[…]humidity, hive weight and apiary weather conditions. The data collected offers a beekeeper/queen breeder a powerful tool to examine the colony and queen conditions without disturbing the bees. Weight data can be used to calculate the “adjusted production figure” (average harvested by each apiary minus the harvest of each hive) for each individual hive in order to avoid mistakes in […]
[…]to start one? BIBBA encourages members to set up local queen rearing groups. click to see active groups here If you are already breeding or rearing queens with the aim of selecting for native traits but have not registered as a group we would be pleased if you would consider registering by contacting either the groups coordinator or the web […]
New group formed in North Lancashire Selective breeding and bee improvement for the local area based on AMM. Email Kevin: […]
[…]to the bees below. Day 3 or 4 – One Day after grafting. Remove the plastic film (leaving the queen excluder in place) so that the queen pheromones have normal access to the box again. Download pdf of full article:Queen Rearing Method – Steve Rose July […]
[…]and quality control of mating stations. Recommendations for the handling and quality control of queens complete the queen rearing section. The improvement of colony traits usually depends on a comparative testing of colonies. Standardized recommendations for the organization of performance tests and the measurement of the most common selection characters are presented. Statistical methods and data preconditions for the estimation […]
This Microsoft XL file was written by Angus Stokes and Albert Knight and provides an interactive way to prepare timetables for using the Jenter or Cupkit Cellplug Box. With a bit of tweaking it can be used for other methods of cell raising. Download Excel spreadsheet of Tom’s Table: […]
[…]to the two main bodies is limited to normal inspections The nuclei can be split, and given a queen cell when queen rearing is finished It is a small enough system to possibly have in your own garden It is never queenless so never angry, unless you are doing something wrong Frames with bees can be interchanged between towers Queen […]
[…]and look carefully to ensure that one of her legs is not being cut off as well. If this occurs the queen will be superseded. The queen uses her forelegs as a caliper to measure the diameter of each cell before she lays in it. This determines whether a fertile female egg or an unfertilised male egg is laid, depending […]
[…]are introduced to; there is a knock-on effect on the local population. Drones produced by imported queens will mate with new queens in the area, perpetuating our randomly mixed stock. The net result is an unstable genetic mix, often with undesirable qualities. This makes selection and improvement of our bees slow and difficult, as hybrids do not breed true, producing […]
[…]approach through the National Bee Improvement Programme (NatBIP). Achieving good matings for our queens The more queens we raise from selected stock, the more ‘good’ drones will be produced, and the more ‘good’ drones in an area, the better our chances of satisfactory matings for our newly produced queens. As small-scale beekeepers, we can increase our influence by working with […]
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