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Author Topic: Unusually high supercedure rates, opinions?  (Read 5294 times)

Offline David McLeod

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Unusually high supercedure rates, opinions?
« on: September 22, 2011, 10:43:33 am »
Okay, here is what I have experienced this season.
First swarm of the season lost the queen for reasons unknown, possibly beekeeper error as an exclude was used underneath to hold her in. The swarm never attempted to make a new queen when fed a frame of eggs. They were combined after three failed attempts.
Cut out colony in June made their own queen from eggs salvaged from cutout. This queen later (July) provided a frame of eggs to another cut out colony that failed to utilize the few eggs salvaged from it's own combs.
This second colony with a new daughter queen (less than a month old) superseded last month, I did a split so I could raise two queens off the supercedure cells.
Now the original colony has superseded this month (the June queen) and the virgin failed. I've combined the better of the two split queens with this one.
I've discussed this with a local queen breeder and he states that he is also seeing an usually high rate of supercedure. He even went so far as to say that longevity of his queens is now one of his main criteria in selecting breeders.
What gives?
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Offline BjornBee

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Re: Unusually high supercedure rates, opinions?
« Reply #1 on: September 22, 2011, 02:35:46 pm »
Supercedure, swarming, grafting rates, and about anything changes from year to year. Some years more, and some years less.

I do find it interesting that this beekeeper selects his breeder on the criteria of some length of time.

In nature (feral colonies) the queen is replaced almost every year. Mother nature is constantly upgrading genetics, selecting for young vigorous queens, and culling out the weak.

So why would a beekeeper use a (lets say) three year old queen to select for grafting, and perpetuating a line from? This is the equivalent of not upgrading or improving your stock over a three year period.

To me, it makes more sense to go into winter chemical free, with as little assistance from me as possible, then next spring, select one or two breeder queens.

Maybe part of his problem would be that he selects and grafts from old queens past their prime, and around only due to beekeeper interference in dictating that she lives beyond her prime.

The one thing I have noticed is that many primary swarms will replace their queens as soon as they can after setting up a new location. The old queen is cast out of the original colony in favor of a younger queen. But the bees are not stupid. They also replace the old queen in the prime swarm also, as soon as they can. It does make sense.  Having three year old queens around is not usually found in nature. Why we think that grafting old queens and old sperm is in our best interest always baffles me.
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Offline David McLeod

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Re: Unusually high supercedure rates, opinions?
« Reply #2 on: September 22, 2011, 05:50:31 pm »
Bjorn, I think you failed to grasp my main point. These are not brand spanking new queens that I'm losing. If that was the case I'd write it off as poorly bred. One of these queens was ninety plus days and laying just fine having built up a cut out colony to four boxes in spite of coming to me at the end of our main flow.
My friend the breeder has experienced similar and wants his queens to go one season to make his selection. It's the 30 to 90 day supercedures for no obvious reasons that has me scratching my head.
I long ago learned not to second guess my bees but when I see something like this repeated more than a few times I begin to wonder.
Basically, why is queen viability so low? Maybe I have an aberration here since my statistical sample is a low five colonies but 40% (60% if the first swarm can be counted) is significant to me, more so when a keeper of over fifty acknowledges similar in his own.
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Offline hankdog1

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Re: Unusually high supercedure rates, opinions?
« Reply #3 on: September 22, 2011, 07:37:48 pm »
I shall attempt to shed some light on this subject from talking with others as I have never had to deal with more then 1 or maybe 2 bad queens at a time.  There are a few good reasons the bees want to raise a new queen.

1.  Poorly mated queen while she may start off strong due to factors such as mite strips being used she starts to fail from lack of sperm and lack of sperm viability.  (Mind you the chemicals in mite strips are responsible for this problem and a lot of beekeepers use them)

2.  The queen is injured for whatever reason the queen may have a defect or injury that the bees see her as not being able to produce.

There are other reasons of course but I would bet #1 is your reason they are having to raise so many queens.  It's also the reason many commercial beekeepers have to requeen so often.
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Offline BjornBee

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Re: Unusually high supercedure rates, opinions?
« Reply #4 on: September 22, 2011, 09:25:23 pm »
Queen viability low.....ok, here goes.

One, lets get the idea of poorly mated queens behind us. With few exceptions, it never comes down to a poorly mated queen. In fact, you would be hard pressed to really define what exactly is a poorly mated queen. Most attribute it to some idea of not enough sperm from mating only once or twice. But reality is, the queen has enough sperm after one mating to last her lifetime. Multiple matings, as bees dictate, has more to do with genetic diversity rather than needing more sperm. This is not to be confused with a quality assessment discussion of properly mated queens for commercial sale, thus defining a good operation or a poor operation, as seen with a certain amount of sperm. Indicating a good drone saturation etc.

Now for low queen viability.

Chemicals and pesticides: Many chemicals are detrimental to low queen viability. Probably the #1 chemical that has been studied and shown to effect queen performance is coumaphos. It is a wonder that bee supply places even still sell this crap! But as I said before, follow the money.

Add on the neonicotinoids, the recent addition of pesticides to combat stink bugs, emerald ash borer, west Nile virus, and other pests that the university extension, the EPA, and others (who many think are working for the bees....and what a joke that is!) and it's a wonder how our bees survive at all.

Comb age: How old is the comb in the hives and mating nucs being used by your friend? See the above comments. Old comb allows chemical buildup to reach levels that can impact queens.

Viral impacts: Queens are great carriers of most viruses in the hive. Throw in the new nosema, questionable weak genetics, a suppressed immune system (From chemicals, mites, etc.) and queen grafts, queen viability, and queen lifespan is affected. Blackened queen disease has been much higher in recent years, which indicated a larger problem than some really know.

Weak genetics: Yes, importation of Australian bees have been shut down. But the overall genetic pool to my opinion is as weak today as it has been in the past 20 years. Queen supercedure has been noted in packages for the past several years. Mass produced weak genetic queens have been a topic of discussion for years. And it affects all beekeepers.

I think weak queens is on par as CCD goes. A combination of factors just as seen with CCD, is also seen in queen rearing. Many items are impacting queen rearing. Is there are reasoning for 50-75% loss in states all across the northern states last year? Even counting CCD years, this past year has seen one of the highest winter kill rate ever. Yet, not much was made of it.

I think queen breeders need to go back and evaluate your entire operation. Use clean comb, don't baby weak genetics, and look at everything that could be impacting queen production. I spoke to many breeders this year, and yes, many had problem on some level this past year. Something has definitely changed.

As an industry, we could not of screwed up beekeeping too much more if we tried. And part of that is the average beekeepers inability to raise local stock, perpetuate your own queens, and rely on an industry that does questionable things. We have relied on mass produced, many time foreign queens, and have treated bees way too long in this country. Eventually it catches up to you. And I think we see it in many different ways. Bad queens is one of them.
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Offline Michael Bush

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Re: Unusually high supercedure rates, opinions?
« Reply #5 on: September 24, 2011, 02:25:23 am »
Nancy Ostiguy at the KHPA meeting about five years ago said she believes that because of chemicals in the hive etc. the average the queen now gets superseded three times a year.
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Offline David McLeod

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Re: Unusually high supercedure rates, opinions?
« Reply #6 on: September 24, 2011, 08:47:16 am »
Well an update. I've done a combine as my largest did not have the virgin come back. If they make it through I have a candidate for a walk away split come spring. They are in two deeps with a shallow on bottom and one and a half full shallows on top with a light flow coming in. Of my others only one is definitely queenright. One is questionable with no queen found very few eggs but no queen cells, I have this one under a close watch, could just be a slow down. A five frame nuc with both eggs and two queen cells. I am at a total loss as to what going on here. If I make it through with just two I'll be surprised. All of these are cutouts from this year, a total of nine for the year but with one abscond and one die out plus a couple combines dropped me to five before this last combine and I expect to do one more before frost.
All are on foundationless and cutout salvage comb, no chemicals period. The closest thong to chemicals is ten sheets of small cell foundation scattered through the boxes to fill in gaps. All were fed 3:2 for most of July (no flow) to get them back on their feet.
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Offline BjornBee

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Re: Unusually high supercedure rates, opinions?
« Reply #7 on: September 24, 2011, 09:06:07 am »
David, just because you didn't use chemicals, does not mean they are clean. We were shocked to find out how many chemicals the bees drag in from all over the place. We don't treat our bees. But unless you are an isolated operation, like on an island, your bees are no doubt dealing with chemicals.

Read the part on the page about testing pollen samples.

http://www.bjornapiaries.com/researchatbjorns.html

Unfortunately, CCD testing has shown lethal effects of some chemicals as low as several parts per billions. Especially when they are mixed with other chemicals. I'm not suggesting your bees are tainted, but it is possible. Chemicals, an ongoing viral condition, and a host of things could be impacting your bees.
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Offline boca

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Re: Unusually high supercedure rates, opinions?
« Reply #8 on: September 24, 2011, 09:15:19 am »
We were shocked to find out how many chemicals the bees drag in from all over the place. We don't treat our bees. But unless you are an isolated operation, like on an island, your bees are no doubt dealing with chemicals.

What is a chemical and what is not? Is sucrose a chemical? Is acetic acid a chemical?

Offline BjornBee

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Re: Unusually high supercedure rates, opinions?
« Reply #9 on: September 24, 2011, 11:47:30 am »
We were shocked to find out how many chemicals the bees drag in from all over the place. We don't treat our bees. But unless you are an isolated operation, like on an island, your bees are no doubt dealing with chemicals.

What is a chemical and what is not? Is sucrose a chemical? Is acetic acid a chemical?

Do we have to go there every freakin discussion about chemicals?

How is this.....read the page I gave earlier.

http://www.bjornapiaries.com/researchatbjorns.html

There are at least 100 chemicals, some beekeeper industry applied chemicals, that are on that list and known to be harmful to bees. Herbicides, fungicides, pesticides, etc. You don't find sugar (in any form.. sucrose, fructose, etc.) on many lists of "chemicals".

If you want to drag this into some "sugar" is a chemical discussion, it has done hundreds of times in the past. And usually results in a discussion not worth having.

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Offline boca

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Re: Unusually high supercedure rates, opinions?
« Reply #10 on: September 24, 2011, 11:57:11 am »

Offline David McLeod

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Re: Unusually high supercedure rates, opinions?
« Reply #11 on: September 24, 2011, 12:28:33 pm »
Bjorn, believe me I have no doubt that my bees are tainted. Just living in metro Atlanta is enough for exposure to all the nasties of modern society plus I am within a mile of agricultural operations so again they are definitely tainted. What can be done, not on the larger scale but in my own beeyard to keep my queens alive and functioning is really what I'm after.
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Offline hankdog1

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Re: Unusually high supercedure rates, opinions?
« Reply #12 on: September 24, 2011, 06:55:54 pm »
Bjorn what your saying is right in aspects to everything we have been taught about poorly mated queens.  Years ago this wasn't even an issue as most of us never treated a hive for anything back in the 80's.  But alas you introduce chemicals into the hive all the sudden drones performance goes way down.  Not an opinion eigther it's been researched.  While I can't find the exact paper that was published on the subject I did happen to find a overview of sorts on the subject.  http://web.ento.vt.edu/ento/showPub.jsp?pubNum=860

Until we find something better for mites that's easier on the bees or just walk away from treating with these products we will probably always have queen problems. 

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Offline rdy-b

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Re: Unusually high supercedure rates, opinions?
« Reply #13 on: September 27, 2011, 02:21:14 am »
 I think alot of the problems with queens these days are a reflection of the DRONES they are mating with
 more diversity on the drone line would improve things not to mention the blanks they are shooting-- 8-) RDY-B