Good or Bad Idea?

[brooksbeefarm]

The 18 wooded acres i bought and had 6 acres dozed off for Buckwheat and clover for a bee yard i'm putting on it this spring. Remember i seen bees along the gravel road working sweet clover and later aster in the ditches,well i'm thinking these are survivors because all the neighbors in the area said nobody they know of keep bees. So i;m thinking about taking 10 five frame nuc's up there with only 2 frames of capped brood with nurse bees, a frame of honey and pollen, and a frame of eggs and larva with bees in each nuc. This is the way i raise most of my new queens anyway and to get them bred to survivor stock drones would be a plus toward (the good old days) treatment Free. Your thoughts? Jack

[Perry]

Sounds reasonable Jack, even for you!

[riverbee]

i like it jack! thumbs up from me!............

[Barbarian]

I would be apprehensive with the plan.
The local bees may have survivor traits. They could also have some unwanted traits.
Swarminess  .... Following  .... Aggressive  ... Poor honey storage.
You could waste your first season. The unwanted traits could take future generations before they show up.

I would opt for using queen stock from lines I am happy with. You can always try a locally mated colony for comparison.

[brooksbeefarm]

Barbarian, this will be an experiment more or less, i have 4 other beeyards within 15 to 20 miles of this experiment and so far haven't had any hives come up hot that i know had superseded ,and all of them have produced surplus honey when the weather is right (usually more rain in that area than where i live. The bees i seen was smaller and black with a hint of yellow bands, they were working the foliage hard and did remind me of a mean type of bee that lived in that area years ago. You may be right, the drone pool may have unwanted traits, but i raise queens starting in June to requeen some older queens in the fall, or queens that didn't prove out, like they it's my ace in the hole. By making them queen there selves, draw comb, and build up a work force and enough winter stores before winter, i'm not looking for a surplus from them this year, but that would be a plus. Jack

[pistolpete]

I'm a great fan of getting good genetics in the mix, but basically yours is a shot in the dark.  Just because the folks around there don't know of any, does not mean there isn't a bee keeper in a two mile radius.  Only time will tell.

[efmesch]

How about trying to track the bees you saw, and finding their hive(s).  If you do that you could take some eggs/young larvae and use them for raising your new queens.  If you get virgin queens from that stock and let them mate in the neighborhood, you might speed up the process of changing over your bees' genetics and trying them out without going through a "mongrel" stage, which probably won't give you a reliable answer about their survivor traits. 

[CpnObvious]

OOOOOOOHHHH!!!  A bee-hunting opportunity!

http://www.beesource.com/point-of-view/adrian-wenner/efficient-hunting-of-feral-colonies/