BIBBA are committed to helping beekeepers to improve their bees and those of the surrounding area, by raising queens from their better colonies and culling the poorer ones. Bee Improvement should be of interest to all beekeepers and for a number of reasons including temper, quietness on the combs and…
A Simple Method of Simultaneously Raising Queens and Producing Nuclei
The method described here aims to simultaneously produce both queens and nuclei and would probably suit a medium-sized beekeeping operation, a few beekeepers working together, or an association’s breeding programme.
Improving bees by raising your own queens
The improvement of bees is an important part of beekeeping. The suitability of bees to the environment and their temper are issues that concern the caring beekeeper, but are not often included in tuition.
This course will cover many of the topics and techniques that will suit the “ordinary” beekeeper, with a large practical element
Queen Cell Transportation
BIBBA Opposes the Importation of Honey Bees and Queens
Here are 15 reasons why BIBBA opposes the importation of honey bees and queens
Section 10.1 – DAmm: Making Native Queens Available
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Section 7.1 – The Mating of Queens
The Mating of Queens – Use of nucs, mini-nucs and mini+ nucs Whether you are using natural queen cells, emergency queen cells, grafted queen cells or cells produced from larval transfer kits (such as Jenter or Cupkit), the next step in the process is finding a home for the queen…
Section 5.1 – Queen Rearing Methods
Photo by Roger Patterson Queen Rearing Methods There are so many techniques of queen rearing, and so much has been written about them, that it may seem unwise to add any more. Studying too many methods can be a source of much confusion and leave one overwhelmed and unsure of…
Queens: Collaboration and how to make it easy on yourself and your bees – by Karl Colyer
Last year, I did several splits including splits of all my favourite breeder colonies in mid-August. It was a slight gamble where I live in Cheshire but the weather was fair and the outlook very similar. Roger mentioned that I was out of action from last September (2 months to get walking, a year to pass a medical to get my driving licence back and lots of mobility issues in between). The rivers around me flooded while I was in hospital and many of my bees and colonies were literally swept away.
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Queens – an example of collaboration between beekeepers, by Roger Patterson
For myself and my local association, Wisborough Green BKA (WGBKA) in West Sussex, where I am Apiary Manager, I usually produce at least 100 queens per year. This is mainly to replace poorer queens in honey producing colonies, provide queens to head nucs for new beekeepers and for members who need queens for a variety of reasons. We try to encourage members to rear their own queens, but sometimes their bees need requeening with better stock. As many beekeepers only have a couple of colonies, they may not have bees that are good to propagate from. A BKA teaching apiary can be a genetic resource to distribute good local stock from.
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