# Mating yard, drone coloneys



## Fourframe (Jan 19, 2014)

Raising queens second year. Mating yard distance, and drone coloneys location. How far will a queen go to mate?


----------



## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

How far will a queen go to mate? 

No further than she has to, but as far as she needs to.

I don't have multiple locations, so I keep my drone rearing colonies in the same yard as my hives and mating nucs. I notice a difference when having drone colonies or not when mating nucs are flying. 

I know of one large commercial breeder that has the mating nuc yard right at the same location as a DCA is located.

So, she flies as far as she has to, but no further than she needs to, to find a DCA or otherwise get satisfied.


----------



## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

All else being equal, a queen will fly away from the hive about 3/4 of a mile to a drone congregation area. There are documented records of queens mating 1.5 miles from the hive. Drones on the other hand will almost always go to the nearest drone congregation area which may be closer than the one the queen goes to.


----------



## crofter (May 5, 2011)

I have seen reports of them mating within a hundred yards of their colonies too. Mine would have to fly about 20 miles to the nearest reported bees so are likely mating with drones from other colonies in my own yard. I think I may buy in a few new queens coming summer. I dont know how long it would take before interbreeding became noticeable with having 6 or 7 hives. Im quite satisfied with the genetics but dont want things to get stale either!


----------



## AR Beekeeper (Sep 25, 2008)

There is a study that showed that drones from a colony will be in all the DCAs within flying distance of that colony. If there are 20 colonies within flying distance of a particular DCA there should be enough unrelated drones for a queen to mate without flying further. The time for a queen to be out of the nuc on a successful mating flight is between 17 and 23 minutes. How far a queen will fly in 10 minutes would give an idea of approximately how far the DCA is from your nuc yard.


----------



## drlonzo (Apr 15, 2014)

Like Ray M says. I have my drone colonies in the same area as my apiary. Found out the first year making queens that we're in a DCA, so the queens go out, mate up with all the drones she wants to and comes home. My rate of queen return is in the high 80's as long as the dragonflies and damselflies are kept down.


----------



## Stephenpbird (May 22, 2011)

I bought a book suggested by Michael Palmer called Mating Biology of Honeybees, wicwas press. It really is very good and has a lot of information about DCAs etc. One of the authors lectured at the National honey show last year, some very good information but it is a bit heavy going as English is not her first language. The info on drones and DCAs starts at about 10 mins in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cI26DLS2CyM


----------



## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

If just trying to keep up out-crossed vigor, one can get away with raising queens from his own stock and buying a few drone colonies from elsewhere each year. Try to not use the same drone stock withing 10 years. This should greatly delay inbreeding problems.

Drones in the middle, mating nuc's at 3/4 mile away in a clover leaf pattern around the droneys works quite well.

To make it sustainable, vary the queen stock. This is not development of a bloodline, but it should keep inbreeding down to very little problem.


----------

