# Saskatraz Queens and grafting



## bee keeper chef (Nov 1, 2015)

Could someone explain to me why you should not graft from a saskatraz queen. On their web site they state not to graft from a saskatraz queen no matter how well the queen does :scratch:


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

You have a link?


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## bee keeper chef (Nov 1, 2015)

http://saskatraz.com/pages/availability.htm Go down to #3 what to expect from colonies


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

Ok, read the link, the hybrid queens shouldn't be grafted from they recommend as they're hybrids. The thinking is probably along the lines of the progeny will be highly divergent in their traits in an F2. Not to say they would be bad but performance may be high variable in the daughters.


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## Clayton Huestis (Jan 6, 2013)

First there in the business to sell queens. I wouldn't hesitate to graft from them if they were excellent. Cull non-performers as normal.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

The queens are pure and bred with CA drones so any queens you make from them will be 0.5 saska /0.5 CA and those queens workers will be 0.25Saska 0.25Ca and 0.5 your stock 
however the drones don't have a father so they are still pure saska so mating your virgins to them will give you workers that are 0.5saska and 0.5 your stock giving you more Saska and an out cross that will more likely give you hybrid vigor.


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## allniter (Aug 22, 2011)

would it be like planting a hybrid corn seed that U save to replant next season --that seed dose not produce well 
just asking a ?


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## Saskie (Mar 12, 2017)

That's exactly it allniter. Remember that queens raised off of them may also produce strong colonies that look great, but don't have the mite resistance. With typical F2 expectations, most offspring will have some (not all) of the desired traits, and it won't be consistent among sister queens. Anecdotally, that is what I have seen with my Saskatraz hybrids that have superseded and I have not requeened.


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## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

Use your S. queens for drone mothers if their performance has been impressive.

I haven't purchased II equipment yet, but that is an _excellent_ example of a good reason to justify the purchase.

I've got the money set aside to do so, but have to have a plan worth while for it's use beyond my simple entertainment. Not interested in producing II breeders to sell myself at this time, but I'd sure like to produce a few for my own use. 



Hee hee, gas
her Quick!


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## bee keeper chef (Nov 1, 2015)

I am debating on buying a breeder queen (Saskatrz)I am struggling with price I am sure I would have no problem making my money back. Plus It would put some good genetics in my area


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

Lauri said:


> Use your S. queens for drone mothers if their performance has been impressive.


I dont remember where I read it, may have been in some of the saskatraz doc stuff somewhere. The thing I read suggested that if one wants to convert to 'pure' saskatraz,the route to go is begin by bringing in the hybrids early to establish the drone population, then buy the more spendy breeder once you have the drone population established. In the short season of a northern climate this isn't always feasable for a one year plan, but works well if you have the entire population of drone mothers headed by the hybrids coming out of winter after year 1, then bring in the 'pure' breeder for raising stock in year 2.


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## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

bee keeper chef said:


> I am debating on buying a breeder queen (Saskatrz)I am struggling with price I am sure I would have no problem making my money back. Plus It would put some good genetics in my area


I well remember my first II breeder queen purchases. Back when I was _seriously_ inexperienced with bees in general. 

After being involved with raising livestock for 30 years, I had realized many years ago, that if I had spent a little more money on better breeding stock in the beginning, I would have been years ahead, would have saved thousands of dollars and reached my goals a lot faster with better breeding stock VS trying to "Breed up" from average stock.

So when I started keeping bees and determined I wanted to rear my own queens I immediately recognized the benefit of getting the best breeding stock I could find, even though I was still inexperienced beekeeper. I purchased inseminated breeder queens from Glenn Apiaires. 

I am eternally grateful I had the guts back then to take that risk. 

Once you get the first batch or two of daughters, the pressure is off for financial risk of a total loss if the breeder doesn't last long.

As long as she ships well and is introduced properly in a colony that gives her all the advantages of a healthy environment, breeder queen purchases should fairly easily to pay for themselves or better. _Much_ better if that is your plan.

I'd suggest making sure all the frames of comb in her new colony are all drawn and filled with no Big AG exposures, all bees are young, all brood is capped and previous mite control has been through. Similar to a good starter colony.

With an expensive breeder, this is the kind of frame I'd make her receiving colony out of. 
Don't give her any issues to have to overcome right from the get go.


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## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

If you are happy with your existing stock and have decent control over the drone population in your area, buying virgin queens is a good option I think many times is overlooked.. 
If they are willing to ship virgins, you can purchase several, then evaluate the best for grafting. 

The daughters will be hybrids, but not mated with southern stock, mated with stock you are familiar with that has likely overwintered well and produced well in your area already.

If done correctly, virgins ship _very_ well. I like to let them emerge in the incubator and hold at least 24 hours in a queenless colony with lots of young bees that is well fed with natural feed, syrup and supplemental protein.

Shipped with plenty of nurse attendants, they are well cared for and ripe for mating just a few days after installation.

Yes, this is a newly emerged virgin queen. They are pretty large before they slim down for mating flights.


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## bee keeper chef (Nov 1, 2015)

I am a little worried about the shipping clear across the country. I am in Pennsylvania , I have plenty of fresh drawn comb in young hives over wintering from last summer so I can give a nice home to start in. I am not sure of anyone in my area breeding saskatrz queens I think the different genetics definitely wont hurt the area it can only help I have been producing perdue leg chewers I will see what happens when I get the 2 together


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

If these Saskatraz queens are hybrids does any one know what breeds are crossed to create them.
Johno


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## Clayton Huestis (Jan 6, 2013)

Open mated to oliverez stock.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

Albert Robertson, in Saskatoon, runs the program. He sends breeders to Coby for II, and Olivarez for raising production queens.

You can read his info at:

http://www.saskatraz.com/index.htm

Here it talks about the original stocks he used...

http://www.saskatraz.com/pages/Introduction.htm


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

Thanks for the information Michael, I am not sure where the hybrid fits in here as I would understand that the buckfast bee would be a hybrid and also the Midnight breed of some time ago. It would appear to me that they are trying to refine certain traits from Bees that they have plus some Russian thrown in to the mix. I think that there are many queen breeders doing much the same, VP comes to mind. However it seems the more I have travelled along this road the smaller my honey crop has been and I am still treating for mite infestation so I am not sure if I want to carry on in this direction.
Johno


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

What are you selecting for i n your breeding program? Or, are you buying in all your queens? I think these stocks can be an addition to a non-closed program, but I wouldn't rely on other stocks from other far off places, that are kept under different conditions than yours.


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

I have been using queens from VHS breeders for a number of years and selecting for lowest mite counts, I am now going to select for honey production in the future until there has been real progress in queens with some mite tolerance.
Johno


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

If you don't mind variability, it's fine to graft from them, but the whole point in grafting, typically, is to get a bunch of daughters that hopefully perform similarly to the donor queen which may not happen now. This is of course why II queens are handy, the daughters should all perform similarly given they've mated equally, and all the daughters they produce are good for drone mother's as well for the genetics they were produced from.


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## bee keeper chef (Nov 1, 2015)

Michael I am trying to get some new genetics into my breeding of queens I am only a sideliner but I am trying to breed some queens that crossed with the stock that I have will produce bees that are hardy and productive with minimal treatment for mites. I have some very good stock now that fits that bill, my winter losses are minimal. Just trying to better it . I really like playing around making queens evaluating them and seeing how they preform. I have a steady source of queens for the local beeks in my area. All my queens are open mated and all my stock is from western Pa I have seen so many beekeepers continue to get southern packages and have a mixed bag of results most of them bad. This one of the reasons I decided to raise all northern overwintered queens and nucs.


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

Most of it comes down to what you're looking for or wanting to do. If you want to mine traits out of stocks, get hybrids. If you want to bring stocks in to add genetics or just to mix it up a bit, get II breeders or queens from well established breeders that should be fairly uniform in performance.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

bee keeper chef said:


> This one of the reasons I decided to raise all northern overwintered queens and nucs.


Me Too


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## roberto487 (Sep 22, 2012)

Last season I bought 6 of these bees from a supplier in Iowa, made NUCs and fed them and gave them capped honey frames. None of them survived. At first, they looked like they were doing real good, by the time Summer gave way to Fall, they all perished. One had a moth infestation with larva hatching out of the capped cells instead of bees, the other ones I guess they were taken by varroa, although I vaped them with OA in early september. In the end I made a note to self, "Don't fall for the hype".


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Tough to be in the queen business
Not all issues of death are related to the breeder of those queens 
Beekeeping is Beekeeping 
Look after those hives


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## bee keeper chef (Nov 1, 2015)

Ian I believe I saw where you have use in the past or still use saskatraz queens if so what was your experience with them


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

https://youtu.be/z18wAOGplNg


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## bee keeper chef (Nov 1, 2015)

Thank You that answers a lot of questions


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## roberto487 (Sep 22, 2012)

I wasn't questioning the breeder, I am questioning the hype on this breed. For me they werent mite resistany, productive nor prolific. Interesting enough, I bought a carniolian and an italian queens from the same supplier and in the same batch of queens, and their colonies are still alive and fairing better in the Northeast frigid weather.


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

Roberto, sometimes it's luck of the draw. I think there were mumblings this year on their performance as well. Stocks will vary year to year as different breeders are chosen and sometimes the combinations won't be as good.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

roberto487 said:


> Last season I bought 6 of these bees from a supplier in Iowa, made NUCs and fed them and gave them capped honey frames. None of them survived.


Okay, but remember. Were these queens from the Saskatchewan breeder, or something from his breeders open mated in California with who known what, or one of those queens, whose daughters were open mated in Iowa?


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## roberto487 (Sep 22, 2012)

The supplier got the queens from the CA breeders that open mate. From reading about it, the CA breeder gets breeder stocks from the Canadian breeder and i think the daughters are open mated in california.


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

roberto487 said:


> Last season I bought 6 of these bees from a supplier in Iowa,


Did this supplier start with a breeder queen directly out of Canada, or F1 crosses out of CA?


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

To say anything we need to know the whole pedigree of the queen.
But in our case the opposite happened: we supplied queens, which were ok for me, they survived I mean, the customer mated them with more southern climate stock and they became fabulous, best bees he had seen. But he is not TF.

Pedigrees are rare in US?


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

Juhani Lunden said:


> Pedigrees are rare in US?


Practically unheard of.


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

Michael Palmer said:


> Practically unheard of.


http://perso.fundp.ac.be/~jvandyck/homage/elver/

Pick a country

Pick a breeder

then pick the line of bees you brefer

(EU only )and make order


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

What surprised me...the Buckfast breeders have pedigrees going back 9 decades. I doubt you could find anything here that goes back 5 bee generations. Somebody prove me wrong. I would like to know.


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

How are you defining a pedigree? Using the same line as a queen-mother generation after generation mated to similar stocks?


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

No, youncan track both the queen line and the drone line back decades. A family tree if you will, going back many generations. Have we got anything like that? Seems the Georgia Italian breeders have been breeding bees for generations. How far back does their bee pedigree go? 10 years? 90 as some of the Buckfast lines do?


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Lots of assumptions when speaking of a bee line pedegree 
Unless of course these gals are AI each and every generation 
No matter how hard we try to control our bee stock, that element of nature persists


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## rmdial (Jun 30, 2009)

What does it mean when I see II Queens? Not familiar with this. Also, I would like suggestions on books or publications about raising/breeding queens. I need to start with the most basic information and work up. Thanks in advance.

Soapy


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## Cuttingedgelandinc (Mar 3, 2015)

rmdial said:


> What does it mean when I see II Queens? Not familiar with this. Also, I would like suggestions on books or publications about raising/breeding queens. I need to start with the most basic information and work up. Thanks in advance.
> 
> Soapy


Instrumental Insemination/ Artificial Insemination


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

Ian said:


> Lots of assumptions when speaking of a bee line pedegree
> Unless of course these gals are AI each and every generation
> No matter how hard we try to control our bee stock, that element of nature persists


Of course, and I'm not sure what a honey bee pedigree that goes back decades means anyway. I'm just surprised that someone has kept track for so long.


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## tpope (Mar 1, 2015)

How does one pedigree a breeding with multiple mates? Yall all sign here???


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Michael Palmer said:


> Of course, and I'm not sure what a honey bee pedigree that goes back decades means anyway. I'm just surprised that someone has kept track for so long.


Shows commitment that is for sure
As Sue Colby says, the breeding program is continuously in flux, alwAys changing


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

I understand now, just tracking the line and maintaining the record of the 'pedigree', was thinking more like pedigree breeding where you develop a line to breed from for certain traits.


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

tpope said:


> How does one pedigree a breeding with multiple mates? Yall all sign here???


One of the principle ideas in buckfast breeding has been, ever since Brother Adam times, matings with a sistergroup, that is, all the queens making drones have same mother, and this mother is actually the one marked in the pedigree chart on the fathers side. 
There have been sometimes discussions whether we should get away of that principle, but still it is the main stream. Today in VSH breeding they make a lot of one drone inseminations, too.

Pedigrees can only be written on bees which are either inseminated or mated in a isolation apiary. In European Buckfast organisations both are used, many of the isolation apiaries are islands in the Baltic sea or the North Sea (between Denmark and England). Some are located in the mountain valleys. It is very easy to measure if there is isolation or not.


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## Cuttingedgelandinc (Mar 3, 2015)

Juhani Lunden said:


> One of the principle ideas in buckfast breeding has been, ever since Brother Adam times, matings with a sistergroup, that is, all the queens making drones have same mother, and this mother is actually the one marked in the pedigree chart on the fathers side.
> There have been sometimes discussions whether we should get away of that principle, but still it is the main stream. Today in VSH breeding they make a lot of one drone inseminations, too.
> 
> Pedigrees can only be written on bees which are either inseminated or mated in a isolation apiary. In European Buckfast organisations both are used, many of the isolation apiaries are islands in the Baltic sea or the North Sea (between Denmark and England). Some are located in the mountain valleys. It is very easy to measure if there is isolation or not.


Juhani, I remember you mentioning how to test isolation before. My question is, have you done this in your own operation? What were the results? Would you mind sharing the process again?


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## Eduardo Gomes (Nov 10, 2014)

Cuttingedgelandinc said:


> Juhani, I remember you mentioning how to test isolation before.


 Not Juhani but If you choose the location and take virgins in nuclei and they are not fertilized in that area I think you can conclude that the zone is isolated.


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

Eduardo Gomes said:


> Not Juhani but If you choose the location and take virgins in nuclei and they are not fertilized in that area I think you can conclude that the zone is isolated.


:thumbsup:

I usually have taken 5 Apidea mating nucs for a test.


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## Boxelder (Sep 16, 2017)

On the subject of mating isolation - has anyone tried "after hours mating" to achieve controlled mating in environments that have a lot of other drones?

John Hogg came up with the idea http://www.twilightmd.com/Samples/Hogg/Hogg_Halfcomb___Publications/ABJ_1991_1May.pdf


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## Boxelder (Sep 16, 2017)

On the subject of mating isolation - has anyone tried "after hours mating" to achieve controlled mating in environments that have a lot of other drones?

John Hogg came up with the idea http://www.twilightmd.com/Samples/Hogg/Hogg_Halfcomb___Publications/ABJ_1991_1May.pdf


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