# Multiple genes in one yard?



## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

I'm not always the sharpest tack in the box, but here's what I'd do, for what it's worth...

I would choose one yard to be my queen rearing yard. I would put the new genetics in that one yard, making sure they have drone comb so they become drone mother colonies. I would restrict drone brood in all other hives. I would move my two best queen mother queens to that yard, and start my queen rearing process once plenty of drones from the outside genetic queens are sealed brood. I'd be running my mating nucs in that yard as well, made up from resources from my worst performing colonies. I would be hoping my best performing queens raised, would be crosses from my best to at least some of the drones from the outside genetics. I would judge the best of those new queens to be used as re-queening material for the end of the year in my worst performing hives.

I don't have remote yards, all my hives are here at home. If I had remote yards, this is what I would do, hoping the outside genetics drones would be a good cross to my own best stock. This may not be the best way, as then I'd not have records of which new daughters were possibly crossed to which drone mother's drones. So, another way might be to put one new queen in each yard, and use her as drone mother, and put mating nucs in each yard, recording which new genetics drone yards each new queen came from. This might be a better way than my first thoughts above, for being able to better track genetics of new daughter queens as far as which drone yard she came from.

OK, so there's two ways I might do it, you can take it from there! Good luck in your yards.


----------



## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Unless you can cover the entire 5-8 miles that the virgin queen go for her mating flights, it 
will be impossible to keep track where the drones are coming from. It could be the neighbor's yard from 7
miles away that supply the drones. In nature it is not possible to control all the genetic variables on open
mating.

My pure Cordovan mated with the local carnis drones will produce 50% Cordovan, 50% carnis, and 25% mutts. I cannot
control this outcome at all even though the local DCAs will have majority of the carnis drones there. Some might be the Italians dornes too. If I want to be certain that some of these Cordovan genetics will stay I have to saturate the entire 8 miles radius to have my Cordovan drones there. I cannot do this yet. For now I just say it is selection beyond your control even though you've bought queens every year in to your apiary. Ohh, even what claimed to be an isolated mating station by the seller will have the grey genetics sneaked in on the open mated Cordovan bees. In nature nothing is a guaranteed!


----------



## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

I´m a beginner in this and so far have only the survivor genetics, no active breeding done.

My 3 locations are in a radius of 20km. Still, the environmental circumstances differ extremely. Since I believe this influence is stronger than any genetics I will try to select every location separately and, of one bee yard goes extinct,try the genetics of another queen there or use it for treating as a hospital or abandon it.

So far the AMM descendants survived 50% so I will keep them if this rate stays. But I had to move them 2km, because of a bad place. To this place they are not adapted.

The carniolans survived 20% which is a catastrophe and therefore I introduced the elgon queen F1. The mother survived last winter, now I will see what happens with the descendants. 
The only Carni hive left was not a pure carni but mated with my neighbors primorskii drones last year. These drones and mine and some from a bee club who uses a mating place with VSH bees are the only one around for 5km.
The mother survived winter too.
I have high hopes but no insurance with this constellation.

The local carni mutt hive stands single in my garden and if it survives this winter I will let it throw a swarm which I hope to catch or bait. I don´t believe it will survive otherwise because I´m surrounded by many small beekeepers in this location.
So I will use IPM with this location if needed.

The number of hives will be 2-6 AMM, 10-12 Carni/elgon, 2 in my garden. That because of flow and neighborhood. I´m right now looking for more places and could have found a great one on the roof of an industrial building.


----------



## Specialkayme (Sep 4, 2005)

beepro said:


> In nature it is not possible to control all the genetic variables on open
> mating.


My question is more in lines of whats the best way to evaluate future breeding stock, not controlling open mating.

If you had 4 queens and 4 outyards, and you were trying to select the best queen of the group, would you put one queen in each yard, or four queens in one yard?


----------



## Eduardo Gomes (Nov 10, 2014)

Specialkayme said:


> If you had 4 queens and 4 outyards, and you were trying to select the best queen of the group, would you put one queen in each yard, or four queens in one yard?


To eliminate / minimize the effect of other variables (available nectar/polen sources, climate conditions, varroa loads in the neigborhoods, ...) my opinion is that you have to place the queens in the same place.


----------



## Riskybizz (Mar 12, 2010)

"The only Carni hive left was not a pure carni but mated with my neighbors primorskii drones last year"..

I'm just wondering how one would reach that conclusion? When it comes to open mating virgin queens nothing is controlled. I think that quite often people make erroneous generalizations like "there are no other people keeping bees in that area"..and more often than not that's not true. In addition, just because your not aware of any possible feral colonies doesn't mean that their not their not part of your gene pool.


----------



## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Riskybizz said:


> "The only Carni hive left was not a pure carni but mated with my neighbors primorskii drones last year"..
> 
> I'm just wondering how one would reach that conclusion? When it comes to open mating virgin queens nothing is controlled. I think that quite often people make erroneous generalizations like "there are no other people keeping bees in that area"..and more often than not that's not true. In addition, just because your not aware of any possible feral colonies doesn't mean that their not their not part of your gene pool.


There are no feral colonies in my locations. I claim this because the primorskii have a different phenotype but not only that, some behaviors changed drastically. But I admit I did not send the bees to lab.
I know exactly how many and what hives are located near me because it´s part of my strategy. I walked every m in this 5 km radius two times a year.


----------



## Riskybizz (Mar 12, 2010)

"I´m a beginner in this and so far have only the survivor genetics, no active breeding done"

some statements are pretty difficult to defend. my only point (not criticism) was that you have no idea really what drones might be inseminating your free flying queens. good luck


----------



## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Riskybizz said:


> "I´m a beginner in this and so far have only the survivor genetics, no active breeding done"
> 
> some statements are pretty difficult to defend. my only point (not criticism) was that you have no idea really what drones might be inseminating your free flying queens. good luck


Yes sure and that´s the problem of most small not isolated beekeepers. I know that the genetics will vanish and have to be introduced again every two or three years. 
That´s why we select for colonies which breed drones throughout the year to have drones when all others are eliminated and for varroa to use. 
I know of some people who do "stress breeding", or "moonshine breeding" because of that. 

Eduardo


> To eliminate / minimize the effect of other variables (available nectar/polen sources, climate conditions, varroa loads in the neigborhoods, ...) my opinion is that you have to place the queens in the same place.


I find that very good advise. Much to think about.


----------



## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Eduardo Gomes said:


> To eliminate / minimize the effect of other variables (available nectar/polen sources, climate conditions, varroa loads in the neigborhoods, ...) my opinion is that you have to place the queens in the same place.


Now that I better understand the original question, I have to agree here with Eduardo.


----------



## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Thanks for clarifying. 
It is pretty much a simple idea. Let's say you have 2 good yards and 2 average yards in term of excellent forage location through out the 4 seasons, then put 2 queen in one yard and the other 2 in another. It is just like selecting the prime real estate location. You are only selecting 2 yards out of the 4 to evaluate from. So 2 queens in one yard location. 2 in good yard and 2 in average yard = total 4 queens to evaluate.

Don't use the bad yards. Now you can evaluate the queens in a good and average yard. If the good yard cannot
keep up with the average yard then you will know that the average yard have 2 good queens in it. Take this 2 queens and
compare them to each others all in the same yard. If both have the same evaluation criteria met that you like then use both as the breeders. 

In the good yard, if both can keep up then also compare among themselves in the same yard. You can select either one queen from the average yard and good yard as breeders. Because average + good will produce the average or excellent, cannot give you the bad bees. Any queens that cannot keep up you cannot use it for the breeding program.


----------



## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

Eduardo Gomes said:


> To eliminate / minimize the effect of other variables (available nectar/polen sources, climate conditions, varroa loads in the neigborhoods, ...) my opinion is that you have to place the queens in the same place.


I agree


----------



## roddo27846 (Apr 10, 2017)

Eduardo Gomes said:


> To eliminate / minimize the effect of other variables (available nectar/polen sources, climate conditions, varroa loads in the neigborhoods, ...) my opinion is that you have to place the queens in the same place.


What he said.


----------



## heaflaw (Feb 26, 2007)

beepro said:


> Unless you can cover the entire 5-8 miles that the virgin queen go for her mating flights


Sorry to take this thread off on a tangent, but I've always understood that the virgin queen flies about 2 miles while the drones fly around 1/2 a mile.


----------



## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

> Drone flight ranges and mating distances of queens
> H. pitchhacker;
> ￼To the story:
> BrüderThe brothers Hans and Friedrich Ruttner already operated breeding on a scientific basis in the first half of the 1950s. They proved the multiple mating of the queen, created a today still fully valid performance testing method, performed a breeding value estimation (with Prof. Franz Pirchner), developed the feature assessment for the separation of the bee races (subspecies) and made the artificial insemination of the queen practical. It was then only a logical progression that the mating behavior of drones and queens was investigated in order to secure the already existing document system. Drone collection sites were discovered. Drone flight ranges and mating distances of the queens were investigated in order to lay the foundations for an effective document placement system.
> ...


I used the google translator so please excuse some faults in translation.


----------



## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Dups!


----------



## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

At anybody's local DCAs nobody knows. I could say to avoid inbreeding the first time the virgin will
fly farther away. But then if she stumbled into the closer DCAs with my and other mixed drones in
it then she has no choice but to deal with it all. I can only say on estimate because the real distance of
how my virgin queens mated I have no idea. All I know is that my apiary is rather isolated from other 
nearby hives. So the queen has to fly farther away to avoid inbreeding because they are the Cordovan bees.
It could be that my local DCA is just a few miles away no more than 7 miles. But again I could be wrong without
actually seeing it. All I know is when the Cordovan queen mated and the workers don't show the Cordovan recessive
traits then she made it to the right mating area(s.) Local drones are carnis to make up the population here!


----------



## heaflaw (Feb 26, 2007)

It looks like if there is that much overlap in distances that drones and queens fly to DCAs that there would be more inbreeding.


----------



## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

Actually, a true test of your breeders isn't really comparing themselves to each other, but how well their daughters do........ Sometimes it's just about finding that combination of drone mother/daughter combination that leads to stocks that do well in your area. I had an idea that popped into my head the other day, and it's probably not even novel but I thought it would be an interesting test. I want to rapidly cycle generations on a few breeder queens, I'm hoping to get at least 4 generations which should be easy enough if I start early. I then want to set up 4 way pallets with each generation presented on each pallet and will replicate as best I can and then evaluate the colonies on each pallet the following year and look at how each one performs in contrast to it's parent hive and each other. Main focus will be on varroa, but also broodiness, foraging activity, and production. Some will be Cordovan as well, and I think it would be interesting to see how well it persists also as it's a recessive trait.


----------

