# How long to full size after mating?



## Tenbears (May 15, 2012)

It depends on the queen, there is no set time frame. In fact many queens get pinched because the do not look hardy enough. a mistake in my opinion. They should look acceptable in a week.


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## Wildeman (Feb 15, 2013)

Tenbears said:


> It depends on the queen, there is no set time frame. In fact many queens get pinched because the do not look hardy enough. a mistake in my opinion. They should look acceptable in a week.


Thanks, I am making queens for myself and any friends that might need them. I would only pinch one that had a poor brood pattern after a couple of months or was too defensive. I'm really just curious about when to know that is how big she will be. I have had a couple of very good queens that where... "not large"


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## AramF (Sep 23, 2010)

The number of drones that mated with a queen is a much more important factor than how fat a queen is. An underfed queen will not return from a flight, so natural selection at work there. I'd also give it a week or two in a well populated hive after she starts laying. I like slender skinny queens. In my mind they lay faster and require less feed.

In pigeon racing people use a whole bunch of visual cues to predict how well a pigeon will do in sport. They look at irises of a pigeon, looking for an "eye sign". A very good pigeoneer only looked for a tail sign. That's the last part of a winning pigeon that you saw trapping into the loft. Long story short, look for actual performance, and cull based on that.


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## Velbert (Mar 19, 2006)

I have seen nice big robust queens not worth keeping.

But a Dink is no good.i don't kill them but will introduce them into a nuc with laying workers about 80% of the time it works i also add a frame of open brood. This gets them back on track in about a week or 10 days.


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

Velbert said:


> But a Dink is no good.i don't kill them but will introduce them into a nuc with laying workers about 80% of the time it works i also add a frame of open brood. This gets them back on track in about a week or 10 days.


Nice suggestion!! Thanks


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Mine will take 2 more weeks after mating to reach their full size. But on the
second year she look bigger than her first year. So I am thinking that she 
may continue to grow all the way thru her first into the second year. I found 
out the her size not that much matter compared to her laying pattern and how
aggressive she will fill up those empty cells. Sometimes small is powerful you 
know so it depends on her genetics.


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## Daniel Y (Sep 12, 2011)

Here is my time line for a typical well mated average queen.

mating time in mating nuc 3 weeks. In that time she should be mated and have any comb available for brood filed in two deep frames. time fro emergence of this populaiton is 2 to three weeks. These frames are then moved to a 5 frame deep nuc. if given drawn comb I expect the queen to lay half a frame a day or 4 to 6 days to fill new comb with brood. If given undrawn frames this time will vary widely depending on how well the bees draw comb. time to emergence of this brood and filling of the 5 frame nuc is 4 weeks. At this time they are placed in a 10 frame deep and given another month to draw and fill that space. Once the 10 fraems are 80% full they are given a second box. in my case a med. It can take as little as a month to fill this second box or as much as the rest of the summer.

Min total time 11 to 12 weeks. Maximum may be as much as 6 months. I generally do not expect a first year nuc to reach full hive states until the following spring. so realistically a year.

I have had swarms reach full size status in 2 months. I have had 5 frame nucs that are a deep with a med on top that where over wintered that way reach full size hive status in 2 months.

I now make my nucs in July or August and over winter them expecting them to become full size hives during the spring build up. This is a 7 month window from a mated queen to a full size hive.


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

I agree with most everyone here so far. A lot depends on the variety and intensity of the nectar flow going on. Late queens can't really compete with queens raised in the peak flows, but watch out the next spring! 

Another point - keep VERY meticulous records of hive and queen performance and conditions in each bee yard. Trust the records rather than the appearance of the queen.


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

Last summer I got some queens from a producer who is a freind. He leaves them in mating nucs for at least 3 weeks so they are laying good. Anyway he was catching my queens when I drove up and they were HUGE . a few hours later when I was hanging the cages i looked again and they were only average size. They really do change size that fast when they are caged and suddenly stop laying.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

When you think about it a queen laying her full potential is laying thousands of eggs a day... more than her body weight... to go from that to 0 eggs a day has to be a major adjustment...


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