# Survivor Drone Project



## JSL (Sep 22, 2007)

A little while back, HVH started a thread about expanding the gene pool. I mentioned a project I have been thinking of for quite some time about collecting drones from survivor colonies all across the US and pooling the semen to inseminate queens. With the development of the new homogenizing syringe I have, this project is even more feasible and I would like to give it a try this spring. 

I am looking for willing participants to send me drones from their best survivor colonies. My hope is to find enough willing beekeepers to make this project work. That way I would only need 10-20 drones from each beekeeper. I will send cages and shipping materials so that all you will need to do is collect mature drones and ship them.

I am not sure of the best way to compensate beekeepers who ship me drones. I would be happy to pay you for them, or send virgin queens from the inseminated queens, or whatever would be beneficial to you. This is a great way to improve genetic diversity, so I would like to find a way to make this beneficial for all involved.

If this sounds like an interesting project and you would be willing to participate, please email me directly at [email protected] 

Thanks,
Joe


----------



## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Sounds like a great project to me. I will contact you in a couple months when I get drones here. I'm going to be retrieving swarms this year so if you would like drones from the swarms I collect, I'd be happy to participate. I don't know how much 'survivor stock' they would be, but I'm finding the best over wintering bees I've had in the past all came from swarms I had collected in the spring of those years.


----------



## fat/beeman (Aug 23, 2002)

*drones*

hey Joe
I am interested in your work. I collect wild hives feral stock that had no treatments for 3-5 yrs. then I graft from that stock to my open mated yards. had good results.if your interested contact meor have stock to exchange.need to build the gene pool.
Don
my web page is www.geocities.com/fatbeeman


----------



## JSL (Sep 22, 2007)

Don and Ray,

Thanks for your interest. As I shared, I am looked for the toughest survivors. Then, I need beekeepers willing to ship me some drones. I think this is a worthwhile project and a great way to spread the diversity around for all who participate.

I know there are a good number of beekeepers who are keeping bees with little or no treatments and I hope they are willing to participate.

Thanks,
Joe


----------



## slickbrightspear (Jan 9, 2009)

if things go well this year I will ship you some to


----------



## Allen Dick (Jan 10, 2009)

Drones found in a colony are not necessarily the ones raised there. My understanding is that drones move freely between colonies over some distance.


----------



## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

I use Pierco Drone combs to get drones from specific hives.

I have a friend that has some survivor hives, no treatments at all and no comb manipulations at all. He lets them sit and swarm as they want. The most management he ever does is to pull out one or two combs for honey occassionally. He's going to be letting me take a nuc from each hive this year to use for queen stock.  Will be easy for me to get drones from them, but will be a few months down the road from here.


----------



## JSL (Sep 22, 2007)

slickbrightspear:

Could you please send me a quick email? I am compiling a list of those that want to participate.

allend:

You are correct. When marking drones, I find the large majority will actually return to the colony in which they were raised. However, there is a small percentage that will drift for quite some distance, 100 yards or so.

RayMarler:

Sounds great! After I get a list of participants together, we will then coordinate a shipping date that will work for everyone as I would need to receive the drones on a single day in order to pool the semen from all of the drones.

Thanks,
Joe


----------



## Allen Dick (Jan 10, 2009)

> You are correct. When marking drones, I find the large majority will actually return to the colony in which they were raised. However, there is a small percentage that will drift for quite some distance, 100 yards or so.


Thanks. That is interesting. I was under the impression that drones drift far and wide, including between apiaries. If that is true, maybe the degree of drift varies with season or other factors are involved? Also, maybe that idea is a based on a very small percentage?

I suppose the main thing here, though is to make sure the drones being used are from the hives that are intended. Marking on emergence ensures that.


----------



## Dan Williamson (Apr 6, 2004)

I think it is a worthwhile project in theory. However I question the ability to screen candidates. What one person may consider a tough survivor someone else may consider to be less so. 

I think there needs to be a strict criteria as to who could participate and set some sort of parameters. 

For example: 

1) Treatment free colonies for X# of years to assertain a level of survivability? (Then what does "treatment 
free" mean? No treaments of any kind including nosema treatments, essential oils, powdered sugar, all the way to strips? Or is it something else? Have they only kept colonies treatment free for 2 years? Should only people who have been treatment free for 5 years or more be included? What should be the criteria?

2) Should there be some level of experience required? You could run into... "Well I got just bought them thar bees from a guy who said they've been there for 4 years so they must be survivors. Problem is they know nothing about the history. Maybe a swarm moved in last spring and this is a colony only 1 year old etc) A new beekeeper probably doesn't even have the knowledge to determine a quality level of survivability. 

3) Shouldn't there be a level of quality in assessing these survivor colonies. For example... Someone could say....yes my bees have survived the past 3 years with no treatment. However what people don't know is every spring they have large amounts of chalkbrood and are never able to build up strong colonies without large amts of feeding and never make honey. Someone could say that they've survived the last 3 winters with no treatments and yet those colonies couldn't have made it any of those years without feeding most of the season. I've seen colonies like this and in the wild they'd never have made it. I don't want any genetics from these kinds of colonies.

I've seen all kinds of discussion on here and other places. People can't even agree on exactly how to define a "feral" colony. It means one thing to one person and something more or less to another.

I think its a worthwhile goal. My point is....I think its extremely important to have some sort of established criteria.


----------



## Sundance (Sep 9, 2004)

I think it's a great project. Dan's insight is right on
and needs to be integrated in.

I would be more than willing to shoot some to you.

I have some tough rascals. If they make it through
this nasty North Dakota winter they will qualify. I'll
check my records but I have some isolated survivors
that have come through the last 3 *NASTY* winters.


----------



## JSL (Sep 22, 2007)

Dan Williamson:

You make some excellent points! And I agree with what you are saying. When I first thought of this, I knew there would be a great deal of subjectivity in evaluating "survivor" stock. I am trusting individuals involved to select the best they have to offer. As beekeepers, most of us know which hives are the best, and your description of what is good helps to emphasize that.

Sundance:

ND, your girls must be tough! Again, I hope that all who are reading this take note of what we are looking for. The toughest of the tough!

Could each of you send me an email with your information? I am putting together a list of those willing to participate. 

[email protected]

Thanks,
Joe


----------



## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

JSL said:


> A little while back, HVH started a thread about expanding the gene pool. I mentioned a project I have been thinking of for quite some time about collecting drones from survivor colonies all across the US and pooling the semen to inseminate queens. With the development of the new homogenizing syringe I have, this project is even more feasible and I would like to give it a try this spring.


this would be an interesting experiment...but what result are you looking for on the other end? on the plus side, you would have a great deal of "diversity" in the offspring....this also may well be a "minus", as a fit subfamilly might only exist as a single worker/queen, or a few individuals. offspring from a queen mated this way would, by definition, be "inconsistant"...any such queen would need to be proven like a fresh caught feral (rather than like the offspring of a winning line).

there could be some real advantage to doing this in a "roll the genetic dice" kind of way, but i think such a project would require a very different next step than any queen rearing program i am aware of (other than "mother nature's own). something similar to johnny appleseed (many thousands of offspring spread far and wide, left to their own, and check the survivors a few years later).

the real problem (as it seems to me) is that this resembles "decision by committee" survivors in different areas with different management techniques have (by necessity) different characteristics. if one is looking for a specific outcome (strong productive bees that can survive without treatment, for instance), one might be better served to seek out stock that fits that bill either from one's own area, or in a similar climate.

out of curiosity, has anyone ever done a study to look into if there are advantages to more drone fathers than the accepted 8-30 that seems to happen in nature?

deknow


----------



## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

deknow said:


> out of curiosity, has anyone ever done a study to look into if there are advantages to more drone fathers than the accepted 8-30 that seems to happen in nature?
> 
> deknow


Have you read David Tarpy's work. His 50-50 presentation is quite enlightening.


----------



## adamf (Jan 28, 2006)

deknow said:


> out of curiosity, has anyone ever done a study to look into if there are advantages to more drone fathers than the accepted 8-30 that seems to happen in nature?


Page-Laidlaw Closed Population Breeding model. 
Concept of homogenizing/pooling semen.

Both rely on II to be utilized.

Adam Finkelstein
www.vpqueenbees.com


----------



## JSL (Sep 22, 2007)

deknow:

To be honest, I do not have a suitable answer as to how this will turn out.

It is a project I have been mulling over for quite some time. You make some very valid points. The goal of this project is to distribute a great deal of genetic diversity in a simple and effective manner and then allow each individual to again look at the resulting crosses. As with all breeding, it is a sorting process. Some of the new crosses will not be an improvement, some will, it is just difficult to know which one are the best ahead of time. However, this is the fun part of selective breeding! It's like going to the hardware store and bringing home new tools, then the challenge is to see what you can make with the new tools.

Mike and Adam:

Both bring up very good sources for the advantages of genetic diversity, which is what a lot of my reasoning for this project is based on. I think there is some upper limit with increased genetic diversity, but have no idea where it may be. Another reason I like the idea of homogenized semen is that it effectively turns queens into larger genetic reservoirs. 

Also, thank you to all that emailed me and expressed an interest in participating in this little experiment! So far I have about 6 names and would still like to add some more.

Thanks,
Joe


----------



## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

JSL said:


> It is a project I have been mulling over for quite some time. You make some very valid points. The goal of this project is to distribute a great deal of genetic diversity in a simple and effective manner and then allow each individual to again look at the resulting crosses.


what concerns me is that, if one found a real boomer of a colony as the result (and assuming it was the queen plus her multiple matings that was responsible, and assuming it would be a very small percentage of the test colonies that were boomers), what would you do then? there is no real way to carry this through to a second generation.

if you haven't read it, you should read the first section of "botany of desire" by michael pollan...which talks about apples in the new world. his work spread apples all over the place, but only resulted in a few good "eating apples". having a good eating apple doesn't help unless one has the tree it came from (this would be analogous to having the mated queen from the boomer colony rather than a queen cell or virgin queen produced by the boomer colony).

this may well be a good way to "roll the genetic dice", but it seems to me that it would be difficult to "cash in on a jackpot".

michael palmer's comment about david tarpys 50/50 experiment is also quite relevant. if sperm is used preferentially (either by the queen or by the sperm itself), then there may be some real roadblocks (ie, "preferentailly used sperm" might dominate such a mixture, even if its concentration in the mixture is quite low.

deknow


----------



## JSL (Sep 22, 2007)

deknow:

Yes, rolling the dice, so to speak, is the driving force behind developing novel genetic combinations. Many are failures, some are successful. Rather than focusing on all the possibilities that would potentially be unsuccessful, I would like to focus on the benefits of such a project.

Joe


----------



## slickbrightspear (Jan 9, 2009)

if the queens are kept and evaluated for a couple of years and then if good their drones sent back over time you will end up with some benefits. over time the genetics that don't work will be culled naturally by them dying off.


----------



## JBJ (Jan 27, 2005)

I would consider participating. We graft from at least a dozen different breeders in any given year. Wouldn't shipping virgins or mated queens result in a a better or more stable drone supply for you? I believe Adam F has good results with the virgins we shipped to him.


----------



## JSL (Sep 22, 2007)

JBJ:

Thank you for your interest in the project!

You are absolutely right, virgins or mated queens would be easier and more stable to ship. However, my initial thinking behind this project was to make it available to as many people as possible. Perhaps some who have a good survivor hive do not raise queens. It would also take a longer turn around time to get queens up and laying and producing drones.

Perhaps I should have asked... Of those who have contacted me so far about shipping drones, how many also raise their own queens?

Years ago, large queen cages were used to ship drones for custom insemination work. I am planning to make some of the large cages for this project. I have limited experience with shipping drones, but have found they travel okay if placed in a cage with lots of attendants to take care of them in transit. 

Thanks,
Joe


----------



## cheezer32 (Feb 3, 2009)

JSL: I have one have that has not been touched in the past 5 years, has just sat behind my house all this time, never been treated feed or even the box cracked in this time. I'll email you to.


----------



## JBJ (Jan 27, 2005)

Joe do you ever make it to Oregon? Would you have any interest in a speaking engagement or a seminar on II ? PM me if you prefer.


----------



## adamf (Jan 28, 2006)

JBJ said:


> I would consider participating. We graft from at least a dozen different breeders in any given year. Wouldn't shipping virgins or mated queens result in a a better or more stable drone supply for you? I believe Adam F has good results with the virgins we shipped to him.


Joe's proposal addresses some limitations in bee breeding. To select well, one must have as large a population as possible to increase the chances of finding a genetic combination that is desirable. Joe is hoping, through collaboration, to find some good combinations, and that the others involved might too. JBJ traded stock with us for this same reason-- we constantly look for others to trade stock with as Joe is proposing here--breeding is a numbers game!

Breeding is also subjective, and thus trading and testing one's stock and other breeder's stock is a good selection/breeding quality control.

If you keep good notes and are willing to follow Joe's protocol, participating in his project will be worth your time.

Adam Finkelstein
www.vpqueenbees.com


----------



## chief (Apr 19, 2005)

Joe L.

I too have two hives that have survived without any treatments for 3-4 years. They are separated from the rest of my hives by half a state, are in a very remote area, and I never have treated them. They have re-queened themselves several times and have been open mated with the local "survivors" in the area. Let me know if you are interested in getting some drones from them for your study.

I sent you an email as well.


----------



## JBJ (Jan 27, 2005)

First graft from the queens I received from Joe tomorrow. The queens look great and are laying well. It will be interesting to see how they pull winter and build up for the Almonds. I will try and post some pics soon.


----------



## JSL (Sep 22, 2007)

John,

Glad to hear the queens are up and laying for you. I had good success with the sister queens that I kept from the same batch that I sent out to everyone. Now comes the fun part! They should have some time to build up and head into winter. It will just be a sorting process from here on out.

Thanks again to all of you that contributed!

Joe


----------



## JBJ (Jan 27, 2005)

Here are the queens from the project that I grafted off of. I hope to have about 25 mated daughters of each to winter and evaluate for Almond buildup. I need to do one more graft while we still have drones.


----------



## chief (Apr 19, 2005)

Hey Guys,

I also got my queens introduced and they are laying good. Just a quick question . . . I have never used AI queens and I was wondering how long I need to keep a queen excluder in place? I assume just until they are laying which they are. Its a little late this year for me to do much grafting but my plan is to produce lots of daughters from these queens in the spring. Lets hope they make it through this winter fine. Thanks again Joe.


----------



## JSL (Sep 22, 2007)

John,

Nice pics, thanks for sharing!

Chief,

Once the queens start laying I remove the excluders from the entrance. It is just as safety measure to prevent any mating flights.

Thanks,
Joe


----------



## JBJ (Jan 27, 2005)

Will they actually re-mate after II? Maybe a good argument for clipping a wing. Ours seemed to start laying right away.


----------



## chief (Apr 19, 2005)

Hey John

Mine started laying right away as well. I can't imagine that they would try to re-mate after they start laying. I think they will try to mate after AI in some cases but I think that is only before they start laying. I just asked the question because I have no experience with AI queens and didn’t want to make a mistake. Joe will probably chime in here with more concrete info on this.


----------



## J-Bees (Jul 12, 2008)

But I thought that bee's only lived around 40 days except in winter time.


----------



## J-Bees (Jul 12, 2008)

Adam Finkelstein

any relation to Frank Frankinstein:}:}


----------



## JBJ (Jan 27, 2005)

Queens can live for years, the turnover is in the worker population.


----------



## chief (Apr 19, 2005)

I have two queens from '07. One of them is a tiny runty looking queen that I almost culled but every hive she has headed has done awesome! The other one I caught in a swarm last year and she was marked for '07. They build up so fast with so little that I am going to keep her around and make a few daughters from her next year. That will make them 4 years old next spring. So yeah queens can live a long time with proper care.


----------



## tarheit (Mar 26, 2003)

I have had good luck transporting and keeping drones for several days in a battery box. Drones were in a cage with queen excluders on both sides and that was placed in a battery box with workers and candy, just as you would with queens. The workers are free to move in and out of the drone cage and are fairly easy to get out by shaking gently and brushing.

There should be no reason why a cage (larger than a queen cage), with #8 hardware cloth and a way to hold a reasonable amount of candy wouldn't work pretty well. My only question would be how many workers per drone. I suspect from what I've seen taking care of the drones I'll bank for collection the next day, that unless you only have a couple drones in the cage, you may only need 1 or 2 workers per drone.

Perhaps we ought to try a few and see what works?

-Tim


----------



## Motown (Jun 17, 2009)

Bump!

JSL (Joe), 

Can you give us an update? How is you project proceeding?

Motown


----------



## Velbert (Mar 19, 2006)

There is different degree of survival some may just barley make it so weak in the spring not much good for dividing,pollinating, queen rearing Honey production or any other task that you use them for.

I know you will have to gradually work up to it. I would have rules to guide on which survivor drones to use, How strong in the spring at a given time,do they build up fast, did they make a honey crop.

Just being Survivor wont be good for much if that is all they can do.


it will work with lots of proper culling.


----------



## JSL (Sep 22, 2007)

Motown:

Thanks for your interest. As of right now, I still have 6-7 of the queens inseminated with the pooled semen from the drones everyone sent. They are up and running nicely in full size colonies. I then have a nice sampling of 20 daughters from the inseminated queens. The daughters are inseminated, but back to my Karnica line. 

I was really pushing to get the second generation off this year. I wanted to see how the daughters would build up on their own, so they are going into the winter in nucs. This may be a bit risky, but a good test.

As Velbert wrote, a colony that just survives is not very valuable to me, but a colony that thrives is very important. As far as I am concerned, there is nothing special about the queens until they prove their abilities. Having said that, the real goal of the project was to mix up the genetic pot so to speak and spread some genes around. The real work is yet to come with selection and evaluation.

Take care,
Joe


----------



## Motown (Jun 17, 2009)

Thanks Joe,

I have always been concerned with the local practice of buying Italian bees from down south for every spring. It makes much more sense to have bees that are more adapted to the local environment (cold) due to selective breeding. 

In my case I live across the river from a university that has only Italians from Georgia that are on large cell. They never seem to have any luck keeping them alive over the winter. While my little feral bees originally from a swam do much better, I know they are cross breeding with the university bees so I make a point never to get any Italians. I think the mix is stronger for it. 

I'm half tempted to ask them to change or diversify their stock for next year.

Keep us informed, diversity and breeding for local conditions is important.


Motown


----------



## fat/beeman (Aug 23, 2002)

hello Joe
its was nice meeting you at ga. bee meeting. if you got left over queens from drone project that need a home I can always use them to build my stock.can send you more 4.9 wax when new machine is up and running. thanks
Don


----------



## JSL (Sep 22, 2007)

Don,

It was a pleasure to meet you too! I just wish I had more time to talk with you at the meeting, but there just never seems to be enough time to catch up on all the bee stuff.

Please keep me posted on the new foundation equipment. I am really leaning towards making my own or having someone make it for me from clean wax.

Take care,
Joe


----------



## BeeTax (Dec 27, 2011)

Bump. Is there any additional information to update about this project. How did the queens turn out, etc.??


----------



## JSL (Sep 22, 2007)

BeeTax,

Thanks for the post!

Out of all the crosses, I pulled one line out of the mix that is doing pretty well. Perhaps I wrote this earlier..., but from the initial II queens, I produced a fair number of open mated daughters, just to see what would come out of the mix and have drones available. The diversity was really interesting to see. All the queens have been subjected to the same requirements as my inseminated breeders. Time, evaluations and challenging conditions help to sort out the better lines which then become part of the larger breeding population.

Both of my commercial lines have actually done very well the past several years, so to challenge them a little more, I removed mite treatments too. It has been exciting to see what the added selection pressure does to the population.

I have actually been thinking about running a second "survivor drone project" this year. Any takers? It would be run the same way as the initial project if there is enough interest to put it together. Again, I am looking for strong productive colonies to sample a small number of drones from. It is important that the colonies be from "untreated" yards, whatever that means to you as the beekeeper. If you have some older identifiable queens heading those colonies, that is even better.

If you have a colony or colonies and an interest in the project, send me a quick email.

Thanks,
Joe


----------



## Adam Foster Collins (Nov 4, 2009)

Hey there,

I was thinking about the importance of polyandry after listening to a recent talk by Keith Delaplane. I posted it in another thread.

As I searched for more info on the subject, I discovered this tread and wondered if there was any new information around this effort and the results.

Thanks,

Adam


----------



## Adrian Quiney WI (Sep 14, 2007)

Me too. Any updates?


----------



## cerezha (Oct 11, 2011)

I have survivor bees, which are not treated for 3+ years (2 with me). We are in urban area and have sort of cluster of colonies perhaps originated from original feral hive. It is my believe that these colonies were genetically quite isolated from others. I would be interested to participate in the project to create a "pure" line from those bees. I do not think, mixing the semen could do anything good. I feel, opposite may be beneficial - using more or less homogenous semen for 5+ queen generations and selecting best queens, no free mating. The gene-selection process is happening only between one semen and one egg (queen creation); worker bees normally, do not participate in the breeding process. Drones are "genotype-holders." Thus, semen should be homogenous (with desired properties) in order to implement artificial selection. I apologize if my idea is not proper


----------

