# Beginning in Queen Rearing: How to get from here to a genetic goal?



## johns bees (Jan 25, 2009)

I would read Larrys Connors increase essentials and his other book about raising queens Both book are an easy read and very informative especaully
the queen rearing book.


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Brother Adam's books are recommended by most guys in cold country, but you will benefit by reading Laidlaw & Eckert's Queen Rearing, and Jay Smith's Better Queens, Laidlaw & Page's book published in 1976 (title?), G.M. Doolittle's Scientific Queen Rearing. All the books and university papers listed in bibliographies of any of these books, including Larry Connor's, are reads that will help. Michael Bush has a good list of queen rearing books, and you might want to ask Michael Palmer. There are lots of great books on queen rearing, several are difficult to obtain.

Watch Beesource for when these guys and rrussell6870, Oldtimer, Ted Kretchman, Fusion Power, Bees4U, LSPender, Barry, and others who've been doing it a while contribute to the threads. Great guidance.

Like most of these guys say, read the books, then get out of the books and into the hives and get your hands dirty! Experience is the toughest grader, but the best teacher. All bees, locations, beekeepers, and neighboring farms are different.

Get email for professors at Cornell, U.C. Davis, other universities with apiculture programs - they can give you EXCELLENT advice and hints!

Make use of the Bee Research Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland for your problem hives. 10300 Baltimore Blvd., Bldg. 476 room 100 BARC-EAST, Beltsville MD 20705.

Also, it helps to have your equipment built before you need it, and a good shelf of supplies.

If you can, join a club, take a college class, or even go to work for a commercial beekeeper! Find an older, very experienced queen breeder nearest you, and go help him out all you can!

Read Oldtimer's thread on Cut-Cell Method here in Beesource! 

Being goal-oriented in you queen breeding involves tracking individual traits of colonies. Learn the tests for these traits, develop a consistent form of measurement and keep careful records and calendars from year to year. Read Introducing Genetics.

Good luck!


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## Adam Foster Collins (Nov 4, 2009)

All good input. Thank you!

One thing to note is that I'm pretty solid on methods of raising queens. I have read a lot on the subject here, and on other sites. I have read Jay Smith's Better Queens. My question is rooted more in methods of selection than it is in methods of rearing, if that makes sense.

Adam


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

You first need to increase your apiary to over 50 colonies, better like 150 or more. 

Selection of breeder queens would involve tracking of queens whose daughter colonies display individual traits that differ from colony to colony. You need to identify the traits that are most important to your area of Nova Scotia and come up with grading criteria for the quantifiable traits and determinants of qualitative traits, so now they are defined. You then need to develop a regimen of standard tests to identify / quantify these traits, and implement record keeping for colonies in each apiary yard.

Now that you have tested and tracked a generation, you select those which have traits that you wish to promote - and raise LOTS of queens - and in the following generation, "de-select" (re-queen and kill the drones of) those colonies not displaying or weakly displaying the traits you are trying to promote. It is a tedious, slow process, sped up considerably by instrumental insemination. Open mating is "hit-and-miss", or often "miss-and-miss-and-miss-and..."

At some point you will want to import some bees with desirable qualities to cross into your mix. The earlier, the better.

You won't be "de-selecting" for your first 4 generations - you need to grow your apiary to greater colony numbers, besides, nature will probably do plenty of that for you that far north!. Just select from your best colonies at first, getting rid of the poor performers will come later, when your hive production can't keep up with your [successful queen production minus queen sales].

Great numbers of mating nucs are of great use, as are many beehives and frames. The more you have, the better from which to select (most likely, according to the law of averages). 

Another point to remind - recessive and quasi-recessive traits require more than one generation to show and promote. This is where it gets complex, another reason to not kill any queens the first few generations. By then, you may have a grip on which traits are male-passed, which are female-passed, which are dominant, and which are recessive. This is where I am now - increasing my apiaries, learning tests for traits, preparing for I.I. of queens, learning male- vs. female-passed traits, learning dominant from recessive traits, building LOTS of bee equipment and queen rearing equipment.

Oh, and another book to mention is by Ernesto Guzman-Nojoa. You might wish to send off a pm to Michael Palmer about it - Elemental Genetics of Honeybee Breeding (or something like that). Michael mentioned it and said it is available through a Canadian source - University of Guelph, if I recall correctly.


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## bluegrass (Aug 30, 2006)

He can't use the Beltsville lab... He would be violating International law shipping samples into the USA  

Adam. As far as selection goes, if you are up to a really dull read on Honeybee genetics and trait selection Brother Adams book (s) "Breeding the Honeybee" is about the best publication out there... "In search of the best strains of Bees" is a companion book that talks a lot about traits and how he selected for them... what can be selected for and what cannot. Has a nice chapter that lays out his priorities in order of importance.
I would start there and then progress into the actual queen rearing books... It sounds like your first goal is selection so start with that.


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## Adam Foster Collins (Nov 4, 2009)

Kilo and Bluegrass, thanks for those responses. Kilocharlie's recommendation of 50-150 colonies is in keeping with Mike Palmer's suggestion that one really needs at least 100 colonies to become self-sufficient and sustainable. 

Do others agree with that? 

Is say, 100 colonies a proper goal for being able to selectively breed and sustain one's own population?

Adam


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## bluegrass (Aug 30, 2006)

As far as self-sufficiency is concerned your results are going to be dependent on your location. I can't speak for the Halifax area, but I would bet your winters are a lot harsher than most of us here are experienced with. You will also need to figure out what your carry capacity is in your region. If you can't sustain more than 5-6 hives per location, than 100-150 would not be feasible. If you can sustain 20-30 per yard then sustainability might be an achievable goal.

From what I know of Canada's Commercial Bee operations most are located in the western Crop regions. Their location isn't by accident. 
Best thing you can do is talk with other beekeepers in your area and find out how many hives they have per yard, what kind of losses they experience etc.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

You're right to think about selection early in your queen rearing. At first, keep it simple. Learn how to grow quality queen cells. While you're figuring out that system, look for colonies in your apiary, and others' apiaries, that winter well, are among the most productive in their apiary, are gentle, free of chalkbrood, and haven't needed to be requeened in years. Obviously, you need some good, long term records on production colonies in Nova Scotia. Anyone around with good stocks that you can get a frame of eggs/larvae?


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Adam- You can start producing some queens ASAP. You will not be able to produce, store, market, and ship significant numbers of queens until you have more bee resources. I'm in the same boat - producing enough for my own increase colonies and re-queening needs, building up my apiary in anticipation of queen / O-W Nuc sales. Full-blown selective breeding program to market queens and OWNs is still 2 consecutive very good seasons (or more poor ones) away, with preparations ongoing whenever I get the chance.

Bluegrass - Are you sure about the international law? Beltsville's website, under products and services, says it can only accept samples from US and Canada, not from other countries. No enmity, here, just wondering if he can indeed make use of the Lab...It is of great benefit, and no charge.

Also, an update on the Guzman book mentioned in post #5, the publisher is the Ontario Beekeepers' Association. MP said he bought it at a meeting of theirs. I have not yet tracked that one down.


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## Keth Comollo (Nov 4, 2011)

The Guzman book can be ordered here . . .

http://techtransfer.ontariobee.com/index.php?action=display&cat=61&v=177


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Big THANK YOU, Keth!:applause:

Adam - bluegrass has the right idea about the bee-carrying capacity of your area. If it cannot handle 100 colonies, you may still be able to operate a small-scale selective breeding program on perhaps 50 colonies. I would suggest obtaining some prize-winning stock to begin with, and get into I.I. as soon as you can. I rather emphatically repeat, you MUST develop testing for individual traits and implement solid record keeping. You can make up for the slowness of a smaller program with a good jump start and controlled matings earlier in the process and still make significant improvement in acceptable number of years.

Still, more colonies is better. You may develop relationships with other beekeepers in your area to select the best from enough hives, a great bee club project....


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## bluegrass (Aug 30, 2006)

Yes I am sure. They process samples from Canada, but only from Government appointed inspectors through USDA aphis. Basically we provide the Canadian Gov with diagnostic services so they don't have to operate their own lab.

I buy queens from Canada and the paperwork is quite extensive...(Name Address, phone # SSN etc) an APHIS agent has to inspect and sign off on it and it can only be the queens.. no attendants and no comb of any sort.


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## Adam Foster Collins (Nov 4, 2009)

Mike Palmer, when you talk of having "some good, long term records on production colonies in Nova Scotia", do you mean obtaining them from others, or building them myself? (I suppose getting them from someone else only speeds up the process).

Nova Scotia has had a closed border for many years, and we've been importing queens from places that match our pest profile (we don't have shb or tracheal mites I guess). We've been getting a lot of queens from Hawaii. But there are some people that have been working on their stock for a long time as well, and I have access to those bees. I think we've got some strong producers, with good wintering ability around. But I think Nova Scotia has a long way to go in the areas of mite resistance. There are also not a ton of people wintering nucs with any great success. I'm guessing to a certain degree, but it is near impossible to get bees or queens here before June - so that doesn't seem like a ton of strong wintered nucs around, or someone would be edging the competition and selling earlier. Seems like it all gets going when the queen shipments arrive from Hawaii.

Bluegrass asks about the capacity of the region. There's a lot more capacity than there are bees presently. Nova Scotia has about a million people, and it only has about 200 beekeepers. I think less than 50 have 50 hives or more. On the other hand, Nova Scotia is a major fruit producing region, producing 2.35 million bushels of apples and over 40 million pounds of blueberries annually. Oxford Foods is based here, and they maintain 10,000 colonies alone - yet there is still an annual shortage of enough bees to pollinate, and a special permit had to be issued this year to import 4,000 more.

I put out an ad about yard space, and got more replies than I could handle. There's plenty of room, and plenty of forage. I just have to get organized, and build to the numbers.

Kilo, you also mention I.I. I wonder if you have a set-up that you'd recommend. I'm not sure about that route yet, but I like to learn enough ahead to consider my options.

At this point, I'm trying to get a business framework in mind that I like and want to work toward. Is it honey, or bees, or both? A friend once said, "Are you in it for the honey or the money?" From what I read here, the accuracy of that statement depends on who you are and where you are.

So far, I'm way more interested in bees than honey. It's not like honey doesn't matter, but only so much as I see it as a reflection of the quality and health of the bees. 

Adam


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

Long term records of yours or of others. You say there are folks working on stock improvement. Look into getting queens from them. Also look at the best of your colonies. First learn how to winter nucleus colonies...successfully. Keep good records on their performance over 2 seasons. Then grow some queens from the best stocks and use them to stock nucleus colonies. Keep good records on those, and repeat the process. Don't be afraid to buy in stock from others...II queens if you want...as an ongoing management plan. Flood your mating area with your best stocks and requeen the rest as their faults appear. Let the bees do the mating and leave II to the designers of boutique bees. I guess it's going to take you 5 years to get to a place you want to be with your bees. 



Adam Foster Collins said:


> Mike Palmer, when you talk of having "some good, long term records on production colonies in Nova Scotia", do you mean obtaining them from others, or building them myself? (I suppose getting them from someone else only speeds up the process).
> 
> Nova Scotia has had a closed border for many years, and we've been importing queens from places that match our pest profile (we don't have shb or tracheal mites I guess). We've been getting a lot of queens from Hawaii. But there are some people that have been working on their stock for a long time as well, and I have access to those bees. I think we've got some strong producers, with good wintering ability around. But I think Nova Scotia has a long way to go in the areas of mite resistance. There are also not a ton of people wintering nucs with any great success.
> 
> Adam


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## Adam Foster Collins (Nov 4, 2009)

Thanks Mike. Sounds right to me. I was thinking 5 years myself, and have been on the fence about I.I. In the grand scheme of things, there are probably lots of areas near me that have low enough bee numbers as to be fairly easy to 'flood' with the genetics of my own bees. 

Within your post, you mention record-keeping three times. So clearly that is important. Could you (and others) expand a bit on the kinds of records you keep?

Thanks again,

Adam


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

For me, I think the title of this thread is a little bit mixed-up in terminology. Queen Rearing, for me, is not queen breeding, queen rearing is where I take young larvae from a 'mother queen' (from any source), and graft daughter queens from her. I personally use breeder queens obtained from sources that I consider reliable and proficient at accomplishing the actual breeding (I may get into actually breeding someday, but for now, I'm happy to let experts in breeding do most of that work for me). The only breeding that I do, is to flood the area with my selection of drones, so when my daughter queens are open mated, the deck is stacked towards them mating with drones of my choice.

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I keep a group of 'drone colonies' in the rear of my acre property, and my cell building and mating nucs are in the front of my property. Since I primarily raise queens with the Cordovan trait, and my drone colonies are producing Cordovan drones, I can easily determine that many of my queens matings are with Cordovan drones, either from my 'drone colonies' or other Cordovan drones that may be in the area. Possibly even from feral escaped swarms from my own colonies.

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Once you start rearing queens, then become proficient at it, others are going to start asking to buy queens from you. It seems that there is almost always a large need for good queens. You may soon become a queen producer.

I just wanted to give you a bit of a warning.


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

No offense to anyone, I understand there is a lot of resistance to I.I. At your stage of the game, 13 colonies won't have much "drone flood" effect, you will just get open mating with feral survivors and a few of your own.

If you open mate near other, larger scale bee yards that have better stock than yours, then your average should improve some, but it will take longer than with close attention to drone colony traits and I.I.

My preference at this stage of the game is to send the queens and drones off to Dr. Cobey's I.I. service in Washington. It is not cheap, but you have a huge advantage with controlled mating if your drone stock has highly desirable male-passed traits, and your queens have desirable female-passed traits. Don't bother until you identify such desirable drone and queen colonies.

If interested in learning I.I. for the long run, as you seem intent on starting a business, Dr. Cobey and Dr. Eric Mussen both said to get ahold of a copy of Laidlaw and Page's book on queen rearing. Also read Susan Cobey's article on the Cloake board method of queen rearing and queen banking. The devices they have recommended so far are 1) the least expensive unit is the Laidlaw-Goss apparatus made up from parts available through the Small Parts, Inc. catalog, or 2) the most current device was designed by Dr. Peter Schley, and has micro-adjusters. Sue also recommends using the Harbo syringe, which she can supply. I am preparing to make an improvement on the Schley I.I. instrument, and to go and take the courses at University of California at Davis.

This is not an easy route. Drone flooding and open mating have many fans because it is easier, but by using I.I., Dr. Cobey developed the New World Carniolan line in just 10 years! Think of the obstacles you have up there in Halifax, the traits that are missing, the timing of those blasted, stinging Hawiian queens, the failure and winter kill rates, etc. How long do you think it will take until you have "good" bees? This is your call, not mine, not anyone else's.

I'm leaning toward taking the challenging route of learning I.I. because I don't have 125 years to catch up with Robert Russell's family, or the Adees or any of the other long-established big outfits, to raise better queens than theirs. I need to start with excellent queens and get all the boost I can afford. I.I is the single biggest boost I can get until I can arrange an army of top-notch beekeepers with tons of bees running tests to identify desirable traits and willing to let me get my hands on their queens and drones. 

Meanwhile, I'm learning test procedures, recording results, buying excellent bees, increasing my apiary, and sending the best off to an I.I. service. Not too big a hassle.


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## Adam Foster Collins (Nov 4, 2009)

Joseph Clemens,

I have always appreciated your input, as I respect you very much. Your work in queen rearing and hive design, and the effort you make to share it all is a great service to others. So I value your perspectives and thank you for offering them here. 

As you mention, the thread title is a poor blend of terminology, and likely somewhat misleading - a further reflection of my lack of clarity in this end of the pool. Of course, I will need to tackle the area of queen-rearing, and do plan to do so in the coming 2013 season. To that end, I will follow some of your methods as described by David LaFerney on his doorgarden.com site. He credits your methods there and does a good job of explaining how to use your "starter/finisher system". I'm looking forward to trying it.

Getting breeder queens to work with in my apiary is a challenge. We have a closed border, and I need permits to bring in anything from outside of the province, and I can only bring in from other parts of Canada. That limits my options drastically. I have not been able to find clear evidence of great bee breeders in Canada, but did manage to bring in a handful of Buckfast queens from Bill Ferguson. I'm not sure how useful they'll be in the genetic pool, but it's a start. I continue to search for leads on good stock to bring in from within Canada.

If I'm able to learn your system and get anywhere near your success with it, I'll be well on my way in the right direction.

Kilocharlie,

I'm not against I.I. myself at all, and find the whole realm pretty interesting. I got all Susan Cobey's videos, and quite honestly, I don't think it seems crazy hard to do. It is a pricey little adventure though, and at this point I could get a lot of boxes and frames for the price of I.I. tools. 

Mike's advice fits well with where I'm at in my development as a beekeeper, and also, my geographic location is fairly light on honeybees, (I'm in the city) so flooding an area with genetics is pretty feasible. Isolating populations is also pretty doable up here in my opinion. 

I'd love to learn more from you on how to get the parts and plans to build an I.I. set-up, as it is something I'm open to trying. It just can't break the bank at the expanse of more basic supplies at this early stage. I'm happy to listen to your perspectives, and glad you're contributing them to this thread.

Adam


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

kilocharlie said:


> No offense to anyone, I understand there is a lot of resistance to I.I.



No offense taken here. I just think Adam should let the bees do it. He's in the learning curve. Once he's at a place where he's comfortable running a queen rearing schedule, can grow good queen cells consistantly, and has some good stocks to select from, then perhaps II is more appropriate than now.

The bees are the experts.


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Adam - Send me a private message with an address and I'll post you some I.I. info. You're dead right about finances being directed toward more hives at this point. I was assuming you planned on taking your time at learning I.I. and at making up your equipment, and wanted to get started now while continuing drone flooding for the meantime.

Joseph - Great clarification! Thank you.

Michael - Top notch advice! BTW, how long is the waiting list for your nucs?


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## bluegrass (Aug 30, 2006)

We hear a lot of talk on "I.I" around here, but how many members are actually doing it? Versus those watching some video and just preaching it? It is something I would like to get into one day, but it is expensive for something that the bees do on their own pretty successfully. The only real benefit is knowing what drones your queens are mated too. 

Adam: Sounds like you have a good grasp on the area and it's potential. On Apples; they are not a good source of nectar in most cases. 

Honey bees hate blueberries. The only reason they will pollinate them is because the areas that they are grown in offer little else and the pollinators saturate the crop with so many hives that they have little choice. What I am saying is that if you have a dozen hives in an area they are not going to touch the blueberries as long as they can find something else in the area. 

I have visited the blueberry "fields" in Maine and my summation is that honeybees are just not well adapted to the small flower they produce. The nectar it's self is probably a fine food source for them, just one they prefer to pass over.


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## Keth Comollo (Nov 4, 2011)

Not to go too far off topic but I have heard that blueberry and cranberry pollen are two of the worst pollens for bees due to their lack of a diverse amino acid profile. Having your bees on these crops stresses them.


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

I just got some metal for the base and for the "false stage" of the I.I. instrument I'm building. I already have some other parts - leadscrews, bearings, dials, and pinion gears. I'll probably have to make the rack gears and dovetail blocks. This one is just a get-er-done-quick, rough effort that should work. Wish me luck in the machine shop.

If anyone has experience with the hooks for opening up the queen, I'd like some suggestions. After watching some Youtube videos and a DVD, I see it can make a big difference. 

I think the biggest benefit isn't just knowing who the papa drone is, but choosing the very best ones to mate with the best queens for a specific, targeted purpose, or maybe the substantial increase in yield per hive that results a few years down the road, or when all my buddies are buying my excess queens because they survived another major mite infestation that my buddies' bees didn't. Time, and lots of practice, will tell....


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## Adam Foster Collins (Nov 4, 2009)

Bluegrass and Keth,

Interesting points on the blueberries. Kilo, please let us know when you've got a model built. I know there are lots of people here who would love to see what you build, and would love to have whatever guidance you can provide on how you got there. I.I. gear is cost-prohibitive for a lot of people.

Adam


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## bluegrass (Aug 30, 2006)

Kilo: I would think any Jeweler could make a jeweled hook for you like what Colby uses. 

Adam: Poking around I see you have 20 species of golden rod, purple loosestrife, and milkweed in your area.. all are usually good nectar sources. So your bees will have options outside of the orchards. I would choose your yards as far away from commercially pollinated areas as possible. The less competition you have for the local resources the better off your bees will bee.


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

I've been re-united with my digital camera and hope to learn how to post photos from photobucket.com soon. I'll be documenting the project and maybe writing an article for one of the journals.

I guess I am lucky to be a machinist with access to a shop, as it could become very expensive indeed to develop new tools, especially ones I'm not already infinitely familiar with all of its features, functions, dimensions, and nuances of it's use. So I decided to make a quick and dirty one first, get some experience, revise,revise,revise, and then make the CNC machine later.

I will consider making a production run of them should they prove sufficiently suited to purpose. If so, I'll sell them to those who cannot get hooked up with plans, machining, and off-the-shelf parts cheaply.

I remember reading a link here on Beesource regarding pollinating blueberries. The article said the best yield came from having 4 kinds of blueberries present simultaneously and using honeybees, mason bees, and bumble bees, and perhaps other pollinators as well. Cross pollination is apparently very beneficial to blueberries. I think it was posted on-line from University of Georgia or Florida (agriculture dept.?) and was listed under crops benefiting from bee pollination.


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## Adam Foster Collins (Nov 4, 2009)

Thanks again, Bluegrass.

Kilo, I'm sure you could sell a few of those I.I. tools you develop if they are effective and less expensive.

Adam


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## bluegrass (Aug 30, 2006)

Adam can correct me if I am wrong but given his climate and geographic location the blueberries we are talking about are of the wild variety. (low bush) There is only one variety and they are an original native plant which is one of the reasons honeybees are not well adapted to pollinate them.

They range from the Central Atlantic coast north to Northern Canada. In the US we call them "Maine blueberries".


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Interesting, bluegrass...I don't know what types of blueberry we have out here, but there's more of them every year. I hope to catch one of the farmers home sometime soon so I can ask him about them. I should get some Mason bees and some Bombus species started. Small flowers means he likely does not have to select for proboscis length, but perhaps small body size and short foraging radius will be plusses. Maybe Carniolans, and raise them on 4.9mm cell size foundation? I was thinking maybe Russians up in his climate. Avocado growers spread "bee attractant" on the flowers out here right before pollinating time, maybe that would work for blueberries?

Adam - If and when it gets working right AND if it is cheaper, yes, a few could sell. The other big problem is low demand. Not that many beekeepers out there, still fewer breeders, way fewer I.I. breeders, and the rest of the setup isn't cheap (CO2 bottle, binocular dissecting microscope, Harbo syringe, light and stand, and a laboratory to put it under). I'll probably be the poorest dude in the business! LOL, the Half-breed Indian doing the I.I. ceremony in the tipi with the flint I.I. apparatus. If I make ten of them, six will probably sit quite a while, but Dr.'s Sue and Eric might help sell them, and an article in one of the big journals might help. I guess I should go ahead and put out a weather balloon for demand...anyone wanting an I.I. device can send me a private message with their email address. Devices will be available in about 2 to 4 years, as I really need to go take those classes on how to use them before diving in. Meanwhile, I'll draw the bugger and write up the manufacturing plan. If I do get snowed with requests, I'll put it on front burner and give it a go.

I really think a turret station and a few skilled workers cracking out a lot of them fast in a centralized factory is a better idea. Until I'm up and running, send them off to Dr. Susan Cobey at Honey Bee Insemination Service, 455 Carnica Way, Coupeville, WA 98239.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

I really don't know why anyone would bother with II. My drones have the perfect device for mating virgin queens, and do a great job. I flood my area with apiaries of good stocks. Get great queens. Does stock improvement take a bit longer with open mating?

Not if you don't get what you want from II. My point...Selection.

I've bought and/or traded breeder queens from several of the well known II breeders. I'm really not impressed. While touted as being "The best of the best'" I don't think so. I find many of the daughters from these II glamor queens to be runny, mean, swarmy, and not having the mite tolerance claimed. I'm working with one that I bought this spring, and the jury is still out. Her daughters are wintering in nucs, so I won't know until next year. So far they appear pretty good...a bit swarmy I would say.

I would much rather select a breeder from a colony that I have several years of production records. These are open mated queens that have a good range of genes present in my apiaries. Not a little of this and a bit of that designer, baby doll queen bees.

Do what you want, but do try to understand what I mean. Bees make better beekeepers than beekeepers make bees.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

I would agree that the best production queens are naturally mated. In my mind II is a useful breeding tool and that is about where it ends. I have seen research that they are often poorly accepted and have a much shorter laying life.


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## Adam Foster Collins (Nov 4, 2009)

I'm really thankful to have the different perspectives and opinions represented here. It's exactly what I need, and really the truest benefit of a forum like this. There is no one perfect way for beekeeping, and of course for bee breeding. So it's essential that we are able to get input from all around the table; offering us each a new path or two to consider.

My plan at the moment is to see how my first attempt at wintering nucs come through winter, and if I have enough bees, to make next year's new adventure be queen rearing. I will likely add a bit more genetic stock to my apiary, and then "buckle-down" as it were and just keep building my apiaries and recording how they do. 

It seems that a key feature might be to maintain some nucs throughout the season.

Adam


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## Tohya (Apr 6, 2011)

kilocharlie said:


> If anyone has experience with the hooks for opening up the queen, I'd like some suggestions. After watching some Youtube videos and a DVD, I see it can make a big difference.


I have never tried II, but wouldn't used Dental picks or scalers off ebay work?


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

As far as the hooks are concerned, I was thinking about bend radius, wire guage and taper, lead-in clearance for hand work before the micro-adjuster bar starts,...dimensional advice, material suggestions, things I have not considered. A range of hook sizes works for dentists and fishermen, but a queen bee's private parts? It seems it might get a bit specific, as it is rather small. Watching the videos, it is obvious that there is a LOT of skill involved, and the right tool is a big help.

Adam - Are you overwintering double-nucs over a double screen board above a strong colony? Are you insulating them with foam, straw, other material? Are you allowing top hive ventilation? Wrapping with roof paper? I'm just curious - Southern California is so much different than Nova Scotia.


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## Adam Foster Collins (Nov 4, 2009)

For this first try, I'm going to try wintering nucs in single 8 frame deeps. I chose those because I have them, and thought they might be a little easier to keep from getting too big before winter. The are presently stacked on larger colonies, and each has a top entrance.

I'm not sure how I'll prep them for winter. A guy up here stacked a bunch of 'em in blocks and wrapped them with tyvek. Each had a small top and bottom entrance, and I thought it all looked pretty solid. But he lost about 40%. I'm not sure why, but I may keep it pretty simple. My boxes are all painted a dark, chocolate brown, so I'm not wrapping them. They'll all have a small top entrance. No bottom entrance. The question is whether or not to put insulation on top of each one.

Adam


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

I've heard / read a few guys say to put 2" or more of foam insulation over an inner cover, but to use something under it that absorbs moisture. An empty super full of dry straw was suggested as well. Upper hive ventilation is an issue that is likely dependent on how sealed-up your hives are. You might try doing a few each way and see which ones fare better through winter. Wrapping is probably for keeping wind, rain, and snow out. I doubt it contributes much for insulation, more for blocking air movement. How cold and wet does it average there? What kind of Temperature Lows? If it is quite nasty, I wonder if your bees would benefit from a WBC (William Broughton Carr - double-walled) hive design?

I'd certainly consider double nucs over double screen boards and stacking, but only if you've treated for nosema, mites, and other stress-causes.

I often think of moving my operation to a less-regulated state, so I pay careful attention to learning wintering methods. I'm not a wintering expert, note I'm in Southern California, where I have eucalyptus bloom from mid-November through March and enjoy winter increase  everything else about the place makes me want to move far away. Too many people with heads that need to take cleansing flights, I try to empty my own often.

Please, you Northern beeks and beekettes, when you finish laughing, correct my idiotic suggestions! I am a kibbutzing Southerner from not too far from Disneyland. It actually does snow here some years, but I've worn Speedos on the beach while surfing in December, and seen bees sipping Mai Tai's when the sun was out the same day.


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