# Emergency Queens - does it matter?



## lighto

The inferior queens caused by using the emergency method is because the bees cannot tear down the tough cells in the old combs lined with cocoons. The result is that the bees fill the worker cells with bee milk floating the larvae out the opening of the cells, then they build a little queen cell pointing downward. The larvae cannot eat the bee milk back in the bottom of the cells with the result that they are not well fed. 
This the source : Better Queens Jay Smith 1949
http://bushfarms.com/beesbetterqueens.htm


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## deknow

"emergency queens"...i can't really come up with a better definition than, "queens produced when a queen is not present"

deknow


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## Oldtimer

In Nature, queens raised by the emergency method almost never happen. It is really the beekeeper - us, who make a hive accidentally or otherwise queenless and then the bees are forced to use this method, of raising a queen straight out of a brood cell from an existing egg.
Left to themselves, bees plan the replacement of their queen, and do this in pre-prepared cells, which are placed on the comb top so the cell can hang straight down with no bend in it.

Years ago (many years), I read a paper on this, where the author had raised some cells by grafting, cut cell, and emergency out of a natural comb. The hives used were similar, plus he used more then one method in some hives to attempt to rule out the affect of one hive being better than another.

Some of the resultant queens were dissected and the emergency ones on avarge had a lower mass of oviaries. the rest of the queens were allowed to go on and mate, and a lower mating % was recorded for the emergency queens, along with a lower average body weight.

Now here's the kicker, I read this study as a young man, well before anyone had a computer or internet existed. I now cannot reference it, because I just cannot remember where I saw it now. 

However the article did help shape my thinking on the subject, along with my own experience.

In my own experience, you get to deal with a lot of queenless hives as a queen breeder, is that emergency cells are rarely up to the same standard as the cells we raised by grafting or cut cell. Nonetheless I'd be lying if I said I'd never seen a good one, they do happen. To my mind, using a pure emergency method will stack the odds of a lower average quality queen well and truely in your favor. Even within a cell raising hive raising a buch of grafted or cut cells, any cells raised straight out of a comb, alongside our grafted ones, will be inferior.

Now I know others will dissagree with that, and in deference to them I'll admit that good queens raised by the emergency method CAN happen. But as a commercial breeder I had to shoot for both quality and consistancy.

For those wanting to use the emergency method, I saw proposed on this forum, slight variant on it which I think would give good results. During swarming season, the hive you want to breed from is reduced to one box and all the bees packed in. Bees from other hives are added if need be so the hive is ridiculously packed with bees. The hive has a queen, but a week or two later will have a dozen or so queen cells that can be cut out. Haven't tried it, but it sounds like it would give good results.


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## David LaFerney

deknow said:


> "emergency queens"...i can't really come up with a better definition than, "queens produced when a queen is not present"
> 
> deknow


That's what I thought too - so if you use a queenless starter/finisher that would be "emergency" queens. But if you use one of the systems where a queen is present like the Ben Hardin method they aren't.

Right?


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## David LaFerney

Maybe it's an oversimplification to say that emergency queens are inferior. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that queens raised directly on brood comb are inferior. 

Although the "On the Spot" method would seem to compensate for that even though it is done on brood comb.

Maybe "unmodified" brood comb is the issue.


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## deknow

it's difficult to comment on a study that we can't read.

certainly, when i make up a cell builder it has a very different makeup of bees than a walk away split i make up.

it's entirely possible that the comb and cocoons have something to do with how the larvae feeds...but where is the rule that "walk away splits" are all old comb? the methods like hopkins and evans turn the orientation of the cells to make this less of an issue, but fairly new broodcomb? produced without foundation?

does this mean that all "swarm cells" are eggs layed in cups?

if i make a walkaway split with lots of open brood, there is a lot more to feed than if i make a walkaway split with a small number of brood to raise...i'd expect to get better nourished queens with less brood to feed.

deknow


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## Oldtimer

deknow said:


> it's difficult to comment on a study that we can't read.


Yes, given.

I'm also feeling a bit awkward about the whole discussion because without a properly done paper that can be referenced, it really comes down to a persons own experience and opinion.

I know what mine is, but I'll just have to let others keep theirs I guess!


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## Grant

Good discussion. Swarm cells are built down low, along the edge as other beekeepers have shared. But when a queen goes south in her quality, a supersedure cell is usually found on the face of the comb, not always along the bottom edge. Would this mean she's inferior?

Any thoughts?

Grant
Jackson, MO


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## rrussell6870

Age of comb has SOO much to do with it. In a study using 50 indoor OB hives with 10 fresh comb, 10 1yr old comb, 10 2yr old comb, 10 3yr old comb, and 10 4yr old comb... we made each one queenless with all having ages of brood from 1day eggs to capped. We recorded the number, placement, age of brood, cell sizes, feed, and emergence of each queen produced. 

Once hatched we began recording their activities and gave each 48 hrs to chew up the other cells before we removed the excluders from the exits and allowed them to begin mating flights... 

We then studyied the lenth of time each flight took and how long each queen took before she began laying...

Each queen was allowed to lay for 30 days before they were killed and examined, and their patterns and laying rate was examined...

The end result was that 8 out the 10 queens from the fresh comb hives were equally matched to our average grafted queens in body weight and spermatheca testing, while the other 2 were lower weight and scored lower in spermatheca testing. However, they were all closely matched in the patterning and laying rate...

Each of the following age groups showed less and less quality, but each one did indeed produce at least 2 quality queens.

Each year we run the same type of test by pulling queenless nucs and allowing them to produce their own queen or fail. This is done mainly to test the survivability of different strains and each ones common courses of action to different types of stresses...

These tests are all done using fresh - 1yr old comb... Only one frame of eggs and larvae, one frame of capped brood, two frames of honey and pollen are given to each nuc, but 5 full frames of bees are shaken into each one... the results of this process yield between 63% and 88% of the queens being of fine quality... these nucs are pulled in the fall and are forced to over winter without being fed, or treated and are studied all throughout winter and early spring... they are allowed to swarm naturally so that the timing can be recorded and they are left to requeen themselves with their own swarm cells so that the next queens performance can be recorded... by mid summer, they are placed into 8 frame boxes with foundation... by the end of our fall flow an average of 91% of the winter surviving nucs have drawn, filled and layed the foundation, and will continue on into the next winter in the single for further studying.

I know this may not answer much of the original question...:scratch: But I figured that maybe the results and methods of these studies would be helpful.

In all, Grafted queens are far more consistantly going to produce quality queens... in emergency queens, the more fresh the brood comb and the more plentiful the bees and food resources, the better the chances of producing quality queens will be... but as I always say, study, study, study your hives... if you are using the emergency queen process to produce a few queens, simply take the time to study each one, be strict in your selection of "keepers" and schedule your actions based on the time of year, forage availability, and drone availability.

Hope this helps!


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## Oldtimer

Grant said:


> Good discussion. Swarm cells are built down low, along the edge as other beekeepers have shared. But when a queen goes south in her quality, a supersedure cell is usually found on the face of the comb, not always along the bottom edge. Would this mean she's inferior?
> 
> Any thoughts?
> 
> Grant
> Jackson, MO


No because supersedure cells are done in a pre-prepared cell cup built on the comb. Sometimes supercedure and swarm cells can appear as if they were developed from the comb middle, that's just because the bees will sometimes do it that way, but the cell would have been enlarged and shaped before the egg was laid in it, you will sometimes find such empty cell cups in a hive.

And as an aside, the reason people say that swarm cells are built along the bottom of the frame, is really just that swarming bees build a lot more cells than superseding bees. So it's very probable in a two box brood nest that queen cells will be along the bottom of the frames of the top box, as well as scattered around the rest of the brood nest. Superseding bees often just build 2 or 3 cells, and sometimes only 1.
What's a better guide as to the bees intentions, is the number of cells, rather than the position. Having said that though, not long ago I was looking at a hive with a shaky old queen. The hive had one queen cell. Good, I thought, they will supersede her. But surprise surprise, it swarmed. So I guess all rules are made to get broken sometimes!


And RRusell, thanks for that post. It makes perfect sense that a new comb will be easier for the bees to re-work than an old one. This may explain why some peoples experience has been different than others. I guess much of mine especially in a queen rearing situation is with mature brood comb, where a new guy starting out is working with a lot of new comb.


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## David LaFerney

So if you're growing your apiary by splitting and constantly producing new comb you might be producing decent queens - because your comb is new. 

So probably worthwhile to try to cause the queen cells to be built on new comb when making splits. Like by putting a frame with a starter strip of foundation in the brood nest and splitting when it has 3 day old eggs (or day old larva?) on it - and of course making sure that the queen goes to the other split - and putting pollen and nectar next to it. 

Not quite as simple as just walking away. Still, not as technical as queen rearing either.


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## Oldtimer

Yes it's probably a trade off. 

However, while a walkaway split may seem easier, according to Roberts research some of the queens will be good, some less so. 
But the other thing is, that letting a hive requeen itself has that hive tied up for a month with no queen. If cells were raised first, then splits could be made the day before hatching, cells put in, and the splits need only be without a laying queen for 2 weeks or so.

Queens being sold though is another story. A person is paying for the queen and the performance of their hive for the next season is tied up with the quality of the queen. I would be upset in the extreme if I paid for a queen and discovered it had been reared just by making a hive queenless and letting them do it. Unless it was one of the good ones, but that would be down to luck.


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## Specialkayme

That being said, we've all purchased dud queens that were produced (supposedly) the "right way." Who's to say a queen is an emergency or a graft?


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## rrussell6870

Thats exactly right... one can produce enough queens this way to expand a small hobby operation, simply because they will have the time to select the ones that perform well... however, if you set up 20 nucs, you may have to run this system a few times in order to produce 20 good queens... Thus it would be counter productive for raising queens for resale, and if one was to use this system even to resale the few good queens that it will produce throughout the season, they would spend far more time and resources than it would take to use grafting or cut-comb methods and they would have to be very, very cautious in their selection of which queens were good enough to sell... queen buyers are counting on our queens to be of high quality and they invest much more than just the cost of the queens in good faith that the queens will be of high quality... if our queens fail, the buyers operation can be greatly hurt... I would only use this method as a way to Study or make Increases in a very small operation that has plenty of time to observe the nucs in order to truly pick the good queens.


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## rrussell6870

Specialkayme said:


> That being said, we've all purchased dud queens that were produced (supposedly) the "right way." Who's to say a queen is an emergency or a graft?


Thats complicated... on one hand the large operations that are needing to produce thousands of queens on a tight schedule can not operate using the emergency methods because grafting is MUCH faster and requires SO much less resources... leaving only smaller operations that may be able to get away with it...

But on the other hand, the larger operations have to be SO precisely run in order to maintain proper selection and drone production that will match their rapid queen production methods... if this operation is not managed perfectly, it will quickly produce thousands of "duds" that will spread across the nation... while the smaller operations are much easier to manage and have a much smaller effect on the "big picture"...

My opinion is that queen quality has been dwindling greatly for the past few decades... earlier operations (both large and small) were FULLY dependant on their queen quality... if the queens that they produced failed, they would quickly be out of business because they supplied the locals and a few commercial operations that they had long relationships with... thus if their queens were bad, their entire clientel would know find out soon, and there would be no one else to buy from them...

Today communication methods are so extreme that people can keep providing poor quality queens year after year by marketing to different groups each time...

I do not think it is any one group (small or large), but more or less a combination of mites (chemical treatments that ruin sperm in drones, as well as none treated colonies that are unable to produce enough drones to properly mate their queens), lack of information (people that hear they can make a ton of money while working at home, and just jump into it and start selling the first few years before they really learn what makes a good queen), and mis-information (mainly from companies that market gimmicks, books, and queen rearing products making it all sound TOO EASY, and thus people supplement experience with reading and "neat tricks" and in turn produce poor quality queens). I cant begin to tell you how many Dr.s know it all, but cant ever seem to make it work... At one time reputation took a long time to build and a moment to destroy, meaning that those who were able to provide a product were those that had been perfecting it for a long time (thus it was a better product)... today it seems to be the opposite, marketing takes the place of reputation and books have taken the place of trial and error (thus there is no time for actually Perfecting the product).

Hope this helps!


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## Specialkayme

I'd have to agree with you Russell.

It used to be that you buy a queen and if it was a dud, you informed the breeder. They were usually very responsive, and sent a replacement, along with an apology (of which was usually some form of "I don't know how it ended up slipping past me. We appreciate your business."). Now you buy a queen, and if she is a drone layer you tell the breeder, and they respond with a "sucks to be you" attitude. Not all of them, of course, but it seems like more and more.

A real shame, especially considering how tightly knit the beekeeping community usually is. Beekeepers are known for taking care of their own, at least for the most part.


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## rrussell6870

Specialkayme said:


> "sucks to be you"


So true... you crack me up!

:lpf::lpf::lpf:


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## lighto

Split with The Eggs, in That hive ? excepting mediocre ... or Take foundation from your best hive ? Risking rejection ? I had frames cleaned.


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## Michael Palmer

rrussell6870 said:


> Thats complicated... on one hand the large operations that are needing to produce thousands of queens on a tight schedule can not operate using the emergency methods because grafting is MUCH faster and requires SO much less resources... leaving only smaller operations that may be able to get away with it...


Well, sometimes the emergency cell isn't intentional. What about when a mating nuc rejects the cell you give them and start their own? You go to catch the mated queen on day 14-16 and find emergency cells or recently emerged virgin. What do you do?

If you leave the cells or the virgin, and catch the mated queen on the next round, aren't you catching emergency queens?


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## rrussell6870

In our operation its Smash and move on. lol. Thanks for bringing that up... its a great example of management practices making a difference... just think about how many breeders out there would mark the nuc and come back around... and from what I have read on the forums, most have a much lower acceptance rate than you or I... So this could mean that this happens on a larger scale than one would think...


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## Countryboy

I know a bee supplier that sells queens. He's been in the business several years. He says that most customers won't pay extra for good queens. They want the cheapest queen he can get for them. Something to think about...

I think one of the drawbacks to emergency queens is you can make them queenless when there is not the resources to feed the queen well. A well fed queen of questionable genetics will outperform a poorly fed queen of good genetics. How often are emergency queens fed optimally?

What is to prevent the bees from later superceding the emergency queen once conditions are more favorable to getting a better queen?

Hmm. I guess a better question might be: Does it matter to the bees if they have an emergency queen?


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## David LaFerney

Just as a dumb side question here: No matter what method is being used to produce queens - *If you want to make the very best possible queens what is the optimum time*. 

I would *guess* some time during the local spring swarm season when the weather is good and a flow is on - but that's just a guess. Timing as a factor for quality have been mentioned, but no one has said exactly when that time is.


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## Specialkayme

_>most customers won't pay extra for good queens. They want the cheapest queen he can get for them.< _

I can understand that though. If I order a $40 queen and it ends up being a dud, and the breeder doesn't back their product, I'm screwed out of $40. If I buy a $15 queen and it ends up being a dud, and the breeder doesn't back their product, I could lose out on two of those queens and still be better off than if I got screwed out of the $40 queen.

In a queen supply world where reputation means nothing, breeders push out queens as fast as they can, and their quality is often iffy, the purchaser is better off pushing for the lowest price possible then doubling the order. That way you have a better chance of getting the number of queens you actually need.

Or maybe it's just consumers being cheap in a tough economy. Who knows.


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## Redneck

First of all thanks to mr. Russell for taking his time to help so many with his expert knowledge. One thing that enters my mind about the deteriation of queen quality over the years is that it is a producers market, not a buyers. Some producers are just trying to get queens out the door. I remember the time I could pick up the phone and the queen would be shipped the next day, but now it is a five or six weeks wait. I just ordered a set of DVD,s from bee works, which were excellent quality. The queen rearing DVD stated that day four was very important to check for emergency cells and destroy any that were already capped because they would not be properly fed and would produce an inferior queen. Pkease comment on your views.


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## rrussell6870

Countryboy said:


> He says that most customers won't pay extra for good queens. They want the cheapest queen he can get for them.


This seems to happen too often... There should be no difference between a "cheap" queen and a "good" queen coming from the same operation... the price for queens should reflect the expense and effort that is put into producing them, as well as the producers past and future investments into the betterment of their products.

The reality is that we have never been able to produce more than we could sell, and I dont really think that there are any others out there that can... it truly is a producers market, so the buyer should use caution when purchasing...

If you buy from a breeder that supplies poor quality queens, you should seek a new breeder the next time... when you find a good one, give them your business and spread the word... this will mean that the US will have more quality queens heading colonies and the poor quality breeders will be forced to either better their stocks and methods or leave the industry... at the very least, you and those who take your referral will have quality colonies and be able to purchase more from the good breeder the next time... helping their business to grow.

There is nothing wrong with it not being a buyers market (it always has been), so long as the consumers choose breeders for quality over price and customer service. The issue of customer service has never really bothered me... I have purchased queens from people that were impossible to get in touch with, and when I finally did, they seemed rude, un-interested and they refused to even consider trying to nail down a date for shipping... but their queens were EXCELENT!!! 

You have to keep in mind that breeders are bee keepers just like all of the rest of us... they cant control the weather, they have kids running underfoot, they work like crazy year-round setting up equipment, taking notes, moving hives, and they know bees much better than they know people... which means that they are used to working on the bees schedule and they are not always the most business-like of folks... that doesnt mean that they dont have great bees though... and I have found that in most cases the ones that are less apt to work around my schedule are the ones that take the time to insure that each of their queens are of the highest quality.

The ones that offer queens at dirt cheap prices and promise extra early shipments are often the ones that are trying to recover from loosing so many customers due to poor quality in the first place or they are the ones that are trying to make a name for themselves and have not gained the experience that it takes to develop great queens.

Myself, I am one of those that you will be very, very lucky to get me on the phone, and if you do, you will be even more lucky to get me to shut up.  We have always supplied queens with a minimum order of 100, and by Christmas were usually sold out... rarely did we have to actually speak to a buyer, and we still have buyers that just send blank checks with a small note that says "Anything you can send"... 

So when I decided to reach out to the public market, it was a whole new ball game... Suddenly we have hundreds of envelopes and hundreds of people that have questions... I have a staff, but they are all bee keepers and entomology students, so keeping up with everyone has been a nightmare... but keeping up with the queens is second nature to us because thats who we are... Customer service may not be your breeders strong point, but producing high quality queens may be, and that is far more important in my book. 

Take the $40 and $15 queen comparison model for example... Take the value of your time, effort, bees, and equipment in account... If you make splits and order the $40 queen and its a dud, you are out more than just the $40 because you now have a split that needs a queen and you have sacrificed production from the hive that you split for this increase that may not happen... but if the $15 queens work out but are poor in production you may have sacrificed the next years income from that colony anyway, and you have produced drones from that poor stock that can mate with your good colonies queens when they swarm...

Countryboy made a good point about late superceding as well... say the $15 queen starts off great, but the bees supercede her late in fall and you lose the hive in early winter... now your back to square one and still have potentially allowed poor stock to breed into your good stock.

Always try to choose the best stock that you can, use your best judgement and select a queen breeder for quality queens... Bee keeping is all about the "long run", and thats what you have to keep in mind.

Hope this helps!


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## Michael Bush

If you think the issue is old comb (and I think that is part of it) you can just tear the walls down on some correct age larvae or make sure you have a new comb in the hive five days or so before you do your walk away split.

If you think part of the issue is resources (and I'm convinced it is), make sure you make splits from hives strong enough to feed the queen well and don't do it in a dearth.

If you think the issue is that the bees will use too old of a larvae (and I don't believe they will, or if they do they will tear it down later), then just go in the hive in four days and tear down any capped cells.

If you think it's some other issue, it would be interesting to hear as those are the only issues I've every heard brought up.


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## Specialkayme

_If you buy from a breeder that supplies poor quality queens, you should seek a new breeder the next time... when you find a good one, give them your business and spread the word...<_ 

I couldn't have said it better myself.

_>we still have buyers that just send blank checks with a small note that says "Anything you can send"... <_

I'm in the wrong business, lol.


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## Michael Palmer

David LaFerney said:


> I would *guess* some time during the local spring swarm season when the weather is good and a flow is on - but that's just a guess.


When the population of nurses is high and the best nutrition is available...and that time varies by location. If I had a choice, I would raise my queens during the main flow time when colonies were at their peak strength and pollen/nectar flows were strong.


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## Michael Palmer

rrussell6870 said:


> just think about how many breeders out there would mark the nuc and come back around... So this could mean that this happens on a larger scale than one would think...


Exactly. Smashing the E-cells is quick, but finding that virgin that just emerges takes time. Some don't figure it's worth looking...it's just another queen, right?


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## rrussell6870

Michael Palmer said:


> Exactly. Smashing the E-cells is quick, but finding that virgin that just emerges takes time. Some don't figure it's worth looking...it's just another queen, right?


Great point... One of the best policies for good breeders is to have a "zero tolerance" for any queen other than the ones that YOU provide from your cells... We inspect our nucs for eggs, cells, behavior, and of course queens at every step of the process... if there is so much as chewed or emergered cell on a comb, the queen is located and killed... if she is out mating during the inspection, the nuc is marked and we return in the late afternoon until she is located and killed... 

To allow any queen to be produced that was not grafted by the breeder takes away from the "quality control" efforts of the breeder... so anyone starting out, please remember that and make that one of your policies as well...

Mike is exactly right, and I would imagine that his example is something that happens very often in breeding programs where "staff" does most of the work and simply doesnt have the care and the knowledge that the original breeder would. And quite frankly, there are probably a lot of breeders that would not correct problems like that themselves... Choosing good breeders is key.

Thanks Mike.


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## JBJ

"Today communication methods are so extreme that people can keep providing poor quality queens year after year by marketing to different groups each time..." rrussell

I think quite the opposite, if a producers queens suck and word gets out it will spread very fast, and conversely word on superior queens spreads like wild fire. Resources like this forum and others are a phenomenal asset for the consumer to share info and learn. This is the information age after all.

"I'm also feeling a bit awkward about the whole discussion because without a properly done paper that can be referenced, it really comes down to a persons own experience and opinion." oldtimer

Did that paper ever turn up? I would like to read it if available.


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## Oldtimer

JBJ said:


> Did that paper ever turn up? I would like to read it if available.


No it didn't. We are talking about something I read decades ago, way before internet, and I cannot find it or even know if a copy exists now.

However I mentioned it because some people don't believe anything you say unless you have a paper to back it up. And I guess reading all the stuff there is on sites like this, I can understand that attitude.

But I know what my experience is over 40 years and am confident that emergency raised queens straight from a dark comb, are on average inferior. On average meaning you may still get some good ones.

While I cannot reference that article, RRussell has mentioned his own quite detailed research, which finds the same thing as me.


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## JBJ

Well there has been a lot of recent research on problems with old contaminated comb, so that makes sense to me. Bees are well adapted and have some plasticity to there behavior and can adjust to conditions very well as they arise. Over time a line of bees that could not successfully rear decent emergency queens would be at a tremendous adaptive disadvantage to a line that could and would eventually be displaced.

On a side note, many have been making claims that simply grafted queens are inferior without any data to back the claim, mostly coming from the "biodynamic" crowd.


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## Oldtimer

And can you reference that research?

Ha! Just kidding.  I do know about it.

However i think we're not quite talking about the same thing when using the term "emergency cells".

A true emergency cell, which is built by the bees when their queen is unexpectedly killed, almost never happens in nature. it just happens around clumsy beekeepers.

In nature queens are replaced by planned supersedure cells, or swarm cells, both of which happen when the old queen is still alive. These cells are normally very high quality and as they are planned, they are not "emergency". They are also raised from pre-prepared cell cups of the right size. 

So there isn't really an adaptive pressure away from bees who don't do good emergency cells. What's more likely to happen, and most beekeepers with more that a few hives would have seen this, is the bees might raise a poor quality emergency queen, and then once she is laying will be aware of her poor quality, and within a few months will replace her with a planned supersedure cell, of better quality.


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## rrussell6870

JBJ said:


> "I think quite the opposite, if a producers queens suck and word gets out it will spread very fast, and conversely word on superior queens spreads like wild fire. Resources like this forum and others are a phenomenal asset for the consumer to share info and learn. This is the information age after all.


Well there are two sides to that coin... Just as quickly as the word of poor quality queens will spread, the poor quality producers can change their market... 

Our web sales are only expected to total about 3% of our total business... There is not really a true diversity within the market, ie.. beesource users, catalog shoppers, search engine shoppers, phone book shoppers, word of mouth shoppers, association/club shoppers...etc... do not seem to mix very much... If that poor quality producer gets a bad name within one market, they seem to just switch their focus to a different market and then cycle through the multiple markets each season... then by the time they get back to the first market, there is a new crowd that does not have enough experience to know better, or sees the lower price and thinks its a "deal" when in reality, its just another way that the poor producer is using to try to keep receiving orders.

I could give you a few great examples.. but its best to just run a few searches and/or ask other bee keepers that have had experience with the producer.

I wish it were easier to filter out the bad, but the companies that do really well due to good quality end up getting the "Wal-mart" treatment from the anti-commercial crowd and those that are miss-informed enough to think that large commercial operations all blindly throw chems at their bees and never study their colonies... while at the same time, the small producer that takes the time and the effort to do everything right gets the shaft because they cant meet the timing and quantity demands of the markets...

I am hoping to do something about this by educating as many people as possible about how good large commercial operations actually operate, and by helping the small quality producers to better their marketing and production operations.

Oldtimer is right about the e-cells... once a queen is mated, there is no real chance of her being killed and putting the colony under the "emergency" stress unless it is the Bee Keeper that kills or removes her... thus there is no real chance of any natural selection that can better the quality of e-cells. We went in to depth about this subject on "some thread, some where" lol. Maybe this one... not sure... But basically we all agreed that the lower average quality of e-queens is due to the bees inability to manipulate the cell walls in older wax and the lack of nutrition afforded the larvae during developement as the bees float the larvae up in the cell to bring it to an area that they can manipulate.

If e-queens are made at the right time, the bees will just supercede the poor ones and thus produce a better quality queen... but this takes time and bee resources that most operations do not want to risk.

Hope this helps!


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## JBJ

Well Beesource alone has over 13,000 members, and there are many other forums and associations online. It has never been easier for the consumer to spread the word. The world wide web has been transformational and beekeepers can very long memories. There are a few interesting threads in the consumer reports section of this site that exemplify what can happen when things go wrong. Speaking of when things can go wrong, back to the subject at hand emergency queens....

There are times in nature when queens may naturally be lost through various forms of predation (bears, badgers, skunks,etc) so there must be at least some evolutionary pressure for bees to be able to cope with such circumstances. That being said, it is my opinion that the quality of an "emergency" queen is entirely relative to the circumstance in which that queen was reared in and timing. In conditions of abundant resources and ample healthy bees I would wager one could observe some long lived robust "emergency" queens that would rival any queen produced by another method in both qualitative and quantitative analysis. Given the opportunity, the bees will do it right and exploit the full genetic potential of the egg destined become the emergency queen, if the resources are there and the timing is good. I am thinking of a monster healthy hive in mid May with a decent flow on, plenty of stores, ample nurse bees, lots of fertile mature drones available, and great weather. If they have all the means they will get it right most of the time. The issue about bees having to rework a worker cell is not a big deal. Bees are very good at building things out of wax which is amply produced during a flow. I have seen marked emergency queens live for years and produce phenomenal crops of bees and honey. The timing and conditions have to right for it to work well. The nurse bee to queen cell ratio can very high in an emergency situation, thus producing a lavishly tended queen cell.


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## rrussell6870

Start at the very beginning of this thread... the first page alone explains and details experience as to the average quality of e-queens and the issues that create the lack of consistance. No one is saying that there is no chance of getting a good e-queen... in fact, I suggest this method for some small operations that have the time and bee resources to be selective... but e-queens are hit and miss and can cost an operation by knocking a colony back while being superceded if they do not perform well... 

Young wax works best... and timing is indeed extremely important... thats why when I suggest using e-queens for increases, it must be under extreme perfect conditions and it should be in nucs, so that the hives can keep their own queens and not hinder production as much... and if the e-queen fails, the nuc can be reunited with the colony to limit losses.

Again, they can go either way... some are just as good, others are junk... The issue is that you cant get good ones on a consistant basis, so most would rather stick to something that is consistant.

Hope this helps.


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## JBJ

I read the thread, I just happen to question the data presented to support the position that emergency queens are inferior.



lighto said:


> The inferior queens caused by using the emergency method is because the bees cannot tear down the tough cells in the old combs lined with cocoons. The result is that the bees fill the worker cells with bee milk floating the larvae out the opening of the cells, then they build a little queen cell pointing downward. The larvae cannot eat the bee milk back in the bottom of the cells with the result that they are not well fed.
> This the source : Better Queens Jay Smith 1949
> http://bushfarms.com/beesbetterqueens.htm


This reference in particular could easily be refuted. All things being equal, queen quality is driven more by genetics and the resources available. We like to graft here, however we do make some splits with emergency cells. I would wager one could produce an emergency queen that could rival a queen produced by any other method in terms of body mass, fatbody size, over all fecundity, productivity and longevity. It simply a function of knowing if the timing and resources are right. 

When I do this style of split I prefer to take the old queen in a small nuc for backup to a new location in the same yard. This way the larger unit with most of the resources and field & nurse bees are rearing the cells. The more attention the cells receive from young healthy nurse bees the bigger and better they will turn out. If something goes wrong the old queen can simply be returned to the original hive. The old queen leaves with a swarm so I like to mimic this feature of their natural life history when making a split.


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## Michael Bush

The more I raise queens the less I think genetics has to do with anything and the more I think feeding does. In other words, the quality of a queen has much more to do with how she is fed that what her genetics are. Of course I breed from my best queens, but that does not in any way insure good queens. I think you could breed from mediocre queens, make sure they are fed well and get some very good queens.


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## HVH

Marla Spivak has been saying the same for years. It gets really confusing for someone like me when I see beekeepers that think they are breeding for mite resistance, as an example, without ever addressing whether they have actually been breeding for innocuous mites. There are so many programs out there without any controls that I just usually ignore any claims and assume we are talking about unquantifiable differences that make comparisons impossible. When the differences have no metrics then a home grown, healthy, egg laying machine is just as good of a bet.


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## no1cowboy

Oldtimer said:


> A true emergency cell, which is built by the bees when their queen is unexpectedly killed, almost never happens in nature. it just happens around clumsy beekeepers.
> 
> In nature queens are replaced by planned supersedure cells, or swarm cells, both of which happen when the old queen is still alive. These cells are normally very high quality and as they are planned, they are not "emergency". They are also raised from pre-prepared cell cups of the right size.


what about the queens that are killed on mating flights? the hive would have make an E-queen if its to survive.


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## RayMarler

In a natural feral hive, and queen killed on her mating flight, perhaps by being eaten by a bird, would not have any brood young enough to make queen cells from and would be doomed to die.


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## rrussell6870

Thats exactly right. This is where natural selection comes in... The bear or skunk that attack feral hives and crush the queen during the process... would also have destroyed most of the resouces and killed a huge number of bees as well... these colonies general do not make it and thus the colonies that perfer higher safer loacations possibly with smaller entrances (as well as higher aggression levels to protect it better) will become more common...

The same is true for teh mating flights of swarm cell queens from feral colonies... if each season predation kills off a higher number of the slow flying, bright colored, large queens because they are easier targets, then the surviving queens that will make up the majority of feral stock in the area will be faster, darker, and smaller... (and that works for drones as well, because if the drones fall to predation the new queens will fail too and eventually the colonies)...

It's about the survival of what's best suited for the areas climate, avoiding predation, and locating and storing food when it is available.

Again, e-queens are not ALL bad, but its "hit and miss" and not every operation can afford to cope with the ones that "miss"... Grafting is consistant and thus more productive for both bee and keeper.


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## Velbert

I would never do a walk away split leaving them on there own to raise a Emergency Queen.
And if you think that is what you have to do, at least feed them put in lots of nurse bees and go back in 3-4 days and knock off the sealed Queen cells BECAUSE they were started from a larva that was to old to raise a quality queen and leave the smallest larva in a cell that is constructed good and fed well and just leave one cell.

Most of the time if you did do a walk away split the first queen that hatched will be, Queen (she will destroy the other queen cells) and she more than likely was started from a larva that was more that 24 hours old not near the ovaries of a good raised queen.

And when you do have a good one turn out it was probably because the split was strong the the first hatched queen went with a swarm and left you one that was a raised from a larva of the proper age (Under 24 Hours old)

In my mating nuc I will recheck after putting in cell in 4-5 days and see which turned out if i find Em Q Cells they are destroyed and another cell placed in the mating nuc.

And if one does slip by me on my catch day of the nuc no laying queen and i see evidence of a EM queen i will let her go ahead and lay (mark Nuc) and use her and place in a mini nuc that has went to the point of workers starting to lay will use the queen to get this nuc back on trace in 5-6 days of her laying, will reuse her again in the same manner in another nuc. If you were to get 90% turn out on your nuc, 10 out of a 100 some times could use a laying queen to keep workers from laying. if you were to introduce anther cell in this nuc with no queen now for 2 weeks and two more weeks go buy before another queen can have hatching eggs lots of time the workers will start laying eggs resulting in unwanted drones in the area.

You do not want the drones from laying workers to mate with your grafted raised queens (they will be Half kin) so by using this method it cuts down on these matings and keeps my mini nuc going.


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## Michael Bush

Perhaps part of the problem is that we ARE trying to quantify the unquantifiable. What we want is a system of microbes, bees, mites etc. that can live in harmony. What we breed for are artificial measurements that may or may not measure something of value.


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## JBJ

"The more I raise queens the less I think genetics has to do with anything and the more I think feeding does. In other words, the quality of a queen has much more to do with how she is fed that what her genetics are." M Bush

Couldn't agree more. Poorly reared queens from superior stock will always under-perform well reared queens from an average stock; however there is an opportunity for well reared queens from superior stock that we can all strive for.

"Again, e-queens are not ALL bad, but its "hit and miss" and not every operation can afford to cope with the ones that "miss"... Grafting is consistant and thus more productive for both bee and keeper." rrussel

I definitely agree grafting is the way to go for sure, but the hit and miss problems can be greatly reduced if one considers the timing and resources of the hive. With practice and observation there can be way more hits than misses. Again, there are definitely more efficient techniques for the beekeeper and the bees than inducing an "e-queen", I just have not seen enough science to back up some of the claims made in this thread and I am confident that as a challenge I could induce a colony to produce an e-queen to rival any. Perhaps some lines of bees are better at producing better e-queens than others, but I think it is mostly about timing and hive resources.


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## Specialkayme

JBJ, have you read, or heard of Dr. Tarpy's research on E-Queens? If you get a chance, and the opportunity, I recommend that you give it a read. Unfortunately I don't know where to find it digitally.


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## JSL

I agree with the statement that care and feeding influences the quality of queen, but feel that genetics also play an important part in the performance of queens.

There is simple formula in genetics, Genotype + Environment = Phenotype. It is roughly 50% Genotype and 50% Environmental influences that result in the performance that we as beekeepers see. Unfortunately, the large majority of beekeepers do not have the opportunity to see what genetic selection can really do. Most stocks are heavily blended and produce a wide range of offspring.

Joe


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## RayMarler

Specialkayme said:


> JBJ, have you read, or heard of Dr. Tarpy's research on E-Queens? If you get a chance, and the opportunity, I recommend that you give it a read. Unfortunately I don't know where to find it digitally.


Here is a digital PDF

http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/entomology/apiculture/PDF files/Tarpy_et.al.2000.pdf


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## HVH

JSL said:


> I agree with the statement that care and feeding influences the quality of queen, but feel that genetics also play an important part in the performance of queens.
> Joe


No doubt that genetics play a huge role, but until there are standardized ways of comparing beyond hyperbole then most of us on the purchasing end are stuck without any metrics and thus no means to choose. If I have a choice between a $17 queen and a $34 queen where both are "known" to be "good" queens then I will get the cheaper queen (maybe two at that price). If the producer had a metric that showed a characteristic that was important to me to be twice as good, then the higher price may take on some meaning. Until those metrics are available I will purchase cheaper queens. 
It really is a shame that bee biology is so far behind the times that we are still in this predicament. I'll bet we would have metrics if we were in the business of breeding drosophila.


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## JBJ

"...until there are standardized ways of comparing beyond hyperbole then most of us on the purchasing end are stuck without any metrics and thus no means to choose." HVH 

The metrics are coming. We will be publishing performance and health data this year on a regular basis. Also, now that the honeybee genome is sequenced it wont be long before genetic markers for specific traits are identified so at least the genetic side of the equation will be easier to verify.


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## JBJ

Thanks for the reference to the article special K and Ray.

While it was a fascinating article, I am still willing to play devils advocate on this one. There were several issues with the experimental design that I believe may have skewed some the results obtained. There area few quotes by the authors in the article to support my position like "...the magnitude of the current result may be inherently biased by experimental procedure." pg 100 And in the final paragraph, " Therefor the interaction between the intrinsic fighting abilities of queens and the indirect, yet largely unknown, influences of workers may regulate queen replacement in honey bees...", which I believe may allude to the issue with kin recognition. 

Also in experiment one, the cohort of younger queens did not get the same amount of time post hatching in situ for the wings and cuticle to cure. I think it would have been better to stagger the cohorts such that each group had equal time in situ post emergence before the fighting contest.

How about this for an experiment: From a very large healthy colony remove the queen. After 4 days go in and remove all queen cells and add about 6 pounds of young nurse bees, extra pollen frames and feed. On the evening of the 4th day add a frame of EGGS ONLY of a known age (all laid in the same day). These could be the "emergency" queens to compare to another production technique. I would wager morphometric and performance statistics would be very comparable, and possibly better than some could graft.

To be clear I am not arguing against grafting, it is clearly the most efficient and preferential means of production, I just have not seen convincing evidence that "e-queens" will be inherently inferior as some have implied. In fact the article did show no significant difference in ovariole number between the two study groups. "Ovariole number is considered to be a direct measurement of fecundity" p100


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## Specialkayme

But if you put in a frame of EGGS ONLY to a hive, that isn't doing an emergency queen (under typical circumstances). When you give the bees an emergency stimuli, they don't take eggs and wait for them to hatch, then turn them into queens. 

Instead, they look around the hive and find young larvae to turn into queens. They will select larvae anywhere between 12 hrs old and 36 hrs old. That is in a sense the problem. If you have a 36 hr old larvae (that was fed to be a _worker_ for 36 hours), and 10 different 12 hour old larvae (that was fed to be a worker for 12 hours), the 36 hour old larvae will emerge a day before the 12 hour old larvae *every time*.

In grafting your goal is to get the _youngest_ larvae, and get them fed an abundance of royal jelly for their entire larval stage. By contrast, in an emergency queen situation, the goal is to get the _oldest_ larvae (within a certain window) and turn it into a queen. This is almost the exact opposite goal of grafting, and you are likely to get a very different set of queens by doing so.

I'm not saying the study was perfect, but do you think the environmental designs turned the entire study on it's head? Maybe, but I don't think so.


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## rrussell6870

And I thought that I was the only one that evaluated a strains ability to produce viable e-queens to test their suitability...

Basically, certain conditions have to be met to raise the success rates of e-queens, even then, they are not consistently as productive as grafted, supercedure, or swarm queens... thus the production of e-queens is just not feasible for large operations and certainly not for resale to others... 

I think that we have gotten somewhat off subject on this thread though... the discussion was "e-queens, does it matter"... I think it does matter... sure, there are good e-queens, but there are ways to produce good queens on a more consistent basis putting the operation at less risk of loss.

So in my opinion... e-queens are ok for small operations that have the experience, time, and resources to judge their performance, replace failures, and not take major losses from those failures...


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## Specialkayme

rrussell6870 said:


> and not take major losses from those failures...


With 5 frame nuc prices hovering around $120, and queen prices around $25, to me it is a major loss when you lose a full colony (or even a smaller colony) because of a poor queen, of any kind. The question is which one are you likely to loose _less often_ on.

At those numbers, I'd have to successfully raise 5 emergency queens for each emergency queen that was a poor performer. I don't think I can ensure that I'm able to do that. Even then, you are only $5 ahead in the long run.

Hopefully you would be able to jump in before the whole colony is lost due to a poor queen, but I think the point is still there. Do you want to risk taking the loss, especially over $25? I don't. I have seen the performance of grafted, supercedure, and swarm queens in comparison to emergency queens, and the performance overall is hands down against the emergency queens. But if you aren't convinced, so be it. Consider it $25 worth of insurance to save a $120 investment (or make your own, and yes I realize not every queen that you purchase ensures the colonies healthy thrivance).


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## rrussell6870

Well said...

There are really good e-queens and there can be really poor grafted queens... but again we are not trying to measure the worth of a good e-queen vs a good grafted queen...

I guess the question that one would have to answer for themselves before deciding to create e-queens vs other types of queens would be...."can I distinguish between a good e-queen and a poor one, and can I do so in time to produce another or maybe even a few others before losing the colony"... and next is..."is the risk and effort really worth it"... most look to e-queens because they feel its simple... however, to keep from having losses, you will end up checking the colonies over and over and over again... and manipulating them to produce more queens when you find duds.... so they end up being more work...


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## Martinus

Hello friends,

This is how we do it on a regular basis;

The only way to pick the right larva age with a 4 frame walk away nuc is to use your hive tool....

You take 1 frame of honey,1frame of pollen,1frame of capped brood,1frame of just hatched larva.
Take your hive tool and scratch 2-3 pieces of comb down(2" x 1/4") till close to the 20 hour old larva.

Shake the bees of 2 more broodframes from parent hive into the nuc.

Close the nuc and move it 3 miles away and leave it alone for 25 days.

This method gives us a 80+ % succes rate of a good mated young queen!

All the best,

Martinus


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## Specialkayme

That system appears to be almost the opposite of a walk away split.

I thought the point of a walk away split was to split the hive in two, then _walk away_.

By adding a frames of brood, nectar, pollen, manipulating the cell shape, shaking in nurse bees, moving X miles away, and placing it all into a nuc essentially creates a cell builder colony. Except instead of adding grafts, you add larvae on comb.


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## Oldtimer

Yes that's what he's doing. Although the other important thing is he's scratching out part of the comb with his hive tool, allowing the bees to build a better queen cell.

I think the idea has merits and ought to be better than a standard walk away split, although I haven't tried it so can't say for sure.


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## rrussell6870

Agreed... scratching the comb can be replaced by using freshly drawn comb put into the brood chamber 2-3 days before pulling the nuc so the queen will have laid it and the eggs will be hatching during that day... The pollen, open honey, overload of bees, and comb that can be manipulated are the key factors...

I have used foundation in colonies that have "super layers" and the queen will lay the foundation while the bees are freaking our trying to build the comb at the same time... take these frames to use for e-queen nucs, and you get a really high percentage of good queens... but again, Nutrition should be the Top priority, then bees (to deliver the nutrition), then cell manipulation.

Aside from the "rare" situations, I just cant see how e-queens would be easier than grafting or forcing swarm cells.


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## Martinus

Hello friends,

Total agreement with the above statements.

It is true that the best *raised* queen comes out of a swarm cell.
what i just outlined is a method to do some quick increase in the spring and at the same time prevent swarming to a degree.

Making a nuc as described will have house(nurse)bees and also super important field bees!(imho very necessary for proper cell building)

The only way to and up with 100 good queen bees is to raise and mate 140 queens......

Best regards,

Martinus


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## Specialkayme

I know this is a little off topic, but since we are on it . . . 

By utilizing the swarming impulse, arn't you just reinforcing a strain of bee that is prone to swarming?

If I go through a hive and find a few swarm cells, I'll do my best to save them for future increase, but I always replace them later in the year. Otherwise, aren't you liable to end up with swarm prone bees after just a few generations? At that rate, the only increases you are making are from the bees in your yards that are more likely than their yard mates to swarm.


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## Michael Palmer

Specialkayme said:


> By utilizing the swarming impulse, arn't you just reinforcing a strain of bee that is prone to swarming?


I think so, but it depends how you go about it. 

All bees will swarm if the conditions are right. No one will ever come up with a bee that won't. But, some strains will have a greater propensity to swarm than others. Look at differen't races of bee. Look at Russians. But, also look within the group. Different colonies of the same strain will have varying swarm rates. By selecting breeder queens whose colonies don't swarm when other's are..given equal conditions, you get colonies that are less likely to swarm at the drop of a hat...as AI Root used to say. 

So, if you are harvesting swarm cells from colonies preparing to swarm, you will over time, select for colonies that swarm more readily.

If you set up a colony as Brother Adam did..adding 10 frames of brood to a colony with 10 frames of brood, you create a colony that will build up to swarming pitch. Raise cells in this colony from breeder queens selected for low swarming propensity, make the cell builder queenless, and you are taking advantage of two important queen rearing methods used by honey bees. The swarming impulse to grow cells properly provisioned and cared for by an over abundance of nurse bees, and the emergency cell building impulse used by bees when the colony loses their queen.


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## wdcrkapry205

Michael Palmer;615671
If you set up a colony as Brother Adam did..adding 10 frames of brood to a colony with 10 frames of brood said:


> MP, are you using this colony to start and finish cells or just finish?


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## Michael Palmer

To start and finish.


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## Quint Randle

I'm kind of slow... Could someone explain this in more detail. I can't quite picture it in my head:

"Take your hive tool and scratch 2-3 pieces of comb down(2" x 1/4") till close to the 20 hour old larva."

Quint


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## curiousgeorge

This is a bit of an aside, so feel free to ignore... but I have a question regarding the swarm impulse. It's the beekeepers aim to breed for the least amount of swarming genetics possible, which makes total sense for the obvious reason. 

But from a strictly biological/evolution standpoint, swarming is what makes bees (colony and species) reproduce and grow. Any thoughts on how essentially trying to do away with swarming (in a way) could lead to other less desirable traits/genetics? Also thinking about how swarming is a natural defense against varroa and perhaps other disease?

Obviously splitting is a way of letting the bees "swarm" while still keeping them. Just wondering what you queen breeders/raisers think of this, as far as what possible benefits there may be to a swarm-prone queen? Or is that just crazy talk?!


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## rrussell6870

Well it really comes down to definition... the intent is not to breed out swarming entirely on all strains, but rather the select from colonies that swarm only under the perfect conditions, at the right time for the climate and population, and only once per year. Some strains that we consider "commercial" we attempt to lessen that tendency to once every other year, and again the timing for the climate where they are to be used and the population of the colony are both prime factors.

You are absolutely right about over breeding for our on benefit possibly creating strains that could not fair well in a wild environment. The first and foremost goal of our selection process is "to produce excellent bees that are strong, thirty, and self sufficient". If a strain is unable to "survive and thrive", we work them out of our stock. The natural order must come first in any breeding operation.

Good question and I hope this helps.


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## Yuleluder

rrussell6870 said:


> The natural order must come first in any breeding operation.


This is very interesting as I've been talking to some local beekeeping buddies about this for a long time. Taking swarming out of bees in very similar to what breeders have done to the cow, sheep or the chicken IMO. For instance the reintroduction of the wolve has caused quite a stir for many sheep herders, because the sheep is basically walking lamb chops. It has had its natural ablilty to avoid predation bred out of it. I wonder if the early breeders would have selected for survivablity within a natural enviroment ie one with predators along with productivity would sheep herders and wolves be able to coexist. Instead ancient sheep herders probably killed off most of the predators and basically removed that selective pressure. Lions that chase gazelles usually only catch the old or sick gazelles weeding out the weak. 

So basically do we want domesticated bees or do we want bees that can take care of themselves?


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## David LaFerney

rrussell6870 - All other things being equal I would consider it a great advantage to have bees that were as unlikely to swarm as possible.


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## Yuleluder

rrussell6870 said:


> Well it really comes down to definition... the intent is not to breed out swarming entirely on all strains, but rather the select from colonies that swarm only under the perfect conditions, at the right time for the climate and population, and only once per year.


This makes the most sense to me and probably for the long term survival of bees. Humans are greedy and seem to forget about the traits that are most important to the bees survival instead selecting for only traits that are good for them. There is a certain balance we must mantain otherwise we may one day end up with bees that are like sheep or chickens. What's good for us isn't necessarily whats best for the bees or any other species for that matter. The native americans understood the delicate balance that exists in nature, maybe it's time we start to think that way too.


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## David LaFerney

Maybe you're right. Since European honey bees aren't native to North America, and they no doubt displace all kinds of indigenous pollinators out of their natural environmental niche maybe we should send them all back to the forests of Europe to live in trees. Keeping exotic species like this for profit or amusement is just greedy and disrespectful of nature. We should all be ashamed.

I kid. I'm all for sustainability and respect for nature when it's possible. The point is (In my opinion) that the genie is out of the bottle as far as living in respectful harmony with nature, we've got billions of people to feed and mortgages to pay - sadly hunting and gathering is never going to get it done again.

I'll desist - this is far off topic. Sorry.


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## curiousgeorge

I would really like to hear some of the pro queen breeders/raisers comment on the sheep-breeding comments earlier. We all know bees are at the heart of how the world around us works (pollination). It seems that, as a result, beekeepers are bearing the brunt of many agricultural, etc. systems that are starting to show their flaws (CCD, etc.). It's weird how everything is all connected, and unfortunately, I bet bees & beekeepers will be the first to suffer, before say- GM canola and large-scale corporate farms start to feel the effects of this system (maybe) breaking down. 

Maybe it's time for a new thread to not derail this one, which is about emergency queens. I would love to hear more from the obviously very experienced and knowledgeable breeders on here on their thoughts of where to head from here as far as genetics and breeding is concerned, tied back in to that sheep analogy from before.


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