# Queen Exchange



## Nordak (Jun 17, 2016)

Seeing as there are many members in the TF community on here who are successfully building their apiaries, myself included, I can't help but think there must be some great genetic resources available. Has anyone thought it might be advantageous to share some genetic material to keep lines from stagnating? My one concern is homogenizing my bees to the point that if things transition from good to bad, they will have no trait to help them recover from the next big problem. Why not set up a queen exchange program for sharing the TF love? I truly think diversity is what will keep ahead of the next big disaster. I would be willing to swap one or two queens when available, with someone else who has proven stock.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

it's a really good idea nordak and something that a handful of us in northeast alabama started doing this year. i was able to increase from just having 2 queenlines to now having 4 queenlines with roughy equal numbers of colonies from each line. 

the easiest way is for those who are grafting queen cells is to just swap cells. swapping nucs works good as well. another way to bring in diverse genetics is to set out swarm traps near confirmed overwintered bee trees or in other locations known to harbor feral colonies.

i agree that getting a good mix of genes makes it more likely that desirable traits will manifest, and then it's a matter of propagating more from the best ones.


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## Nordak (Jun 17, 2016)

That would be a great situation to be in, squarepeg. I basically know of one other TF beek in my area and I got him started with my bees. I admire what your small community of beeks is doing. I will offer you a queen in exchange for one of yours if interested. Most of my stock is from bait hives that captured ferals, with a mix of BWeaver and a recently attained Anarchy queen I bartered in a similar fashion with Sam Comfort which gave me the idea. Let me know and I'll get started on a cell builder.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

i'm pretty small scale nordak and have not shipped any queens. i know it's pretty much standard operating procedure, but i am concerned about the lack of control over conditions during shipping, especially in light of recent findings that temperature extremes can adversely affect the queens.

another consideration is that once any queen i send off passes on the generations that follow her will be mating with area drones. it doesn't take long therefore before we are back to colonies hybridized with the local population.

i'm flattered by your interest in my bees, and i would be curious to see how they might perform in other regions, but i truly think your interests are better served by looking for survivors located near and adapted to your specific area.

fusion_power has a bit more robust queen rearing operation than i do and he posted about shipping a few queens around the country this season. you may want to ping him about being on the list if he tries to do the same next year.


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## Nordak (Jun 17, 2016)

I see your point about hybridization, and have thought about it frequently. I suppose the only offset to that would be to keep the lines going by propagating to an extent the genetic imprint would be left on the local community, however small. I plan on keeping fresh genetics in my lines in an attempt to offset the redundancies, however small. I too am small potatoes, much smaller than you most likely, with the dream of queen rearing as a side business someday. I would definitely be interested in swapping queens with fusion power if he is interested. I would also be willing to ship someone a queen who needs to boost their TF Apiary for the return cost of shipping if interested. I, like fusion power am interested to see how my bees behave outside of their home turf. Thanks.


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## Riverderwent (May 23, 2013)

squarepeg said:


> another consideration is that once any queen i send off passes on the generations that follow her will be mating with area drones. it doesn't take long therefore before we are back to colonies hybridized with the local population.


Mr. Peg, the incursion of an exotic parasite affords an opportunity for a relatively small dose of well adapted resistant genetics to significantly bend the genetic curve in its direction among a relatively feral or untreated population over a relatively short period of time. It's kind of a different way of looking at the genetic bottleneck. That doesn't affect your other points.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

understood david, and i agree. on the other hand randy oliver and others have tried to bring survivor stock into their operations only to see any beneficial traits waning after just a generation or two. i suppose it all depends on how big of a 'footprint' one can make in relationship to the surrounding population.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

The old methods documented in the 1880's still work today. Bring in queens with known traits, raise daughter queens to saturate the area with drones, then raise more queens to mate with the drones. It takes a dedicated operation with a few dozen colonies to make this work.


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

Some properties have been highly accentuated by selective breeding; We have many domestic examples where performance in selected areas is head and shoulders above any natural occurring example in the species. I dont know of there are any which will breed true if the selective control is removed. One example is the four way cross used to produce the quick maturing, high weight gain meat chicken. Four separate breeding stocks must be maintained and used every generation.

Bees have a unique breeding system that makes them very susceptible to outbreeding and artificial insemination is not an easy thing for the backyard breeder.
I used to do artificial insemination of my own cows and the equipment and procedure is a snap compared to doing it with bees.


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## Nordak (Jun 17, 2016)

squarepeg said:


> i was able to increase from just having 2 queenlines to now having 4 queenlines with roughy equal numbers of colonies from each line.


This has been my goal as well, to maintain varying queen lines which I've managed to do fairly successfully up until this year with excessive swarming leading to the exact watering down of genetics you speak of. It is pretty obvious 2 of the 3 lines I have kept propagating since my beekeeping beginning are now no longer exhibiting inherently different traits, which in this case, especially in terms of defensive behavior, is not a bad thing. How do you offset this yourself within your own lines?


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## Nordak (Jun 17, 2016)

Fusion_power said:


> The old methods documented in the 1880's still work today. Bring in queens with known traits, raise daughter queens to saturate the area with drones, then raise more queens to mate with the drones. It takes a dedicated operation with a few dozen colonies to make this work.


This is my long term goal, I'm getting there. Interested in a queen swap? I am looking for a good home to test out their ability to weather a foreign country, not that Alabama is much different than Arkansas for the most part. I have a lot of family there.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

Nordak said:


> How do you offset this yourself within your own lines?


it's pretty much a matter of grafting queens from my longest lived, most productive, and least swarmy colonies. having two yards far enough apart allows for added diversity via the drone contributions by placing the mating nucs in the yard away from where the grafts were taken.

some of us who are swapping genetics have talked about using each others yards for mating, but logistically its easier to just swap queens cells. (and i use 'swapping' figuratively as more often than not queens, cells, or nucs are bought and sold)

like yours, most of my colonies look and act pretty much the same. defensiveness was only an issue with one single colony in the past and i quickly took care of that. like most operations there are the few top performers and the few underperformers with all of the rest pretty much in the middle.

ala mike palmer, i take grafts from the best ones and split up the laggards to make more colonies with.

at this stage i am mostly interested in bringing in genetics (like i did from fusion_power) that have achieved a level of survivability and production similar to my own. i made an exception this year by catching a swarm from an overwintered bee tree colony, mostly because they were small, dark, and just looked darn good to me. it's playing a wild card i know, hopefully i won't regret it going forward.


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## Nordak (Jun 17, 2016)

squarepeg said:


> it's pretty much a matter of grafting queens from my longest lived, most productive, and least swarmy colonies. having two yards far enough apart allows for added diversity via the drone contributions by placing the mating nucs in the yard away from where the grafts were taken.
> 
> some of us who are swapping genetics have talked about using each others yards for mating, but logistically its easier to just swap queens cells. (and i use 'swapping' figuratively as more often than not queens, cells, or nucs are bought and sold)
> 
> ...


I am missing the other beeyard aspect to keeping some form of genetic control. So far, luck has blessed me with some amazing bees. I wish you the best of luck on your newest addition. Sounds like they should work out great. I too have an iffy colony I'm working with that I caught this year, some Italians that are obviously breeder stock due to the uniformity of the hive. I suspected they'd be a walking (or flying) time bomb. So far so good, but time will tell. They are my most productive hive which gives me worry two fold, lol.


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

Nordak, you can send me all your best queens and consider them exchanged!


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

Nordak said:


> I am missing the other beeyard aspect to keeping some form of genetic control. So far, luck has blessed me with some amazing bees.


both yards have roughly equal numbers of the different lines. moving the mating nucs to the opposite yard just gives a little insurance against inbreeding.

sounds like you are very much on the right track nordak. i'm looking forward to following your progress, thanks for posting.

most of my losses are occurring over the winter months, and most of those appear to be due to failed queens at a time when there is no chance for supercedure. it's possible those queen failures are secondary to mite vectored virus damage to their ovarioles. still, my average loss for the last 3 winters is only about 16%, and the reclaimed stores and comb comes in real handy in the spring for nuc production.

i've only had one colony succumb to mites in the fall and that was a few years ago. the queen was still there with very few spotty brood. it took most of the remaining bees to have enough for an alcohol wash which revealed about 100% infestation. the queen was pinched and the rest were shook out.

after thinking about it, i decided that if i have any more collapse in the fall, i'll simply get them all into their single deep and put them in the freezer, mites and all. so far i haven't had to do that, but i remain extremely vigilant for robbing.

when the bees begin brooding up again in late summer, it's not unusual for me to see devitalized drone pupae getting hauled out of a few hives. that is generally short lived and clears up on its own after a couple of weeks. worker brood is sometimes marginally affected but not enough to have an impact, as i've not noticed any difference between those colonies and the others in terms of overwintering success or productivity in the following season.


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## Nordak (Jun 17, 2016)

JRG13 said:


> Nordak, you can send me all your best queens and consider them exchanged!


Sure thing, I will PM later and we can discuss details. I have no availability atm and will need to get something going.


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## Nordak (Jun 17, 2016)

squarepeg said:


> sounds like you are very much on the right track nordak. i'm looking forward to following your progress, thanks for posting.


Thanks to you. I have followed your chronicled work and it's a great resource.



squarepeg said:


> when the bees begin brooding up again in late summer, it's not unusual for me to see devitalized drone pupae getting hauled out of a few hives. that is generally short lived and clears up on its own after a couple of weeks. worker brood is sometimes marginally affected but not enough to have an impact, as i've not noticed any difference between those colonies and the others in terms of overwintering success or productivity in the following season.


I have seen a similar scenario play out in my own apiary. I have been fortunate to have not had any losses, and I realize by saying this I have probably jinxed myself! In my first year, had I not requeened my first ever bait capture, it would have been a complete loss. Those bees were the gentlest, most productive bees I have yet to see again, and come September they were disease ridden beyond imagination. I know a lot of people have mixed feelings about BWeaver stock on here, but the queen I got from them to replace the inferior queen literally turned my beekeeping world around. By November, before the coldest part of the month, that little queen had transformed the hive, along with some brood I had given them from some great stock I had caught in the same year.  If given a shot, it's amazing how quickly they can turn things around.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

:thumbsup:


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## Riverderwent (May 23, 2013)

squarepeg said:


> understood david, and i agree. on the other hand randy oliver and others have tried to bring survivor stock into their operations only to see any beneficial traits waning after just a generation or two. i suppose it all depends on how big of a 'footprint' one can make in relationship to the surrounding population.


I agree (of course) particularly with respect to those other locations, but I'm biased toward "west central Arkansas". Some of the things going on in your neck of the woods and mine have potential there, I think. Also, and as I'm confidant you know, it's largely genetics, but it's not just genetics. In the long run, most likely there are already feral bees in west central Arkansas that have the genes they need.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

yep, genetics along with reasonably good (and almost year round) floral diversity. it appears that the ozarks are already hosting a viable feral population.


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## Nordak (Jun 17, 2016)

squarepeg said:


> yep, genetics along with reasonably good (and almost year round) floral diversity. it appears that the ozarks are already hosting a viable feral population.


The area I live in would be closer to the Arkansas River Valley area where the ozarks meet the ouachitas. I live in a fairly populated fringe area, close to farm land on the outskirts of a small town, so my acregae (1) is limiting what I can do at the moment. My neighbors are fine with the bees, luckily. I know of one other beek that lives nearby, probably a couple more I'm unaware of. I'm not certain where these bees are coming from, but it certainly appears they have what it takes for survival based on my bait hive captures year in and out. I call them feral, but in all honesty I could be hiving Joe Anyone's bees down the street. If that's the case, keep 'em coming, Joe. Next year I am going to broaden my search and put bait hives further out. Lots of National Forest close, place far removed from man. I am going to go search some of those bees out next year, if I can find them.


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## Nordak (Jun 17, 2016)

Riverderwent said:


> I agree (of course) particularly with respect to those other locations, but I'm biased toward "west central Arkansas". Some of the things going on in your neck of the woods and mine have potential there, I think. Also, and as I'm confidant you know, it's largely genetics, but it's not just genetics. In the long run, most likely there are already feral bees in west central Arkansas that have the genes they need.


I'm sure your bees would be a great fit here, and vice versa. Good to hear successful TF stories.


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## Jovian (May 31, 2016)

Give me a few years to get some stock and prove them out and i would l9be to do this with everyone


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

squarepeg said:


> understood david, and i agree. on the other hand randy oliver and others have tried to bring survivor stock into their operations only to see any beneficial traits waning after just a generation or two. i suppose it all depends on how big of a 'footprint' one can make in relationship to the surrounding population.


California environment is totally different than any of the states you all are posting from. It's hot and dry and summer through fall dearth. Combine that with the largest influx of migratory beehives in the country (over a billion hives come here starting in the fall for almond pollination in the very early spring). I know Randy, he lives east of me about 30 miles. He is up in the foothills and migrates his hives up into the mountains to follow the flows into upper elevations throughout the season. Because of the climate and the migratory beehive influx into the state, I think the varroa problem might possibly be worse here than in many other states. Perhaps I'm wrong, but they are the number one problem here, with lack of good forage a close second in many areas of the state. I wonder if these conditions in many areas are a factor in getting TF genetics to "stick", especially the numbers of immigrated and migratory hive conditions.


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## Nordak (Jun 17, 2016)

RayMarler said:


> California environment is totally different than any of the states you all are posting from. It's hot and dry and summer through fall dearth. Combine that with the largest influx of migratory beehives in the country (over a billion hives come here starting in the fall for almond pollination in the very early spring). I know Randy, he lives east of me about 30 miles. He is up in the foothills and migrates his hives up into the mountains to follow the flows into upper elevations throughout the season. Because of the climate and the migratory beehive influx into the state, I think the varroa problem might possibly be worse here than in many other states. Perhaps I'm wrong, but they are the number one problem here, with lack of good forage a close second in many areas of the state. I wonder if these conditions in many areas are a factor in getting TF genetics to "stick", especially the numbers of immigrated and migratory hive conditions.


Makes complete sense. There is undoubtedly an uphill battle in many areas to sustain TF practices, California I could see being one of those areas. I have lucked out in many ways, and have been able to allow my bees to just do their thing.


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