# General beekeeping > Queen raising >  Drone rearing

## Greengage

I would be interested in raising my own queens from AMM stock, But should I not also give consideration to raising Drones, if I raised drones are they not drifters and once allowed fly I could not be sure of what colony they belong too or if they were mine. How would I keep them until they are sexually mature.
If I had an unmated queen would she still produce viable drones if confined.

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## The Drone Ranger

Hi Greengage
The serious breeders try to either get all the local beekeepers on board or keep their drone producing hives in an isolated spot and take their mini nucs with virgins to that apiary for mating
That's difficult to achieve as drones are found a long way from home very commonly having hopped from hive to hive 
All the drones your queen produces are only her genes so "pure" in that sense so if you had one say Amm queen you could graft and produce 10 cross bred open mated daughters then take those to your isolated mating station
All their drones would still be Amm
You can get a different Amm queen and graft from her now then take her daughters in mininucs to your mating station to be mated by the Amm drones

In practice its best to have a bigger gene pool than relying on 2 pure Amm queens
You get plenty drones if you put a couple of super frames in among the full size frames in a broodbox

Sounds simple but without an island it might be frustratingly hard O:-)

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## Greengage

Cheers tks for that , I live on a big island behind a bigger island on the edge of a continent does that count  :Wink:

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## prakel

> I would be interested in raising my own queens from AMM stock, But should I not also give consideration to raising Drones, if I raised drones are they not drifters and once allowed fly I could not be sure of what colony they belong too or if they were mine. How would I keep them until they are sexually mature.
> If I had an unmated queen would she still produce viable drones if confined.


Drones drifting into the wider community isn't a bad thing (unless you mean that you're planning to use AI); I doubt that it matters where they live so long as they find their way to a Drone Congregation area. That said, I marked a considerable number of drones in random hives this year and was surprised at how few actually turned up in other hives. I'll repeat, but with tighter recording next year. May even try again this week, time permitting, to see if there's a different result.

Their presence also acts as a good guage to what's happening in the colony nutritionally. 

I wrote earlier this year about starting to use foundation again after several years. Since then, it's occurred to me that I need to provide space for easy drone comb production (not keen on single combs of drone cells as it goes against my ideas of what probably makes a healthy nest environment) so that'll be factored into next year's plan.

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## Greengage

Great i will mark some drones and observe where they go.

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## prakel

Recommended for drone info:

Steve Taber 'Breeding Super Bees'.

John Atkinson 'Background to Bee Breeding'.

There are also some interesting articles linked in the Q Rearing by Numbers thread:

http://www.sbai.org.uk/sbai_forum/sh...ing-by-numbers

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## The Drone Ranger

> Cheers tks for that , I live on a big island behind a bigger island on the edge of a continent does that count


It does if you can get rid of any other beekeepers and their hives

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## Greengage

You know the funny thing is that all the beekeepers i have met so far indicate that they are in favour of having AMM in their hives I have not met one person yet who said the want buckfast, or any other bees now is that just me, Any beekeeper who admitted to having bees with yellow banding are looking to requeen with Amm queens.

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## Jon

There is definitely a resurgence of interest in the native bee in Ireland. The success of NIHBS and the events organised by it is evidence of this.
There are people making a full time living using Amm stock such as Aoife Nic Giolla Coda, Coolmore bees and others.
We have some good Amm stock in Ireland but it is under threat from hybridisation.
The bee traders often work with Buckfast bringing in stock from Denmark or Germany.

Getting the neighbours working together is crucial if you want to make progress. The Galtee people have managed this and they have some really good stock now after 25 years of selection.
Starting up a queen rearing/bee breeding group is a good starting point.

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## busybeephilip

Yep - for beginners the back bee is thumbs up !

I see Coolmore are sold out of queens

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## The Drone Ranger

> You know the funny thing is that all the beekeepers i have met so far indicate that they are in favour of having AMM in their hives I have not met one person yet who said the want buckfast, or any other bees now is that just me, Any beekeeper who admitted to having bees with yellow banding are looking to requeen with Amm queens.


Hi Greengage 
I think the commercial beekeepers prefer Carniolans perhaps C4u might be the chap who can say for sure
I like carniolans they are good bees and generally well bred by the specialist breeders
These days they all cost too much so I raise my own near natives (of the EU) with the help of quality drones from the people who buy their queens in bulk lol!

Most places it really wouldn't matter Much if you spent loads on pure bred Queens because they would be hybridised in subsequent generations whether they were Amm Buckfast Carnie or Italian
In fact you might have more success with Carnies if the local drone pool is bias in that direction not sure if that would be the case? because the bees like to interbreed

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## Greengage

Looks like ill have to do a lot more reading and research, I thought this would be easy.

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## The Drone Ranger

> Looks like ill have to do a lot more reading and research, I thought this would be easy.


Its very easy to raise queens from your own bees
Providing they are not riddled with chalkbrood or aggressive they will do just fine 
I have wing scanned mine not that that tells you for sure what they are 
They are a mixture of Carnie and amm(ish) types and generally pretty good regards temper and chalkbrood etc
If your bees were not very good either propolising or stinging etc you might get a couple of queens in to get you off on the right foot
The local drone population have a big part to play but if you start with a gentle queen the daughters have a good chance of being the same

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## Greengage

Great I have a lovely lady heading my hive at the moment so I hope to breed from here if they survive the winter which I hope they will.

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## The Drone Ranger

That's definitely what I would do Greengage
Over the Winter you might get some grafting tools and a few cupkit bits to put on a frame for grafting into
Mininucs are a bit dear Kielers are about £16 with the frame bars
There's plenty time to make a few nucs overwinter and they are just about as good for queen rearing
You need them anyway at some point to give the queen her own hive

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## SDM

The commercial beeks I know of all use Buckfast. I don't have the time with both yet to make a real comparison between my Amm(ish) bees and my  Buckfast. There is definitely a rise in interest in Amm queens, but I highly doubt a bee that developed in isolation just after the last ice age is the most suitable for the rapidly warming climate and completely different flora/forage we have today. I guess as with a lot of today's beekeepers, the bees they keep are a fashion accessory.

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## Greengage

Interesting, those who know better say the biggest threat to Species is loss of habitat and invasive species, Just finished reading the sixth extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert which won the Pulitizers prize for  non fiction interesting reading. We cannot aford to guess and in this age time is not on our side maybe too late even.

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## Kate Atchley

> ... I highly doubt a bee that developed in isolation just after the last ice age is the most suitable for the rapidly warming climate and completely different flora/forage we have today. I guess as with a lot of today's beekeepers, the bees they keep are a fashion accessory.


Amm spread northwards gradually after the last ice age, from what is now Spain, to occupy all of western Europe as far north as Finland and the Balkans. In the south the bees were in contact with the Iberian subspecies, in the south east, Ligustica, and on the eastern side, Carnica. So they do not appear to have _developed in isolation_, nor more so than any of the other subspecies. 

You'll find a map within this paper: http://http://www.researchgate.net/publication/238074946_Biodiversity_conservation_and_current_th  reats_to_European_honeybees._Apidologie_40(3)_263-284

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## prakel

Theres also a different theory as to the origin of our bees from a 2014 paper:

*A worldwide survey of genome sequence variation provides insight into the evolutionary history of the honeybee Apis mellifera* 

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rc...0Y-uAyED8-5CgA

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## Jon

And a subspecies like Amm has huge genetic variation within it. This was pointed out by Jensen and Pedersen in the 2005 paper which looked at introgression into Amm from other subspecies and Buckfast. 
You can select for what you want with Amm same as with Buckfast or any other subspecies.
The Beo Cooper line is that Amm make small colonies with workers which live longer yet a lot of the Galtee bees are kept in double brood chambers and that is probably due to 25 years of selection for a trait they want.
These bees have been repeatedly DNA tested for various studies over the years and they are certainly Amm. The Colonsay bees have also been tested over and over and are Amm. You need to work with what you have to improve it.

I have put a load of reference to Amm and bee breeding on the NIHBS site

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## SDM

> Amm spread northwards gradually after the last ice age, from what is now Spain, to occupy all of western Europe as far north as Finland and the Balkans. In the south the bees were in contact with the Iberian subspecies, in the south east, Ligustica, and on the eastern side, Carnica. So they do not appear to have _developed in isolation_, nor more so than any of the other subspecies]


I meant specifically British Amm

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## SDM

I still struggle with the idea that Buckfast is a separate race. But given that genetic diversity is a good thing in all species, we will surely not help anything(other than perhaps ourselves) by limiting the pool.
Surely the import of good lines is beneficial to the future of bees(pests and diseases that came with them aside). If nature had the opportunity to mix races in the UK it would have done. In just the same way as it apparently has done from the lack of pure Amm to be found on the mainland. Would there even be bees on these island refuges if it wasn't for beekeepers ?
Where I live wind is my biggest problem, so I'm keen to see if my black bees fly on the days my Buckfast find marginal but I suspect that if Amm were simply a better bee for these islands, then the big honey producers wouldn't be heavily biased to Buckfast. I've not yet seen an Amm fill a double brood, my best might make brood and a half next year.
I am however in favour of stopping imports and allowing nature to decide what's best from the available genetics.

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## The Drone Ranger

> I meant specifically British Amm


Hi SDM
Steele and Brodie imported loads of Amm queens and packages from France all within recent memory
Those were sold all over Scotland so the native Scottish Amm might owe more to the "Auld Alliance" and Gallic charm than Gaelic natives  and the retreat of the ice sheets  :Smile:

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## SDM

I'm still working through the mountain on the NIHBS site.
I've been seduced by " Gallic charm" on more than one occasion(and highly recommend it), but does that mean the general consensus is, importing good European stock of Amm is to be encouraged(Varroa free areas aside)?

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## Jon

NIHBS is against all imports because of the disease risk. I think most of the other beekeeping organisations are the same.

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## gavin

I'm running some random local hybrids in some apiaries and breeding with Scottish-sourced Amm elsewhere.  I bought Jon's pedigree Irish Amm queens to see what years of breeding can do with them and two of them have been alongside the local mixed stuff for over a year.  Most impressive.  They needed double brood boxes from early in the season, were more productive in honey terms and were noticeably less swarmy.  In my hands in a difficult summer the temper of these two was variable but others report that they are great to handle.  So the lack of strength of Amm might apply to random stocks as happens in unbred stocks of most races I would imagine, but when Amm is bred, like the other races, you can get strength and productivity.

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## The Drone Ranger

I have one of Jon's (well 2 actually thanks for that Jon)
Anyway the one which has been here since the start of the season is on a double Smith
The comb drawn by them is very nice, 
They don't propolise , 
They haven't stung me yet 
They have pretty much looked after themselves no feeding required during the year
It would be unfair to expect every one of Jon's queens to replicate that but there should be a pretty good chance
I have a fair old mixture in the other hives,some are as good, some are worse, but none are better, so you can't say fairer than that

P.S.French AMM (done it again caps) had a bit of a reputation for putting the boot in when things weren't going their way

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## SDM

> I'm running some random local hybrids in some apiaries and breeding with Scottish-sourced Amm elsewhere.  I bought Jon's pedigree Irish Amm queens to see what years of breeding can do with them and two of them have been alongside the local mixed stuff for over a year.  Most impressive.  They needed double brood boxes from early in the season, were more productive in honey terms and were noticeably less swarmy.  In my hands in a difficult summer the temper of these two was variable but others report that they are great to handle.  So the lack of strength of Amm might apply to random stocks as happens in unbred stocks of most races I would imagine, but when Amm is bred, like the other races, you can get strength and productivity.


This is what I intend doing,  mostly because one of my apiaries nearest neighbours(3 and 5 miles away) is the local associations training apiary and Wally Shaw's mating apiary. Both of which are Amm. They have no idea I have bees where I do, I just felt it would be " uncool" to split their bees with my usual Buckfast brand. So I'll be nagging some of you next year for queens to hopefully improve mine and theirs.

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## prakel

Just to add to the online drone resources linked in this thread, I recently came across this article which is hidden away in a commercial site selling carnica, unfortunately I've had to rely on the less than perfect google-translate but I reckon that it's worth a read.

http://www.carnicaqueens.com/drons_RU.html

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## Duncan

English text can be opened by clicking on top right-hand flag - the Union Jack!

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## prakel

Tried that but for some reason I can't get the drone chapter to open in English, the flag just takes me back to the general introduction. This computer I'm using seems to have a mind of it's own.

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## gwizzie

> Tried that but for some reason I can't get the drone chapter to open in English, the flag just takes me back to the general introduction. This computer I'm using seems to have a mind of it's own.


Here hope this helps ?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bcujma50u0...0grow.pdf?dl=0

Just click the download top right for a copy in pdf  :Wink:

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