# Late season queen rearing for better genetics



## Newbeek2021 (May 13, 2021)

I know next to nothing about queen rearing but it interests me & i have a question. If you were to graph in the late season when the queen is laying winter worker eggs and you grafted from those eggs would it yield a better queen?


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## ifixoldhouses (Feb 27, 2019)

No, the egg is no different from Spring egg the winter worker lives longer because it gets to keep all its fat reserves due to no brood being reared.


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

If you graft late in the season when winter bees are being raised you will get poorly mated queens as most colonies have evicted the drones by the time those queens are ready to mate.


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## Newbeek2021 (May 13, 2021)

Gotcha gotcha. Thanks!


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## Gray Goose (Sep 4, 2018)

Newbeek
I do the opposite, I want the early Queens.
By fall every package and NUC, in the area, has mature drones and you may mate with many non-local bees from who knows about winter survivability.
My spring splits (dandelion time) Have the surviving colonies who have drones which tend to be overwintered local survivors. I try to get mated before the influx of "purchased" bees get drones out the door.

Not sure the eggs matter, what differs from spring egg to fall egg of the same Queen?

GG


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

I _try_ to keep a handful of earliest mated queens around for selection the following spring as breeders. Because right now everyone and their three month old packages is issuing thousands of drones to DCAs. 
I don't keep great track of this, but I do not graft from nucs (because nucs are queens that I combined down from my latest batch of mated queens, which in theory have the most package genetic potential). 

Regarding timing, there's an idea (or maybe it's proven somehow) that post solstice queens lay better. I guess that might be true, but I don't worry too much about it. 

From a genetics standpoint the queen random contribution doesn't change from egg 1 to 1,000,000 and the drone sperm contribution also does not change (other than being a single sperm sample from her spermatheca). So it's not like she knows "oh, this one drone I mated with makes the best workers for winters, I'll start laying eggs fertilized with his sperm now." There's obviously genetic variability, but the genetic side is not seasonal whatsoever.

As stated above, I try to focus on queen rearing as early as I can here specifically to avoid the pollution of the pool by package bees. I'm not as crazy as some on here. I remember at least one person who was shaking their packages through queen excluders in order to kill off any drones that came in with the packages that might contribute to their early mated queens. That's bananas to me, but... _shrug_ I think once you get into this for a few years you kind of figure out what a good colony is vs a bad colony and it kind of unfolds for you.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

jwcarlson said:


> As stated above, I try to focus on queen rearing as early as I can here specifically to avoid the pollution of the pool by package bees.....


I will argue that the earliest drones ARE those from the packages (because they come WITH the packages - already pre-packeged; no need to raise them).
At my location the local drones are always 1-2 month behind and you do want to mate rather later than earilier.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

GregV said:


> I will argue that the earliest drones ARE those from the packages (because they come WITH the packages - already pre-packeged; no need to raise them).
> At my location the local drones are always 1-2 month behind and you do want to mate rather later than earilier.


I could see that being an issue regionally. Here, if the weather cooperates, I can get the first round mated before people even get their packages. But it's always close. This year was terrible in that regard.

That said, my overwintered colonies have 2+ foundationless frames in them, so they should issue a lot more drones than would make it here in a package, typically.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

jwcarlson said:


> I could see that being an issue regionally.


Yes; somehow in my locality the spring is always late and cold (relative closeness to the Lake Michigan maybe part of it).


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## Gray Goose (Sep 4, 2018)

GregV said:


> I will argue that the earliest drones ARE those from the packages (because they come WITH the packages - already pre-packeged; no need to raise them).
> At my location the local drones are always 1-2 month behind and you do want to mate rather later than earilier.


disagree
sure if you mate too early, if you watch your drones and mate when they are present all the rest of the overwintered hives will also be at that point and it is the best.
some of my queens were laying before the package orders showed.
And the math, I will have 20 ish 2 to 3 deep hives and in a 5 mile circle maybe there will be 5 packages, so I have them 20 to 1 at the start, now later when they have brood hatching, it changes, and it changes different with NUCs, and it changes when orchards have bees shipped in.

Just like looking for bloom One should look for hives coming and going.

I do not force the first split until 1 hive has swarm cells, this year was late but I still had good luck 16 of 18 splits have good laying queens, 1/2 are big enough to only have "wintering" left as a checkbox for next years splits.

if you would have forced queens to soon for local drones then you would be correct.
No one I know raises queens too soon over here. Do they over by you? If one is going to raise queens one quickly figures out the DCA is their friend , or not, depending, on which week it is.
IMO the norm is people raising queen know that, and have it in the plan.

GG


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Gray Goose said:


> disagree
> sure if you mate too early, if you watch your drones and mate when they are present all the rest of the overwintered hives will also be at that point and it is the best.
> some of my queens were laying before the package orders showed.
> ...........
> ...


In my local group someone always start asking about the drone situation in spring (for splitting/mating/etc).
One of the local bee sellers usually reports his drone status (usually the same guy).
This is our local reference point.

So now, 2-3 years ago (I wrote on BS) I had some "crazy" bees and those successfully re-queened in mid-April.
The ONLY way that was possible by the freshly delivered package drones, as it was just way to early for us here.
I have this very specific case that happened to me.

It is very common around here the first packages are arriving in April and they often contain drones.
Our local drones never ready until sometimes in May (or even later).

So, here it is.
I searched my gmail and here is a local exchange from March/April/May 2019:



> Question for you guys....
> 
> A promising overwintered swarm went queen-less recently (I found capped brood; lots of emergency QCs).
> I'd like to keep this swarm line in observation still, since it overwintered so well the brutal winter (despite the visible mites too).
> ...


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

GregV said:


> So now, 2-3 years ago (I wrote on BS) I had some "crazy" bees and those successfully re-queened in mid-April.
> The ONLY way that was possible by the freshly delivered package drones, as it was just way to early for us here.
> I have this very specific case that happened to me.


I'm not trying to start an argument. I'm Zone 5B or maybe 5A. I'm not sure what zone you're in... and yes, it varies regionally as well as year-to-year. But as long as there's flight weather Mid-April here, I wouldn't be worried about a queen being mated with LOCAL drones at all. My big, overwintered triple-deep colonies have drones going in February on good years. And have purple eye pupae by early-April I would say "always".

I don't believe that the "ONLY" way you got a queen mated was with package drones. 
But what do I know?

I graft on the Wednesday or Thursday nearest April 15th. And there's more than one or two years in the five years I've been doing that in which I would have been better off grafting April 1st because of how the weather in late-April worked out. I genuinely think that mating flight weather, not local drone availability, is the constraint for me in this area.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

jwcarlson said:


> I'm not trying to start an argument.


No need. Let's keep it local.

I will say though I will be surprised (and probably uninformed) about how early some bees my actually start drone rearing.
This sounds out of tune with the local climate however (as of me).
But the influence of the imported bees is a fact (no argument there).

Below are my local historical graphs for April 2019-2021 around here.
Flying weather is hardly available here even IF any drones are available.

If some bees are pumping drones for April mating, these bees are utterly out of tune with my local climate.
But I will concede, if southern packages are sold, many of these packages will, indeed, over-winter and pump their drones as they see fit.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Trying to re-post my local April weather.
Weather suitable for mating - 0-3 day for the entire month.
2021 - April 25, 26, 27 (otherwise way too early).
2020 - virtually none (April 7 too early)
2019 - April 20, 21, 22 (the only window when my 2019 queen was able to mate)


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

GregV said:


> No need. Let's keep it local.
> 
> I will say though I will be surprised (and probably uninformed) about how early some bees my actually start drone rearing.
> This sounds out of tune with the local climate however (as of me).
> ...


You're definitely a little cooler than we are here, but not a whole lot (a couple degrees maybe, and I acknowledge that does make a big difference early in the year). The drones this year early-season were flying in numbers that were totally remarkable and in cooler weather than I have ever noticed before. 60-65 degrees and it wasn't just a couple of them... it was tons of them. Just looked through my phone, April 17th, high of 61 here. Mostly sunny. Drones obviously making mating flights, gobs of them and not just one colony.

I haven't bought 'commercial' bees in eight years, just been breeding from swarms I caught and the survivors of whatever mix I've been lucky enough to get through with. I've brought in some queens from Michael Palmer a few years ago. And this year I just dropped in five Caucasian queens from Old Sol a few days ago. I don't know... just to give you a basis of what "my bees" are. They're not southern packages that survived the winter... I got rid of all of those years ago. I don't know what you winter in, and it doesn't really matter... but bees in a triple deep come out of winter vastly different than those in doubles or nucs. Maybe I'm selecting for early drones somehow? I mean, I'm not going to graft from a colony that isn't strong enough to be producing drones for April, because in my opinion that's not a strong colony in my experience. Or maybe a better way to say it is that I don't believe it's producing to it's full potential. Queens that I overwinter in nucs, I think, would also have early drones if given the space and winter cluster size to come through strong enough to do so.

It isn't uncommon at all to have swarm cells that I need to cut out in April, at least a couple of weeks before package bees start becoming available here. I'm usually reversing in March and when I do so there might still be snow on the ground. Good colonies/queens might have 8 (more?) frames of brood when supers go on a week or two after reversing unless weather is absolutely terrible (and sometimes it is). A triple deep might get 4-5 medium supers in early April. And I've never had starvation issues in production colonies in the spring. Usually I'm shuffling honey from them to give them space and to help keep nucs well fed.

I know some of that goes against conventional wisdom, but I'm not the only one keeping bees like this. I know he is kind of an abrasive fella, and he got ran out of here years ago (probably deservingly slow... he isn't particularly tactful), but Tim Ives does this same type of management (in Indiana) and he is treatment free. I'm not TF. There's a guy up in Saskatchewan name Rick... something, I can't remember. He's got bees in well insulated hives that put mine to shame and he's WAY up there.

Again, I'm not trying to be argumentative though I know it might sound that way. There's a lot of people who keep bees here locally who swear that our flows start in late-June or early-July, but my 100+ pound averages pulled before July 4th most years would beg to differ. It's all done by then, usually, as far as surplus goes. But there's usually enough trickle that I don't have to feed in the late summer/fall. Other than sometimes feeding nucs, I haven't fed bees for winter weight in 3 or 4 years. And I haven't fed nucs for a couple of years. They just don't have the colonies coming through winter that can capitalize on what I consider to be the "real" flows.
Again... it's all really local and (in my opinion) can also be tied to management practices. And I fully admit that colonies like this can absolutely SUCK to deal with because it's heavy and they're a headache to stay on top of... And depending on our individual goals/management we are likely to see entirely different things.

Just challenging the idea that queens mated in April are necessarily mating largely with package drones. 

Edit to add that I am not disagreeing that there's not great weather in April for mating at all. It's totally hit and miss. I don't aim to have queens mating until first week of May as long as the forecast looks good. And the rule of earliest graft being when you have purple-eye drone pupae would put me earlier than my mid-April graft date by at least a week, maybe more. But that's just going by drone availability... if they can't fly, that's all useless, obviously.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

jwcarlson said:


> .........
> 
> Just challenging the idea that queens mated in April are necessarily mating largely with package drones.


OK.
I should adjust my view on this one.
There is plenty of over-wintered package bees.
This is just a good demonstration how hard to select bees locally adapted - they are continuously over-ridden by the imports.

Better bees for me would be those targeting the drones for May/June (for more reliable mating).
I am not in bee-selling business to push anything up.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

GregV said:


> OK.
> I should adjust my view on this one.
> There is plenty of over-wintered package bees.
> This is just a good demonstration how hard to select bees locally adapted - they are continuously over-ridden by the imports.
> Better bees for me would be those targeting the drones for May/June.


I don't think I'm following you. Are you saying that my bees are over wintered package bees?

I don't disagree that battling the imported bees is a constant battle. But I can't wrap my head around the idea that mating bees later, when new packages will have full drone populations flying to DCAs, is better than mating them here before people are even shaking packages in. Like Grey Goose said, I've got a MUCH larger proportion of the drone population controlled in late-April into May than I do in June/July... by that time all of the packages have nice fresh drone populations AND the weather to fly in. When I'm getting virgins mating late-April (really early May, but late-April ballpark). I'm selecting not only for LOCAL drones because of the timing, but I am also using the weather to select for drones that are flying in larger numbers at cooler temperatures. If I'm not mating queens until it's sunny and 80 degrees consistently... then I'm also piggy backing all of the new packages in on that party. Which is what I'm trying to avoid for queens I want to try to graft from the following year (or two years). 

Or maybe I'm just not following your thought process entirely. If that's the case, I apologize. 

I fully realize that trying to avoid mating with certain drones is a total losing battle. That's why the queens I raise from June into August are basically just "production queens" in my eyes. My early mated queens are what I focus on in the subsequent years as they're likely to have mated with a higher percentage of local drones (using weather and time of year to select against fresh package drones as best I can). _shrug_ That's why I give away queen cells to people locally and try to work with them when they need queens as best I can. Just trying to move the needle a tiny bit every year while also understanding that I'm a small fish in a big ocean!


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

jwcarlson said:


> I don't think I'm following you. Are you saying that my bees are over wintered package bees?


Only few generations back, if that.
Most random swarms are nothing more but current/recent package bees as well.
If you are based on swarms - pretty much you run package bees.

Unless you are in Appalachia/South (where feral bees are present), here in Mid-West we are running mostly imported package bees.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

GregV said:


> Only few generations back, if that.
> Most random swarms are nothing more but current/recent package bees as well.
> If you are based on swarms - pretty much you run package bees.
> 
> Unless you are in Appalachia/South (where feral bees are present), here in Mid-West we are running mostly imported package bees.


Ok, yeah, I wouldn't disagree with that at all. But I haven't caught swarms (that aren't from my colonies and even then, only two including one last night) in six years and have only been breeding from my survivors or in the case one one summer, from a queen I bought from MP the year before. The swarms I did catch years ago were at least from 'feral' colonies to the best of my knowledge. Meaning I caught them within a stones throw of a colony living in a tree, or a colony living in a church wall, or something like that. And some of them were absolutely terrible bees. haha

All that said... we're all just raising some variant of commercial bees. They dominate the genetic landscape in the US. I think about the best that most anyone at my size (<50 colonies) can do is kind of pick out what works best for them and their style as I do not for a second think that my queen crop of less than 100 a year is doing anything to really influence the overall shape of bees in the area. And without truly isolated mating or instrumental insemination there's no real hope, I don't think. This year I did pick up a yard about four miles down the road from my main yard, plopped a couple production colonies there. My mating nucs are in my main yard and this year I've had vastly improved mating returns. Remarkably so. Now... I've got know idea if that's related. But will be interesting to see if that continues in the next few years. If that's the case, then I might have a mental case for deluding myself into thinking that I could somewhat control crosses by further flooding the outyard (or moving my mating nucs there). And who doesn't like a little delusion? 😂

I'm under no illusion that I've got something special, just that I've got something that works (for me)


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Pretty much every time I had "worthy" bees (from the TF prospective), these were "late" bees.
This includes my current survivor line - they are running about a month later vs. most all the bees around.
I never understood people around me talking "drones" - it was way, way too early for me.

And so, IF one wants to mate with the survivor-style drones at my place, you want to mate late (June/July).

Anyway, I am adjusting my ways trying to preserve the bees that seem to fit better from the seasonal point of view.
Wasted too many good bees asking them to be everything (including TF) - just no possible at my place.
Looking back is painful that way.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

There are those who believe that queens raised after the solstice are superior to queens raised at other times. Mel Disselkon comes to mind along with G.M. Doolittle.


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## Gray Goose (Sep 4, 2018)

snip from jwc post 19
I don't disagree that battling the imported bees is a constant battle. But I can't wrap my head around the idea that mating bees later, when new packages will have full drone populations flying to DCAs, is better than mating them here before people are even shaking packages in. Like Grey Goose said, I've got a MUCH larger proportion of the drone population controlled in late-April into May than I do in June/July... by that time all of the packages have nice fresh drone populations AND the weather to fly in. When I'm getting virgins mating late-April (really early May, but late-April ballpark). I'm selecting not only for LOCAL drones because of the timing, but I am also using the weather to select for drones that are flying in larger numbers at cooler temperatures. If I'm not mating queens until it's sunny and 80 degrees consistently... then I'm also piggy backing all of the new packages in on that party. Which is what I'm trying to avoid for queens I want to try to graft from the following year (or two years). 

somewhat this is what I have done. is try to get early queens mated on local populations of drones.
It feels like, and I should keep better notes , is the early queens mate with early produced drones and also then have early drones. first drones this year I seen of mine were an F3 of a Russian queen and her mother had the first drones the year before. IMO this early -ness is likely being propagated buy the early mating. 
related and mentioned was the "insulated" hives, I had 2 last winter I have 9 this winter, the breeders are all in those hives. IMO insulated can get you 2 weeks of time in the spring to get to drones and swarm cells, sooner. I may need to ponder this more. seems there is something there to use perhaps. selecting for cooler temp flying drones maybe can offer cooler temp foragers.

GG


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Says my local bee seller, I will refer to him.
He is in bee selling business and knows something about it, much more than I do.
From our local forum - he says:


> ............If you want locally raised queen it is impossible to get them before end of May at the earliest if the weather cooperates. June is more reliable. .........


I am also skeptical that fresh packages (just 2-3 months after the install) are pumping out a lot of drone.
Some maybe (in part because they already contain drones as they are shipped in).
But controlling the DCA?
I am skeptical as the newly installed packages really have different priorities anyway (not to be pumping drones; many of the packages struggle to even just grow sufficiently).

Overwintered bees are the main contributors into the drone population and these will control the DCAs.
Vast majority of the overwintered bees in my area are the same old package bees that just got lucky or properly treated - yes, they will pump the drones early (regardless of the forbidding weather).

To conclude:

in my place the default mating takes place in May and into June - just the local default, without thinking too much and too hard;
our local conditions, indeed, such that we are running much later than most of other places; with that July mating is rather "normal" about here


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Another conversation from my local forum:



> Greetings! I am new to the Madison area and hoping to start Beekeeping next year. Doing a lot of research this year and hoping to purchase equipment in the Winter. I had anticipated ordering Bees in Winter for next Spring- seems like the Beekeeping year "starts" in April/May. I have decided I would like to begin with two langstroth hives (although still debating 10frame vs 8frame) and Carniolan bees- ideally from a stock used to Wisconsin Winters. In looking through the group (Buying Bees- Local Nucs) I was very surprised and disheartened by the pick up dates. June-September seems very late into the season. It appears my plan of buying local is unlikely and I should turn to imports? Any recommendations for a distributer?


One of the answers (I know the guy - he's been at it about 10 years and I listen to his opinions; a professional chemist by the carrier - just at aside):


> It's not an issue of want, it's an issue of can't. Trying to compare the timing of Wisconsin made nucs (with WI queens) to California or Florida nucs/packages is like asking Wisconsin farmers why they can't produce fresh strawberries in April like California can. Not only is it too cold but hives haven't made enough drones for the queens to reliably mate with.


And here you have it - beekeeping is very much a local issue.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

If I gave you the impression that I'm disagreeing with any of that... I'm not. All of the timing is in line with what I'd say here. Like stated above. May for queen mating (early) or maybe the last few days of April on a good year. But I'm grafting mid-April for queens to be ready to mate around the first week of May (on average). And 'up there' you're likely a week or so behind us down here. And then by the time she mates and lays for a bit, it's June... which is exactly what I said above and what your guy is saying here. If he has a queen 'ready' the last week of May then she mated the second week of May most likely.

I don't think either of us is saying different things. I'm simply challenging the idea that 'local bees' don't have drones available in sufficient quantities to mate queens as soon as those same colonies would have their first queens ready to mate... I'm usually jumping the gun on big over-wintered colonies swarming by a couple of weeks with my grafting and mating nucs. We all know it's very difficult to get bees to do something drastically different than they would have been doing otherwise. It's why I quit raising bulk queens by graft here after the end of June. Simply because I don't see swarming that time of year, so why would I simulate that situation in hopes that my bees would make lots of well fed queens? Sure, they're superseding their own queens without my intervention, but as we know... swarming and superseding are different animals. And a colony making one or two good queens is under significantly less demand than one being asked to make 30.

Anyway, I think we're just talking past each other a bit. And again... goals. Guys selling 'local' queens (and I do sell queens) are looking for the most reliably well-mated queens (hopefully). And in the midwest that means June and into July... and that's when I sell queens. I have an additional personal goal of trying (while acknowledging that it's also futile) to get my handful of "breeder" queens mated with non-package drones as best I can. And to do that I need 1) as many drones produced from my colonies as I can before people start getting packages in and 2) queens ready to mate at the same time. To meet those goals, I need to graft about mid-April and have queens mating first week or two of May. Mid-May is the typical bulk package arrival in these parts. Mating weather is the wildcard obviously and years like 2021, it totally didn't cooperate. But other years I'm a little late with that timeframe.

I'm not looking to sell these early queens and in some cases, yeah, maybe there is a drone deficit and if they're superseded in August I'll know because she won't be marked next spring. Or weather is really bad and they can't get out without running into some sort of storm. It happens. That's why a decent return on the first batch of queens is 50% while I might run >90% June thru July.
But if I can get a queen grafted from a good quality source like one of my booming overwintered (at least once or like this year - twice) queens and get her crossed with some assortment of other overwintered colonies that are strong enough to be making and issuing drones as early as possible in the spring... well, that's as close to isolated mating as I am going to get. Which is all I'm trying to do, get (seriously) 3 or 4 less-adulterated queens.


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## JConnolly (Feb 21, 2015)

The season is not going to affect the genetics. However, late summer queens have a better chance of being well mated than early spring queens because of the abundance of drones. She needs to mate with several drones to perform for a longer time. When you open mate you cannot control what drones she mates with. Package drones are from the same yards the queens came from. If package drones are not her sons, they are brothers of the drones she mated with. The DNA of the drones doesn't change just because the drones were the first born in a new hive or born late after the hive was established. Drone DNA is haploid; all of it comes from the queen. It isn't going to drift over time.

If you have early September mated queens that have overwintered then you can get an early jump on the spring nuc sales (be sure you disclose that the queen is one from last fall), selling nucs with a laying queen while other nuc sellers still have their queens in cell builders.


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## Tim Ives (May 28, 2013)

I'll go for the earliest Queens possible because I control the Drones in my area. Average start date grafting April 11th. Northern Indiana. Which is also average swarm cell start dates if colonies are not supered up before then. 
Average package delivery dates in my area is last Saturday of April to first Saturday of May.


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## joebeewhisperer (May 13, 2020)

Just throwing this on the pile. Today I went out and a swarm was hanging from a lid on the back of a double deep hive. While I wouldn’t necessarily want this (virgin) queen’s late-swarming genetics, the fact is I’ve forced them into it as I have been feeding heavy and some are about to pop.

At first I thought about just combining them back, or doing away with her so they’d go back home. Haven’t really noticed a lot of drones left. Went to grab a mated queen from the last mini and in flew a drone. Just decided to wait and see. It’s been around 75F and sunny, she might be ok.

Really just holding a few spares here and there in case something goes queenless in Nov-Dec. For instance the hive today’s bunch came out of. Think I’ll lay off feed after tomorrow and just let them work pollen sub for a while.


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## Amibusiness (Oct 3, 2016)

Nice to see Tim around!
First packages come up here march 20th (they will only survive if installed on comb). First nucs available in April. They build up similar to overwintered colonies that are not fed, meaning will swarm at a normal time or produce a normal crop. Overwintered colonies' drones ready to mate 6 weeks after first pollen comes in (unless we get a lot of snow after first pollen, it happens, in which case the drones get cannibalized and it resets to 6 weeks after the next pollen). So here in upstate ny it is not really possible to avoid early drones. I have a neighbor who gets 12-24 nucs from betterbee every spring. Looks like most of his colonies dont make it through winter. I do try to get queens mated before that. All these dates are averages.
To the op's point, best queens will be fed and mated during natural swarm season. After you get some experience you will be able to push that earlier and later a bit but with diminishing returns.


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## Tim Ives (May 28, 2013)

jwcarlson said:


> but bees in a triple deep come out of winter vastly different than those in doubles or nucs.


Bingo! Then add on top of not multi generationally feed colonies junk food. You'll keep raising the bar on productivity each year. The longer you maintain bees in the area, the more prolific the area becomes. 
And your comment about selecting colonies that raise Drones first. Again Bingo. Doing so genetically raises the bar. Just dont get inbred too much by raising Queens off those colonies. Keep those as Mother Drone colonies. Split down so so colonies too genetically raise the bar on those.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Tim Ives said:


> Bingo! Then add on top of not multi generationally feed colonies junk food. You'll keep raising the bar on productivity each year. The longer you maintain bees in the area, the more prolific the area becomes.
> And your comment about selecting colonies that raise Drones first. Again Bingo. Doing so genetically raises the bar. Just dont get inbred too much by raising Queens off those colonies. Keep those as Mother Drone colonies. Split down so so colonies too genetically raise the bar on those.


Good to see you here, Tim!  I do keep mixing in queens every 2-3 years. This year some Caucasians, a few years ago some from Michael Palmer. 
I don't have hundreds of colonies, but the area around my main yard certainly must be dominated by my drones, I would imagine.

I know a lot of people don't believe it or maybe "don't accept it" is a better way of stating it. But my experience with triples vs doubles (in large part thanks to you) was night and day. It really unlocks a queen's potential it seems like. I know most of the beekeepers I associate with are totally disbelieving when I tell them my colonies have 12-16 frames of brood and supers when most people are reversing


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## Tim Ives (May 28, 2013)

jwcarlson said:


> Good to see you here, Tim!  I do keep mixing in queens every 2-3 years. This year some Caucasians, a few years ago some from Michael Palmer.
> I don't have hundreds of colonies, but the area around my main yard certainly must be dominated by my drones, I would imagine.
> 
> I know a lot of people don't believe it or maybe "don't accept it" is a better way of stating it. But my experience with triples vs doubles (in large part thanks to you) was night and day. It really unlocks a queen's potential it seems like. I know most of the beekeepers I associate with are totally disbelieving when I tell them my colonies have 12-16 frames of brood and supers when most people are reversing


Yeah, I've read a few of your posts and could see you are getting what I've been saying for what a decade ago now. Lol. Welcome to my world ;D
Not sure how long I'll be able to freely post again, as I've been going thru older post ripping on people. Lol
And yes 15 frames +/- 3 60% layed out depending on Pollen/Honey band is good average. I'll see overwintered twice Queens slightly higher which seems to be the top of Bell curve to her laying ability. Which a high percentage of beekeepers will not see which are requeening each year or couple times per year. SMH


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Tim Ives said:


> Yeah, I've read a few of your posts and could see you are getting what I've been saying for what a decade ago now. Lol. Welcome to my world ;D
> Not sure how long I'll be able to freely post again, as I've been going thru older post ripping on people. Lol
> And yes 15 frames +/- 3 60% layed out depending on Pollen/Honey band is good average. I'll see overwintered twice Queens slightly higher which seems to be the top of Bell curve to her laying ability. Which a high percentage of beekeepers will not see which are requeening each year or couple times per year. SMH


I've been in bees seven years and in triples five of those. Haven't fed for three+ years, not because of any philosophical reason, but because I hate feeding bees. 

Some folks here maybe deserve to be ripped a little 

Those numbers seem to be about the same as mine. I don't see any queens after their third winter, but I do see quite a few double queens late summer and suspect they get turned over as needed. But of the marked ones I would agree that even after 2nd winter, they're still going to town in most cases. Really like to graft from those. I try to hit the Wednesday or Thursday closest to "tax day" for first graft. Weather is always a total pain, but I really think those queens mated first couple weeks of May are worth their weight in gold genetically. As close to controlled mating as I'll ever get. 

If you get the boot, I do appreciate your posts here and on Facebook over the years! It's helped to have some confirmation of what I've observed vs the conventional wisdom.


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## Tim Ives (May 28, 2013)

jwcarlson said:


> I've been in bees seven years and in triples five of those. Haven't fed for three+ years, not because of any philosophical reason, but because I hate feeding bees.
> 
> Some folks here maybe deserve to be ripped a little
> 
> ...


You must be fairly close to same parrallel as me starting grafts week of April 11th. Keep at it till it doesn't work. 
Keep saying I have nothing it to them so I have nothing to lose. Free bees, free lumber and free time. 
Haven't been much active on FB lately, usually late winter early spring I'll bast the pics of 3 or 4 deep colonies boiling with bees.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Tim Ives said:


> You must be fairly close to same parrallel as me starting grafts week of April 11th. Keep at it till it doesn't work.
> Keep saying I have nothing it to them so I have nothing to lose. Free bees, free lumber and free time.
> Haven't been much active on FB lately, usually late winter early spring I'll bast the pics of 3 or 4 deep colonies boiling with bees.


I'm not quite to 42 degrees North. Some years I could graft two weeks earlier and be better off than grafting that week. It's right on the ragged edge of being too soon. This year it was and I had to punt for quite awhile. Some years there's snow on the ground.


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## Tim Ives (May 28, 2013)

jwcarlson said:


> I'm not quite to 42 degrees North. Some years I could graft two weeks earlier and be better off than grafting that week. It's right on the ragged edge of being too soon. This year it was and I had to punt for quite awhile. Some years there's snow on the ground.


I'm at 41.555° so yeah close.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Tim Ives said:


> I'm at 41.555° so yeah close.


 41.91 here


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