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Author Topic: queen mating/breeding calculator or wheel.. anyone have one of these?  (Read 5622 times)

Offline pgayle

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I wonder if anyone has made a wheel (like a pregnancy wheel) for bee breeding?

The "pregnancy wheel" in medicine has two concentric circles that pivot at the center.  The outer circle is calendar dates.  The inner circle is marked with pregnancy events.  For example one turns the wheel to set "conception" at a certain date and the wheel calculates the estimated baby due date. 

The "bee wheel" would have the inner wheel marked with bee milestones.  Example "egg laid" on day 0, graft on day 4, capped cells, emerged cells, etc.  One could set the wheel at any of these milestones and see the approximate dates of other events.  For example, if I find capped cells on a certain date, I would have a quick way to see a date rage when I might see evidence of laying queen.  (Without doing the calendar math in my head.)

I made a very crude one using paper and an old CD.  It does work, but would be nice if anyone has come up with a nice one printed on plastic?

Offline Jim134

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Re: queen mating/breeding calculator or wheel.. anyone have one of these?
« Reply #1 on: April 17, 2011, 06:06:02 pm »
Will this help you out

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesmath.htm





    BEE HAPPY Jim 134 :)
"Tell me and I'll forget,show me and I may  remember,involve me and I'll understand"
        Chinese Proverb

"The farmer is the only man in our economy who buys everything at retail, sells everything at wholesale, and pays the freight both ways."
 John F. Kennedy
Franklin County Beekeepers Association MA. http://www.franklinmabeekeepers.org/

Offline deknow

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Offline BjornBee

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Re: queen mating/breeding calculator or wheel.. anyone have one of these?
« Reply #3 on: April 18, 2011, 08:31:04 am »
I just use a simply page as outlined below. This allows me to add a page to a notebook for each graft, then keep notes along the way, keep it on file, refer back to it if problems come up later, etc. Once you plug the first date in, you just count off the days and plug in the dates. I keep the log book in the truck and have found out that waiting till the end of the day and then logging everything back in a computer, just wastes more time and things are easily forgotten 8 hours later at home at the end of a long day.  

I keep this form on a word doc and print out forms when needed.

It looks like this....

QUEEN BREED  Home Yard - R/SMR

DAY                                                           DATE                       COMMENTS

1  egg laid                                           ___________
2
3
4 Graft 1 day old larvae                         ___20 Apr
5
6 Check how many cells started           ___22 Apr
7
8
9 Queen cells capped                            ___25 Apr
10
11
12
13 Move cells to mating nucs               ___29 Apr
14
15
16 Queen cells emerge                           ___2 May
17
18 If not emerged discard                      ___4 May
19
20
21 Mating flight
22 Mating flight                                     ___8 May



34 Check for eggs                                  ___20 May


41 No eggs discard queen                      ___27 May



Grafts Taken_________________

Queen mated/laying____________


A queen calendar can be found here with numbered days.. http://www.nsqba.org/smallscalequeenrearing.html

www.bjornapiaries.com
www.pennapic.org
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Northern States Queen Breeders Assoc.  www.nsqba.com