How do Captured Swarms work into your apiary if you're focused on genetics?
I've got swarm traps out.
I wonder how (or if) captured swarms work into your management scheme if you are working on breeding and working toward specific genetic profiles? How do you deal with captured swarms, or do you avoid anything that lies outside very specific genetics?
Thanks,
Adam
Re: How do Captured Swarms work into your apiary if you're focused on genetics?
Support staff.
Mating nucs need bees. Hives need comb. Nothing builds more comb faster than a wet swarm. A good swarm will give you 8 to 10 deeps of comb with bees in a month. From that you can stock 3 nucs on fresh comb, a very happy place for a ripe cell.
Re: How do Captured Swarms work into your apiary if you're focused on genetics?
Requeen it!
Re: How do Captured Swarms work into your apiary if you're focused on genetics?
Okay, resources. But what about the drones that come with those colonies? Don't the end up as a part of the gene pool in your apiaries? Do these additions just add to the vigor and diversity? Or are these a concern at all?
Adam
Re: How do Captured Swarms work into your apiary if you're focused on genetics?
If you dont catch the swarm, and it settles within a couple of kilometers of where you had the trap set, would the drones from that hive still be within reach of your mating setup ? If so, then what difference does it make ? Those drones will be in the local pool, wether you catch them or not.
Re: How do Captured Swarms work into your apiary if you're focused on genetics?
True enough. But in my case, I've got traps set over a few hours driving span. So if I catch swarms in them, I will be bringing them into my yards from outside the range of mating queens.
Adam
Re: How do Captured Swarms work into your apiary if you're focused on genetics?
Adam, if you wanted to "be sure," you could always hive the captured swarms on an outlot @ least 3mi. from your breeding yard...requeen them there, then move 'em to your mating yard in a few months, after most/all of the original queen's drones have "gone away." The good news is, even if a queen mates with 100% non-desirable drones (here, that would be AHB...but you don't have those), only her FEMALE brood will be affected (i.e. don't breed more queens from her), NOT her drones, as the drones a queen lays receive only DNA from her "original set," not from the drones that mate her.
Hope that helps at least a little
Re: How do Captured Swarms work into your apiary if you're focused on genetics?
If you're currently mating queens, keep the swarms out of the yard or kill them if you've got nothing else to do with them. Those drones in the swarms won't last forever, so you don't have to worry about them dirtying your gene pool. Personally, I don't worry about the genetics if I catch a swarm, I worry about their diseases. I kill them unless I'm sure they are mine and hopefully they're not because then I'm not doing my job properly! I'm sure some people will disagree with me on the killing swarms part, but I think disease is more of a risk than bad genetics. Controlling bee breeding is a lifelong pursuit - good luck!
Re: How do Captured Swarms work into your apiary if you're focused on genetics?
Well, I think it's sort of contradictory to consider large swarms to be the result of diseased hives. What makes you think a hive that throws a big swarm could be suffering from some sort of serious disease? Takes a strong, healthy hive to produce a 6 or 8 lb swarm, not one at death's door out from mites or AFB or Nosema.
Peter
Re: How do Captured Swarms work into your apiary if you're focused on genetics?
Yeah, guess I'm just paranoid.Originally Posted by psfred
Re: How do Captured Swarms work into your apiary if you're focused on genetics?
I wonder about your theory, wild swarms seem to be doing better then some of those bees that we are breeding for genetics.
Re: How do Captured Swarms work into your apiary if you're focused on genetics?
Keep 'em and let your queens pick up their survivor genes from the drones.
Re: How do Captured Swarms work into your apiary if you're focused on genetics?
Adam, no matter the source of your genetics, at one time, those genetics were someone's vision for the future the bee industry.
I'm reading and wondering how any strain of bees would do if left to swarm once or twice each year (like so-called 'feral' bees). Every swarm starts anew and leaves mites in the combs and other unhealthy contaminants/conditions behind. Do you suppose that is a major factor in the success of swarms of 'feral' or even domesticated bees? I do. Starting anew and interrupting the life cycle of the varroa mites reduces the mite pressure substantially....A big plus for the bees!
As soon as the honey flow is over, I'm going to make splits so those NUCs can enter next year with a second year queen. I like the idea of giving a NUC brood, but no queen. That interrupts the life cycle of the mites and gives that hive a leg up on a colony with a large mite population. Coming back to beekeeping after a 20 year hiatus, the mites seem the highest hurdle for the modern beekeeper -I'm not forgetting pesticides, AFB, EFB, Nosema and such; its just that when that was all we worried about, it was comparatively easy to keep bees.
Some heresy: I can see the day when we routinely make splits late in the summer and sacrifice, (yes, kill), the old hive to cut down the varroa mite load in the apiary. I hope the VSH genes are refined and successful enough so that will never happen.
:flame suit on:
Re: How do Captured Swarms work into your apiary if you're focused on genetics?
Your heresy is my main way to stop mites. I split them up and start fresh. If the old hive makes it great, otherwise it is basically split to pieces and cleaned for re-use. When they try to swarm, I split them up too. The only bad side is I always have a ton of nucs with splits junking up my yard.
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