Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => REQUEENING & RAISING NEW QUEENS => Topic started by: Steel Tiger on March 31, 2013, 11:43:08 am
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Assume you have two hives that you want to crossbreed, taking a virgin queen from one hive and a bunch of drones from another hive. How much room would they need for a successful mating?
Could it be done in something...say...the size of a large aquarium with a screen top? Would a small greenhouse work...or some sort of screened tent be better? If so, what size?
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she mates while flying you outa luck on yo plans unless you can do artificial. and she needs to mate with drones from diff. hives
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This is more for information than something I'm setting right out to do. I'm guessing using an aquarium is out.
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Yep it is out, if you had something like the superdome you might be successful. They breed in areas where drones congregate in large numbers while in flight.
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Assume you have two hives that you want to crossbreed, taking a virgin queen from one hive and a bunch of drones from another hive. How much room would they need for a successful mating?
Could it be done in something...say...the size of a large aquarium with a screen top? Would a small greenhouse work...or some sort of screened tent be better? If so, what size?
IMHO you need to being with about a square mile and you need the top of the screen
house about 30 to 40 feet off the grounded (this is not a guess on the high) this is just a guess on the size. You can do artificial a lot cheaper.
BEE HAPPY Jim 134 :)
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>Assume you have two hives that you want to crossbreed, taking a virgin queen from one hive and a bunch of drones from another hive. How much room would they need for a successful mating?
About six miles...
They will not mate in a small space. This has been tried many times over the years starting with Huber back in the late 1700s. The only successful method of forcing a particular drone to mate with a particular queen is Instrumental Insemination (II).
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a table top and a lot of fancy equipment and some knowledge and experience on how to II queens.
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a table top and a lot of fancy equipment and some knowledge and experience on how to II queens.
More like this a few 1,000 dollars to pay for the instrument and the training and now you need a few years of experience
http://latshawapiaries.com/index.php?page=latshaw-instrument (http://latshawapiaries.com/index.php?page=latshaw-instrument)
BEE HAPPY Jim 134 :)
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Since the chances of your virgin mating with a drone from your hives is small,
the concept of deliberate crossbreeding by open mating is irrelevant.
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So for the most part even the "Queen Breeders" that most of us buy our queens from have no control over Genetics??
I mean I have always assumed so, but is this true?
So then how does one "breed good queens".
Alfred
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Well, you an have mating yards that are some distance from your
main yard and all have quality genetics. Still, a mutt might sneak in
to the 'drone congregation area'. But for the most part, the only way
to come close to insuring a good genetic transfer is to isolate your
mating yard.
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It is possible to saturate an area with specific drones. Locating drone hives over vast distances (over 1/2 mile) isn't necessary. It's been proven through the use of the Cordovan marker trait and what Dadant did to produce their Midnite and Starline bees back in the day.