# Using "Behavior Combinations" instead of Genetics for managing hive succes



## Beejiujitsu (Oct 1, 2021)

Honey Bee said:


> After 2 months, these mean bees you added will have been replaced by new bees.


Peak summer, don't workers only last 4-6 weeks?

Doesn't seem like such a tactic would be helpful in the long run and would require a lot of bees to keep it going.

Why not cut your losses and requeen from the good colony?


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## William Bagwell (Sep 4, 2019)

Honey Bee said:


> Has anyone trialed this strategy or know of research completed?


No, but had a parallel idea just yesterday. (Yours is much simpler!) Two queen hives separated by a double screen board with one half VSH and the other productive 'whatevers'. Would probably involve swapping frames of brood so why not skip the two queen jazz...


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## Some Bloke (Oct 16, 2021)

Interesting idea. But seems like a lot of management, and adds possibility of transfering hitch hikers between hives.

My strategy is to collect swarms from local area (no AHB here but huge genetic variation) and let them open mate so each hive has huge range of worker fathers, ie trait to draw on. Let the bees do the work.


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## Gray Goose (Sep 4, 2018)

so then you would need to maintain the hive of "mean" VHS, production, etc. then you are maintaining several lines. if that is doable, why not just maintain a line that has what you want.

sure it could work, but any result would be short lived. the 2 or 3 queen with each having 18-24 baby daddies would get a better mix and be all year long.

GG


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