# Rookie Mistake



## Chef Isaac (Jul 26, 2004)

Well guys, another learning "rookie" mistake.

I had to place 8 cells into mating nucs the other day so I took the cell out, and shook the bees from the frames into a swarm box from the cell builder. I had a lot of bees in the cell builder so I thought it would have been perfect for stocking the mating nucs. 

I shook some bees in the mating nucs and closed all the nucs but two so the bees that were flying could find a pocket to go in to. 

I did a quick spot check this morning and found like three of the mini nucs with little to no bees in them rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!

But I did have two mini nucs with tons of bees  (of course, those were the ones that were open to catch the flying bees)

So I took a frame of bees and placed them in two of the three mini nucs that did not have bees in them. I do hope the virgin queen wasent on those frames as she did hatch out. he he he 

I should of shook bees from another yard so they would have to reorient themselves... or shake the bees from the cell builder and take them out to another yard. 

Maybe one of these days I will get things right!!!!!


----------



## peggjam (Mar 4, 2005)

Or shake them into a bulk bee box, put them into a dark area and wait a few hours before placing in mating nucs. Then lock them in for 3 days with a queen cell.


----------



## Chef Isaac (Jul 26, 2004)

What is the reasoning for placing the bulk bee box in a dark place for a few hours? Will this not make them want to go back to their orginal spot where the cell building colony was?


----------



## bleta12 (Feb 28, 2007)

Chef Isaac said:


> What is the reasoning for placing the bulk bee box in a dark place for a few hours? Will this not make them want to go back to their orginal spot where the cell building colony was?


It gives them the sense of queenlessness so they will not tear any queen cell, if you shake bees from a queen right colony. 
Use queen exluder to protect yourself from shaking any queen or drones. 
Closing them on a dark cool place for 3-4 days, while the queen emerges from the cell, gives the mini nuc the sense of unity, so they will not abandon you. (essential) 

One of these days Chef. 

Good luck Gilman


----------



## Chef Isaac (Jul 26, 2004)

crappers.......

what does a virgin queen look like? Any indicaters to tell she is the virgin queen versus a worker bee?


----------



## Riki (Jan 31, 2007)

She looks just like a queen, only that her abdomen is smaller and she is much more runny than a mated queen


----------



## Troy (Feb 9, 2006)

bleta12 said: "Use queen excluder to protect yourself from shaking any queen or drones."

Other than the drones being a waste of the nucs precious resources, is there any special reason to avoid having a few drones in there?


----------



## bleta12 (Feb 28, 2007)

Troy said:


> bleta12 said: "Use queen excluder to protect yourself from shaking any queen or drones."
> 
> Other than the drones being a waste of the nucs precious resources, is there any special reason to avoid having a few drones in there?


Hi Troy,

That is the special reason to avoid having drones in your mini mating nuc, you don't want any waste of resources. You don't want drones there to potentialy mate with your virgin queens.

Gilman


----------



## Dan Williamson (Apr 6, 2004)

Chef Isaac said:


> crappers.......
> 
> what does a virgin queen look like? Any indicaters to tell she is the virgin queen versus a worker bee?


Sometimes they are very difficult to spot even in a small nuc. It gets much easier with practice. Sometimes they almost seem like outcasts.... The other bees seem to almost ignore them completely. I was looking in several colonies the other day and couldn't find the virgins .... These were 5 frame mating nucs. I can usually find the pretty quickly now. Two drawn frames- the rest foundation. I ended up taking out all the frames and found the virgins running around on the bottom.... or over on the sides of the nucs... half the time with no other bees around her at all.

They don't act "Queenly" as virgins!


----------



## Dan Williamson (Apr 6, 2004)

bleta12 said:


> Hi Troy,
> 
> That is the special reason to avoid having drones in your mini mating nuc, you don't want any waste of resources. You don't want drones there to potentialy mate with your virgin queens.
> 
> Gilman


False!!!!!!

Virgins don't mate in the mating nucs. Other than consuming resources in a mating nuc they have no bearing on who the queen mates with.... She will fly sometimes a decent distance to mate.

Someone the other day mentioned to me that they had queens just emerged from queen cells (swarm cells) and they had moved some drone brood over there so that the queens would mate with those drones. 

I just kind of looked at them incredulously. They have been keeping bees for 20+ years. First... if the drones are still BROOD they won't even be flying by the time the queens mate. They may not even have emerged at that point. Second.... the queens may or may not mate with bees from the same colonies from which they originated. You could pack your mini-nucs with 25 or so drones and the chance that your virgin mates with any of them is slim.


----------



## Chef Isaac (Jul 26, 2004)

I would Add to Dans comment. Queens will often fly much much father and it has been dais that this is done to avoid inbreeding.


----------



## bleta12 (Feb 28, 2007)

Dan Williamson said:


> False!!!!!!
> 
> Virgins don't mate in the mating nucs. Other than consuming resources in a mating nuc they have no bearing on who the queen mates with.... She will fly sometimes a decent distance to mate.
> 
> ...


 
Dan,

If you put the virgins queens and drones in the same hive or beeyard then you are increasing the chances that they mate. So instead your virgins mate with drones from your drone mother colonies, they may have a chance mating with drones that you shook in mininucs, which may come come from a stock that is not planed for matting.
So before declaring False, try to read thinks right, if you read it right ignorance is not an excuse.
Are you going to tell me that if you put a virgin queen in the same hive or beehive they are not going to mate? 
There are not conclusive studies about matting, we all know that they mate in flight, in drone congregating areas, we all know that they don't mate in the hive, we all know that drones and queens have different flying patters and fly different distances. 

In nature nothing is for sure, its a numbers game.

Why we expect the queen to mate with the drones of our mother colonies that are only few feet away from our matting nucs?

Numbers game Don, we only increase the chances that they mate with our selected drones by saturating the area with them, so makes sense that we have less other drones in the area, on other hives and in our mini matting nucs.

I hope you got it this time

Good luck Gilman


----------



## Dan Williamson (Apr 6, 2004)

Gilman... re-read my post... I did not state that they would NOT mate with your drones from the same hive. I said the chances are slim. Having some drones in your mating nucs does NOT mean that those queens will mate with those particular drones. If you are talking about stocking your mating nucs with all drones or large amounts of drones then I'd say you may have some impact.... If you get say 5 drones randomly shaken into your mating nuc as you make them up the likely hood that they mate with these drones is slim.

I have mating nucs that end up with drones in them all the time as a result of drones drifting from one colony to another. If I have 10 drone mother colonies in the vicinity of my mating yards with drone comb and have a few drones in my mating nucs the chances are very slim that the drones in the mating nucs are going to mate with my virgins. Not to mention that just because you see a drone doesn't mean its sexually mature enough to mate.

You are open mating .... You cannot control the bad colonies or inferior genetics from hives you don't even know about. By flooding the area with your quality drones from drone mother colonies... the few drones from potentially inferior stock that show up in your mating nucs have almost no impact. (note I did NOT say NO impact)


----------



## Keith Benson (Feb 17, 2003)

Dan Williamson said:


> If I have 10 drone mother colonies in the vicinity of my mating yards with drone comb and have a few drones in my mating nucs the chances are very slim that the drones in the mating nucs are going to mate with my virgins.


Given that queens and drones are supposed to fly different differneces so as to avoid inbreeding (makes sense), how do commercial queen producers position drone mother colonies relative to the mating yards?

Keith


----------



## Dan Williamson (Apr 6, 2004)

Keith Benson said:


> Given that queens and drones are supposed to fly different differneces so as to avoid inbreeding (makes sense), how do commercial queen producers position drone mother colonies relative to the mating yards?
> 
> Keith


Keith.

I'm not sure I understood your comment entirely but... all of the literature I've read suggests that drone mother colonies should be located WITHIN 1 MILE of the mating yard. 

In regards to bleta12, 

The reason I don't understand worrying about a few drones in my mating nucs is that I use drone comb in drone mother colonies. A deep frame of drone brood has approx 4150 cells.... Say only 3000 of them are viable at the time your virgins are to mate and you have say 25 mating nucs going at a given time with 5 drone mother colonies with the drone comb placed at the right time to produce drones in time for mating.

Using our drone numbers from above... you have 5 colonies with approx *15,000 drones... plus all other drones from any other hives in the vicinity both feral and other beekeeper hives.* 

Say you have shaken 10 drones on average into each mating nuc.... now you have 250 drones in your mating nucs. 

15,000+ drones vs 250 drones in mating nucs. I'm sorry... the chances are just so slim that the effort in excluding drones from mating nucs is a waste of effort. 

If you are in an isolated mating yard.... (of which there are very few truely isolated locations) and are trying to keep out any NON isolated stock for carefully controlled breeding then it might be worth it. I don't think anyone here is talking about that type of situation.


----------



## bleta12 (Feb 28, 2007)

Dan Williamson said:


> Keith.
> 
> I'm not sure I understood your comment entirely but... all of the literature I've read suggests that drone mother colonies should be located WITHIN 1 MILE of the mating yard.
> 
> ...


 
Don,

I agree with your math, you should tell that to millions that play the lotto, they have worse chances of wining and they still play, only one wins the big price, normaly.
There are a lot o thinks we don't have control in beekeeping, we should try to influence as much as possible the end result of our activity. Of course the queens are going to mate with some drones that we dont like, a lot of people have the same problem.

Gilman


----------

