# Packages vs Nucs vs Prime Swarms



## Deepsouth (Feb 21, 2012)

I started out beekeeping by catching swarms. For years it was the only bees I had. I had over 30 hives and never bought a single bee. I now buy a few queens a year just to try them out but I have not yet found treatment free bees better than the local swarms I catch.


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## rhaldridge (Dec 17, 2012)

I'm afraid I got a couple of those nucs that were really packages. The instructions involved letting the queen "mature" for 72 hours before transferring the nuc to its hive.

Only one built up enough that I thought it had a chance of wintering successfully in northern NY. The other one I had to bring back to Florida to overwinter.


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## SS1 (Jun 1, 2013)

I have had bad experience with packages, so i wont even go there.
Nuc's... buying a nuc outright.. you should buy from someone KNOWN.. Most areas in the US you should be able to find nuc's available that match your locality as far as winters and temps are concerned.
I have purchased soutehern queens.. had them build up into BOOMING hives that produced a surplus of honey in their first year, been VERY happy with them, only to have them starve to death inches from reserves, while the local hives I had survived without issue..
It IS my belief that LOCAL bees are more in TUNE with your weather.. texas, Georgia, Southern Cal bees can have no way to understand that the winter they are about to experience will blow anything their genetics have prepared them for out the window. I believe they were waiting for a break in the temps so they could move to reserves. When that break didnt come they died where they were. You COULD insulate the hives better, perhaps provide heat etc.. in hopes of getting them through the winter, but what have you gained come next winter?

I love catching swarms and doing cut outs. I have spent considerable time finding feral hives in trees, old barns etc and place my swarm boxes in the area. I put the swarms I catch in their own yard and manage them there, and do NOT treat them. The bees in my home yard.. well, I struggle with them to keep them alive, hoping to find bees that are survivors.
I lose hives at my feral yard, but, it SEEMS at this point that those losses are less. I will know more in a couple more years.. My goal is to determine which bees survive best. I have queens ordered, and nuc's from known sources ordered for this coming spring to populate (repopulate) my home yard. I intend to put out three times as many swarm boxes this coming spring to add to my Feral yard.. there is no guarantee that the swarms I catch will all be TRUE feral bees.. only time will tell me if they are superior in survivability...

Packages... At this point.. I decline ordering packages unless i have a local queen to requeen the package with.. not impressed by southern bees in this climate. A package from a like climate may do fine.

Nuc's. if from a KNOWN source of local bees seem more adapted to wintering. I have concerns for nuc's, packages and queens from the southern climates.

Prime swarms from FERAL bees seem supremely adapted to surviving winters.. Mite resistance is yet to be determined. Working on that still.... 
Prime swarms ( Or splits) from your own colonies that survived the previous winter and bred with local drones.. I also find acceptable at least as far as wintering ability.

As far as I know, there are no locations that have NO population of local bees.. 
Perhaps there are areas with very low populations... i see claims often that there are no more feral bees, that they all died.. I personally know of several colonies that are still surviving. One in particular that has inhabited the same hollow tree since before I was born, since before my step grandfather went to serve in WW2.. Did they die and another swarm inhabit the tree??? POSSIBLE!!!! The fact remains, that I KNOW the tree has contained Bees every spring since I tried CLIMBING that tree as a boy.. I remember my grandfather telling me of when HE found that hive... I work hard to catch the swarms from that tree.. I pay attention to bee trees and bees in old barns and houses.. I LOOK and inspect them in the fall, and go back in the spring to see if they survived, and if they did, I put swarm boxes in the area, because the bees I do catch generally survive better, and winter better than anything I can buy.
i am sure they are mutts, beyond sure, but I really dont care if they winter well. it remains to be seen if they die every three years and are replaced.. working on that as well..
What defines a feral bee?? To me.. it means they swarmed, chose a new home, and have been caring for themselves for at LEAST a single winter, and survived it.. Three winters are preferable for me to call them TRUE Feral bees... bees are like Americans.. we came from EVERYWHERE, and thats what makes us strong!


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## Vance G (Jan 6, 2011)

I know a commercial beek who installs two pound packages on a brood nest completely stocked with frames of pollen and honey in April. They are ready to produce a good crop by the main flow starting in June and sells them as shaker bees in October. I know many beekeepers who produce a great crop getting nucs that are five frames of brood and a caged queen in mid April from bees coming off the Almonds. No feral population here and swarms mostly come from a hobby beekeepers yards so no huge genetic upside generally. 

I have seen people fail to end up with a hive to produce a crop or take into winter from any of the above. I have seen people produce great crops off all three. In the final analysis--it is all up to you! The learning curve is steep. Just figure out what you need to do. Just bear in mind that foundationless, Top Bar Hives, and Warre hives are more time consuming and difficult than langstroth beekeeping; while you decide how you want to proceed. Your best bet is to find the old man or lady in your zip code who has kept bee successfully for years and slavishly follow his advice. When you have figured out what a full frame of honey and a solid frame of brood look like and you know which end of the bee stings, it will be time to get fancy.


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

SS1... interesting thoughts, but your dismissal of packages is based on a strange thought pattern. Southern Bees can't handle the north?? bees have been breed and in the south and raised in Canada successfully for 40 years. The reality is the queen is in a climate controlled box. and all the workers are dead by fall anyway. You may be confusing genetic traits with location. such as Italians having lots of bees and starving out early.

Thats not a package fault.


But back to the OP... I have been keeping lots of records for the last 2 years. Mainly dealing with honey production and survivial. Comparing Packages to Nucs to swarms. One thing I do different than most who claim packages are evil. I don't start them on nothing. A new package on undrawn frames will always be slowed down, just a swarm put on undrawn frames.

But back to the point. so far in the last 2 (really crappy) seasons. Packages on averge have out produced Nucs and overwintered hives by about 25%. AS to survivibility, not ready to comment until this winter is over. 
Nucs when gotten in a 5 frame configuration, are not in a "Boom" mode. growth is more slow and steady. Packages seem to be in the need to explode mode.... They do replace queens more often than nucs, but it seems like its less than swarms. 

I don't have a lot of info on swarms as I try not to have any, and don't mess with enough to be statistical. My package vs nuvs, vs overwinter groups have at least 30 hives in all 3 groups.

Keep in mind I am in no way against nucs. but so far the value is not there for me. Still trying to get better at overwintering so I haven't given up on them.


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## SS1 (Jun 1, 2013)

Vance.. I honestly believe that ONCE STARTED foundation-less is WAY WAY less work.. getting them started right CAN be a pain at times, but once they are, and you have drawn comb, it simplifies everything.. providing of course you use mediums Like I do.. wiring deeps wouldnt be fun. Getting them started right is a couple weeks of fussing.. after that you have years of no fussing, at least with that hive. cut out the wax on three or four frames and drop the frames back in, and they draw new foundation slicker than cow poo on a polished concrete floor..

Yes GMCharlie.. as i posted, if you want to take the pains to LEARN how to winter those genetics up where its COLD in the winter.. I doubt highly that you could take bees from texas to canada, and winter them exactly the same as you do local Canadian bees.
I am not the only one around here who feels that way. 

GMc says;
You may be confusing genetic traits with location. such as Italians having lots of bees and starving out early.

Thats not a package fault.

Sure it is! If they cant break cluster to move two inches, while all the other bees in your Apiary do, what would you blame it on? Me not taking a heater out to them so they could be warm enough to break cluster and reach reserves?

Having said that.. it IS opinion from my own observations, experiences and questions.. being WRONG is the best way to learn some things.. makes it harder to forget


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## Vance G (Jan 6, 2011)

Vance.. I honestly believe that ONCE STARTED foundation-less is WAY WAY less work.. getting them started right CAN be a pain at times, but once they are, and you have drawn comb, it simplifies everything.. providing of course you use mediums Like I do.. wiring deeps wouldnt be fun. Getting them started right is a couple weeks of fussing.. after that you have years of no fussing, at least with that hive. cut out the wax on three or four frames and drop the frames back in, and they draw new foundation slicker than cow poo on a polished concrete floor..
LIKE I SAID After you have a clue go for it. But how many hopeless tangles result from beginners immediately going foundationless. I stand by what I said.


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## SS1 (Jun 1, 2013)

Vance G said:


> Vance.. I honestly believe that ONCE STARTED foundation-less is WAY WAY less work.. getting them started right CAN be a pain at times, but once they are, and you have drawn comb, it simplifies everything.. providing of course you use mediums Like I do.. wiring deeps wouldnt be fun. Getting them started right is a couple weeks of fussing.. after that you have years of no fussing, at least with that hive. cut out the wax on three or four frames and drop the frames back in, and they draw new foundation slicker than cow poo on a polished concrete floor..
> 
> LIKE I SAID After you have a clue go for it. But how many hopeless tangles result from beginners immediately going foundationless. I stand by what I said.



Not sure.. I had a few, but no more messes than I did with wood frames and plastic foundation.. and they were quite a LOT easier to fix than scraping the plastic.

After I have a clue? What did I do to deserve that?

720 foundation less frames in use, 1600 made, another 500 to build. 12 hives STARTED on foundation-less, five being converted as I convert the deeps to mediums. I know thats not a lot, but I dont think its quite clueless.
Thanks Vance.


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## Vance G (Jan 6, 2011)

HEY rewind! I was talking about people starting out in ways that require an advanced skill set which I believe TBH, Warre, and foundationless to be! I humbly ask you pardon as I absolutely meant nuthin personal to no one! Just said clumsily that new beeks should learn the trade before complicating their lives. That is my opinion only. I am not throwing stones. Good grief now I feel bad.


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## SS1 (Jun 1, 2013)

SS1 said:


> Not sure.. I had a few, but no more messes than I did with wood frames and plastic foundation.. and they were quite a LOT easier to fix than scraping the plastic.
> 
> After I have a clue? What did I do to deserve that?
> 
> ...


 That makes sense now that I re read it in that context. Thanks for clearing it up. its hard to judge tone when reading. Need to remember my own advice to my wife...

If I say something to you that could be taken more than one way.. and one of those ways hurts your feelings.. I meant it the OTHER way! (EDIT; "USUALLY")


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

Funny, but I never thought that foundation less or TBH required an advanced skill set. I still don't. I would be more inclined to think that the simplest form of beekeeping would be based on never using foundation.


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## SS1 (Jun 1, 2013)

Fusion_power said:


> Funny, but I never thought that foundation less or TBH required an advanced skill set. I still don't. I would be more inclined to think that the simplest form of beekeeping would be based on never using foundation.


 I honestly wish i had started that way.. but it is sort of hard for me to judge.. I helped my mentor when i was young, and I helped him for several years after I moved back before I had to start my own hives.. so.. I am technically a noob, with skills???

I can imagine opening a hive filled with cross comb in foundation less, knowing nothing, and making a worse mess of it, so its a point I find hard to argue... On the other hand, I have had bees do it on foundation (plastic) and had to scrape it, clean it, and put it back in, (There is NO straightening buggered comb on plastic.) and that was a bit of a mess, as opposed to cutting out the bad comb with my pocket knife and dropping the empty frame back in.. or straightening it and dropping it back in. Two sides to every coin.
I believe that a lot depends on determination and book learning..

If you read a lot how to make something work, its easier to see where you screwed up when you attempted it yourself


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

SS1.... your certainly entitled to that thought. Do you have any Data collection to back it up?? I have been working on that for (data that is) for a total of 5 years now. I keep spreadsheets every year. And from that is shows pretty clearly that the orgin of the bees does not matter.

What does matter is beekeeper skills, and weather. It happens a lot that 1 Beeks get better with time, and then attribute it to bees. IE they buy a package or two and have issues and then buy a nuc and by that time they are 3 years in, and the nuc does better. usually because they now have comb and don't make the same mistakes.
2 weather. if a beek buys a package and then runs into a really bad year, they die. then the next year they do something else and have a mild winter. and wa-la.. its the bees are so much better.....when its actually not true

Now the reason I have been collecting data and discussing the point is simple. The successful large scale beeks use methods that are different, so i have been trying to decide with real facts, what works best in my area. Some guys are useing one method over the other, Most are useing packages, or almond splits which are basicly packages. 

The fact that your Package bees didn't break cluster or find the food, has nothing to do with where they came from. were that the case, the world of beekeeping would be totally different. statistical differences cannot be made with one hive...an issue most beekeepers fail to grasp.

Whats is the downside, is that some people want to run one method or the other down, why?? in the end its all good. how you start your hive is a personal choice, and its all good. we should as a group be encouraging and relating real facts, not a bunch of noise based on opinions.


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## SS1 (Jun 1, 2013)

gmcharlie said:


> SS1.... your certainly entitled to that thought. Do you have any Data collection to back it up?? I have been working on that for (data that is) for a total of 5 years now. I keep spreadsheets every year. And from that is shows pretty clearly that the orgin of the bees does not matter.


 My experiences started 8 years ago.. with my mentors opinions.. Yes, his thoughts, ideas and methods.. unscientific, I know. I dont claim scientific methods.. What i can claim, is OPINION, based on a lifetime of beekeeping before he passed away.. Personal experience to back it up of a whopping 6 colonies lost. four one winter, two the next. 

4 Packages, and 2 Queens.. Side by side with local bees of different sources, some cultivated, some feral. All wintered exactly the same. Two different winters.. 

Nowhere near scientific.

Packages built up fantastic, produced honey. Southern queen splits built up fantastic.. not a lot of extra honey, but full brood chambers.
Beside them the local colonies are also building up.. two of those colonies are already established from local bees...
Last checked end of November without opening hives.. just check to see if alive.. No day over 50.. no day over 40 until early March... 4 months pass...
Packages deadouts Bees stuck head first in the combs in a large cluster. An empty ring around them, and honey outside that ring. Honey above them. Southern queens the following year.. exactly the same. Feral and local colonies ALL survived, every one of them. Some were into the sugar on top, some had not touched it, but all survived..



gmcharlie said:


> What does matter is beekeeper skills, and weather. It happens a lot that 1 Beeks get better with time, and then attribute it to bees. IE they buy a package or two and have issues and then buy a nuc and by that time they are 3 years in, and the nuc does better. usually because they now have comb and don't make the same mistakes.
> 2 weather. if a beek buys a package and then runs into a really bad year, they die. then the next year they do something else and have a mild winter. and wa-la.. its the bees are so much better.....when its actually not true


 So your saying that because all the rest of my hives did fine is not a factor? If, as you said we were talking about 1 hive, I would completely agree.. In talking with other beeks nearby. I learned that they ALSO had similar experiences.. So I know I am not alone in this thinking..




gmcharlie said:


> Now the reason I have been collecting data and discussing the point is simple. The successful large scale beeks use methods that are different, so i have been trying to decide with real facts, what works best in my area. Some guys are useing one method over the other, Most are useing packages, or almond splits which are basicly packages.
> 
> The fact that your Package bees didn't break cluster or find the food, has nothing to do with where they came from. were that the case, the world of beekeeping would be totally different. statistical differences cannot be made with one hive...an issue most beekeepers fail to grasp.


 OK, lets talk method.. I winter all the hives the same.. I am not sure why you keep referring to statistical differences on one hive? Anyhow.. all hives are wintered the same.. ALL the southern bees died the first winter, BOTH southern hives died the second winter.. My other hives survived.. Northern packages, northern queens, Feral colonies I caught, and cutouts I performed...
Granted.. 17 hives is not a huge statistical difference in general comparison..

8 hives one winter, four die.. the four that die were the southern.. 12 hives next winter.. two of them southern queens installed to replace old queens.. Both die, no other losses... Going into this winter with 17, all splits or feral hives/cut outs etc.., will see if it goes any better.

My METHOD has not changed.. It was how I learned to overwinter, and I KNOW it has worked for 40 plus years... However... Is my METHOD incorrect for the southern bees?
Well... If those bees were the only choice.. I would probably try to change my method so they survived. TRY to figure out how to help them... but so long as i can get bees that winter well from more northern sources I will probably do that instead, so i dont have to struggle as much, pray as much, or be as sick if they die..

I have posted my method in a few places.. Is what I do different than what you do GMC? Your in Illinois, temps shouldnt be terribly different.. wind?

I am always all about learning!!!



gmcharlie said:


> in the end its all good. how you start your hive is a personal choice, and its all good. we should as a group be encouraging and relating real facts, not a bunch of noise based on opinions.


 Reading what I have experienced, and posted... is it noise based solely on opinions? No, it is based on PURE personal experience, which IS FACT to me...
To me, YOU saying they do just fine IS noise based on opinion, because I cant prove it personally..

Thats the problem with beekeeping.. I have several sources near me that back up my experiences. They swear never to buy southern bees again. This re enforces my beliefs and findings..
Where you are, YOU have people near you that SWEAR by those southern bees, and so you do too because they have done well for you... So now what?

I can only offer the advice I know is right from my experiences. IF.. No one in this area had the same problem, I would probably offer no advice until I knew what "I" did wrong, but that is not the case... 

I have bees that overwintered themselves for two years with no care, and no treatments. No wrap, no insulation on the roof, no insurance sugar on the top bars and no reduced lower entrance... Would they have survived much longer? Its hard to say.. Only a few of those hives that were abandoned still occupied the hives. Would those southern bees have made it? My experience says they would have died in the first weeks of the first winter....

Previous to being left alone, they were ALL wintered as I wintered my hives, as that was where I learned to winter them.. 40+ hives.. losses were three or four hives a winter, and those losses were not due to starvation. 
All any of us can do is run with what we know.. I have posted only what FACTS have taught me.



gmcharlie said:


> Whats is the downside, is that some people want to run one method or the other down, why??


 I agree one hundred percent! What have you just done?



gmcharlie said:


> in the end its all good. how you start your hive is a personal choice, and its all good. we should as a group be encouraging and relating real facts,


 I agree one hundred percent! I did that, and believe you did as well.




gmcharlie said:


> not a bunch of noise based on opinions.


 This is where we have the problem...
As I said.. being WRONG is a great way to learn.. I never ever claim MY WAY is the only way.

I might explain how my experiences differ from yours. How my methods differ, but I would never tell you that what you said or did was Wrong, or, in this case, Opinionated noise. I HAVE reasons for what I believe. I expect if you have different reasons that you would explain them without insult in order to change what I believe.. I respect your experience, even if MY OWN is different. I STAND by what I said!!!! Give me reason to change my mind and I may, but at this point, all I see is the final sentence. It pretty much erases everything else said from my mind.
AM I jumping the gun? Did I take this wrong? Please explain.


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

SS1, no worries its actually a great discussion. Your comment on all hives are wintered the same is not quite right. No matter your methods, some hives are tighter, stacked different or have different wind levels or sun, even hives on the same pallets South exposures do better than northern. ETC not to mention ventilation, mites food stacking etc..... so samples of 1 or 5 is not really helpful.
Which way the rain hits and how big the cluster is are much larger issues. Where the bees came from shows absolutely no bearing in any of the seasons i have kept records so far. Heck even what the bees foraged on matters more.

What hugely interesting to me is that a few hobbist and sideliners claim one thing, and yet the pros who run 1000's of hives do it for the most part differently. if one was more cost effect than the other, then you can bet the farm (cause they do) which one is probably more right.

One of the outfight myths is that southern queens and packages can't hack in in the north. Sounds good at the bee meeting, but doesn't hold up in both serious thought, or real world experience. the queen never again leave the hive. the workers all fade off. Genetics from most of the queens is actually northern in base. I know 3 of the big 5 in GA actually keep hives in MI for queen stock.

Then the west coast... your realize that around 2 MILLION queens are shipped from HI to Canada every season?? and they do just fine...why are queens not raised in Canada?? too cold to get many queens breed timely.....

I am all for your local queen population and the way you propigate. but Lots of past and continued testing is showing me so far that the "Local" queen stuff is all hot air.. I wish it weren't I wish local queens did better. so far the only detail thats panning out of local queens is the brood break. Local queens are breed later and have less time first season to develop mite issues. on 40 hives this summer (20/20 split ) I put in "local suvivor" queens and southern queens.... so far not a lick of differences. Mites levels in the fall were virtually identical, honey production and storage was dang close. we shall see what the winter holds for die offs, but last years numbers were a wash, no differences. I do see some differences in Itialians vs carnies for survivbility.

Pacakges/ nucs/ swarms all work equally well for teh most part. it seems AVALIBILITY and how you start them are a much bigger factor. Do you have comb? can you wait for swarms> is June to late for a nuc?? are either even avalible on your schedule? these seem to be the real issues. Not that your queen vibrates with a southern drawl.......a good queen is a good queen, and a bad one is a bad one....


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## SS1 (Jun 1, 2013)

Thats more like it. I can learn from that... NOW... to be perfectly honest.. I have ordered 5 southern queens again.. different source.. JUST to test it.. I have a lot of growing to do come spring. If I can manage it... I have ten "local" nuc's ordered. I intend to split the hives I put those southern queens in.. (Southern being relative.. They are coming from Tennessee) 50/50 splits. So that all things will be considered equal..
I agree, every hive is different. The whipping winds hit every one differently. I am going to do my best to insure they each have similar positions, wind breaks etc.. Even that will not take out all the variables, like the local queens I split from will be in their second year, and the new ones will be fresh and young.. but hopefully will give me good basis for comparison. I will also have the local nuc's to compare by, and the hives I will be attempting OTS queens in.(Mel Disselkoen) I cant count on catching Feral swarms or cut outs, but am sure there will be a few of each. I do need to learn to graft, but that will be another year or three away.
With luck.. i will go into fall with 30ish hives...
I DO have prior prejudice against southern bees from my mentor, but I do intend to give these bees every chance. I will NOT do anything to them I do not to my local hives...
Hopefully..,, though STILL not scientific, it will give me better grounds to stand on.. OR, a big hole to fall into.. 

A small test of splits, Nuc's (Feral swarms/cut outs) and southern queens, if not Packages. hmmm... maybe a couple packages from Heritage? Though talking with Tim.. his packages did pretty well.. maybe I should sneak over to his place and take pictures of his secret wintering methods?


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

See were not that far apart! I got burned many times trying to make judgments on what happened the season before. Jumping to conclusions... it used to be a pastime! I have figured out that the timing of installing that queen and the mite load is a MUCH bigger factor than anything else I can prove... still working on that issue... drives me nuts.. some do great with high mites. some die off.... some have little to no mites and still dink out... this year was terrible for weather, and yet I had more bees and stronger hives than ever......

When if you start a package, just give them a fair shake, don't compare a new hive with no drawn comb, to one that was a nuc, or a late season swarm put on comb or brood. Thats the Flaw that a lot of comparisions make. Drawing comb is a HUGE deal to a new hive.... the amount of resources it takes, coupled with the limiting of brood rearing is a huge factor.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

My opinion changes over time as the quality of packages keeps sinking and has now reached the point where I can't see the point. Hard to beat a swarm, but it's hard to count on catching them. A local overwintered nuc on the kind of combs you want (e.g. cell size, frame size, etc.) is by far the best reliable source if you can find them. But you have to ask anymore as a lot of people are selling "nucs" that are just packages installed that spring and then sold, or nucs that are shipped from another climate entirely different from the one you are in. The nucs from another climate still will probably beat the packages just installed that spring... but we still have the issue that a lot of people, hearing that nucs are the way to go, and having already decided on a top bar hive, a warre' or all mediums, find themselves with deep frames that don't fit... a package would resolve that, but so would a swarm. A local shaken swarm from a local beekeeper would be best in these situations if you can't find a nuc that is the frame size or cell size you want.


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## SS1 (Jun 1, 2013)

I have a couple of advantages I didnt have then, one of them being dawn comb. I cant fill all the hives I intend to split, buy etc with full comb, but I can give them a few frames each so the queen isnt sitting around waiting while all new comb is built.
Nuc's have that advantage over packages, but the price usually reflects it.

What I believe as far as southern stock has been beaten in for a long time. the problem with that is when I try to bypass that knowledge and have it reenforced, or rather, beaten into my forehead to the tune of a couple hundred dollars and dead bees..

THEN.. I hear the same thing locally.. When i start the story saying.. I bought four packages from Georgia..... I get cut off right there..... with;

"Theres your first problem."

I AM a product of my environment... 

I agree with pretty much everything you have said, but Skepticism is easy for me at this point, but I am going to try once more..
I will ensure they have exactly what the original queen from the split has.. I have TWO hives left on full deeps I am going to rotate out.. the queen and half the bees will get one deep, brood, pollen, honey, and a medium on top with four or five drawn frames, the rest empty frames. The new queens will get exactly the same. The only difference is, they will be moved to my other yard for a few days, and then returned to this yard.. I have NO doubt of their viability through the summer. I have already seen that.. what remains, is if they will winter...
They are from a different source, the owner claims he has bees in NY etc that do well.. we shall see!
I may also call Tim and order a couple of packages just to make this more interesting.

My feral bees are a few miles away in my other yard, so it will be interesting to see the differences. I'll try to document and take pictures of the buildup...
Unfortunately for the op's question.. it will have to wait a year...


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

Comparing to another yard location for me is a problem. I have some yards that have better forage and less competition than others. just keep that in mind when comparing.


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## rhaldridge (Dec 17, 2012)

Vance G said:


> LIKE I SAID After you have a clue go for it. But how many hopeless tangles result from beginners immediately going foundationless. I stand by what I said.


Well, just a data point. I'm a beginner, I went completely foundationless, and with a couple of minor exceptions, everything went well.


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## rhaldridge (Dec 17, 2012)

One thing I find really hard to believe is that local adaptation doesn't matter with bees.

Every other organism that is farmed does better if locally adapted, from cattle to corn. I can't see any reason bees would be different from everything else in the world.

And in fact, there seems to be research to suggest the value of local adaptation. I Googled "bees local adaptation" and got plenty of hits.

I'm just a beginner, but even I can think of a number of ways local adaptation might influence the course of a colony's development. For example, a southern queen might brood up too early in the north, leading to weakening of the colony when the bees try to protect brood in a late cold snap. The timing of nectar flows is different in different locations-- a queen from stock adapted to local conditions might reasonably be expected to outperform a queen from an area with entirely different nectar flows. Certainly I have read of different races of bees having different cluster sizes and thus different wintering success.

There could be lots of reasons for this, other than adaptation, but a local nuc did far better than any other source of bees for me.


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## SS1 (Jun 1, 2013)

In my quest to understand why I lost the southern queens I also did a lot of reading.. One of the things I saw was that they do not digest the pollens of northern areas as well, and vice versa... Northern bees dont do as well in the south for the same reasons.. A lot was written about bacteria and fementing and why it didnt work as well in the different climates.. most of which went over my head.
I looked up a lot, and read a lot.. but NOTHING I saw was scientifically PROVEN with well documented research.. On the other hand... you have beeks that seem to be doing well bringing Hawaiian queens to Canada... Seeing a bee in a hula skirt in Canada is a lot more convincing than something written on paper by an obscure researcher......
Some things you just have to knuckle down and prove for yourself.


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

the "theories" and google searches abound...... and most are written by people pushing to sell "Local" queens..... It unfortunate that in order to sell their product, they have to put forth garbage. Local queens are fine, but its usually late in the season before they are ready.
The queen does not eat pollen... shes never leaves the hive... and GA or CA in march is about the same as most other places in May. yes food sources are different. In most places much BETTER.

The differences in Races are genetic issues and do tend to matter. although anymore there are not many pure races left. most are mutts and a lot of teh traits are more queen dependant than genetic anymore.(my opinion)


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>One of the outfight myths is that southern queens and packages can't hack in in the north. Sounds good at the bee meeting, but doesn't hold up in both serious thought, or real world experience. 

Three articles on the same study:
http://www.howardcountybeekeepers.o...-between-nucleus-and-package-started-colonies
http://mainebeekeepers.org/the-bee-...ngth-and-survivability-of-honey-bee-colonies/
http://www.nesare.org/State-Programs/Maine/Winter-hardy-bees

http://www.americanbeejournal.com/site/epage/79414_828.htm
"Beekeepers who have success with new colonies tend to be those who are using locally produced queen bees installed into colonies that were produced from local bees, those that survived winter or periods of extreme stress. Any step toward localization of genetic stock and bees tends to move the beekeeper to a higher level of success. _Various state programs have clearly shown the value of local bees, local queens, and local training as a method of ensuring better results in the colony._"--Dr. Larry Connor (emphasis mine)


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## SS1 (Jun 1, 2013)

hmm... interesting reading/video.....
Thank you Michael.

Summary of 2009 and 2010 SARE results

The northern-raised nucleus colonies and the packages that were requeened with northern queens demonstrated approximately twice the survival rate of the conventionally raised packages. The increase in survival in our project was stunning. I had expected that requeening packages with northern-raised queens would make some improvement in survival rates, but I didn’t expect that requeened packages would have the same likeliness of winter survival as a northern-raised nucleus colony.


In the third link/video they say conventional packages had a 43% rating, the northern had 83% and 90% when requeened with northern queens...

I didnt do any studies etc.. and in fact at 43% they did better than I did with 0% of the southern packages surviving... though i had no where near their number. I think (thinking again) if I were to take more stringent measures WITH the southern bees, rather than overwintering them the same as I do the local, feral, and northern bees, that i might have more success... In my small apiary that IS possible, but as I move toward my eventual goal it will be harder to micro manage northern/southern with different methods...

I do wonder why requeening made any difference at all? After a few weeks the bees in the hive would BE the new queens offspring, so should not (in my opinion) be any different than northern packages, but it does at least back up my method of requeening the packages when northern queens do become available.
I do have more southern queens ordered, so we will see how they do NEXT winter.


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## rhaldridge (Dec 17, 2012)

Now, now Michael. You know those guys are just going after that sweet sweet grant money. Or alternatively, have been bought off by the immensely powerful local queen industry lobby..

But seriously, gm... how can you believe that genetics makes a difference in terms of bee race, but doesn't in terms of individual queens? I'm just not following your thinking.

If you're a northern beekeeper, southern bees are better than no bees at all. It seems likely that you can immediately start bringing in local genetics by making splits from that stock and open mating queens, Some southern bees are better than others-- I've seen a fair amount of discussion on taking BeeWeaver resistant bees north with some success, but the stories often seem to involve better success once the BeeWeaver queens have been superceded by more localized stock.


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

But seriously, gm... how can you believe that genetics makes a difference in terms of bee race, but doesn't in terms of individual queens? I'm just not following your thinking.

Don't quite understand your question there...??


Its information...But I see its one season, and no honey collection data?? it also appears to be 3 reports on exactly the same data......
I won't reference others works, just mine. All I can say. I run 100-200 hives a year. I would love to find a trick... so far I hear all kinds of answers... but when tested, they fail. My local survivor queens from last year, while they did survive, I got 0 honey from them.....thats a 0 from 17 survivors..... But hey there alive right???


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## AR Beekeeper (Sep 25, 2008)

The best queens I ever bought came from Canada, and the worst from New York. I have had excellent queens from Louisiana and queens from Texas that I killed and replaced after 3 months. You can get dingbats from all sections of the U.S., and weather can have detrimental effects on production, but where the bees are produced matters little if they are produced properly. 

Genetics are very important, and the health of the producers operation is important, but what I think matters most is the skill of the person producing the queens. Skill and the desire to send out only the best possible product. If a producer culled the runt cells and allowed virgins to lay in the nucs for 3 or 4 weeks, all the queens would perform better. 

Beekeepers are to blame also. Lack of experience and the desire to start colonies in the early spring causes many problems for beginning beekeepers. We have little patience and want it now instead of planning for next year. Hobby beekeepers should build strong colonies one year and manage for honey the second year. Beekeepers that earn their living with their bees need to develop their own queen programs to fit in with their areas and style of keeping.

It is like gmcharlie says, we all want to find a trick. The problem is, there is no trick. There is just hard work and skills learned.


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

Why would a southern queen brood too early in a northern climate? Brooding is triggered more by environmental factors than genetics I would think. No one mentions resistances to pathogens either. Pathogens are localized as well creating separate biotypes and perhaps it's more of the viruses etc... just affect them more once they're out of their historical area.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

> Why would a southern queen brood too early in a northern climate? Brooding is triggered more by environmental factors than genetics I would think.


 Brood development is genetic as proven by the multiple geographic races of honeybee. If you look closely at the 28 recognized geographic races, you will see that the defining difference between the races is always the brood development cycle and timing.

Survival requirements in the deep south such as Florida are far different from requirements in New York and still more differences in Montana.

Florida requires a queen with a Mediterranean brood development cycle. This is an early spring brood expansion followed by reduced but still heavy egg laying in mid-summer then another brood peak in late fall. Wintering is less important because cleansing flights are possible all winter. Brood production has to be near continuous for 9 to 10 months of the year. This brood development pattern is most typical of French bees which are a strain of Apis Mellifera Mellifera or of Italian bees.

New York requires a modified brood cycle with a spring peak followed shortly by a fall peak. There is very little time in between the peaks. Some areas in North Eastern states have a huge fall flow which means the requirement for biggest brood peak is not in the spring. A modified Mediterranean brood cycle or even a fall brood cycle are most adapted to this pattern. Wintering ability is far more important because bees can be confined to the hive for several months with severe cold temperatures and no cleansing flights. Carniolan or Caucasian bees would more closely match these patterns.

Montana requires a single huge brood peak that lasts between 2 and 3 months. Wintering ability is far more important because of extreme low temps and very long confinement times. Only a few strains of Apis Mellifera Mellifera are adapted to this climate. Unfortunately, no such strains as the native bees of Finland are available in the U.S. I might add that these type bees have the most explosive spring development imaginable. No Italian or Carniolan is even close to the way these bees develop when the first pollen becomes available in early spring.

So what causes all the complaints about southern bees vs northern climates? It really gets down to Italian derived bees. Italians have a Mediterranean brood cycle but with two critical differences. The first is that they start aggressive brood development as soon as pollen is available in early spring. The second is that they continue the heavy spring brood development all summer long with huge colonies even at times when little or no nectar is available. They taper down brood development in late fall but typically go into winter with a cluster 3 or 4 times bigger than comparable Carniolan colonies. These huge clusters consume more honey over winter, yet survive less effectively than better adapted bees.

So why do we have such a prevalence of Italian derived bees in the U.S.? It gets down to economics. Italians have a brood cycle that is conducive to almond pollination. Take a close look at the millions of colonies trucked to California each February and see how many are Carniolan or other races than Italian. When commercial beekeepers move on to their next location, they need bees that are still full of brood. Guess what, Italians are pretty much the only bees with strong traits for continuous brooding.

So in reply to your statement, it is an interplay between genetics and environment with genetics holding the upper hand.


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

Well stated Fusion....


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

another good post, thanks dar.

the mutts i have that were derived from local ferals show the bimodal brooding. they start brooding on the early pollen in january and february, peaking in april just before the main flow. they shut down (sometimes completely) by the end of june, and start back up mid august or so. average winter cluster size is about 5 deep frames.

as an aside, i took the stethoscope out to the yard for a listen yesterday and i've got good cluster roar in 18/19 hives. six of those are in single five frame nucs, to which i plan to add a second story soon using frames of honey and pollen from 1/19 weak colony plus some other frames i've got in the freezer.


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## rhaldridge (Dec 17, 2012)

Very good post, dar. 

I suppose that this genetic influence on brooding cycles is a reason why many who have succeeded at keeping bees without treatment report their initial success hinged on capturing feral swarms. It makes sense that survivors are best adapted to the local conditions.


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

I may be crazy, but the success of 3-5 year beekeepers, after initial failures, can be explained by the bees adapting to the beekeeper. The beekeeper has tried different strains/forms of bees, and stops testing when they find the "good" ones, be it packages, nucs, or swarms. Are the successful bees better, or just a better match for the methods that the beekeeper used?

We have successfully overwintered Cordovan bees in Wisconsin. They gather MUCH more honey(read that as MONEY) that regular Italians. They must be handled differently, put to bed FULL, and will reward you with booming hives early in the year. It is all about management style. Every bees want a little something different. Improvise, adapt, overcome.

SS1 - with respect, maybe you should try some different methods to work with the southern queens. "T'is best to not have a "One trick Pony"

Crazy Roland


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

Fusion, you provided a great point, but it still points to environmental factors triggering brooding and how the different races manage stores or respond to decreased resource availability is genetic but that has nothing to do about brooding too early, just sloppy managemen of stores which we all know Italians are not very thrifty. I guess Roland kind of hit on it too, you gotta manage your bees the way they need to be managed and not just blindly trudge along.


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

I think the SARE project shows as much about early queens v later queens as N. v S. Would the results have been the same with southern peak flow raised queens? Local raised is also often on flow raised.

Seen a lot of southern Navy people take to the snow, lot who wanted to go home, sometimes (January) I wanted to go with them.


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## SS1 (Jun 1, 2013)

Agreed Roland;
I mentioned that earlier in one of the posts.. They had PLENTY of stores, so the problem wasnt that they didnt have it, the problem was that they didnt MOVE on those slightly warmer days. Insulating better may have let them warm up enough to do that.. but thats where I have the dilema.
It is easier to get cold hardy bees that my method works well with as opposed to building insulating boxes for those hives, and then splitting and propagating bees that I have to struggle harder with to keep alive...
As stated... I will see if a different supplier's queens will hold up better. It MAY WELL be that its a genetic issue with the bees I had, and these new queens will do fine.. 

I know many beeks that dont even wrap their hives. REFUSE to in fact. They go into winter exactly like they went through the summer. If they die.. the hives that didnt get split to replace them. At least I insulate the top cover and wrap. I dont want to have to have a lot of extra insulation etc to deal with when I have 40 -- 80 -- or even 100 hives to prepare each fall..


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

SS1, I agree that I have seen Italians not move when it warms and starve, but often they have been slightly depopulated for some reason, and have a smaller cluster than the ones that can move. The more populace Italians do not seem to have as much problem moving around. The key seems to be, get 'em big, Keep 'em big, and feed 'em more than you think they need. a Carniolian hive can out accelerate an Italian, but the Italian may have too big of a head start for them to catch up. Like in the Harry Potter series(my son's watched it), the wand chooses the wizard. The bee that survives for you is the one that has best adapted to your methods.

Do you use an upper entrance in Winter?

Crazy Roland


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## SS1 (Jun 1, 2013)

Quoted from another thread...



Lauri said:


> How are those warm climate queens doing for you now? Might want to think about requeening new packages and nucs next year with locally mated queens proven hardy for your specific climate..
> That's my advise for winter prep. It starts in the _*SPRING*_ with getting the right genetics to head your hives. Find a local breeder in your area with a good program, or better yet, learn to raise a few of your own.
> 
> Just sayin...
> ...


 
Wish more people who believed this would post their experiences so I didnt feel so ALONE sometimes 

LOL Roland.. your sons watched it?? thats NO excuse for you to be capable of quoting from it!!!! 
I watched it too......

My Italians were easily the largest group of bees I had.. as I stated in the earlier part of the thread.. still, I have to agree its probably partly my fault for not preparing them BETTER than I did my northern and local bees... but thats sort of my point I guess.. I shouldnt have to have the extra equipment/insulation etc stored for a few hives only..


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

SS1 its not that I disagree with the Italians vs carniola at all... its that where your queen was hatched and breed doesn't matter. I have proven it for myself in my yards. Genetics seem to be a huge factor. timing of re-queen, huge. where they were hatched and breed, can't tell a lick.

Unfortuntaly I find it very disturbing when people make (no one in particular) declarations based on total hearsay. I have been working on this for 3 seasons now. And the if "Local queens" were the answer, we would all be sitting tall. How many guys here raise local survivor queens?? 30 or better?? and are they doing better that the rest of the world? hardly....

lets take Tim Ives for example, he swears by local queens, Great! glad they work. but if those queen genetics are the answer hes a fool. IF it were the answer to huge hives, he could sell queens at 200.00 a pop all season long. and there would be a waiting list....there is a lot more to it than just where your queen was raised. 
I have bought a lot of "hyped Locals" and found no better take or success rates than southern queens. 
By all means, raise and support lovcal queens and any mutts you like. just don't fool yourself and others into thinking you solved everything.

And if you did solve everything, then riches shall pour in, 

My goal or hope is to just get you to look closer.


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## Pops (Nov 29, 2013)

Deepsouth I am planning on catching swarms as well did you requeen your swarms or use the old queen? What type traps did you use?


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## rhaldridge (Dec 17, 2012)

gm, can you give me a link or two to the research that supports your position that, if I understand you correctly, where a queen is bred doesn't matter.

As far as I can see, that would only be true if the queen were instrumentally inseminated. I've been wondering what you base your belief on, because everything I've read seems to tell me that local adaptation is important. For example, in the new ABJ, Larry Connor says "Successful, locally adapted queens and bees undoubtedly are the ones that have the right buildup rate for specific areas."

Is he wrong? If so, what research contradicts his position?


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## SS1 (Jun 1, 2013)

I have ordered queens from another source, and I am going to try it again... and in talking to local people/beeks Ive been called a fool for trying.. I DO want to try, and I WILL.. It is just that at every turn I am seeing my original opinion of the bees I "had" and lost reinforced over and over again from some local sources I consider reliable... three of them I spoke with today reported EXACTLY the same results I had, and their sources were different than mine... 
as in all things beekeeping, that in itself does NOT make it fact.. 
I just want to hear from others.. who will likely have more exp than myself with similar issues and hear their opinions and reasons..


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

Where a queen was bred matters much less than how a queen was bred and what genetics she carries. Steve Taber related the story of an evaluation of queens from numerous breeders by the USDA about 70 years ago. The long and short of it was that some queen breeders consistently produced a high percentage of very poor queens, but one particular queen breeder consistently produced phenomenally good queens. What was so unusual is that his queens headed colonies that produced surpluses in the 400 lb range compared to less than 100 pound averages for the poorest queens. They wanted very much to know why so they sent him some of the poorest queens from the other breeders and asked him to raise queens from them. He again sent them some of the best queens they had ever seen. What was different? It was not the genetics. It was not where they were raised, he happened to be a southern queen producer. They then studied his operation and found that he was taking steps to produce the highest quality larvae, producing queens only in very well fed starter and finisher colonies, letting them get well established when they started laying, and only shipping the very best queens while killing any that did not measure up to his standard. His operation was based on each individual step of queen production set to the optimum that is normally only seen when a colony is preparing to swarm.


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

Fusion - that is how I remember it being first reported. The good queen breeder made good queens from bad genes. 
Kind of like how the good beekeeper(not pointing any fingers) can adapt and make any kind of bee perform to it's best. 


Crazy Roland


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## rhaldridge (Dec 17, 2012)

Fusion_power said:


> Where a queen was bred matters much less than how a queen was bred and what genetics she carries..


I believe that, but how do you control the genetics of an open-mated queen without isolation and a lot of drone colonies? And even then, you can't be certain that an open-mated queen carries only the genetics you intend.

It seems reasonable to me that if you are buying queens from a producer who does not have the advantages of isolation and the will and wherewithal to establish an adequate number of drones in that isolated area, you are better off acquiring queens from a breeder in an area that as closely as possible approximates the area you intend to keep your bees in. 

As a beginner, I can admit that I followed that advice poorly. My first hive was from a local nuc, bred by a hobbyist held in high esteem in the local beekeeping community, and I have to say that it outperformed every other colony I later acquired. My second colony was a package from Wolf Creek, supposedly a semi-treatment free source in TN, though the bees actually originated in Georgia. It did not do as well, and went through supercedures until going laying worker. I eventually requeened it with eggs from the first hive, and it is now among my most vigorous. My 3rd and 4th hives were sort-of nucs from South Carolina, hived in upstate NY. One did moderately well, the other did not build up and was brought back to FL in the fall. My other three colonies are a split queened with a Beeweaver queen, a split that queened itself from the original local hive, and a swarm I collected in NY and brought south for the winter. All seem to be doing moderately well.

Still, none have yet expired, though I will not be surprised if most of them do. I just hope there will be enough bees in the spring so I don't have to buy more. I have to admit that the only purchase that I have no reservations about was the local one.

I've read that Steve Taber story, and from it and other reading I ended up with the impression that many commercial queens are not raised in ways that maximize their potential. It makes me think that an ambitious beekeeper better learn to make his own queens as soon as possible.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

> It makes me think that an ambitious beekeeper better learn to make his own queens as soon as possible.


Unfortunately, most "ambitious beekeepers" don't do due diligence producing their own queens. mea culpa.

With that said, over the years I have been able to produce some phenomenal queens that took a single frame of bees with brood into a 3 story power house with a few supers of surplus honey in one season. Queens with that potential epitomize the idea of high quality.

http://apimo.dk/programs/special/Better_Queens_by_Jay_Smith.pdf


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

rhaldridge said:


> gm, can you give me a link or two to the research that supports your position that, if I understand you correctly, where a queen is bred doesn't matter.
> 
> As far as I can see, that would only be true if the queen were instrumentally inseminated. I've been wondering what you base your belief on, because everything I've read seems to tell me that local adaptation is important. For example, in the new ABJ, Larry Connor says "Successful, locally adapted queens and bees undoubtedly are the ones that have the right buildup rate for specific areas."
> 
> Is he wrong? If so, what research contradicts his position?


All the research has been mine that I am aware of. Don't intend for it to be snotty, but I really don't care about most research. Unfortunatly we now live in a society where reality doesn't matter. what matter is what theory can I get a grant to support, or how can I sell more?

I don't disagree at all with Larry's position. Hes right about that buildup rate. but that is a genatic or learned behavior, unrelated to where they are bred. Look at any other creature and you will see exactly the same thing. Long hair cattle raised in texas suffer because of long hair, not because they should have been born in Nova Scotia.

I talked to a cpl leading researchers about my experiments, and got input on how to set up the trial. I still have a season to go, but 2 years in it is clear to me. Queens are highly varible. BUT our meddeling is huge. we take a package put it in an say april, and then in the fall complain about the mites. We then (shot at the NY study) say requeen 1/2 of them WHEN LOCAL QUEENS come in. probably around June. and then Marvel at the lower mite levels in fall...... fools..... the brood break had more to do with it then where the queen was from.

We have become a nation of fools and followers. somebody says something that sounds smart and we follow blindly. never bothering to check the details. To be succesful we have to stop that madness, and actually do the work.
So far there are darn few doing that. and those that do get blasted. Randy Oliver pointing out quite correctly that bees in the middle of Neonics are no worse off than bees in the wilds of NM. 
Global Warming alarm, when the data shows nothing, ( check the latest report from the EU) and yet say something the oppisite and your evil.
The list goes on........
But back to beekeeping.

AI queens perform terribly in general. Their real point is to get genetic lines. I bought several from Glen's back when they were active. none ever really burned down the barn in my yard. 
I DO not intend whatsoever to bash local queens Larry is right they have the details (cluster and brood rearing traits) for that area. They may also be tiny honey producers and swarm, and mean... who knows until you own them. 

Even my research may be garbage to guys Like Solomon Parker. I track honey production as my Main goal, survivibility is second. Thats what matters to me. some guys just want bees. I think the number I hear this season was around 60lbs for his hives. He choses to leave a lot for the bees and take little. so he could care less about what matters to me. Thats fine.
We all have to decide what matters to us and work that direction.



And I would agree 1000% with the Taber story. Raising queens is not easy. and when the phone is ringing constantly with guys complaining there packages are late, your going to get faster poorer queens. I have been with the guys in the queen yards. most of the season at all of them its get the queens.... not get the great queens........
Ask yorself this though, if you actually raise your own queens, how many do you really pinch? I bet the answer for 95% is ZERO.... we stick them in a hive just to see......


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

GMcharlie(good post) wrote;

We then (shot at the NY study) say requeen 1/2 of them WHEN LOCAL QUEENS come in. probably around June. and then Marvel at the lower mite levels in fall...... fools..... the brood break had more to do with it then where the queen was from.

And the quality of queen is June is not better than earlier? Chances are that June has some of the best conditions to raie the best queens.

Yes, alot of blind bandwagon jumping going on.

Crazy Roland


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

Roland said:


> GMcharlie(good post) wrote;
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That may be true. but is a June NY queen and better or worse than a April GA queen?? (no real opinion just a thought)


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## SS1 (Jun 1, 2013)

I have Jay Smiths book Better Queens, so know what you are talking about.. he seemed keen on putting down grafting, but if taken slightly away from that context what he says is good when it comes to raising BETTER queens.. I can understand that how a queen was raised may affect her performance, but am having a bit of difficulty understanding the follow through...

Define a poor queen... say.. a queen that was under nourished when developing?

wait... Being slightly mal nourished wont affect DNA.. it will only affect the strength of her colony, her brood pattern, the amount of eggs she can lay etc.. it DOESNT affect DNA.. they offspring she did have are fully formed.. capable of flying, doing their jobs.. there are just not a LOT of them... Not as many as their should be, so they cannot overwinter.... 
This is NOT what I am arguing...

Were talking apples and oranges here... all of that was to get to this point basically... The bees I LOST PERSONALLY were BIG HEALTHY hives... WAY nicer hives than ANY of my other hives in size. I was THRILLED with them, and their performance.. They built up rapidly and produced HONEY in their first year. they clustered in a large group going into winter....
and never moved a single inch from that exact spot.. Where they started was where they died...
ALL of my other hives moved.
ALL of the other hives wintered.
ALL of the other hives were northern bred or local

I have PROVEN it to myself and I have now seen correlating agreement from other beekeepers MUCH more prominent than myself. I know other local beekeepers who adamantly stand by the statements of north VS south... Local vs warm climate bees.
NOW that I have been looking into it a little more, I also see some proof/ (CLAIMS) in different studies and research. Including some research that suggests local bees are better adapted to local pollens...
I dont see a lot of correlation between selling northern queens and most of the research, some that could be considered a conflict of interest I would agree, but not all of it.
So I have to think theres SOMETHING to it.. Is there anything recorded that shows Opposite of what Michael Bush linked? Or that shows not opposite, but an equality between north and south?
Very interested!!!!!


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

your Mixing apples and oranges. What I hope is that you an start to see them differently. and then make your choice

Your queens produced huge great colonies because they were probably well bred, and Italians so they started out fantastic. built strong and went into winter with a lot of mites and a ton of bees.

Had you gotten carniola you would probably not gotten any surplus, and you would have thought your hives were small. Mite load would probably been the same. but they would have probably wintered better due to smaller cluster.

How well they were bred, and raised is a second and separate issue. Fantastic Italians and fantastic Russians will perform differently. Poorly mated queens of either race will perform similar but at a lower level. Poorly breed Italians may look like a Russian hive, but there not.


Big hives in winter is more your survivbility issue than where the queen was born or raised.


What IRKS me the most is the link about northern requeen hives did the best. 90% better. the numbers they use tell me that the sample was tiny. I have found nothing on the real methodology, and PROMINATLY displayed in all of them is the link to SARE grant money.... do you know where that funding comes from?? I do...
That study is one of the worst. TOTAL meaningless garbage. What the upshot if it really is buy a package from us at retail cause we got nothing until after pollination is over, then come back and buy another queen....
To make that study accurate they need to also requeen hives with southern queens at the same time in June


Do you realize that TAMIFLU is one of the biggest releasers of news articles on the cold and flue season???


You do also realize that all 3 links are for the same study???


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

SS1, you need to look at signaling and behavior pheromones as well which are typically lower in less than ideally raised queens. We don't understand exactly everything involved but you can see hints in products that will 'boost' brood production etc... With the right queen sometimes, even runny, drippy, defensive bees all of a sudden become a nice gentle productive hive before her brood ever takes over.

I personally don't agree with the southern vs northern notions, not to say there's no merit to it. Behaviors are controlled by genetics but also greatly influenced by environment. Too many people get stuck on the "local" phenomenon as well. It should be used as part of your toolbox to produce productive bees but I wouldn't solely rely on it. Also, you have to look at the hybrid vigor introduced when progeny from bought queens mate with local drones, not to say local genes are better, but you've now created new diversity and an F1 hybrid.


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## rhaldridge (Dec 17, 2012)

I seem to remember a video of Tom Seeley talking about a study in which the number of drones that mated with a queen was the determining factor in how well the queen and her colony did. In other words, a queen that was inseminated with the semen of 30 drones did much better than one which had gotten the semen of 15 drones. (They got the same amount of semen; the difference was in the variety of drones that produced it.)

It begins to sound to me that bees have almost always relied on hybrid vigor as an evolutionary tactic.


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

It was asked:

but is a June NY queen and better or worse than a April GA queen?? (no real opinion just a thought) 

The June NY home grown queen has the POTENTIAL to be raised with better nutrition and mating than an April commercially prepared queen with limited drones.

Yes, I saw the study where it was the number of different fathers that increased the vigor in a hive. 

Crazy Roland


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## SS1 (Jun 1, 2013)

Interesting stuff!
I knew two of the links were for the same research/test, didnt realize the third one was. 

So without anyone else jumping on the local/northern bandwagon.. I will have to set it aside for a year or four and continue as I have already started.. I'll see how these southern queens match up next winter as I intend to re queen 5 hives with them this spring.. that should allow me to compare at least this particular stock with the other hives I have going into next winter and see how they survive.. If they do.. I'll have to eat my hat and my words.. but I am OK with that!!


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## Kamon A. Reynolds (Apr 15, 2012)

I also agree that why local is important. Good genetics are darn good genetics. Give me 5 proven good queens from any state over an unproven one in my home state. 

I won't waste my money on some run of the mill package queen. Been there done that for several years and never again. 

I bought good resistant stock and I raise stock that works but I still occasionally buy stock from guys I "trust" to have queens worthy to add to what is already working for me. 

No there is no mite immune bee. I doubt the Africanized bees survive if they didn't swarm so much. (That's one reason why I split.)

Still we want the toughest fighters we can get. Every bit helps. This is not a boxing match, it is a war. Until both the mite and the bee can coexist they are here to stay and beekeepers owe it to themselves and to future beekeepers to buy tougher stock then the run of the mill Italian and to leave unnatural killing methods out of it.

We can't be breeding for tougher mites while we hope the bees develop more resistance to the mite.

Some people still breed queens for honey production over survival qualities and I think that is just selfish to the industry as a whole.

Wherever it's from get good stock. Learn how to help your bees survive using their behavior (splits) (brood breaks) and use natural things (that bees would collect from flowers) like essential oils to helps bolster the bees.

There is no silver bullet. We are intelligent and can learn from those who are successful. Most every consistently successful guy raises his own bees. Ever since I did I have been more successful each year. 

Treatment free beekeeping is not as simple but done correctly you can keep bees with no more losses than going the chemical route and not have as much money wrapped up into them.


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

I was laying here thinking this morning and it dawned on me the perfect example. I have a local beekeper here about 5 miles down the road. Great guy. interesting beekeeper. He runs about 30 hives. ALL of his are local swarms. He does nothing else. PERIOD. hes not a great beekeeper, but he is a perfect evidence of the queen fallacy. Here is a guy who uses nothing but feral survivor queens, he takes little to no honey most season (gets busy and skips it) and his losses run between 50 and 100% 2 years ago he lost everything. Last year he had 6 out of 38 survive the winter. He uses no Chems or anything but he does feed sugar water to new swarms.


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

I was going thru emails this morning cleaning up stuff and I realized that I traded notes with Erin Forbes on the project MB mentioned. They also forgot to mention that all the packages were started on foundation only. in order to better represent how a now beek would start a hive.

Her words were "we are trying to represent a on farm study, not a scientific experiment"

The SARE is Sustainable Agriculture Research.. while its interesting in it findings, Its also worth while to really look at the methodology.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>ALL of his are local swarms. He does nothing else. PERIOD. hes not a great beekeeper

Good management makes a big difference of course. In the wild if you figure most hives throw a swarm most years then most of those would have to die in order for the population to stay stable. If we doubled the number of colonies on the planet every year we would soon be knee deep in bees...

As beekeepers, we make sure they don't starve; we help them with resources when they are getting established; we help them manage the space so they don't get overwhelmed with small hive beetles or wax moths. Management is why we don't have as high a rate of losses as in the wild.

I don't see that this disproves anything.


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

Disproves may not be the right term. The question was which is better. My point was to show that guys who catch nothing but locals and don't use good beekeeping skills have no better success than packages or nucs.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

> guys who catch nothing but locals and don't use good beekeeping skills have no better success than packages or nucs.


This is comparing apples to oranges, you are not measuring bee survival, you are measuring how much the beekeeper does to get the colony established and in the process using two entirely different starting points. You can't compare a local swarm with a purchased package. Most packages come with a new queen, swarms have old queens. Most packages come with a fixed amount of bees, swarms are highly variable. etc. etc.


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

Back to the OP.... without counting the varibles. Beekeeping skills have more to do with it than where you got your bees, which was my point.


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## Kamon A. Reynolds (Apr 15, 2012)

gmcharlie said:


> Back to the OP.... without counting the varibles. Beekeeping skills have more to do with it than where you got your bees, which was my point.


I agree mostly. Hard to keep bees that are wimps though. Yes awesome bees can and will be wasted on a novice or lazy beekeeper.

But if I had to choose I would go swarms over packages, then high quality nucs over swarms. Kent Williams nucs I bought 5 years ago still are in my hives. No mite treatments and make my life much easier and my crops are what I need them to be. I have been selling queens for a few years and people who try one over the standard package bee always say they are better survivors. Those keepers are trying unlike the other guy you mentioned.


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## rhaldridge (Dec 17, 2012)

gmcharlie said:


> Back to the OP.... without counting the varibles. Beekeeping skills have more to do with it than where you got your bees, which was my point.


Well, sure, but isn't getting the best bees part of being a good beekeeper?

The arguments I've heard for the superiority of swarms for starting colonies make a certain amount of sense. This is the method bees have evolved for reproduction of the colony, and it seems reasonable to assume that evolution has chosen the optimal approach. A swarm comes from a colony successful enough to reproduce, it has the optimal mixture of bees for starting a new colony, and it has a proven queen.

I can say that the swarm I trapped last August has been a pretty strong hive.


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

In my experience, there are good bees and there are good beekeepers. The good bees will survive the bad beekeepers, the bad bees will not survive the good beekeepers.

Ever seen a queen that at the first sign of a hive disturbance will run and hide in the deepest corner of the hive never to be found? Ever seen a newbee open a hive every day? 

Both good beekeepers and good bees are needed.


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## bugmeister (Feb 26, 2013)

Hey SS1, what has been successful as far as trapping swarms? Are you using a standard type box or special configuration and lures? what location works best for you and how far are your traps from your bee yards? I like the trapping aspect agree with you regarding packages. it is s roll of the dice it seems...

thanks and cheers!


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## zhiv9 (Aug 3, 2012)

gmcharlie said:


> your realize that around 2 MILLION queens are shipped from HI to Canada every season?? and they do just fine...why are queens not raised in Canada?? too cold to get many queens breed timely.....


From those I have talked to the California queens here don't do as well here. Winter losses are higher. The reason that most use them is that they are available much earlier (April/May) than locally bred queens that aren't widely available to late June or early July. This allows for earlier splits that will build up in time to make a crop and the creation and sale of "Spring" nucs.

I see 3 types of nucs available here:

1) Winter nuc - overwintered nuc where queen and bees overwintered together
2) Spring nuc - basically a small early split with an Australian or Californian queen
3) Summer nuc - a small small split with a local queen

The winter nuc is by far the best performer. The spring has a better chance at crop than the summer nuc, but the summer nuc has better overwintering success.


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