Queens laying

[AdamD]

After a cold May and early June, I had a bunch of virgins waiting to go. I don't usually have so many to fly at one time. I had a peek this week to see the result.

GRAFTS
Eight emerged queens were from a batch of 11 grafts from 11 started where 3 were duff. (Although I did drop one of them). One of the queens from the grafts became the drone layer - below. So from 11, I got 7 viable queens which is not too bad. Shame I dropped one!

RESULTS
On 14th June, this was the result:-

7 in Mini Plus nucs mated.
4 nucs mated.
1 nuc believed Q- for the third time.
1 full sized colony; mated. (Top half of a demaree with top entrance).
1 full sized colony, small queen + drone layer. (poorly fed graft perhaps).
1 full sized colony, missing queen.
1 full sized colony, queen present but not yet laying.

*Haven't checked the brood pattern of the queens yet as it's too early to do so as some have eggs only. Other queens mated a few days before - odd in that there was a fairly clear step-change in the weather.

Not sure what others' views are relating to producing a new queen as a result of swarm control/management:
With anecdotal evidence only, my view is that a queen produced and allowed to mate as a result of an artificial swarm is a better bet than a queen produced in a big full-sized colony where the old queen has gone - either queen removed by the beekeeper or gone from the hive after an attempted swarm with a clipped wing.

[NigelP]

I have to not let any future queens go too far downstream of my original stock due to them getting "localised", Nearly all my queens are from emergency cells on frames of eggs (from my breeder queens) introduce by me to queen less halves or splits etc. Nearly all turn out to fine queens, fecund....almost too fecund in many cases and really pleasant to work with.
Where it goes wrong is when I miss a queen cell….or get a late supersedure and we start getting the local genetics back into the stock....or I make the foolish decision to look after a swarm of local mongrel bees giving them another chance in the hope they will prove different to the others….which they never do….as they chased me and the lawnmower round the garden yesterday and only on 3 frames of bees!
Please don’t take this as a rant about local mongrels being bad in general, just the ones in my area which are a total nightmare.
I wish the case was very different as it would make my beekeeping so much easier.

[Alfred]

Now my one decent colony with an F1 queen is finally beginning to wake up it's changed my beekeeping
Being followed and chased was perfectly normal but now it's become unacceptable.
I've collect dozens of swarms every year and less than five percent are anything near the quality

[AdamD]

I don't expect to get chased around the garden. And I know Nigel, of your concerns about the locals.

Occasionally I get one like that and try to nip that one in the bud as soon as possible by re-queening. If a colony becomes annoying later in the year, then that re-queened colony is fine by spring. For colonies that need re-queening in spring, I try to do it as soon as absolutely possible as it can take a couple of months for the behaviour to improve. Sometimes that means that I cage the queen for a week or so in order to stop her laying any more eggs, before deciding what to do.
A ratty queen could, for example, have a reprieve and be put in a mini-nuc with a handful of bees; this can be split during queen-rearing time to make a number of mating nucs. Having mini-nucs with a frame of brood along with some bees is a nice way to start them off with a queencell in each one.

I have a bunch of Apidea-sized mini-nucs however for this year I have used none of them, preferring to use the Abelo Mini-plus boxes and some wooden versions that take the same frames. A 4-framer is a nice size.

Swarms are so very variable in quality. Mostly, they need to be re-queened in my opinion/experience. Giving a swarm to a novice beekeeper is a mixed blessing as the 'gift' might put them off the craft before they have really started!

[Alfred]

I had put bait hives up and got three boxes of terror in one week as my introduction to bees so after a few years with unacceptable behaviour I'm finding these F1s ,well,a bit boring!!!

One other thing that is very noticeable other than how slowly they move on the comb is how much physically smaller they are than the ferals

[NigelP]

One thing I learnt quite early on was never pick up swarms....unless they are on friends or landowners property who let you use their heather moors.
I admire your dedication to the job Alfred....but would ask the question is it really worth it?
If you want more bees, set up a load of nucs with eggs from your nice F1.... I cut triangles out of sheets of eggs....set up 6 nucs today with one frame of doner eggs.

Those boring bees are a damn sight more pleasant to work with as well......and they (usually) produce a shed load of honey.

Checked my last "bad" girl hive today...no change yet, they chased me round the field and even got inside my wellies for a few stings...BUT before they totally exploded out of the hive I saw that the queen cells ( from my "good" girls) had emerged....so only 4 or 5 weeks away from harmony...phew. Plus they have gathered 2 supers of honey....