# How far away do hives with drones, need to be from mating nucs?



## Matt903 (Apr 8, 2013)

I openly mate my queens, so I know getting your virgins to mate with the drones you want, is sometimes a long shot. However is there anything I can do to maximize the chance that my queens will mate with the drones I want. I have read that queens will not mate with drones from the same yard, even though they are not related. I have also read, that as long as the drone hives are fifty or so yards away from mating colonies, that they will mate. Like everything else in beekeeping, there are three different answers to one question. Thoughts? Experiences?


----------



## Colobee (May 15, 2014)

Funny, I was just reading one account where they suggested placing drone colonies a mile in every direction, if possible. Of course that depends on your particular situation - nearby neighbors that will "host" a drone colony for a couple months of breeding season? As that isn't likely in many cases, there may also be comfort in some accounts of queens mating right above apiaries.

Promoting drone production from your best hives can't hurt, and will likely improve the local gene pool although that discussion can be quite a can of worms. The chances of success are arguably higher using your very best hive to generate abundant drones, and using other "really good" hives to select breeder queens from. Alternating would seem to be a reasonable approach.

Good luck!


----------



## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

Where I live it is very very easy to identify drone congregation areas. Figure out what to look for and locate your "drone" colonies near there. 
Have not tried this yet because I'm more interested in local genetics at this time.


----------



## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Anywhere from a half mile to a mile. Normally the queen goes that far if need be. The drones do better closer to home or they return to refuel during premium mating hours, 10 AM to 2 PM, reducing your drone density per queen flight.

I agree to use premium colony drones near the mating yards, and to kill drones & drone brood from colonies with undesirable traits if such colonies are near your open-mating yard. Do this a few days before making up the mating nuc's.

I also agree that if you have identified your DCA's, place your drone colonies within a quarter mile of it, while placing your mating nuc's a half mile away in the other direction. You can place more good drone colonies near the DCA that way, and the queens have a better chance of being VERY well-mated by a greater number of excellent drones.

Also, feed your drone colonies with pollen substitute patties before and during mating season. This keeps drone numbers at a maximum.


----------



## billabell (Apr 19, 2010)

Here is an article by Larry Conner you may find useful.
http://www.wicwas.com/sites/default/files/articles/Bee_Culture/BC2006-06.pdf


----------



## Colobee (May 15, 2014)

Good timing. Thanks for the link. Very useful food for thought! It raises some interesting & practical possibilities. :thumbsup:


----------



## MTN-Bees (Jan 27, 2014)

I used Larry Conner's DHC method last year. I kept the DHC colonies in the same yard as the mating nucs and everything was good until the dearth. Then I moved the mating nucs to their own yard about two miles away and my percentage of successfully mated queens dropped a lot. It gets expensive and work intensive having DHCs surrounding your mating nucs in bear country.


----------



## Colobee (May 15, 2014)

Was that before you moved to Cali? Bears are certainly a concern for me.


----------



## MTN-Bees (Jan 27, 2014)

Yes- before moving to CA. Bears are a problem here also, so I will likely be using the same technique this year.


----------



## Colobee (May 15, 2014)

When did the "dearth" hit you last year? I haven't reared a lot of queens, but I do recall the best success was from late May to Early July. A fairly short window.


----------



## MTN-Bees (Jan 27, 2014)

If I recall it was around the end of July/ early August.


----------



## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

kilocharlie said:


> Anywhere from a half mile to a mile. Normally the queen goes that far if need be. The drones do better closer to home or they return to refuel during premium mating hours, 10 AM to 2 PM, reducing your drone density per queen flight.


Yes, that's a logical way of putting it. I think that the idea that drones typically come from afar is a misnomer. Can they? Yes. But its not an ideal scenario. My experience is more drones and closer drones=better matings.


----------



## Zadee's Beek (Dec 14, 2015)

In Dr. Connor's 2015 edition of "Queen Rearing Essentials" he writes the following on page 40, "Drone-producing colonies should be located at quarter mile intervals for several miles around the mating yard"


----------



## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

jim lyon said:


> ...I think that the idea that drones typically come from afar is a misnomer. Can they? Yes. But its not an ideal scenario. My experience is more drones and closer drones=better matings.


I think the queen will only fly as far as she needs to in order to mate.
I have my drone hives in the mating yard ( I only have one beeyard). I get great matings that way. If I don't run any drone colonies, then my queens are not as well mated and I get more queen failures. Now a days, I always run a drone colony or two in the yard whenever I have queens to mate.


----------



## crocodilu911 (Apr 17, 2015)

Matt903 said:


> I openly mate my queens, so I know getting your virgins to mate with the drones you want, is sometimes a long shot. However is there anything I can do to maximize the chance that my queens will mate with the drones I want. I have read that queens will not mate with drones from the same yard, even though they are not related. I have also read, that as long as the drone hives are fifty or so yards away from mating colonies, that they will mate. Like everything else in beekeeping, there are three different answers to one question. Thoughts? Experiences?


Matt, 

there are many studies and like with politics, people are very defensive of their own opinion. in open mating there isnothing you can do to help with that. drones will fly for miles in search of queens. usually they fly out of the hives around 10-11am the day of, and queens will leave around 12-1. drones fly to congregation areas, and wait for queens to arrive. you can place you drone hives 1 mile away, try to find congrecation areas, and it will still not work. you want control over mating, then invest in a artificial insemination kit, and do the class. if not, just let them do their thing. as always nature does not need our farming techniques and help in order to make things work. 

i grew up in a beeyard, and as a child i used to watch the bees a lot. if you have time, just go there and sit down, watch them fly in and out. when a queen flies out of the hives, there is a lot of commotion, and drones will start to follow her from her own beeyard, i mean , you can see the flight and all. but like we know she will fly towards a congregation area, and there fly in a certain pattern, and drones will follow her around and compete to mate with her. 
there is a lot to say about the bees 16 chromosomes, and there is plenty of literature on it , that will also say if she breads with her own drones, the offsprings will be ok, or whatever...there are a lot of combinations of genes possible with queens. 

i graft about half the queens, and let the other half of my nucs to make their own queen. i try to keep as much of a divers genetic pool as i can, and i reevaluate every year the hive i graft out of. i find new good queens every year, and i graft out of them too. depending how many hives you have, if you have 2 bee yards, and they are not right next to eachother, you can make nucs in yard a and move to yard B, and keep drone colonies in both yards. that could be a solution, but to me personnaly the time it takes to set up the drone colony and maintain it, to me it is not justified. 
assuming you have been working on your genetics for a few years already, you can asume all of your bees are good or above average. the queen that is not, shouldbe replaced on a case to case base., so in this case, you would not need drones from the best, since you already have a healthy mix of good. and like in all gambling, it is better to have a smaller win on a wider spread, than a big win on a small spread. the odds are better in the favour of the many.


----------



## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

There was a talk put on at the British Columbia Honey Producers Association AGM last year by one of the folks from the Ontario tech transfer team group. One of the comments in passing during that talk, within the group folks that track such details have found they get better matings with the drone mother colonies in the same yard as the mating nucs. He didn't elaborate on that, it was just one of the items I took note of while listening to the discussion.


----------



## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Of particular note in Dr. Connor's fine article is the drone math involved. Figure on 4,800 drones per filled drone comb. If it's 85% filled that would be 4,080 total drones. 

By anticipating that not all of these are the best, some won't successfully mate, some won't be ion the right place at the right time, pick a percent of that that you feel comfortable with, for discussion sake 50%. So about 2,000 viable drones per frame. 

Drone density per queen is the critical aspect. If you place 200 mating nuc's in the yard, that's only 10 drones per queen, assuming 50% viability. That's not enough. Dr. Connor says a minimum of 13 drones per queen.

That is why I like to keep more than a few drone colonies near a known DCA. Greater drone-per-virgin queen density during prime hours.

I also use a design that is the exact opposite from some that I've seen. My mating yards are spread around the known DCA, near where the drone-spiked colonies are set. That allows for a lot more quality matings than drone colonies set at random around one virgin queen mating yard. All the queens come to the DCA, where the boys are. 

A few strong and well-fed drone mother colonies, boosted with several frames of other high-quality drones, and devoid of poor-quality drones, set right near a known DCA is the open-mating factory. This also allows the mating nuc's to be better separated and their growth rate can be quite a bit better that can be accomplished with many, many mating nuc's in the middle and drone colonies spread all about. The mating nuc's are distributed over more flowers.


----------



## crocodilu911 (Apr 17, 2015)

i was placing in a beeyard of 120hives (mature hives) about 300 mating nucs (400at the most). never used drone comb or any of that, just the colonies in the regular yard. never had problems mating, always got my 85% and above mated queens out of those yards. of course some years weather plays a factor and can lower it to 75% or go up to 95%. overall , i calcualted over 5 years, a d 85%


----------



## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Croc - You may have enough bees in a small enough area that just mate where ever they can. You may have enough flower density for that. I don't. 

Our Southern California chapparal, Oak / grassland rolling hills, and pinon forrest biomes are fairly sparse. Only our creeks have the diversity, but not the density for large drops like that. Our large drops are on agriculture pollination sites. I have only one such place - combined agriculture and a riverbed, and a known DCA, but other beekeepers use it. I use it for open mating my production queens when the best bees are dropped there. I take note of the brandings on the boxes - some beekeepers keep better bees than others!

Our other nectar flow - one of our best - is a city that does not allow beekeeping. So we place all around the right neighborhoods just outside the city limits. The flowers are a huge variety of natives and imports that people plant and re-plant in their gardens, most of the year-round. Unfortunately, that is NOT a good place for a mating yard. We don't want the locals getting stung with a high-density mating area. This is stealth beekeeping, with hives hidden off trails, in pipes, in bamboo stands, etc. This does not work well for large- nor for medium-scale beekeeping, but you can feed a few good increaser colonies there, after dividing them.


----------



## canoemaker (Feb 19, 2011)

Zadee's Beek said:


> In Dr. Connor's 2015 edition of "Queen Rearing Essentials" he writes the following on page 40, "Drone-producing colonies should be located at quarter mile intervals for several miles around the mating yard"


Later in the book,page 117, he also writes that queens should fly a mile or more to DCA's to avoid possibly mating with drones from their own hive. He further states, on page 118, that drone colonies should be placed in a one-to-two mile radius around the mating yard in all directions. Referring to his quote on page 40, I take that to mean the drone colonies could all be two miles from the mating yard, but 1/4 mile from each otheri in a circle...like the numbers on a clock face, with the mating yard being at the center of it.


----------



## BadBeeKeeper (Jan 24, 2015)

kilocharlie said:


> I also agree that if you have identified your DCA's...


How does one find/identify DCAs?


----------



## billabell (Apr 19, 2010)

BadBeeKeeper said:


> How does one find/identify DCAs?


This may help. http://http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3635128/


----------



## j.kuder (Dec 5, 2010)

here is a video presentation about DCAs and I think she said she worked with Dr. Larry Conner 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cI26DLS2CyM&index=3&list=FL8IHYNK970L-Z_CaZMpj2HA


----------



## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

My drone hives were just beside, some of them just few meters away, the mating nucs and there was never any problems. Isolation mating yard, no other bees in 10km radius.


----------



## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

But it works so much better to reverse that. Drones in the middle at a *KNOWN* DCA, virgin queens in a one mile circle around that. The virgin queens will know where to go. 

Much greater drone density that way. Both will work, but this should work better.


----------



## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

The work by gerry loper (tracking dcas and flyways with radar) seems to show that in an apiary situation, the queen is likely to encounter drones and mate in the flyway and not fly all the way to DCAs.

In my opinion, you are going to have at least as much control over things by putting the drone colonies in the mating yard.


----------



## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

BadBeeKeeper said:


> How does one find/identify DCAs?


I get a group of beekeepers together for a pizza party to explain the project. I bring maps that cover every 1/2 mile of the county. I show them fishing rods, helium balloons, and a queen cage. Gotta' have a virgin queen in it, or queen pheromones on a cotton swab (I prefer a VQ). 

Usually groups of 2 people go out in a car and "fish" for DCA's, stopping every 1/2 to 3/4 mile, letting the VQ in the cage float up in the air with 2 or 3 more helium balloons than it takes to keep it off the ground. 5 minutes is usually long enough to find out if there are drones in the area. 30 to 100 feet up is about right.

Try to figure how many stops, how many people in how many cars, over how many weekends the project will take. Restrict the area searched accordingly. Hopefully there will be a few breeding zealots that log a lot of DCA fishing time.

If either person sees a "drone comet", mark the map. THAT's a DCA! A drone comet is a comet-shaped swarm of horny drones that forms near the floating queen cage.

It usually helps to pair one younger pair of eyes with an older beekeeper who knows what to look for. They usually do best if one of the two has binoculars, perhaps a pair of 7 x 50's are best. If your bee club maps out the entire county over 3 years, the most consistent sites with the strongest drone comets are open mating yards. This strategy encourages mating with feral bees as well as your drones.

There is one exception. If trying to control the genetics in an area with *DRONE-FLOODING*, USE AN AREA FARTHEST FROM THE DCA's. For this, you MUST plant many drone colonies in order to from one strong DCA with almost no drones other than the ones you placed there.

Hope this helps, good luck! Make mine mushrooms, olives, and anchovies.


----------



## COAL REAPER (Jun 24, 2014)

"Officer, I swear I AM telling you the truth. I'm fishing for horny boy bees!" ..... "No, MALE bees!!!"


----------



## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

We did have a nickname for the Virgin Queen we used...not to be repeated in public. I suppose that made the mobile fishing teams "pimp squads"?


----------



## heaflaw (Feb 26, 2007)

kilocharlie;1389443There is one exception. If trying to control the genetics in an area with [B said:


> DRONE-FLOODING[/B], USE AN AREA FARTHEST FROM THE DCA's. For this, you MUST plant many drone colonies in order to from one strong DCA with almost no drones other than the ones you placed there.
> 
> Hope this helps, good luck! Make mine mushrooms, olives, and anchovies.


What do you mean by use an area farthest from the DCA's?


----------



## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Two opposite plans here...

Simple plan #1: Just to assure lots of open-mated queens WITHOUT DRONE FLOODING, place the drone colonies near known DCA, and the mating yards about 3/4 mile away.

More complicated plan #2: If you are trying to improve your stock, seek an area FARTHEST AWAY from all the DCA's in your county. Your highly-selected drone colonies will likely be the ONLY drones in the area. THIS IS DRONE FLOODING. It is used to give some effort at semi-controlled matings. Many high-quality, well-fed drone colonies sre needed. I like to supply about 50 drones per virgin queen.

As you see, the first strategy requires locating just ONE DCA. It just gets your queens well-mated by any old drones. This is good for small operations.

The second strategy, or DRONE FLOODING strategy, requires several friends with cars and some time on their hands, is for semi-selective breeding, requires ALL the local DCA's to be found (and avoided), and requires a whole bunch of high quality drone colonies. More of a breeder's effort that just a queen rearing effort.


----------



## heaflaw (Feb 26, 2007)

For plan #1: How do you know the queen will go in the direction of the chosen DCA and not fly in another direction, get well mated with outside drones, and not go near the DCA with your drones?


----------



## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

kilocharlie said:


> Two opposite plans here...
> More complicated plan #2: If you are trying to improve your stock, seek an area FARTHEST AWAY from all the DCA's in your county. Your highly-selected drone colonies will likely be the ONLY drones in the area. THIS IS DRONE FLOODING.
> 
> The second strategy, or DRONE FLOODING strategy, requires several friends with cars and some time on their hands, is for semi-selective breeding, requires ALL the local DCA's to be found (and avoided), and requires a whole bunch of high quality drone colonies. More of a breeder's effort that just a queen rearing effort.


I might disagree, drone flooding strategy is to my mind free mating but wild huge hive number compared to other beekeepers hives. Say you have 500 hive and the guy next door has 10.

Please explain how come my drones would fly to the farthest away DCA? 

I think it is not enough just to FIND a remote place (=in your language DCA?), the most difficult thing is to ensure that there really are no other hives, wild or domesticated. Brother Adam used 6 drone hives in his mating place so it is not so huge effort. Driving you have to be prepared to do, on bad quality roads mostly.


----------



## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

Brother Adam had the advantage of a landscape that prevented feral colonies from taking up residence. This would be very difficult to achieve anywhere in the U.S. with the exception of a few islands that could be converted to isolated mating stations. It is still possible to get a high percentage of desirable matings by drone flooding, but it is not possible to totally eliminate all undesirable drones from the mating pool.


----------



## radallo (Oct 28, 2015)

Interesting thread, thanks to many for contributing.

Do any of you have evidence about the ability of queens and drones to fly over water (like big lakes or sea?)

I have heard somewhere that queens can fly overwater to get to a DCA, whlie drones do not. Any paper or evidence maybe?


----------



## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Juhani -

Drones do not fly very far. They seem to go out for an hour at most, then come to any convenient colony to rest and get fed. So, I do not want them having to fly far. That is why I put them in the middle (Both Plan#1 and Plan #2). It makes for better drone density. 

In Plan #1 (Drone Colony Supplementation), The drone colony or colonies go as close to a good DCA as I can put it, preferrably less than 1/4 mile, less is better. I'm just trying to get as many drones as possible in one area so the queens have every change to get "it" and lots of it! I'm taking advantage of both the supplemental drone colonies AND the feral drones to increase drone density during mating hours.

In Plan #2 (Drone Flooding), a remote area with no bees is exactly what we want. 12 miles or more from the nearest bee colony. Drones in the middle (perhaps along a line of trees), mating boxes in a 3/4 mile circle around it. The beekeeper has partial control of drone genetics (assuming that there WILL be some feral drones, just very few of them). He already has control of queen genetics through his queen rearing method of choice. The extensive effort locating DCA's is necessary only in areas that have many bee colonies. A remote, unpopulated valley away form cities and agriculture is usually a good bet. Check it with the DCA fishing rod anyways. No drone comets? It's a good, isolated area appropriate for drone flooding.

In either case, the ladies know where to go, my suspicion is by sense of smell, but possibly it is communicated to them in the days just before mating flights, perhaps by the drones themselves. Drones are known to visit hives with virgin queens in them, to meet virgin queens face-to-face. The boys have large, wrap-around eyes for spotting a VQ, and a sense of smell that could put a bloodhound to shame. They find each other. The ones that don't aren't ones you wanted getting mated anyways - they are likely to be poorly mated or drone layers.


----------



## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

Where I live, climate changes much by altitude. When we have a summer dearth in the valley, things are still going strong high up. Next year I will see how the bees like it in the mountains. There is also opportunity to have isolated mating yards, because there is so much area to get away from other bee operations, and feral bees are unlikely to survive the winters up there. Be interesting to compare a valley bottom (with potential ferals) vs a isolated mating situation in a TF operation.


----------

