# Queen Comparison test



## Myron Denny (Sep 27, 2009)

I would like to do a queen comparison starting in 2011. I want several different queens in several similar locations. I know there are other things that need to be included. Last year I mentioned I wanted to do this and there was several suggestions. I think there needs to be 1 queen of each breeder per location. I suggest they never be treated and when they die that the date be recorded. That honey production be recorded.

It looks to me like the only way we are going to overcome our bee losses is by a trial such as this.

Who wants to offer suggestions?

Myron Denny
Glencoe Okla USA


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## northbee (Apr 16, 2009)

I Agree that testing different stocks and identifying survivors is one of the steps to a brighter future in beekeeping. 

I believe that one should have a minimum of two colonies headed by a single breeders stock in each yard. 

No treatment is the way to go. Ultimately I believe that the only way to truly test the hardiness of a line is to subject is to a variety of conditions without "shielding" it with treatments and other manipulations. 

I believe feeding sugar and pollen to be another form of "shielding" The bees should be able to sustain themselves on high quality nutrition they gather themselves. 

Colony condititions should be monitored and recorded. wintering, buildup, production, disease/parasite infestation, die out (and reasons as can be identified). 

Lastly (for now) there are bee stocks in the wild that have survived for many years without any input from Beeks. I do swarm and colony removal and always bring these bees to a quarantine yard to test. Sometimes I find they are just form a local beekeepers hive and other times they are from feral colonies that have existed for many years. I am in the process of incorporating these genes into my yards. 

Let me know which breeders stocks you are interested in testing? 

Best, Yuuki


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

Myron Denny said:


> I think there needs to be 1 queen of each breeder per location.
> Who wants to offer suggestions?


One queen from each breeder won't really tell you much about a breeder's queens. You have to have enough daughters of the breeder's queens to give a fair sample. I could pick one queen from my stock and depending on which I chose, you would say I have the best, worst, meanest, gentlest, etc. queens you ever used. I would think you should use at least 5. Even that may not be enough. I can remember buying queens by the hundred, and selecting the 5 best to watch for possible grafting stock.


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## Myron Denny (Sep 27, 2009)

If you were doing a test would you think 10 queens of a variety for 2 different varietiys a workable number we can live with?


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## Specialkayme (Sep 4, 2005)

I would prefer to see more than 10, but beggars can't be choosers.

From a scientific point of view, I'm a little confused on what you are trying to accomplish. If your goal is to drop 10 queens in hives and watch what happens, what is going to be your dependent variable/s? What is your independent variable/s?

Dropping a queen in a hive may or may not tell you anything. One queen might flourish because of x, another one might flounder because of y. But that doesn't mean that the one that flourished would have if they were exposed to y, or that the one that floundered would have if they were exposed to x.

Determine what you are looking for first. If it's survivability to varroa mites, that's fine. But what if they get taken out by SHB? Or any other disease? Isolate what you are looking for, and treat for everything else. Once you have a winner, you can isolate something else. Looking for a 'winner' or a 'survivor' is a lost cause. You'll be at it for decades. Especially with 10 queens.

Apart from that, a double blind study would be even better. Get the queens and ask a friend to install them. Don't pay attention to what queen is going where, but make sure your buddy does. When 1/2 of them are gone (or 3 years have passed, or something like that), reveal the results.


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## Myron Denny (Sep 27, 2009)

I am working on the details, I like your suggestions and would like to see others suggestions, my e-mail address is: [email protected]


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## adamf (Jan 28, 2006)

Michael Palmer said:


> One queen from each breeder won't really tell you much about a breeder's queens. You have to have enough daughters of the breeder's queens to give a fair sample. I could pick one queen from my stock and depending on which I chose, you would say I have the best, worst, meanest, gentlest, etc. queens you ever used. I would think you should use at least 5. Even that may not be enough. I can remember buying queens by the hundred, and selecting the 5 best to watch for possible grafting stock.


Michael is dead on! Selection is a numbers game. The larger your selection pool, the greater possibility you'll have something good.

Selecting from a small population in comparison testing is like entering a swimming race wearing a three-piece suit.

Good Luck!

Adam Finkelstein
www.vpqueenbees.com


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## Myron Denny (Sep 27, 2009)

To make this really short, I want to start 5 colonies of 6 different naturally mated queen varieties, each colonies weight to be recorded in April and Sept. If they require chemicals they be eliminated from the trial. All of the starts will be in new equipment and foundation. I intend for this trial to last for a minimum of 2 years. I want this trial to be simple but still cover the info needed. It gets hot here a portion of the summer!

Anyone have suggestions as to what varieties should be considered?
Any queen breeders want to be considered?

First problem I see:
If I were a breeder and the variety I submitted came in a poor last in this trial should a ranking be posted for all the entries?

I am still hoping several of the Universities or Bee Test Stations will do this trial!

Are there any "HIP" bees left to put in as a check to see if they still work?


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## lighto (Jul 27, 2010)

You Should Read : The Art & Adventure Of Beekeeping ! By Ormond & Harry Aebi . Father & Son If You Truly read this book, your ideas may change !


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## Countryboy (Feb 15, 2009)

What varieties of open mated queens are there? Is mutt a definable variety?


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## Myron Denny (Sep 27, 2009)

Country Boy,
The simplist way I know to answer your question is for you to read Michael Bush Races of Bees in North America: http://www.bushfarms.com/beesraces.htm


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## Countryboy (Feb 15, 2009)

That doesn't answer my question. What varieties are there of openmated queens, other than mutts?

The ONLY way to have pure varieties is to instrumentally inseminate them with known drone semen from pure drones of a certain variety.

Some bees are yellower than others, and some are darker than others. How yellow does a bee have to be before it is "Italian" and how dark does a bee have to be before it is the German Black Bee? Or are the black bees Midnites? Or are they Carnis?

Even if you start out with a pure queen, if she is open mated, the workers will inherit traits from the drone fathers too. The only bees that are a copy of the queen is her drones.

See what I am getting at? Personally, I think it is a wild goose chase trying to evaluate specific varieties of bees - you are better off trying to find good bees, and leave it at that. When I find a good queen, I don't care if she is yellow, orange, brown, black, or multicolored. I have no idea what variety most of my queens are, other than calling them mutts. Some look like they have more Italian in them than others, but I would have a hard time calling them Italians.

Decide what qualities you are evaluating for, and don't worry about the other stuff like bee varieties that probably only exist in paper definitions.


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## peacekeeperapiaries (Jun 23, 2009)

Countryboy;590044.Decide what qualities you are evaluating for said:


> agreed with CB


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## Myron Denny (Sep 27, 2009)

I am agreeing with both of you, that is why I want to use open mated queens for the diversity. I want to use the known available varieties as a comparison. I want to keep them somewhat separated so robbing won't be a factor. I suggest you read: http://griffes.tripod.com/HIP1.html

Our area of the US is not known for the amount of honey we produce, we are hot in the summer. I wonder why the "HIP" program was not continued?


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## Countryboy (Feb 15, 2009)

_I want to use the known available varieties as a comparison._

Keep in mind that sister queens raised from the same queen mother, and open mated in the same beeyard will often exhibit far different performance.

How many hives are you planning on running of each 'known variety' to establish your baseline performance?

That's part of the problem when you start doing evaluations is the number of hives you need to run to determine what is 'average', since individual performances can vary so much. Even if you run 20 hive yards of each variety, before you know it you have a pile of money invested, and just running the bees is turning into a job, not to mention the work of evaluations.


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## Specialkayme (Sep 4, 2005)

I think the point, and I could be mistaken here, is that if you are going to keep 12 hives, why not keep 6 of one variety and 6 of another to find out which variety is better than the other. Not necessarily keeping 12 additional hives on top of your current load (although, again, I could be wrong here).

Sure, 12 hives isn't statistically important. 24 would be better. Heck, 200 would be better, and still might not provide you with statistically dependable numbers. But the point is you have to start somewhere. 

6 Carni queens from one breeder might be close in comparison to 6 MH from another breeder. Or the 6 Carnis might substantially outperform any 6 Italians from another producer. You don't know until you try. Myron might not be able to statistically rule out the close calls, but he may be able to get the obvious ones out of the way.

I have my doubts (heavy doubts) as to whether or not Myron will accomplish what he wants. But the point is he is trying, with the best equipment he has at his disposal. Trying is all we really can do, and trying is the first step toward success.


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## camero7 (Sep 21, 2009)

Actually I had 5 Carni queens from one breeder outperform 5 Carni queens from another breeder.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

Specialkayme said:


> 6 Carni queens from one breeder might be close in comparison to 6 MH from another breeder. Or the 6 Carnis might substantially outperform any 6 Italians from another producer.



Or 6 queens from one breeder will outperform 6 different queens from the same breeder. Yes? 

As a queen breeder, I would buy a shipment of queens from a breeder in hopes of finding a few queens to add to my breeding program. If I were to design Myron's study, I would buy many (50-100) queens from each breeder, and raise daughters from the best 5% of each line. I would then compare those daughters to each other in areas like honey production, gentleness, hygienic performance, wintering ability, etc.

I do basically the same thing when I'm choosing my breeders for the year. I don't pick any ole girl.


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## Specialkayme (Sep 4, 2005)

I wish we all had the skill and ability to raise quality queens like you, Mr. Palmer.


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## Countryboy (Feb 15, 2009)

I think we all have the ability (the bees have the skill), but we may not have mastered the technique to raise as many as Mike raises.

Mike gave some good advice on queen selection when he talked of how to get rid of tracheal mites. I believe his selection method is a very good start to a breeding program and improving your stock. 

Pick your strongest hives coming out of winter, and raise queens from those hives. Hobbyists can raise queens from these hives as simple as doing a walkaway split of the hive, and allowing the bees in the queenless half to raise their own queen.

Mike has also mentioned taking his strongest overwintered nucs, and using those nucs to fill deadouts. You keep the best quality nucs for yourself, and sell the next best to other folks.

The more queens you raise, the better the chance of finding good ones. It's a numbers game. The more really good queens you find and raise daughters from, the higher the chances of getting really good daughter queens.

Gentleness is the one selection criteria that you won't find by picking the strongest hives coming out of winter. You'll have to select that on your own. (Personally, unless they are really mean, gentleness isn't a high priority for me. I can always suit up for really productive hives that have a little attitude.)


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## Specialkayme (Sep 4, 2005)

Countryboy said:


> Hobbyists can raise queens from these hives as simple as doing a walkaway split of the hive, and allowing the bees in the queenless half to raise their own queen.


In the past I've bought queens for splits. It ends up getting expensive, and the acceptance rate is never 100%. 

This year I attempted to do all of my splits from walkaways. I'll never do it again. I started the season with 6 hives. 4 were strong enough to split, so I did walk aways. Three weeks after the walkaway splits were performed, two were queenless and two seemed to be recovering. I inserted a queen cell to one queenless one, and added a frame of brood to the other. The one that received a frame of brood eventually collapsed, and I lost it. The one with the queen cell never built up in time, and while at one point was in a deep and a medium, is now sitting in a single deep nuc, hoping to build up enough in time for winter. Of the two that appeared to be doing alright, both were superseeded later in the season. Two periods of queenlessness in a three month period doomed both hives, as both of their numbers are weak at best. 

All in all, of the 4 walkaway splits I did, one was a total failure, one a close failure, and none of them ended up building up to numbers anywhere close to what they were before the split. I harvested nothing from all of them.

I'll order queens for next season, and plan on learning queen rearing for succeeding seasons.


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## peacekeeperapiaries (Jun 23, 2009)

i rarely do walk aways, but everyonce in a while for expeidiency will do it, I do the reverse of the above operation..I give the laying queen to the new split so they have a great head start and a laying queen RIGHT NOW.. I let the stronger better supplied mother hive raise the new queen and get much better success than the new split.


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## peacekeeperapiaries (Jun 23, 2009)

In regards to the original post I see you point on the evaluation and if it interests you go for it on whatever scale you want to do your study, its not like you will be submitting your findings to the scientific community and you will be learning and hopefully producing better bees for you and others.

In our own operation we have queens from several commercial queen producers locally, regionally and even from Hawaii, our own produced queens and we also catch swarms. We evaluate all of our hives and determine based on several factor which we consider to be the best queens, those become our "breeders" and get segregated to the queen yard. Aditionally we purchased several expensive "breeder queens" from a very reputable operation. We graft ourselves rotating through our breeder hives and over the summer have cells available whenever we need them and produce them for others as they are ordered. We open mate and run a lot of drone comb again in chosen hives so we flood our area with what we think is a large selection of good genes.

I do still agree with what I think CB is trying to say....We have ordered a lot of queens from many sources. It does not matter if it was 6 or 100.... from each and every source we have recieved some great queens , some mediocre queens, and some real duds, you dont get to pick them. Its hit or miss, even in our own queen raising I would love to brag that every one we produce is a stellar queen...alas it is not so we produce a few duds too .


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## Countryboy (Feb 15, 2009)

I should add that I was referring to doing a walkaway split by the box.

I have tried putting 2 frames of brood into a nuc and letting them raise a queen during a good flow. My success is iffy...about 50/50. The ones that are able to raise a new queen, seem unable to build up enough to outgrow the nuc box by the end of summer. 3 frames of brood is a little better success, but I still end up with more losses than I prefer.

When I do a walkaway split by the box, I make sure both halves have eggs, and it is pretty much guaranteed they will make a new queen.

peacekeeper is correct - move the half with the laying queen to a new spot in the apiary, and put the queenless half where the hive originally was. That way, you have all the foragers to support the queenless half, and the half with the laying queen has a constant production of new bees. (When adding a mated queen to a split, the split with the new queen is placed in the original hive location, and the part of the hive with the original queen is moved.)

If I don't feel like looking for the queen, I just move the walkaway split to a new yard and I don't have to worry about any bees in the box trying to return home.

I would not consider trying to do a walkaway split before drones are available, and I would not do a walkaway split when there is no nectar flow.

I have good success raising queens at a hobbyist level by making a hive queenless (similar to a walkaway split) and then coming back in 10 days and using all the emergency cells they raised to put into splits. I do this more often than walkaway splits - I do this if I want several splits. I do a walkaway split if I just need to split one hive.


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## knoxjk (Sep 10, 2010)

Gosh, I'm just a beginer, I have to admit I don't know what a walkaway split is, would you be kind enough to explain? Thanks


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## northbee (Apr 16, 2009)

Its when you make a split and one half of the parent colony gets the queen and the other half is left to their own devices to raise a queen.


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## Specialkayme (Sep 4, 2005)

Countryboy said:


> make sure both halves have eggs,


I did that.



Countryboy said:


> peacekeeper is correct - move the half with the laying queen to a new spot in the apiary, and put the queenless half where the hive originally was.


I made sure I did that too.



Countryboy said:


> and it is pretty much guaranteed they will make a new queen.


Just from my experience (as well as the training I received) emergency queens by definition are of less than perfect quality. I don't doubt they will make a queen (as half of mine did) but the queens they produced were of poor quality, and ended up getting superceeded later in the season.

I read up on walk away splits, did everything I was supposed to, and still ended out worse than when I started. I'll stick to ordering queens or queen cells in the future. I wish I didn't have to, for the cost alone, but hey, personal preference.


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## Myron Denny (Sep 27, 2009)

I purchased 20 - 3# packages this spring (2010) 6 of them were below the average of the 20 in production, 4 were extremely strong, 4 have died out or absconded. The 4 that are now history were all on screened bottom boards, this may be just a coincidence or it may be significant, anyway it has my attention! These packages were Italians, they were all healthy when they were installed, they were installed in early April. There sure has been a difference in their average strength!


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## knoxjk (Sep 10, 2010)

Myron, I just posted a thread about screened bottom boards and was wondering what your thoughts were on why the hives with the screened boards failed? I had been wondering what the pros and cons were. Thanks Kevin


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## Myron Denny (Sep 27, 2009)

Three of colonies that failed were started on screened bottom boards the other three failed in July. These three queens were drone layer, they were replaced and the colonies soon died. I don't know what to think, I am sure I will not start colonies on screened bottoms. No one else seems to have had this problem. I was sure Screened bottoms were the way to go! Maybe I just got some packages that voo doo had put a hex on!


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