Beekeeping > General Beekeeping

Bee genetics

<< < (2/11) > >>

omnimirage:
I don't think I have any queen cells and probably won't see any until Spring, which is nine months away.

Can't I just give them eggs instead?

That's even more of a reason to replace the queen, I wouldn't want my other colonies to be bred with these aggressive genes.

apisbees:
Yes lit them draw out a cell but from a frame of hive genetics you want the easiest way to do this is to remove the queen and leave them alone for 5 days queen-less on the 6th day go through the hive and remove any queen cells they have started. Then place a frame with eggs and young larva from a hive that you like the queen from in the hive. Then in 5 days check the frame and it should have well fed drawn down queen cells a day away from being capped. If you find capped cells then the bees have started cells from some older larva and any that are capped should be removed to get rid of these inferior cells that will emerge before the better cells that were raised from young larva. You want a queen from 12 hr old larva not 24+  hr old larva. So if the cells are capped sooner than they should be, then the bee used older larva.

Bakersdozen:

--- Quote from: apisbees on January 12, 2018, 11:23:01 pm ---Yes lit them draw out a cell but from a frame of hive genetics you want the easiest way to do this is to remove the queen and leave them alone for 5 days queen-less on the 6th day go through the hive and remove any queen cells they have started. Then place a frame with eggs and young larva from a hive that you like the queen from in the hive. Then in 5 days check the frame and it should have well fed drawn down queen cells a day away from being capped. If you find capped cells then the bees have started cells from some older larva and any that are capped should be removed to get rid of these inferior cells that will emerge before the better cells that were raised from young larva. You want a queen from 12 hr old larva not 24+  hr old larva. So if the cells are capped sooner than they should be, then the bee used older larva.

--- End quote ---

Another "pearl of wisdom" from apisbees.

Barbarian:
The old adage ..... "BREED FROM THE BEST .... SCRAP THE REST"

I don't like aggressive bees. Such hives get re-queened from my own local stock.

Out-sourced Qs may seem attractive but there can be problems in the first year and subsequent years.

I collect swarms from local calls but do not use the Q or her eggs to make new Qs.

omnimirage:
Very interesting apisbees. What's the purpose of removing the queen cells at first though? Is it not particularly practicable to just remove all the frames that have eggs/young larvae on them?

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page