarm impulse but you're then heading into the main flow which starts around mid to late June with splits that are still building up, drawing comb and/or foundation, and raising bees. Personally I'd rather hit the main flow with full blown hives just busting out with bees and piled high with supers. It means practicing real swarm management but hey, that's beekeeping. Creative alternatives like cutdown splits might take care of swarming and serve to get you honey and make increase at the same time, but that depends on everything happening just right- the right colony at the right time.

I'm really anxious to get away from the "buy queens in the spring, split like crazy, and make a little honey" approach to northern beekeeping in favor of the "build up your hives in the spring, make lots of honey during the main flow, then split to make increase" approach.

There would appear to be a lot of benefits to doing it this way, but it means learning how to ovewinter nucs. It means rearing queens in the summer when the weather is better and there are plenty of drones around and your hives are booming.

There are some challenges of course and I can only assume there are more than I've envisioned but one would be getting your splits built up sufficiently to be ready for the fall flow. You'll have large populations of old worn out bees and you'll need to make sure that they raise a good supply of young well nourished overwintering bees. This probably means stimulative feeding during the late summer dearth. Then you'll need to keep the splits from swarming on goldenrod and aster while they build up sufficiently to head into winter.

I'm thinking, if I can bring a bunch of 4 or 5 frame nucs through to spring with young healthy queens on board, I'll be all set and my big concern is going to be preventing swarming and deciding what to do with all the honey I make


Anyways- that's the general picture I'm coming up with. With only one year of beekeeping behind me and hopefully many more ahead of me, I've got time to refine it. A number of people are talking about late summer splits and overwintering nucs. If I'm crazy, then I'm not alone
 
#16 ·
I just spent Saturday with a guy who overwinters nucs in lower Kentucky by making a sleeve of insulation board which he slides over each nuc. I didn't ask, but I'm sure he winters double-deep nucs. I'll try to remember to ask. The sleeve he described didn't include top insulation.

Waya
 
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