# queen and colony evaluation



## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Starting beekeeping I always thought a queen and her colony was an unit to be evaluated as that.

The performing of this unit , mostly their mite defense, I would have used to look for the best one to breed from. The others i would have used to multiply bee numbers to have something to introduce my better queens to.

But how can you estimate a future breeder hive with all the shifting of combs, feeding and donating brood to the weak, shifting and introducing queens all the time and so on?
It´s still a kind of mystery to me how you do it.

Take a look back, you seasoned beekeepers, and imagine how you would proceed in my situation, which is without local survivor stock.
The expansion model works not in my area where small splits don´t survive the impact of mites and robbers from treated hives. Splits have to be so strong they have enough watchers which can defend the colony.

For now it seems that I and one of our tf group have the most survivors. We already exchanged queens and nuc colonies and will continue to do so even if this means a slight instability of our bee yards.
But, the bees are struggling anyway and some good genetics around should be to their advantage.

The others want us to breed for them.
So how to do it with 17 hives among us?

And don´t say it can´t be done! We are stubborn and don´t want to hear this.

Share your thoughts with me! All civilized comments welcome.


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## Georgiabeeman (Dec 10, 2015)

I understand your position but before we get into deep conversation could you give me more details about your weather situation. How long is your warm season in a year and what is your hottest days and how cold at nights will you get in. Thanks


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## Eikel (Mar 12, 2014)

Simply stated - write it down, capture all the data you feel pertinent for analysis later. Once you can quantifiably track external conditions, production and your manipulations at the individual hive level; you'll better be able to see where you've been and might want to go. It might be more difficult to determine the key factor (s) you wish to use to define "best quality" for final product and the best analysis method to quantify that quality.


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## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

Well, you know I can't help you with the TF aspect, but maybe I can be useful on one challenge you mentioned, which is the robbing part.

I have my colonies set up so that they have a feeding shim just above the top box. This is essentially a very short box (only about 5 cm high). It is intended to provide room to contain various solid food supplements (sugar bricks and patties, etc.) It also serves as my upper entrance, with a 2.25 cm round hole on one of the short sides, in the front.

I use this piece of equipment from Betterbee: http://www.betterbee.com/feeders/shim10k.asp It's hard to see it clearly in the picture, here's a better picture of it, shown in the smaller size used for nucs, set on a polystyrene nuc box: http://www.betterbee.com/beemax-hive-equipment/shim5k.asp

It comes disassembled, but pre-drilled (which is the limit of what my poor carpentry skills can cope with). Before assembling it, I make a second hole in the other short end and plug it with an extra purchased red cap. I also use bee-proof screening on the inside of the second hole. (This is there to keep the bees from having access to the outer surface of wooden shim.)

I keep one of these shims on each my hives almost all the time, long past winter when they are more commonly used. I found that by keeping the back hole normally closed with the plug the bees do not propolize the screening. This allows me to occasionally open it and use it for a spy hole to see what's happening on the top of the frames, and specifically to the issue of robbing, what the bees inside the hive are doing to defend against that. This doubled my observation points since I could observe both the outside and the inside action.

I generally have both the upper and lower entrance protected by robber screens. (The equipment I use are these two things: Bottom area: http://www.betterbee.com/wooden-hive-kits-10-frame/rs10-robber-screen-wooden.asp and the upper entrance (in the shim) http://www.betterbee.com/nuc-boxes/nrs1-nucleus-robber-screen.asp. ) I also don't run with the bottom entrance area open from side to side; I close it up so there is just an opening about 2 to 10 cm wide, depending on the strength of the colony.

My colonies sit on a raised platform about 30 cm high and are very tall (about a further 75-90 cm). This puts the top of the hive right at eye level if I am sitting on a tall stool. Which is where I have spent many hours, sitting behind my colonies, with the plug in the back of the shim removed and my eye glued to the opening studying the inside of the upper entrance hole. (There is plenty of light coming in from the entrance.) I have learned many interesting things, but what pertains to your situation is that the larger the entrance, and the more unprotected it is, the larger number of interior guards that must be devoted to monitoring and protecting the entrance. So it is very worth while in the case of a small colony to close up the opening, and then protect it outside with a further device that foils the would-be robbers' attempts to get in.

I have also spent a lot time watching feral colonies' entrances and noticed that they are often (but not always) displaced from the actual entrance point meaning that the bees don't have a front door which opens directly into their houses. Instead they often seem to slip in behind a crossing branch or a fold of bark on the trunk. This seems to hold true when I take a piece of cardboard and tack it to the front of my hive in a way that makes a shield or curtain over the entrance point: the number of guarding bees on the inside is reduced.

All of this points to the idea that by making entrances easier to defend, and smaller, a less-organized colony would have a better chance at doing it successfully. 

So this would suggest using not only reduced entrances, but entrances protected by fairly complicated screening devices and further concealed behind a solid surface to disguise its actual position. 

It's a testament to the strength and adaptability of honey bees that they can successfully survive in the pathetically minimal boxes we give them. Where we can mimic their more natural surroundings, I think we improve their chances.

I also should point out that I don't often move frames of brood and nurse bees around among my hives. I know that works, but I think that it destabilizes the colony's organization in a major way and that it may weaken a colony's morale, leading to more vulnerability to robbing pressures. When I make splits I use Snelgrove (double-screened boards) to get them started, and even if I subsequently further sub-divide the resulting frames with queen cells into smaller units of two or three frames, I try, to the extent possible, to not mix the bees up from more than one colony. In other words I try to mimic what happens during a swarm, though on a smaller scale, of course.

My apiary is also atypical (for the US) because I keep my colonies very close together. For much of the year they are actually touching each other. I have a German friend who visited and immediately said, "Oh Nancy, it's what we call a _bienenhaus."_ My US beekeeping visitors all think I am being very foolish. 

Yet, with my good defenses (reduced entrances, protected with screens and solid curtains) I see very little robbing pressure except during periods of serious dearth, and that seems almost entirely to be bees from outside my apiary. (One summer I marked would-be robbers and they don't seem to be going home to any of my own colonies.)

I am also interested in watching my colonies for evidence of colonial behavior which seems a natural extension of their well-documented social organization. My first three colonies arrived here (swarmed to my farm) and voluntarily chose sites in the walls of my barns that were literally in the next cavity to each other despite having many other options. That caught my attention and I am still wondering why. But it is why I keep those three still close to each other, albeit now in stacks in my apiary. 

I was thinking when I read your post that if you beefed up your anti-robbing tactics to protect your nucs, as well as tried to keep bees, combs, and brood from a single colony together as much as possible, you might have more success making divisions, which is your goal - to make more of the most successful queen lines, right?

On another topic (related to a recent comment you made about not having a local feral population), I was wondering what part your local forestry practices (and the long-term history those) may play in this. About 20% of the ferals I know about near me (I haven't made the effort to find every one, so this is just a rough guess) live in structures (primarily nearly unused wooden barns from the late 19th and 20th c when horses were used for farm power, in my climate horses - unlike cattle - required double walled buildings, creating cavities between the walls, now sometimes used by unmanaged bees). The rest of the ferals live in trees, and thus forestry becomes an important factor. Unlike in Europe most wooded areas near me are not intensively managed, but mostly left alone until an owner needs some money. Then they are cut over in unplanned (and usually not well-thought out) ways. Since bees don't create their own nest sites (as for instance, woodpeckers, do) I think forestry decisions would play a large part in the density of feral honey bee populations.

You might also find it interesting to set up a way so you can watch the interior activity within your colonies. The use of a shim, with a secret spy hole like I have, makes that very easy. I can spend an entire afternoon with my eye glued to the outside of the hole. My bees seem not to notice it all. (Be sure to put the screening on the inside surface of the wood, so there would be no chance your eye could get stung.)

Enj.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Georgiabeeman said:


> I understand your position but before we get into deep conversation could you give me more details about your weather situation. How long is your warm season in a year and what is your hottest days and how cold at nights will you get in. Thanks


Winter is from November to march with moderate temperatures mostly, february is the coldest month, but im march we often have a very cold spell ( up to 20°C below zero) with much snow, mostly two weeks.
Beekeepers fear this because of bees freezing on brood combs.
This winter was an exception, almost every night we had frosty temperature and now spring is moderate.

Overall it´s very humid. Foggy often in my area in winter.

Late spring is mostly rain sometimes with flooding, but sometimes may and june are the hottest months, up to 35°C, summer is more moderate often. 

Autumn can be very long and has the nicest weather when it´s not foggy. And very good flow then.

We have no drought and if the weather allows (rain) we have flow the whole year except winter mostly from agriculture fields, which are sprayed. Good flow is fruit trees in spring. 
My bees have not much spraying in their environment.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

as usual sibylle you accurately identify the heart of the problem and ask the appropriate questions.

i'm afraid i don't have any specific suggestions for how to go about selecting which queens to graft from. i think you and the others in your group will have to continue looking to the colonies that develop the best track record over time.

it's too bad that robbing is such a problem for your starter colonies. nancy provides some good suggestions to help with that. is it possible to put the starters in isolated yards until they gain population?

you mentioned some time back that there was going to be an effort to locate and map the locations of feral colonies in your country. were no ferals found?


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

enjambres said:


> Well, you know I can't help you with the TF aspect, but maybe I can be useful on one challenge you mentioned, which is the robbing part.
> 
> It's a testament to the strength and adaptability of honey bees that they can successfully survive in the pathetically minimal boxes we give them. Where we can mimic their more natural surroundings, I think we improve their chances.
> 
> ...


Very good advise on robbing, thanks, enjambres.
Today I saw the robbing was because the cluster in one hive was too small the bees had no defense anymore, the other hive was already crashed because of queen failure and the bees I saw some days ago were likely the robbers.
In the last three years i had no robbing, my first hive robbed others though and infested their own with mites.

No chance for bees in forest or shacks, the forests are managed and have no hollows, people fear to have them in shacks. All swarms are escaped swarms from treating beekeepers, because I can get treated bees very cheap or for free I don´t need those.

For now it´s the ability to survive which is important. I would like to have a colony, or some colonies which survive one year as a split, the following winter without too much mite disease and start to get strong in spring.
Late spring to have not too much mites in late june. This would mean a kind of resistance in my area where untreated hives die the first season after being a split the year before.
Better it would be they had one more season to prove themselves. I can test this when I have more hives. 

But: without me helping them along with donations. These I could use as breeders.

The split, for sure, must have a queen, but after that should be left alone, since I´m not feeding or harvesting ( only surplus) they should be able to provide for themselves.

How should I proceed?
Should I use the hive which survive mite impact but is not a good honey harvester, or which is perhaps a little hot or swarmy? If I breed survivors which are all that, will I ever be able to propagate other traits?
Which trait to follow until I have more stock?

Thinking about that I realize it will not be a great problem for me to have swarmy bees as long as they build up again.

But there are bees which breed like crazy but have not enough stores going into winter even if they are not harvested. What´s to do with them? They breed mites, but would be good to use for nurse bees perhaps. But they will not live long enough in my area because of the mite breeding so I can´t use them the next season for splits.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

squarepeg said:


> as usual sibylle you accurately identify the heart of the problem and ask the appropriate questions.
> 
> i'm afraid i don't have any specific suggestions for how to go about selecting which queens to graft from. i think you and the others in your group will have to continue looking to the colonies that develop the best track record over time.
> 
> ...


Hi Squarepeg.
Not in the last magazine, maybe it was a fake, I will look forward to the next about the ferals.  I think I must read other forums but have no time.

I´m updating my thread, you will see it´s not the robbing which is the problem, a hive already dead can be robbed in my opinion.

The problem with selection is, we in our group, have different opinions about what to select for. 
i´m lucky two persons are with me and want to select primarily for good overwintering and mite defense and build up. they even want to do the work with monitoring.

But the others still only talk about honey and gentleness. This is ok for me if they would monitor too, but no, too much work. Treating is easier.
They imagine to find out the more resistant without monitoring!
And what happens if you do the hard bond in my area is 100% loss. So I have to convince them to treat! Oh lord. 

In my eyes and what I see is that Erik Österlund and Randy Oliver are just right in saying if you see defect wings,it´s too late.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

understood sibylle, and it's great that you are looking at everything with objectivity.

randy will be publishing his breeding recommendations for us back yard beekeepers in a few more weeks, it will be interesting to see what he has to say.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Ah I forgot to mention that the drones in our locale can´t be avoided.
But those are bred for honey and gentleness!

Maybe the mixing of genes will be an advantage since my bees have other priorities.

And: my carnis showed themselves susceptible to all kinds of impacts,
But they are are crazy honey store orientated and very gentle. Now only one carni hive left.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

I cant wait to hear what randy has to say



> But how can you estimate a future breeder hive with all the shifting of combs, feeding and donating brood to the weak, shifting and introducing queens all the time and so on?
> It´s still a kind of mystery to me how you do it.


I think that answer is in that set up you can't
You can not test for an outcome while you are manipulating the test subjects to create your desired outcome. 



> Should I use the hive which survive mite impact but is not a good honey harvester, or which is perhaps a little hot or swarmy? If I breed survivors which are all that, will I ever be able to propagate other traits?
> Which trait to follow until I have more stock?


 Given your goal of "treatment free at all costs", my advice would be to except the costs ( bit hot, swarmy, low harvest, etc) till you have built up stock and achieved your goal. Till then the only thing that matters is the bees survive, after that you change you selective pressure


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## J.Lee (Jan 19, 2014)

"Given your goal of "treatment free at all costs", my advice would be to except the costs ( bit hot, swarmy, low harvest, etc) till you have built up stock and achieved your goal. Till then the only thing that matters is the bees survive, after that you change your selective pressure." msl hit it on the head SiWolKe. As far as the robbing goes try reducing the entrance all the way down to only one bee can pass through at a time. You get a Pass at Thermopylae effect if you will. I have seen some very weak hives fight off strong ones with this approach. Good luck and I hope this helps.


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## Riverderwent (May 23, 2013)

SiWolKe said:


> Share your thoughts with me! All civilized comments welcome.


Is there anyone within say 75 km that does cutouts of feral hives? Are there bee removal services?


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

SiWolKe said:


> But how can you estimate a future breeder hive with all the shifting of combs, feeding and donating brood to the weak, shifting and introducing queens all the time and so on?
> It´s still a kind of mystery to me how you do it.


All colonies must be handled equally.

Same kind of hive material, same kind of entrances, same kind of feeders, same end weight in autumn, same amount brood frames taken out(propotionally), same kind of anti swarming measures (and if they swarm, discard), queens changed at the same date, honey taken out at the same date(for a big beekeeper, same week), evaluations made at the same date, same total amount of inspections, etc.

This is what I have been aiming at. The nearer you get it, the more accurate is your evaluation. If matings are not under control, don´t even dream of breeding results.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

msl and J.Lee
Thanks. i appreciate your comments. J.Lee i missed you, hope you are fine!
I will do as you say to prevent further robbing and reduce the entrance of the weaker hive(s).

David
The main problem is we have no ferals, so swarms and cutouts are domesticated treated bees. I can get stuff, but will have to regress those. My friends will give me some artificial swarms of their treated colonies this year. 
I will do the regression with IPM managements.

Juhani
One question: I had mating problems because of the weather. So I planned not to split all at the same time. 

The other factors are really my difficulty with evaluation. No problem are the entrances, hive materials, data, inspections...

The other parameter are done by the bees and are my evaluation data.

1. Weight in autumn: what they store, since I´m only taking surplus or not taking anything, I would like to evaluate the foraging and compare.
2. Without queen grafting, just doing the walk aways, to take out brood frames will depend on the mating success, I will need egg combs to donate. 
So, if possible I plan to raise more queens, but for that I need some strong starters. Let´s see what happens if I have a hive for that left.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

the weaker hive got this reducing:









Back to the topic.

The post of Juhani shows me that our thinking is controversial. 

He wants me to equalize all hives. This to start evaluation will be a good idea but later on I have to see how each colony decides their strategy without my helping along. 

To me the MB kind of beekeeping ( live and let live, without moving combs in my case ) is a good path combined with mite monitoring and some non-chemical IPM for the susceptibles to have bee numbers. 



> Given your goal of "treatment free at all costs", my advice would be to except the costs ( bit hot, swarmy, low harvest, etc) till you have built up stock and achieved your goal. Till then the only thing that matters is the bees survive, after that you change you selective pressure


Yes. 



> If matings are not under control, don´t even dream of breeding results.


This is the statement of a commercial queen breeder.

Depends on what results you expect.

There are some people I know who successfully do open breeding with their tf bees but they are shy and do not post in forums. 
The goal is not zero losses. Losses because of mite susceptibility are accepted if they are 30%. That´s ok to me too.

This small hobby beekeepers are very experienced beekeepers and I hope to learn their secrets this year. they are not near so I have to take a holiday to visit.

Reading the general forum I see that losses are normal to all kinds of beekeepers, tf or not. Sometimes they are more, sometimes less.


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

Just as an aside, I'm surprised at least some trees aren't allowed to get old and hollow for wildlife purposes. If I had a wood lot, it wouldn't be just about wood production.


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

SiWolKe said:


> He wants me to equalize all hives.


Treating equally is not the same as equalize.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

lharder said:


> Just as an aside, I'm surprised at least some trees aren't allowed to get old and hollow for wildlife purposes. If I had a wood lot, it wouldn't be just about wood production.


I myself own a small forest and I hope some swarm of mine will inhabit this but the beehive density ( my own) is too high maybe to be attractive for the swarm.

We have some natural habitat but bees are not tolerated if they are discovered, they are taken and treated. This area near me is very well surpervised by the Bund für Naturschutz.
Wild honeybees are not protected by law like hornets and wasps (which is a result of the honey industry lobby which wants no wild or feral drones around).


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## Nordak (Jun 17, 2016)

> beehive density ( my own) is too high maybe to be attractive for the swarm.


I've heard this stated many times, and there probably is something to that line if thinking, but I've caught the majority of my swarms (not my bees, they seem to go elsewhere) right in my own yard.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Nordak said:


> I've heard this stated many times, and there probably is something to that line if thinking, but I've caught the majority of my swarms (not my bees, they seem to go elsewhere) right in my own yard.


What swarms?


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

Nordak's point was swarms don't seem to take in to account colony density when choosing a home 

Let me preface that I know All beekeeping is local and your conditions are a mystery to me, but as an outsider looking in (an likely missing something) here are some observations



> Cutouts are domesticated treated bees


I don’t understand your of lack of ferals in what I would have thought was within the native range of bees.. That being said ALL ferals in the US are the result of escaped(at one point in time or another) domestic stock. 
it may be a poor plan to dismiss them so readily, a cutout on an over wintered colony that survived completely free of human intervention is likely at least as good a start as most of your genetic options, maybe better


> The expansion model works not in my area where small splits don´t survive the impact of mites and robbers from treated hives. Splits have to be so strong they have enough watchers which can defend the colony.


I find this inserting as a lot of miny mating nucs on the market seem to be of German origin. From that I would have assumed it was standard in your country . You might take a 2nd look at your practices and set up, I can’t imagine any amount of queens being raized without mating nucs, my guess is there is a way to protect them, if you can protect a mini, you can likely protect a split in 5 f gear


> is it possible to put the starters in isolated yards until they gain population?


this is good advice, IIRR you have gotten permission for another site you had planned to run as a hospital yard, might reconsider.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

> I don’t understand your of lack of ferals in what I would have thought was within the native range of bees.. That being said ALL ferals in the US are the result of escaped(at one point in time or another) domestic stock.
> it may be a poor plan to dismiss them so readily, a cutout on an over wintered colony that survived completely free of human intervention is likely at least as good a start as most of your genetic options, maybe better


The ferals used in US might have lived through one or two winters and one or two seasons so they are survivors. Not here. Swarms are catched directly after swarming. We live in crowded conditions and swarms which are settled are not overlooked.
You have to registrate as a swarm catcher to be allowed to cut out, I´m not, because I work a job and if I would be called I´m not able to leave work immediately.



> I find this inserting as a lot of miny mating nucs on the market seem to be of German origin. From that I would have assumed it was standard in your country . You might take a 2nd look at your practices and set up, I can’t imagine any amount of queens being raized without mating nucs, my guess is there is a way to protect them, if you can protect a mini, you can likely protect a split in 5 f gear


Yes, most beekeepers have production hives and nucs to replace deadouts, raise queens or sell them.
I myself have only nucs, no production hives, because I split every hive to have more colonies. The hives, which were nucs the year before, I splitted once so far, maybe some are splitted twice in future.
This "strong" nucs produce drones for mating and are strong enough to defend themselves against robbers of other beekeepers.



> this is good advice, IIRR you have gotten permission for another site you had planned to run as a hospital yard, might reconsider.


I already reconsidered this and plan to do the IPM in the same bee yards I have now, doing it like Erik Österlund, but not with chemicals.

I have to consider too where to mate my virgins.
The AMM beeyard has AMM drones and Buckfast drones mostly around and, I have to check this in march, could be there really are some ferals in an abandoned bee house in the forest. That would be great.
The other yard has AMM, Primoskij and Carniolan genes in the drones flying, especially the russian drones are very attractive if you can´t avoid other drones anyway.

I will use the two strongest survivors, so far it´s the elgons and one AMM without mites, to breed from with the miller method. This two hives could be strong enough to be starters in May. With many food combs in store I will be able to feed them well if bad weather comes.
The finishing I will do in the best drone area, I´ve not yet decided which.

I will have bees from a friend in bavaria who will give me two not regressed colonies, if he wants to sell the queens separately I will use this bees as nurse bees for my queen breeding project.


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

SiWolKe said:


> I myself own a small forest and I hope some swarm of mine will inhabit this but the beehive density ( my own) is too high maybe to be attractive for the swarm.
> 
> We have some natural habitat but bees are not tolerated if they are discovered, they are taken and treated. This area near me is very well surpervised by the Bund für Naturschutz.
> Wild honeybees are not protected by law like hornets and wasps (which is a result of the honey industry lobby which wants no wild or feral drones around).


This at the end seems pretty short sighted considering how things have played out in the US. Looks like some lobbying needs to be done to reestablish feral bees. They are after all part of the natural system.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

It´s all in the hands of some scientists and associations. Resistance breeding, I mean.
The moment you take part you have to leave all your own ideas behind. And it´s a full time job if you join. You have to do all the tests...do the work and others decide.

We small fanatics do it on our own and keep quiet for now. If it works longtime, we don´t know. 5 years is not much time

Every time I get the bee magazine I look for some articles about such an approach and hope for a contact to start an association of practical bee work. It´s all so autocratic though.
I would have joined mellifera e.v. but they treat. I didn´t know that when starting beeclass with them. What a surprise it was to me, keeping bees on natural comb in a natural way but to treat them.
I believe tf, I mean really tf, not soft bond, is still not attractive here. 

Maybe we could influence the clubs in future times.


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

SiWolKe said:


> It´s all in the hands of some scientists and associations. Resistance breeding, I mean.
> The moment you take part you have to leave all your own ideas behind. And it´s a full time job if you join. You have to do all the tests...do the work and others decide.
> 
> We small fanatics do it on our own and keep quiet for now. If it works longtime, we don´t know. 5 years is not much time
> ...


Probably the agriculturalists need to be pushed by the ecologists. As always a different approach almost requires a new generation to change things up. Meanwhile the ideas of establishing feral bee populations as a conservation value needs to be said. Eventually open minded younger people will take it up.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Iharder,
how would you evaluate your queen and colony if you had 5 hives left?

Would you just multiply? I think they are all survivors but two I can´t evaluate because I made one last year with only one brood comb to introduce the queen and the other was finally queen right in august and to this I donated only two brood combs to have eggs given to them , so the mites are in a reduced state now.
I would like to have 2 or 3 queens as reserve.
Maybe wait until the time comes in may and check the mites. mmh. Use the hive with less mites for queen breeding. Breed at least from two. mmh.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

SiWolKe said:


> how would you evaluate your queen and colony if you had 5 hives left?


what i might consider doing, and when the season is right for it, (good flow, drones flying, swarms issuing, ect.) is to split the queen and 3 frames of bees out of each hive, leaving the parent colony strong with and with eggs, and then after the queen cells in the parent colonies are capped split each one of those into 2 or maybe 3 nucs (depending on how strong they are) making sure each one had at least one or two queen cells. this would turn your 5 hives into 15-20 hives. i've never done this before so it's just a thought.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

I would think it fairly useless to make choices till the queen has headed a (likely full sized) colony under you management conditions for a year.
but given your situation and goles, you need numbers and genetic deveristy, I would consider figger out how to run expansion beekeeping in your area (I know you said there were issues with it...find the answers) and propagate from all overwintered stock this season

edit SP beat met 



SiWolKe said:


> But there are bees which breed like crazy but have not enough stores going into winter even if they are not harvested. What´s to do with them? They breed mites, but would be good to use for nurse bees perhaps. But they will not live long enough in my area because of the mite breeding so I can´t use them the next season for splits.


Feed/ hard IPM and put them to work, over winter nuc size to keep the amount of feed needed down and set them up as brood factory's to create resources for cell builders and nucs. This will take the pressure off the stock you want to evaluate so you can grow and keep them full sized . Treat (sugar dusting/oad) the nucs at the brood break created by cell placement to give the new queen a nice clean start so she can be evaluated properly. 

At some point you may be able to head up the brood factory's with your resistant stock as your winter losses drop , but till then I see no reason not to exploit a useful trait.

Now you start spring 2018 with a bunch of queens that have overwinter in nucs and are starting from about the same point, watch what they do in fullsized gear and manganged the same for a season, and by spring 2019 you will have a very good idea what blood lines you want to focus on. 

The only down side I see to this is you removing the constant splitting component, witch may or may not turn out to be a needed management pratice


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Squarepeg
yes, this i had in mind too and it should be the best possibility. So far all hives I made queenless built queen cells on two or three frames but I can do the miller method and cut them out.

msl,


> The only down side I see to this is you removing the constant splitting component, witch may or may not turn out to be a needed management pratice


Yes, I thought about splitting constantly every year with a swarm imitation method.
But later in future. Now I need expansion.

I have to regard a filled broodbox dadant 12 frames as a full size hive. This happens to be possible with 3 frames of brood as a split in one season.
If this colony succeeds with overwintering and does not build up too many mites until late may it may be stock to breed from.

Thanks. That discussion and help is just what I started this thread for.
Any ideas or comments or questions are still welcome.
There is so much to learn and to consider. This helps a lot.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

You can not make any sound judgement on performance of individual hives if you are moving frames of bees from one hive to another. Stop doing that, instead, make up splits at the right time in the season and strong enough so that they can build up well enough without adding to them by winter. let each hive make it or not on it's own. Impossible to judge for mite tolerance between hives if you swap frames of bees between those hives.

Choose from hives that over winter the best, use them for both queen mother hives for making daughters, and choose some also as drone mother colonies to help increase the odds of good drones in the area. Also, take steps to deny any drone brood raising in the weaker hives, so, deny drones from under performers and use drones from good performers. Use the weaker hives as resources to make up your splits from, giving them queen cells from your best queens. So, strongest get to be queen and drone mother hives, the weaker get queens pinched and used to make up splits for that year.

Over time, there will be more that are stronger each spring, and less that are weaker. Feed when necessary and do needed steps to prevent robbing. Don't feed splits until the new queen is laying. Make them up with stores from the beginning, no feeding, that way they are less prone to robbing. After queen is laying, then feed if needed.

These are thoughts I've had about your situation and goals, and is what I myself have started doing here myself. Swapping frames from strong to weak defeats my purpose of trying to find good mite resistant colonies, so I'm no longer going to be doing that here myself. Stronger splits and not too late in the year or during dearth is the way for me now. The rest of what I said above I already do, but now I'm going to also let each hive make it or not on it's own, no equalizing.

Hoping for good luck with the goals for you and me both going forward.


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

SiWolKe said:


> Iharder,
> how would you evaluate your queen and colony if you had 5 hives left?
> 
> Would you just multiply? I think they are all survivors but two I can´t evaluate because I made one last year with only one brood comb to introduce the queen and the other was finally queen right in august and to this I donated only two brood combs to have eggs given to them , so the mites are in a reduced state now.
> ...


My uninformed take is that survival should form the basis of selection near the beginning. 

So, if they built reasonably this year, I would take queens from all of them. But at the same time I would do some sampling for VSH, hygienic behavior, and mite biting. This is not for the purpose of choosing queen sources, but rather to see what traits are in your population. You can then target missing traits by bringing in queens with them. 

The trouble with focusing just on the mites related traits, is that resistance to different viruses may be just as important. My best, longest lived colony was mediocre at hygienic behavior when tested. Why? I don't know. But its an example of needing to be careful about excluding things that shouldn't be excluded. 

Later on in the process, once you have a base of survivors, you can start adding selection criteria. For instance my second year, I selected from 1 winter survivors. The second I selected from some 2 winter survivors and the best 1 winter survivors. Depending on what happens the next few weeks, I'll be selecting mostly from 2 year survivors this year. And so it will go on.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Very good advise Iharder.
Ray, this I will consider after having more hives.
Luck to you, we will make it!

Chatting via pm with a member of my forum yesterday it came to me how my kind of splitting was done to the disadvantage of the colony.

Our topic was the chilled brood and how to avoid this.

He is tf but does some IPM. He said, what influences the health in our area the most is the chilled brood after splitting if the density of bees suddenly is less. This correlates with what Randy Oliver says about open floors and open entrances and the shiftings of top and bottom boxes.

Open floors are used by everyone here but I stopped this last year because of MB advise with keeping up climate inside the hive.
It had no influence to the brood brakes the bees made I realized. He is right. They made a brake with closed floors.
People here claim it forces brood brakes, but no.

Chilling would be prevented by changing splitting managements and reducing the space of the splits hive to a minimum.
Chilling may not kill brood but my friend says it´s the main factor to support a sudden increase of mite breeding.
Sounds logical if you know that mites like colder cells to go to.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Nordak,
if you are following..this may be interesting to you...

my friend uses warré, tbh, and deutsch normal ( like langstroth)
He claims the mites are better kept at bay in warré and tbh. Hotter brood nests.


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

SiWolKe said:


> Very good advise Iharder.
> Ray, this I will consider after having more hives.
> Luck to you, we will make it!
> 
> ...


And it could be that they are working so hard to keep things warm, other tasks are neglected. Consideration of thermodynamics is important. I find extra bees in spring beneficial for spring nucs. Also bringing in bees/brood from other yards, as the foragers stay with the new nucs instead of flying home. Placing queen cells in the middle of the brood nest so it stays warm is also important especially in the spring. Cells on the periphery of the frame should be cut out and placed in a better location. Just a few heat related things I've learned the last few years.


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## Hunajavelho (Oct 11, 2015)

SiWolKe said:


> my friend uses warré, tbh, and deutsch normal ( like langstroth)
> He claims the mites are better kept at bay in warré and tbh. Hotter brood nests.


I have warre, tbh and langstroth.

It is not about the hive, it is about adjusting the size of the hive to the strength of the colony and brood nest.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

That´s what he meant, sorry to confuse you.
I think he spoke about the managements people do with this kind of hives. He is very experienced.

Hunajavelho, do you put the second box on top with your lang or under?


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## Hunajavelho (Oct 11, 2015)

SiWolKe said:


> Hunajavelho, do you put the second box on top with your lang or under?


under.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Hunajavelho said:


> under.


:thumbsup:


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

SiWolKe said:


> I have to regard a filled broodbox dadant 12 frames as a full size hive. This happens to be possible with 3 frames of brood as a split in one season


I was chewing on this last night, as your splits growth seemed slow to me. it seemed it might be a thermodynamic issue… 
what is you nuc size ?
I was thinking if you were going to buck local convention on treatments, maybe you needed to go against the grain on local hive design as well…. 
However it seems you are putting those pieces together as well 

The smaller brood nests/hive volume of the Warre and KTBH hives maybe what is creating the advantage in dealing with the mites, as suggested by Thomas Seeley’s work.

Sam comforts twist on the warre seems like a good mateing nuc/expansion model
http://www.beeculture.com/sam-comfort/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tN90jDml44

Each box is = to ruffly 4 Lang deeps, stack 3 up and you have a “palmer” sized brood factory..


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Thanks for your empathy msl.

Local hives here are Zander. One Zander deep is half Dadant 12 frames. You are not able to use one brood box, two are the minimum even with a split.
I wanted to have one brood box like in bee class. 
So my equipment are many Dadant deep but 12 frames ( to prevent early swarming) and now, because I realized two deeps are too much space, I purchased shallows ( for honey stores)
I followed once the advise of having only same size of frames to exchange but in my locale this works only with smaller boxes.

I will use my equipment. Using dividers I am able to reduce number of combs and the space. I´m not changing because my money is spend.
The space of one Dadant modified is just what T. Seeley thought effective.
i purchased some boxes for dadant frames which are 5 frames. I will try them with very small entrances.

i think that closed floors and small entrances will make it. To monitor mites i will need the floor boards to see when I have to use a shaker or open brood cells to evaluate the situation. 

The main problem, my believe is, will be the changes in temperature of weather. Our weather is very unpredictable. Hot, but it can be very cold suddenly in summer. I have to watch the bee density too.
Winter time could mean no brood break (2015/16) or long brood brake ( 2017), but i see the mites outbred the bees last fall, so the brood brakes are in vain later on.

Many beekeepers see only a cycle of one season. in my area the two season cycles must be watched.
Broodbreak in winter: bigger hives or production hives are possible 
No break: watch out! Danger!

tf-beekeeping is an art. I have yet to become an artist. I do my best but need more time.
the environmental circumstances are so difficult to estimate they are my priority just now. Queen breeding comes later but some surplus queens I will do. if the splits are to small i will combine with the best queens.
i claim to have enough experience now to evaluate a queen by her brood cells. 
And I want to have entrance defense. Wasps marching in without hindrance...no good queen to me.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

it seems in trying to edit my post for clean reading, I edited my point away...inch:

My intent was less about changing equipment, you have made that investment no reason to change that...
but It was more about taking a look at a cheap way you could mate and more importantly easily store and maintain a few extra queens for when your full size hives need them. 
Not every colony is destined to grow up to a production hive, they have other uses, not every box style is meant to either.



BernhardHeuvel said:


> Most professionals in Germany use the MiniPlus system. I stick to my Warré hives *snip*
> Better wintering, rapid Spring buildup and you can split them like mad to make new mating units. Wintered on two stories, split into half leaving eight combs for each unit. Later you take four combs out of eight to go into a new mating nuc.


Seems like a tool you could use, not to replace your Dadants , to support them


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

I can make queen castles out of my boxes, no problem.

I want to keep the idea of combs to be able to be exchanged as much as possible. 

Finally, I don´t believe it is possible to have production hives and mating nucs parallel here. The production hives would not survive without treatments.

So in the end my goal is to have "splits" as colonies which live on one deep dadant. The breeding of some queens is just an insurance if some are lost.

Going back to the topic , the problem is, a mini plus or nuc I cannot evaluate, the bees in this state are just interested in building up and I don´t know how they will defend. The mite problem will come later.

But if I make splits with 2 or 3 dadant brood combs they will develop into a stronger colony in one season and I will be able to see if they do VSH or not. A criteria also would be the raising of drones the whole year since this takes away some mite impact. This traits should be present in my survivors, if I have any, and i don´t want to loose this.
And I will not expand again without any evaluation at all.

My friend, who breeds queens in apidae and mini plus says you are not able to evaluate the queen until she is introduced into a nuc and the colony develops.
I have one queen from him and if she survives, she still lives now, I will see how she does this season. No traits to be seen so far except surviving.


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

You are right, a nuc can't bee properly evaluated its first year. But that is not its purpose. Rather to increase the number of bees so you have something to evaluate the following year. Its just a numbers game. 

I look at it as a progression of evaluations for my hives. Being able to build for the winter, surviving its first winter with a decent cluster, building and producing honey the second summer, surviving a 2nd winter with a decent cluster. Other observations are in support to help explain why some hives are successful and others are not.


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

SiWolKe said:


> For now it seems that I and one of our tf group have the most survivors. We already exchanged queens and nuc colonies and will continue to do so even if this means a slight instability of our bee yards.
> But, the bees are struggling anyway and some good genetics around should be to their advantage.
> 
> The others want us to breed for them.
> ...


The theory of TF requiring a mixture of bee genes, mite genes, and bee gut genes makes sense to me. So how to breed for others without the resources to do it? 

Place an empty comb of your needed size in the brood nest, Better, a blocked out frame with only a small comb area possible. Wait until you have soft comb, some capped, eggs and nursing bees. Those who want your queens can place that frame with nurse bees, and only that frame, in their hive existing location after moving their existing hive.

You suffer minimal resource loss and move more of your entire hive ecology. Their hive has older guard bee stock and incoming feed to raise queens. They might even get more honey under the cut down split theory. They will get plenty of good queen cells and they do not have to graft or dedicate bees to Queen rearing. 

The greatest initial benefit may be in getting more local people started working for TF.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Hi Saltybee,
not a bad idea. But my mating conditions are much better than theirs so I will mate the queens at one of my yards and give them mated queens to introduce into their hives. 
But this is future since I first have to get on my feet again with hive numbers.

Working with co-workers I`m already doing, in my area and with my forum.
Joining bee club I will do when I´m more experienced and my only setbacks will be because of mites. This I accept but not my own mistakes.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Reading on Beesource about spring managements I realize that the main discussion is about how to influence the swarming habits of bees.

Funny, since reading about queen breeding beekeepers tried to breed non swarming bees so I believe the bees laugh about that and still do what they did for millions of years if the circumstances are right, namely to swarm!

So why not to integrate this behavior into one´s methods and imitate this , except of preventing this?

Since my queenless strong splits having a brood break collected the most honey up to 40kg in one hive am I naive to think this could not be possible in a hobbyist bee yard?


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

SiWolKe,
Spreading extra QC's around earlier than you could supply mated queens is as much about future drone supply for their daughters as the immediate introduction. Kind of an advance guard.


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