# Bigger IS better for mating nucs - or so the numbers seem to indicate...



## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

Only more questions; 
How well do you think the different methods will perform? If placed in hives with equal adequate resources, would the queens perform equally?

50 % return on 3.5 frames pretty much dedicated to that use compares, to 100 % return on say 15 frames which is still able to conduct other business?


----------



## BernhardHeuvel (Mar 13, 2013)

David LaFerney said:


> ...in the same yard.... My honey hives AND mating nucs are all lined up in rows on long hive stands.


On the same stand in the same yard? Maybe your success with mating nucs would be better, if you do not set up bigger hives along with your 3 frame mating nucs. Some distance should be between full hives and mating nucs. Bees drift to bigger colonies and queens do, too. The queenless bigger hive might be more attractive to a young queen as is the poor hive she took off from.


----------



## beedeetee (Nov 27, 2004)

What do you mean when you say the large hives made queenless were successful on the "first try"? My hives will make several queen cells when I kill or remove the queen. So if the first queen doesn't mate, the second might. So the success rate of cells to queens might be closer to your mating nuc rate.

I have a yard under what looks like 50-75 swallows constantly circling the hives. When I first put bees there and then saw the swallow population, I thought that I would probably have a problem with big slow queens coming in for a landing, but I've never had a hive to queenless there.


----------



## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

beedeetee said:


> My hives will make several queen cells when I kill or remove the queen. So if the first queen doesn't mate, the second might. So the success rate of cells to queens might be closer to your mating nuc rate.


What usually happens unseen in your hives is that the first queen which emerges will kill all of her sisters who are still in the cells. There are of course exceptions - especially in big swarmy hives, but usually there is only one queen left at mating time.

What I meant by on the first try is that when I give a hive a frame of brood about 2-1/2 weeks after making it queenless they build cells on it (indicating that they are hopelessly queenless) by knowing that I could give them a second chance by letting them try again with the cells they build or giving them a ripe cultured cell. What I would actually do is give them a caged queen, because the risk of SHB meltdown is too great when the hive is queenless for longer than about a month.


----------



## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

*BernhardHeuvel - Maybe your success with mating nucs would be better, if you do not set up bigger hives along with your 3 frame mating nucs. Some *

I agree, but at this point I am a hobbyist and only have the one yard to use. I already put about as much time into it as I can - probably more than I should. Although since I started splitting the income with my wife I don't get too much pushback. Mating nucs are mostly on separate stands from production hives at least.

*Saltybee - 
How well do you think the different methods will perform? If placed in hives with equal adequate resources, would the queens perform equally?

50 % return on 3.5 frames pretty much dedicated to that use compares, to 100 % return on say 15 frames which is still able to conduct other business?
*

That's true - although it might be worse than that depending on how you look at it. Count the cost of making up a mating nuc and the value of the resources used, and you better get several queens out of it if you want to come out. Until the honey flow is over - which it is. 

The queens from mating nucs are (usually) used to requeen queenless production hives and make increase splits - and occasionally help out a friend in need. Although the ones in the honey hives - produced during the main flow with many many drones available - are probably about as good as they can get physically. Their performance is potentially excellent I would think. They usually all perform quite well for the most part - there are exceptions of course.

I don't deny that I have some things that I need to improve on.


----------



## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

David LaFerney said:


> Although since I started splitting the income with my wife I don't get too much pushback.


Darn, I need to be a better negotiator...


----------



## beedeetee (Nov 27, 2004)

David LaFerney said:


> What usually happens unseen in your hives is that the first queen which emerges will kill all of her sisters who are still in the cells. There are of course exceptions - especially in big swarmy hives, but usually there is only one queen left at mating time.


I'm not so sure that is the case. I think that either the bees protect some cells from the virgins, for at least a while or because of different aged larva used for supercedure/emergency that the virgin doesn't deem the younger cells a threat yet. In an incubator that won't happen and all same aged cells will be destroyed, but I've found different aged cells still viable a couple of days after a queen has hatched.

From an evolutionary view letting the first queen kill all of the others wouldn't make sense. Why make all of the other queen cells anyway. The biggest threat isn't not hatching, it's coming back from mating flights.


----------



## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

I wouldn't be surprised if something like that happens at times - bee behavior is obviously very complex and variable in response to different conditions. 

However for practical purposes I assume that if a hive doesn't have an actively laying queen within a month of becoming queenless it needs intervention. And here in the south it needs it pretty quick.


----------



## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

David LaFerney said:


> [B Although since I started splitting the income with my wife I don't get too much pushback.


I can't get mine to take the loss.

David, although I do sometimes ask a question to make a point, those were straight out "I do not know" questions.


----------



## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

beedeetee said:


> the virgin doesn't deem the younger cells a threat yet.


I believe that you are correct. You often see younger cells completely intact with a virgin running around, but as you pointed out in a grafting scenario, all cells are the same age and treated equally by the virgin. She will get to all of them, but the urgency isn't the same as on a cell bar of grafts.


----------



## beedeetee (Nov 27, 2004)

I guess all I am saying is that the fact that large hives have better mating success may not have as much to do with their size as the fact that they get more chances of success with different aged cells. Some cells may have been made immediately with older larva and some a few days later from what were eggs at the time of the "event".


----------



## delber (Dec 26, 2010)

"more chances" presupposes that there are multiple queen cells in the larger hives. Is this the case? I had one hive where I found several queen cells (2 were bad / drawn on old comb) but the others were good. I left one cell with the hive and split the others off. What other "chance" is there than this queen? My limited experience seems to be the same. The larger hives have always brought back the queen. I honestly didn't put it together before this. It seems in my very limited experience this has held true. Hmph!!! Something to think about and consider. Perhaps using 5 frame deeps for mating nucs? That's a lot of resources to start, but once you have them started you can rotate the queen out about every month or so. Let her lay it up, then remove her / sell her etc. and give them a new cell?


----------



## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

David - try moving your nuc's made from queen rearing efforts 10 miles away from you home yard for at least a month. See if your score comes up. This appears to be my big error of late. All the times I've done this in the past, I had high % mated / accepted / laying good brood pattern. All the times I haven't done this, the results vary quite a lot.

I'm going to build the vented nuc's right on the trailer the day before cell planting, close them up queenless for overnight, plant them (still locked inside), and move them 10 miles or better the following day, after they have been locked in for 2 days. I'm going tomorrow to check my bees for resource level - if I can still get in a short, late season queen rearing run.

If you are still running queens this year, please try this. I want to see the results. Thanks!


----------



## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

Would this be to move the virgin queens far away from their brothers and near relatives for mating - or just to get them away from the main apiary in general?

Although in the past I have mostly grafted my own cells, this year I have been getting them all from a friend who rears queens using VSH breeders from VP queens so as to get those particular genetics (which BTW I have been very pleased with) so I'm already more or less covering the first point.

Check out this frame from one of those queens...










While I'm at it, this one is from a daughter grafted from a Sue Cobey carni...










My bees seem healthier now than they have ever been.


----------



## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

This is to prevent the older bees transferred to the nucs from going back to the old hives, leaving the nuc's weak and susceptible to robbing. I think I've been making this mistake - NOT moving them, I mean.

Your queens' laying patterns are awesome! I'll probably get some of Adam's queens next year or two. I can hardly wait to go get trained by Dr. Cobey


----------



## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

kilocharlie said:


> This is to prevent the older bees transferred to the nucs from going back to the old hives, leaving the nuc's weak and susceptible to robbing. I think I've been making this mistake - NOT moving them, I mean.


I TRY to just make them up plenty strong with nurse bees so that they don't get too weak despite losing the foragers - then by the second round of cells that is absolutely not an issue. Try is the key word - I agree that weak nucs don't seem to do as well as strong ones.



kilocharlie said:


> Your queens' laying patterns are awesome! I'll probably get some of Adam's queens next year or two. I can hardly wait to go get trained by Dr. Cobey


Those are good queens, but of course you know that the reason I took those pictures is that they were especially nice. Very low numbers of mites apparent in drone brood samples is really a bigger deal - but hard to take a picture of.


----------



## WBVC (Apr 25, 2013)

beedeetee said:


> What do you mean when you say the large hives made queenless were successful on the "first try"? My hives will make several queen cells when I kill or remove the queen. So if the first queen doesn't mate, the second might. So the success rate of cells to queens might be closer to your mating nuc rate.
> 
> I have a yard under what looks like 50-75 swallows constantly circling the hives. When I first put bees there and then saw the swallow population, I thought that I would probably have a problem with big slow queens coming in for a landing, but I've never had a hive to queenless there.


I thought the first Queen emerged killed the others so that regardless of the number Queen cells the hive has only one chance for a mated Queen. I could be very wrong.


----------



## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

kilocharlie said:


> try moving your nuc's made from queen rearing efforts 10 miles away from you home yard for at least a month. See if your score comes up. This appears to be my big error of late. All the times I've done this in the past, I had high % mated / accepted / laying good brood pattern. All the times I haven't done this, the results vary quite a lot.


I've been skimming quickly trying to catch up after being away for a few days, so I may have missed the context, but this comments puzzles me. Why would you want to move your mating nucs 10 miles away for a month? Most queen breeders put a lot of effort (I know I do) in saturating their mating areas with desirable drone sources. Moving your nucs 10 miles will take them out of the desirable drones that we work so hard to achieve. If its just weak nucs, then that's easily resolved by getting your mating nucs established early in the season prior to the dearth. I like big populations in all my mating nucs by the end of May, so that the June dearth is manageable without resorting to heroic efforts. Been there - not fun.


----------



## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

David LaFerney said:


> Check out this frame from one of those queens...


Nice! Shame you have to confine her to such dinky frames....:lookout:


----------



## Stansuch99 (Feb 1, 2014)

beedeetee said:


> I'm not so sure that is the case. I think that either the bees protect some cells from the virgins, for at least a while or because of different aged larva used for supercedure/emergency that the virgin doesn't deem the younger cells a threat yet. In an incubator that won't happen and all same aged cells will be destroyed, but I've found different aged cells still viable a couple of days after a queen has hatched.
> 
> From an evolutionary view letting the first queen kill all of the others wouldn't make sense. Why make all of the other queen cells anyway. The biggest threat isn't not hatching, it's coming back from mating flights.


I am unsure if the queen was a virgin or not but earlier in the week i was able to witness her chewing at the capped queen cells. There were no eggs yet from her so i am unsure if she was mated and only inspecting the hive before she started. If nothing else it was a really interesting thing to see and i was able to save the capped cells to put in a hive with no queen.


----------



## delber (Dec 26, 2010)

AstroBee said:


> I've been skimming quickly trying to catch up after being away for a few days, so I may have missed the context, but this comments puzzles me. Why would you want to move your mating nucs 10 miles away for a month? Most queen breeders put a lot of effort (I know I do) in saturating their mating areas with desirable drone sources. Moving your nucs 10 miles will take them out of the desirable drones that we work so hard to achieve. If its just weak nucs, then that's easily resolved by getting your mating nucs established early in the season prior to the dearth. I like big populations in all my mating nucs by the end of May, so that the June dearth is manageable without resorting to heroic efforts. Been there - not fun.


I agree with the concern here as well. However I can see the wisdom of moving them so that the foragers don't all leave. Perhaps a remedy. . . Move whatever hive / hives you're going to be using to make up your mating nucs some miles away. When you're ready to make them up do that and move them back to your mating yard / yards. Then you have essentially done the same thing only in reverse. The foragers will reorient to the "new" location and will be established in the nuc for queen mating purposes. I don't think you need to go 10 miles, but that would work out fine. (so would 2 or 3 miles)


----------



## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

I think Delber gets it....Just set up your cell builder, your breeder queen's colony, and your grafting tent far enough away from your yards before you start.

On Day 19, build your nuc's on the trailer or truck bed. On Day 20, cut your Queen cells apart, plant them in the ventilated nuc's, and close them up. on Day 20 or 21, move them to the mating yard (10 miles away). This routine should lead to an increased % in successful nuc's.


----------



## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

kilocharlie said:


> the mating yard (10 miles away)


Sure that works, but for me time, gas, and convenience is an issue and 10 miles away would quickly become a big deal. All my yards are within a 2 mile radius of my house. I realize that not everyone can realize that level of compactness, but I've traveled before to manage mating nucs and I find that those a good distance away simply don't get the same level of attention as those at my house. Perhaps if you're doing queen rearing as more of a full-time endeavor, you'll have more time to dedicate to traveling. I like all my breeders at the house so that I can, without delay, have access to them. I then can graft in my house with AC, good lighting, and a comfortable setting. Besides, I see loosing foragers from mating nucs as potentially a good thing, of course assuming you can maintain sufficient populations. The fewer older bees the better for that first cell plant.


----------



## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Yeah, level of commitment and what's already available have a lot to do with it. I am constantly seeking new locations, nectar flows, and permission to put bees in peoples' properties. It's not easy in Southern California's police state mentality these days, but there are still a few cool people - mostly those to whom free pollination is a benefit, and especially if I lubricate the deal with honey and/or mead!

As a beek' who is transitioning from more-than-part-time to full-time breeder, I have to have at least 2 yards anyways, and a wood shop. I'm very lucky to have access to a huge, known DCA, and an organic farm with an amazingly friendly, understanding farmer, who puts up with my doing weed abatement on the last day possible so the bees have as much nectar & pollen as they can get before the fire inspectors come. :lookout:

As for my breeders, the best in every yard go to the best yard or the best nectar flow, and nowhere near the pesticides. I've had to start all over, or make do with less-than-the-best, too many times. I have been collecting seeds to plant on my best yards, though. I'm hoping to have enough to make a big difference next year, and so far, the seed gathering part is working. Prayers and sacrifices to the rain gods, Yah-ta-HEY!

As for neglect - I suppose I neglect the empty combs more than the bees, much to the wax moths delight. Anybody have a good idea for storing the empty, drawn comb? I'm looking for a container to put hive boxes in and fill the whole thing with para-dichlorobenzine.

I suppose another angle on the whole matter is to over-produce the number of queens, keep lots of mating nucs, and put up with lower % winners, but still have enough hatched, mated, and laying queens. I think there is probably an economy of scale determining which approach is less total effort, and very worth looking into.


----------



## shannonswyatt (May 7, 2012)

I'm struggling with my decision on what to do for mating nucs. I read about mating nucs first and thought that is the way to go. But I made up some frames this year and have them drawn out, but I'm thinking now that these are good for one thing, and then I will end up putting them up for 6+ months. So now I'm thinking either 5 frame mediums or 2 frame deeps is the way to go. I'm not sure how much you would have to charge for a queen mated in a 10 frame box, but there is no way you are going to get a 25 dollar queen from a 10 frame deep box. You are feeding a lot of resources for no return.


----------



## Daniel Y (Sep 12, 2011)

David, First I want to mention that your posts inspire much thought. The down side is those thoughts inspire comments. Not alwasy in agreement but intended for the purpose of discovery and further attempts at different ways of doing things.

My season this year is clearly dominated by attempting to rear as many queens as possible from the colonies I have. As you mention earlier there is much to improve on but in nearly every case their are at least encouraging results.

As far as increased losses in smaller colonies. I encourage you to look carefully at the impact of robbing. I am suspecting fairly significant losses of my queens for this reason myself.

I will ad that I have never noticed or had cause for much concern when requeening a full size colony. I have always recognized that it is nearly always successful. I have never really given it to thorough a thought as to why that might be. I do not necessarily agree that all cells in a multiple cell colony are destroyed by the first virgin. in fact I seldom find this is true. Although many cells are destroyed I nearly always find one or two additional cells that the virgin did not find or that where defended by the workers. I suppose the easiest way to support my observation is simply to ask. How is it that a colony can cast multiple after swarms if only one virgin survives. Obviously more than one virgin can and will survive in a single colony. So I do believe that the increased success of a full size colony with multiple cells is due in part to they have multiple chances.

Some further thoughts are along the line of just how to measure "More" successful. Is 100% success with one queen gettign mated. more successful than 50% rate with 4 Queens? The former appears to be better. but the later results in twice as many mated queens. Much is determined by the resources and options available. For example a single guaranteed mated queen is far more valuable to a person with just one colony than it is to one with 10.

One prospective would be to measure mated queens per frames used. this is simply an equipment being maximized way to look at it.

It is in my mind that you achieve 60% mating rate with 5 frame nucs. this results in 12 mated queens per 100 frames. Further I will assume a production strength colony is equivalent to some degree with a double deep at least. If it is a ten frame double deep you use 20 frames. This nets 5 mated queens per 100 fraems even with 100% mating rates. 5 queens compared to 12 yet it would appear to many to be more successful.

I have not forgotten the additional cost. My method assumes you use the same frames from the production colony they are simply divided into smaller compartments. So the difference is the cost of the nucs. I will assume $30 per nuc. It would require 20 nucs to hold 100 frames at a cost of $600. Average cost per queen is then $50.

We must then also look at the cost of equipment per double deep. You can get a deep set from Mann Lake for $75 and still need to add another deep to it plus 10 fraems. I Will say $13.00 for the additional deep. For a total cost of $88 per hive which translates to $88 in costs per queen.

I will jsut say to anyone reading this. be very careful about what appears to be a better more productive method. It dependent on production in relation to other factors. It is also dependent on the goal. IF the goal is higher assurance of a mated queen larger is better but realize it comes at a higher expense. if cost of production is the issue. then smaller appears to be the way to go.

One other thought I had from your comments was yo mentioned leaving bees 2 and a half weeks to be queenless before allowing them to build cells. I am interested in your reasons for this delay. As a comparison I will offer my most resent cell production experience. We made 18 nucs queenless or gave already queenless nucs brood to rear queens on the 10th of this month. two days ago on the 18 we removed 82 cells from these frames. I am not seeing the need for any delay for bees to make queen cells. Earlier this year we had the same results while making all of our production colonies queenless. They produced on average 19.5 cells per colony starting within 24 hours of being made queenless.

I suppose to me it was always an assumption that bees will almost immediately start making queens cells given under natural conditions they only have 6 days at most to get the process going.

One final observation in the difference in this delay in giving them brood. In two and a half weeks that you delay my queens will have been reared and emerged and some of them completing their orientation flights. A week later they will be laying and starting to be productive.


----------



## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Shannon -
10-frame deeps with 3 vertical slots inside the 16.25" ends give you a lot of options. With 2 hive partitionsplaced in the outter slots, you get 3 x 3-frame mating nuc's. With one partition in the middle slot, you get 2 x 5-frame increaser nuc's. With queen excluder partition in one of the side slots, you get 7 + 3 breeder queen isolation for egg-laying so you don't have to look all over the hive for 1-day-old larvae when grafting. You can still use it for a 10-frame box as well.

Almost all my boxes are set up like this so any box = any use. The drawbacks? I have to keep a whole bunch of corks in my pockets, I have to make narrow inner covers, and special hive bottoms. I used to make separate entries in the hive bottoms going different directions, but now I just let them go out the cork holes. They seem to like it better, and it's easier - one hive bottom fits all uses except full 10-frame arrangement in wide-open fly-out mode.

It also works with Illinois medium (6 5/8" deep) boxes and they weigh about 50 lbs max, as opposed to 90 lbs maxinch:. I'm phasing out my deeps (I'm getting a case of OGS - Old Geezer Syndrome)- I'm going all 6 5/8" boxes and frames, so any frame can go in any box (and I can still lift the buggers 25 years from now).

Most breeders agree that 3 frames or more work FAR BETTER THAN 2 frames or less for mating nucs, because they can make a more natural cluster at night. Mini mating nuc's tend to have swarming/absconding problems some times, it rarely ever happens in larger nucs.

If I were using 8-frame equipment, I'd make up 2 x 4-frame double nuc's only, not 4 x 2-frame mating nuc's. I'd be experimenting with 3 frames + a 1-gallon frame feeder vs. 4 frames + a mason jar for mating the queens. I hear these max out about 41 lbs.

Overall, for the time and effort, I'd rather make the 1/4" plywood hive partitions, the narrow inner covers, and the 3-slot hive bottom boards than have to make mini-mating nuc's and draw out the frames of mini-comb and use them for only a month or 2 a year, then have to store them for the wax moths to destroy.


----------



## shannonswyatt (May 7, 2012)

Thanks for the inf Kilo, I think I will build a couple this weekend!


----------



## shannonswyatt (May 7, 2012)

Quick question, what is the best material for the partitions? Luan would be cheap, will it hold up or get crazy warped?


----------



## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

DanielY - 

Try running the financial numbers on a 75% effective assumption at each step of the queen rearing process, and also count your available resources based on which "ingredient" (brood combs, nuc' boxes, nectar flow, 32-oz. cups of bees for mating, etc.) you have the LEAST of. Now over-produce your queen cells based on those limits.

Too many queen cells = no problem. It's the mated ones laying a solid pattern that you are concerned with.


----------



## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

For partitions, I've used Lauan, it works. One-quarter inch thick, 5-ply Baltic birch is awesome, but way expensive. 3-ply is cheaper and works OK. Coroplast (political signs - I harvest them one minute after the polls close on election night ) is good but not real durable, but something to experiment with (Coroplast also makes great tops if you don't have galvanized sheet steel, and folds up into mini nuc's in a pinch).


----------



## shannonswyatt (May 7, 2012)

I have a lot of coroplast. I use it for top covers on TBHs and swarm traps. I think I will give that a shot.


----------



## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

How is it working for swarm traps? What is your shape? Are you giving them empty frames?, foundation frames?, drawn comb?, top bars?, or just a place to hide and let them build the comb?


----------



## shannonswyatt (May 7, 2012)

Not well here for swarms. This isn't a great place for bees, I would do better in the city a few miles west than were I live. I have several types and sizes of bait hives. I have TBH nucs, most of them are about 18 inches long, but I have a few 2 and 3 footers. The bars are 19 inches long, the sides of the boxs are made from 1x12s and a 1x8 on the bottom and set at 30 degrees. Basically the same as Les Crowder or Phil Chandler. I also have 5 frame nucs out. The TBHs have a piece of comb. The 5 frame Langs are small, so I figured if I left them without comb and only top bars in them they may look bigger to the bees (or not). I had to pull some of my 5 frame nucs off of trees to use as nucs. I bait with LGO and I melt in old brood comb and some propolis in the box to give it the right smell. When I set them out in the spring the bees in the yard are all checking them out. This will definitely attract a hive, I had one fly in last year, in a TBH in my yard that was baited that way that I was home to see the move in. I place my hives in places that are concealed, but the height is eye level on them all. I'm sure that if I hung them higher in better areas they would do better, but I'm not a fan of ladders, and I don't want to lose any of the boxes. I had one torn down by a bear last year and I have had two torn down by probably kids.

I put out a couple with queen pheromone, it didn't get anything, doesn't mean it wouldn't work though. LGO is way cheaper, I don't think I would get the queen pheromone again, it was an impulse buy while at the bee keeping supply store.

I got one swarm in a hive this year, and that flew into a dead out TBH in the yard. It just had old comb in it (it was my comb bank!). Hell of a hive, wish they would have went into a lang though, since they are not the best comb builders, I have to correct them every week. They draw so fast from different parts of the bar and start overlapping. I will split them in a couple weeks. I may pull some honey from them today. 

I've only had one swarm call, maybe 3# of bees but queenless. Bees ended up in one of my weaker hives.

I mainly put out bait hives now on the chance that I have a hive swarm and I miss it, maybe I will get lucky and catch it. They are all at least a half a mile from my home. I also have some out at my fathers a couple hundred miles away, but they don't get checked very often. 

I'm sure I would do better if I put comb in, but for now I have no excess comb. I would rather use what comb I have on splits which are going to give you a hive versus a shot in the dark on a swarm that probably wont show up. 

I'm amazed by the numbers that some of the folks get that I follow on Facebook. JP in New Orleans is up near 60. He is in the business of pest removal, but my god that is a lot of swarms.

I like my TBHs, but I want to start raising queens, and the TBHs really are not great for that. Please, no flames, I'm know there are folks raising queens in TBHs, but just about every system is based on using Langs. I've considered modifications to hives to use as starters and finishers, but really a Lang is the way to go. I may end up using some top bar bait hives for mating nucs though, since I have so many of them. I have about eight 12 inch hives that would be fine, I could just put a feeder in them and give them four or five bars of comb. I have another eight 16 inch boxes that could hold two mating nucs in them easy.

The problem I have now is I need another yard to keep bees in. I would like to have a nuc yard for mating nucs.


----------



## delber (Dec 26, 2010)

Check out this method. I used it 2 years ago . (I hope to use it again this year) using a top bar only. This year I hope to make special frames to build 3 rows of queen cells, but I think it would work well in a top bar. 

http://www.beesource.com/resources/...queen-cells-without-grafting-cut-cell-method/


----------



## BjornH (Nov 8, 2013)

About queens not destroying all cells. My impression is that new emerged queen use her piping sound to find competitors. If she gets an answer, search and destroy mode is initiated. Equally matured queens schould have equally developed ability to make sound. My thought of the matter.
Mating nuc volume; Small volumes like Apidea, Swibine can do have lower mating rate. But if mated almost allways faster in laying ( we are to few! Hurry,hurry!!- just a thought)
Ordinary walk-away splits allways do 100% in my area. But of course to much of input for to few resulting queen for my operstion though those queens probably had the best childhood...


----------



## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

BjornH - I've noticed that queen cells that are younger - not in late pupal stages like red eyes or purple eyes or ready-to-hatch, are often the ones that do not get killed by sister queens hatching first. On the same track - these are not pipping, either, but they are the ones leaving on after-swarms. Perhaps it is those still in larval stages that do not pose a "threat".

Some virgin queens are much more thorough than others about killing off the competition, though.

Delber - Thank you for providing the link to Oldtimer's fantastic post!


----------



## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

BjornH - that sounds like a solid theory based on observation. Thanks.


----------



## delber (Dec 26, 2010)

kilocharlie said:


> Delber - Thank you for providing the link to Oldtimer's fantastic post!


I actually followed the original thread some years ago. I'd encourage you to look for the thread. There's other good info there also. I found it. Here it is. . . 

http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...ut-Grafting&highlight=raising+queens+grafting


----------



## Daniel Y (Sep 12, 2011)

kilocharlie said:


> DanielY -
> 
> Try running the financial numbers on a 75% effective assumption at each step of the queen rearing process, and also count your available resources based on which "ingredient" (brood combs, nuc' boxes, nectar flow, 32-oz. cups of bees for mating, etc.) you have the LEAST of. Now over-produce your queen cells based on those limits.
> 
> Too many queen cells = no problem. It's the mated ones laying a solid pattern that you are concerned with.


In actual Numbers concerning "Ingredients". Since that is pretty much exactly what I am trying to maximize production with.

At the end of last year the things we had the least of was equipment of any kind. 12 colonies and 10 nucs and that was all the equipment we owned.

Over the winter we used money form honey sales to purchase 50 additional deep boxes and I think 60, possibly more Medium boxes. and that was form selling honey from just 4 production colonies we started with last year. Nucs swarms added during swarm season added a tiny bit to that honey count.

So by the time queen cells where being produced this year we had equipment to no only expand 12 full size colonies and the 10 nucs we where ready to make as many as 200 mating compartments. Most of the nuc production went to a cell builder early in the season.

I estimated 19 cells per full size colony (Times 12) and on average 5 cells per nuc for adn additional 50 cells. Grand total of my estimate 278. We also made an additional 32 cells by grafting that I had not included in my estimate of natural cells for a total of 301 cells from all sources. In actuality we got 282. Some where lost in attempting to cut them from fraems or the count would have been slightly higher.

So now altering numbers to a 75% rate at each step. Would mean 212 virgins emerge. This would be 12 more queens than we where prepared to manage. IN reality this woudl not be a problem. Because by the 75% one quarter of these virgins are going to be lost upon introduction. My method spread the emergence out over as much as two to three weeks so restocking compartments is possible when necessary.

Not only that but in our case we sold some virgins reducing the number needing to be housed in the first place.

In comparison our actual emergence number was 60%. with 32 of those virgins sold as virgins.

As for introduced virgins I think we ended up somewhere in the neighbor hood of 40% of those mated. Final result was 40 or so mated queens in all.

But with no sale of virgins and a 75% mating success rate on 212 virgins would be 159 mated queens. 

At that time we had 40 nuc boxes waiting and could convert mating compartments to 100 more. In reality the sale of nucs, virigns queens and mated queens made it possible to purchase even more equipment. which we are int eh process of looking at now. that was the reason to produce these queens. to be sold so we could get ready for our increase production.

Basically what i see you describing is increasing and management with no planning. Anyone can out produce themselves. it is production with preparedness that needs to be encouraged.

Last year was our year to increase without equipment. and I even said that the biggest limiting factor to increase was equipment. I still see it that way just not to as large a degree. This year has been far more about failure to get queens reared than equipment. we have the equipment and are able to get even more. The queens are not getting produced in anywhere near the numbers we are looking for.

We where and are prepared equipment wise for a 9 fold increase of our apiary. the bees are not getting it done. As a result we have busted our tails to make up for the short coming. And we are still prepared. The bees are attempting round two at this moment. I a thinking we will sacrifice any honey production for this year. but then I don't expect much in the way of honey this year. If I loose that income I may be looking far more seriously at getting bees to Almonds this winter.

Anyway I understand your point and have lived in it. but it is correctable. It is a management issue not a production issue. Only recently have I heard anyone mention we are dunning out of equipment. and that is bottom boards. You can in fact make hives without bottom boards so I do not consider it critical. By the way I had not planned to have addition of full size hives that would need bottom boards. these hives came from swarms that require full size equipment. As far as my planned increase. we have had all the equipment needed when needed so far. I was nto goign to do a repeat of last year.

And final assessment. it was not easy. Not by far. It took planning. accurate estimates and discipline.


----------



## shannonswyatt (May 7, 2012)

**Ignore**


----------



## KevinR (Apr 30, 2010)

I usually have a harder time requeening a large hive than a smaller hive. I'm not sure if they don't want my cell or want to raise their own.

I generally don't have any issues with mating queens in smaller hives, but I do run into more issues with SHB, swarming, and absconding.

On the last page, David/Daniel you mentioned introducing virgins. Are you planting cells or are you letting them emerge into an incubator and introducing virgins?


----------



## Tim B (Apr 16, 2009)

There is clearly a far higher successful mating/return of a virgin queen in a full size colony, particularly if the queens orgin is from that hive's stock. When I try to requeen single deeps with a queen cell from somewhere else, I have noticed that I have the same problems I have with mating nucs. I'm wondering if the problems are related to the queens I'm trying to get introduced and mated are genetically different enough that they are considered foreign and aren't readily accepted at some point between hatching and mating.


----------



## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

That probably is a factor. My hives that were so successful were requeening theirselves, while the mating nucs had cultured cells grafted from an II vsh breeder queen.


----------



## Daniel Y (Sep 12, 2011)

I would say a colony that has started a queen cells from it's own brood has pretty much gotten to the point it is looking for a new queen. Taking bees and introducing a cell does not necessarily indicate readiness on the bees part. A hive that is developing laying workers being a good example of a colony that would be difficult or impossible to get a cell introduced to. I put it in the came category as anything else where I am making the choices rather than seeing what the bees choices are. I give completely queenless bees frames of young open brood and wait to see them starting queens cells. At that point I am able to introduce a more developed queen cell more successfully. It takes a lot more time and work but I see better results than just taking bees and assuming they even want a cell. In my most recent attempt a rearing queens I used the same bees that made the cells to fill the mating compartments with.


----------



## Velbert (Mar 19, 2006)

pol-line really like how they lay in 4 1/2 length medium depth frames

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g307/vlwbee/20140616_185406.jpg


----------



## shannonswyatt (May 7, 2012)

Nice Velbert! Are you just cutting a top bar in half and re-milling the ends for you frames?


----------



## tanksbees (Jun 16, 2014)

beedeetee said:


> From an evolutionary view letting the first queen kill all of the others wouldn't make sense. Why make all of the other queen cells anyway. The biggest threat isn't not hatching, it's coming back from mating flights.


Evolution doesn't work like that. By that logic, why wouldn't every bee in the hive be able to lay eggs? Why not have multiple queens? 

Just because a species has evolved to some extent does not mean it has evolved perfectly.


----------



## Velbert (Mar 19, 2006)

Yes remilling top and bottom bars I buy the commercial frames from dadants


----------



## BernhardHeuvel (Mar 13, 2013)

http://www.researchgate.net/profile..._Polyandry/links/0f317539daf0ea9232000000.pdf

_The largest constraint to mating frequency is, therefore, the storage capacity of the queen. This would suggest that variation in queen size may also contribute to the variation in mating number because larger queens presumably have a higher storage capacity._


----------



## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

beedeetee said:


> ...From an evolutionary view letting the first queen kill all of the others wouldn't make sense...


Actually, it does. It ensures that the hive will swarm in sufficient numbers to be successful, as opposed to throwing many after-swarms too small to stand much chance of surviving Winter. 

Also, the evidence: European honeybees have done exactly this for millennia untold, and have thrived, up until the humans started making pesticides.


*OOPS! Apologies, someone resurrected an old thread.*


----------



## WesternWilson (Jul 18, 2012)

beedeetee said:


> From an evolutionary view letting the first queen kill all of the others wouldn't make sense. Why make all of the other queen cells anyway. The biggest threat isn't not hatching, it's coming back from mating flights.


It is a bit more complex than that. I have seen worker bees keeping an emerged virgin queen away from a nice, big, fat queen cell. The virgin was very dark in colour, and the next week when I checked, the winner was a lovely tiger tail queen. I think the workers have a LOT to do with who wins the queen wars. They can sense which virgin in the cell will likely make the best queen and they tilt the match. 

So this does mean the "fittest" (evolutionarily speaking) queen generally wears the crown.

A recent paper examined the patrilines of eggs selected by the worker bees to make into queen cells. We have always assumed supersisters would get preference, but it appears that is not true. Workers overwhelmingly selected eggs from patrilines not commonly represented in the hive. Just quickly, that propensity would drive genetic diversity in the local gene pool. And indicates we have a lot to learn about the more delicate points of in-hive, bee-directed queen rearing.


----------



## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

WesternWilson said:


> It is a bit more complex than that. I have seen worker bees keeping an emerged virgin queen away from a nice, big, fat queen cell. The virgin was very dark in colour, and the next week when I checked, the winner was a lovely tiger tail queen. I think the workers have a LOT to do with who wins the queen wars. They can sense which virgin in the cell will likely make the best queen and they tilt the match.
> 
> So this does mean the "fittest" (evolutionarily speaking) queen generally wears the crown.
> 
> A recent paper examined the patrilines of eggs selected by the worker bees to make into queen cells. We have always assumed supersisters would get preference, but it appears that is not true. Workers overwhelmingly selected eggs from patrilines not commonly represented in the hive. Just quickly, that propensity would drive genetic diversity in the local gene pool. And indicates we have a lot to learn about the more delicate points of in-hive, bee-directed queen rearing.


Nice post. Yes, I've seen more than once workers constraining virgins. When they are really desperate they will ball her.


BTW, what happened to David LaFerney??


----------



## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Western Wilson - could you post a link to those studies regarding patrilines of eggs selected by workers for queen cells?

This question was raised here on Beesource a few years ago, and I asked it to Dr. Larry Connor, who directed me to Dr. Tom Rinderer, who answered that the studies at that time had a muddled conclusion, and needed to be re-investigated.

I'm very curious about who studied it and how they ran those studies. Thank you.


----------



## WesternWilson (Jul 18, 2012)

kilocharlie said:


> Western Wilson - could you post a link to those studies regarding patrilines of eggs selected by workers for queen cells?


You were asking a lot from my aging brain! I have been to a few bee lectures lately, but yay, I found the reference, which came from a Bee Culture webinar in which a number of researchers presented on the work in progress in their labs.

The study in question is the MSc thesis research, as yet unpublished, of James Wittrow, as reported by Dr. David Tarpy. His "take home message" from studies of lineage of queen larvae is that they tend to derive from rarely represented subfamilies.

More work in this is in progress to look at what it is that worker bees are looking for in selecting eggs to raise as queen larvae, but it appears they are certainly looking for something(s).

This bears directly on queen rearing by the apiarist, who generally grafts/selects at random based solely on mother queen quality and larval age....and suggests that devising some worker-directed method of initiating queen rearing, daunting as that is for creating large runs of queen cells, might be wise.


----------



## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

Weather is always a factor.
The first attempts I did at queen rearing was in 4-frame nucs and full size hives. If I got cells I'd split em up and take the queen to her own nuc for just in case. Did ok but not 100%.

The second season I was better prepared in that I had a queen castle and plenty of nucs. My method was the same and I had 100% success. The difference? First season we had a long dry spell and the second was just right. 
This season I'll have some more data to base an opinion on but I still think good weather gives you better chances.


----------



## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

WesternWilson said:


> You were asking a lot from my aging brain! I have been to a few bee lectures lately, but yay, I found the reference, which came from a Bee Culture webinar in which a number of researchers presented on the work in progress in their labs.
> 
> The study in question is the MSc thesis research, as yet unpublished, of James Wittrow, as reported by Dr. David Tarpy. His "take home message" from studies of lineage of queen larvae is that they tend to derive from rarely represented subfamilies.
> 
> ...


A good case for Miller's method.


----------

