# General beekeeping > Queen raising >  And another thing......

## Castor

I am annoyed with my favourite queen.

Disappointed.

She has been laying the most consistent brood pattern for the whole season - and did the same at the back end of last season too.
The colony wintered nicely, is nicely tempered and was prime a selection for a few quoons.

So I caught her - nicely and without trauma - and plonked her in the hive acclimatised Nicot "Cupularve" that is my standard method. 100 nice cells all ready for Mrs Quoon to bung her fecund rear into.
Normally I'd expect to see most of the cells laid after 30 hours of queen confinement - on this occasion she gave me 2.  Two. Just two. Not together or in any sensible kind of place, but just kind of random, in the middle-ish.

What is more, one of the cells has two eggs in it - the other, three.

When I released her she looked smug and I thought I saw her give me two fingers.

Any suggestions, team?

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## prakel

Grafting  :Smile:

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## Jon

seconded!
You should be able to graft 100 larvae in well under an hour without having to mess around catching queens and putting them into cages. (which they may or may not lay in!)

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## Adam

I did see the same as you a couple of years ago. I recall that I picked up the queen very early in the inspection and didn't look any further and put her in a cupkit so she could lay some eggs for me. She laid just a few. As I saw eggs in the cupkit cells I let her go back into the hive without further inspection and just thought "that's odd, she's a bit thin and why did she not lay the full 100?". However the reason was that the bees were preparing to swarm so despite being clipped, I lost her. 
Most disappointed. 
Gutted. 
Miffed.
Annoyed with myself for not putting two and two together and not checking the hive for queencells. 
The good part is that one of her daughters is my favourite; I bred from her last year and this. Not cupkits though, but larval transfer.

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## Castor

> I did see the same as you a couple of years ago. ............
> Annoyed with myself for not putting two and two together and not checking the hive for queencells.


Good point, well made.

To be certain I shall despatch my esteemed missus  on a rigorous QC hunt tomorrow. It's a monster hive - double brood, filling a super in four/five days at the mo..... she can't get the supers off when they are full.......lol

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## Little_John

> Any suggestions, team?


Yes - ignore the instructions (which I suspect were written by a salesman, trying to convince people how 'hands-off' this kit is), and watch the informative Youtube video by DC Honeybees instead. www.youtube.com/watch?v=btfPnqwhyHw

In particular, the presenter stresses that it may take - for reasons known only to the queen - several days to lay all the cells, and the only sure way of knowing which cells have been laid in and ready for use is to visually check the base of the cell cups for a build-up of Royal Jelly. If there are only a few of these, then remove them to the cell starter and leave the queen _in situ_ for a further day, or even two.

Hope this info is helpful - as not everyone likes to graft ...  :Smile: 

LJ

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## Castor

Thanks LJ, I'll watch later when not in the office. :-)

I've twice had reasonable success with the "Corpularve" before this dismal attempt. Single eggs laid in almost all of the 100 cells. What intrigued me was the two and three eggs bit - why would a queen decide to do that??

We have a full-on inspection of the hive and the Queen Errant later today.... don't forget to tune in to the next episode........

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## prakel

> What intrigued me was the two and three eggs bit - why would a queen decide to do that??


Just my own thoughts although I bet there's some sound research out there somewhere -I may be tempted to have a look later...

From personal observation I reckon that it's not that uncommon to have more than one egg in a cell. On this occasion it may have been highlighted by your micro-comb. 

There is a reference in Mike Palmer's Queen Rearing video from the National Honey Show, I think he shows a photo of two slightly different aged larvae in the same cell -in an otherwise sound colony which he's trying to graft from.

*edit:*

Queen Rearing in the Sustainable Apiary (Mike Palmer).
from approx. 33.20, but the whole video deserves attention.

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## Little_John

> JQueen Rearing in the Sustainable Apiary (Mike Palmer).
> from approx. 33.20, but the whole video deserves attention.


Great video - thanks for the link ...

I've seen some of Mike's other talks, but not that one. Some really good tips there - I particularly like the one about putting combs containing nectar under the brood box, so that the bees will re-locate it, thus simulating a honey flow. Clever  :Smile: 

LJ

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## Castor

Next Episode:-

Thanks to all.....

So Mrs Quoon of Contrary and I had another encounter last night. Having failed to lay in the Corpularve jobbie the other day, she then proceeded to fill both sides of an entire frame during her 48 hours of freedom. So last evening I stuck her back in the Corpularve. Take that.

If she lays two eggs or more in only a couple of cells I'll call the phenomenon repeatable. What I shall call _her_ will be totally unrepeatable.

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## Jon

That 2 sides of brood she laid up would make perfect grafts and you know the timing of when to move them!

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## Castor

> That 2 sides of brood she laid up would make perfect grafts and you know the timing of when to move them!


Jon, I appreciate that. I fully understand. However I can't see well. And she *will* lay in that ************* corpularve jobbie after I have paid through the nose to the French for it.


I'm off to start a new thread.

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## prakel

Castor, how many cells do you need for each round of nucs? I do understand that you've bought into using this kit but so far it's cost you at least four days which might not seem much but if that was repeated over a series of half a dozen batches it becomes a heavy cost. There's enough time lost when other stages of the process go wrong for various reasons without struggling to get eggs laid in the first place. 

Cut cell strips or even the Miller method might be as useful for raising a couple of dozen queens.

edit: Not a very helpful post, I know, but having tried the same kit that you're using a few years ago I reckon I've seen enough of it to have some valid opinions even if they don't help you!

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## Castor

> if that was repeated over a series of half a dozen batches it becomes a heavy cost. There's enough time lost when other stages of the process go wrong for various reasons without struggling to get eggs laid in the first place.


Agreed, Sir.

I have to find a way through this that is consistent and repeatable - and I am hearing the "Graft" message long and loud.

As things sit I have the luxury of "no big deal" if it all goes horribly wrong - as you imply, on another occasion that delay could mean success or failure.

In reality the Corpularve is showing its shortcomings, but I have to put it down to the vagaries of the queen so I can be Right. I'm an engineer and have to be Right.

So Chinese grafting tool, stainless steel cranked thing or tiny sable paintbrush?

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## prakel

> I have to find a way through this that is consistent and repeatable - and I am hearing the "Graft" message long and loud.


Or the miller method if you have concerns over sight. Let the bees work it out for you, but make sure the starter is right -this is where so many people get the walk away split method wrong and end up with stop-gap queens ...but that's for another thread...




> In reality the Corpularve is showing its shortcomings, but I have to put it down to the vagaries of the queen so I can be Right. I'm an engineer and have to be Right.


If you're only after a few queens (always aim for more than you need so that you can actually select rather than just raise) and enjoy MAKING it work I reckon the Corpularve is probably as good as anything. I know that there are people who do very well with it but I'm always trying to cut out avoidable operations.




> So Chinese grafting tool, stainless steel cranked thing or tiny sable paintbrush?


I had a lovely stainless Swiss grafting tool which I put down and never found again, at present I'm using a cheapo 000 brush out of a multi-pack from 'The Works' which most certainly isn't sable, really makes no difference in practice although some will say it does! If you're using plastic cups (which you have already) then the 'sable' brush is probably easier than the stainless tool; no experience of the Chinese type.

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## fatshark

Castor … just replied to your grafting thread. Should also have added … have you seen the fatbeeman video where he cuts a slice from freshly laid up com and fixes it to a cell bar. 

Hang on, let me look … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y64cKn4rLNM

Edit … I see prakel has covered most things as well (cut cell strips). I also have a lovely stainless steel grafting tool. It's rubbish in comparison to a small paintbrush  :Wink:

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## Black Comb

How did you "condition " the cassette?
I put a drop of honey in each plastic cell and insert into hive 2 days prior to confining her maj.
Ensure the workers clean out each cell.

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## prakel

> How did you "condition " the cassette?
> I put a drop of honey in each plastic cell and insert into hive 2 days prior to confining her maj.
> Ensure the workers clean out each cell.


The conditioning aspect is definitely important, it's the same with the wax cups that we use. No honey/syrup etc but it's good to give them chance to work on the cups if they wish to 'adjust' things ever so slightly.

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## madasafish

> Castor … just replied to your grafting thread. Should also have added … have you seen the fatbeeman video where he cuts a slice from freshly laid up com and fixes it to a cell bar. 
> 
> Hang on, let me look … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y64cKn4rLNM
> 
> Edit … I see prakel has covered most things as well (cut cell strips). I also have a lovely stainless steel grafting tool. It's rubbish in comparison to a small paintbrush


I use the fatbeeman method.. It's simple and works well.. I cannot see very well even with glasses - I cannot focus easily at close range and eyes grow tired.

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## Little_John

> Great video - thanks for the link ...
> 
> I've seen some of Mike's other talks, but not that one. Some really good tips there - I particularly like the one about putting combs containing nectar under the brood box, so that the bees will re-locate it, thus simulating a honey flow. Clever 
> 
> LJ


Whoooh ....  I've just spotted a BIG flaw in Michael's very interesting and informative talk.

He starts by telling a story in which he was questioned about why he has just bought-in 100 queen bees, when he could so easily have been raising his own queens ...  and he proceeds to ask the audience the same question for, as he points out, raising queen-bees is relatively straightforward. After all, the bees have been doing it unaided for a long time now ... 

But - when he had just bought-in 100 queens - what was the size of his operation at that time ? He doesn't say, but I'd guess at least a couple of hundred colonies - and so he had a large number of existing colonies from which to select his initial breeding stock. 

But what hope does the small beekeeper have of rearing from their existing stock 'in year one' when they may have only a handful of colonies to choose from ? Unless of course, the beekeeper is already blessed with stock having very good characteristics. If not, then there'll be a need for several decades over which to improve their genetics ...  

Alternatively - they could buy-in some decent stock to start rearing from, and I know which of these options I'm choosing.

But - still a good talk, despite the above comment.

LJ

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## prakel

I'm not sure that he's suggesting that you shouldn't buy in good stock, he himself has mentioned using breeder quality queens from elsewhere. I think the message was not to get tied in to a cycle of buying 'bulk' queens for making increase/re-queening en masse but to get on with raising our own. Not my place to put words in his mouth of course, but that's how I understood the message.

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## Jon

I got 12 triple zero  sable paintbrushes on e-bay for £9.50.

For a small operation, if you want to rear queens you could buy in a good pure race queen in year one and requeen as many colonies as possible with her daughters.
This sorts out your drones for the following year as they will be pure race irrespective of what the daughters mated with.
In year 2 use an unrelated queen of the same race to graft from.
I know people who use this system and it works well. It works even better if you can get your beekeeping neighbours working with you as your drones start to dominate in the local area.
It is very difficult to keep pure race crosses if you have a mish mash of different races in your area.
In some areas the only solution is likely to be sourcing a new queen to graft from every year or two.

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## Little_John

> I think the message was not to get tied in to a cycle of buying 'bulk' queens for making increase/re-queening en masse but to get on with raising our own.


My 'sub-text', as it were - although extremely well-disguised  :Smile:   - was for anyone thinking of raising queens for sale, to not give up with the prospect of a fast approaching scenario of every man and his dog starting to raise their own queens, as there will always be a market 'out there' for good quality stock. Some people can't be arsed to raise their own queens, some consider it too difficult, and many are stuck with stock of poor behaviour, and would much rather buy-in queens with proven characteristics.

When he started rearing his own queens, Mike Palmer had one helluva'n advantage having so many colonies to choose his breeders from - very few people are in that fortunate position. So what I was really commenting on was the 'do as I do - 'cause it's easy' message really needs to be watered down - just a little -  to take into account those with just a handful of hives.

It's actually a very small criticism of an otherwise excellent talk - albeit I think targeted at the more ambitious queen producer - I particularly liiked the way in which he created his own version of pollen combs !  The guy is very thoughtful and inventive.
One of my favourite on-line masters of the black art.  :Smile: 

LJ

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## Jon

I am selling queens but I still organise the queen rearing group every Monday evening and do most of the grafting for the 50 members.
They have more than 60 apideas set out at the mating site at the moment and have got loads of mated queens already.
As you say LJ, there will always be a market for good queens and the more people who rear their own, the better.

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## Calum

I think untill you can supply yourself with quality queens you are just a beekeeper. 
Once you can proficiently select and raise queens you can call yourself an aparist.

I guess I am probably wrong tho...

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## Castor

> I got 12 triple zero  sable paintbrushes on e-bay for £9.50.


So Jon, are you grafting into plastic or wax, wet or dry with your teeny brushes? (I have just ordered some BTW).

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## Jon

Dry grafts into cupkit

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## crabbitdave

Jon I thought aparist was Latin for beekeeper 


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## prakel

> My 'sub-text', as it were - although extremely well-disguised


I'm just ever so slow!

I agree with you that he had a numerical advantage when it came to making his initial selection -the one thing which is certain is that we're never going to get anywhere fast by breeding from dross. While I'm all for the idea of 'local' bees I equally reckon that we need to be prepared to bring in something useful if we can't find it amongst the local stocks. 




> The guy is very thoughtful and inventive.
> One of my favourite on-line masters of the black art.


He is very good, preaching a good message too.

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## fatshark

Apiarist ... "One who keeps bees, specifically one who cares for and raises bees for commercial or agricultural purposes. Also called a beekeeper"

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## Black Comb

No, if you do not raise your own queens you are a keeper of bees.
If you do you can call yourself a beekeeper.

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## crabbitdave

Where does come from ? I do raise my own queens but I think I'll stick with beekeeper 


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## crabbitdave

I only ask as I thought fat shark was right 


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## Castor

I shall try the same.

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## Calum

:Wink:  I may have been having a naughty troll....
Seriously selection and queen raising is the most important skill to sustainably "keep" bees.
I like BC's comment keeper of bees & beekeeper.
I know many keepers of bees, and a few beekeepers. Keepers of bees are the most lucrative business for me - better money than selling honey to be honest.

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## Castor

On beekeepingness, apiarism, and what have you..... creating new queens and colonies is one thing....

How do I stop my wife forming anthropomorphic attachments to queens in particular?

One of the things I learnt early on was the value of culling - she wants to keep them as pets. I tend to take the HenryVIII approach.

Short of divorce, what can I  do?

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## Calum

naturalist beekeeping focuses the mind on friendly stocks.
you should try it.

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## Jon

...says the guy who was stung on the todger!

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## Castor

Wah!

Suddenly I have a vision of the missus padding round the apiary wearing just veil, gloves and wellies.

Calum - you are culpable for my mental disturbance - and did you really get stung on the todger? (ROFL)

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## Jon

http://www.sbai.org.uk/sbai_forum/sh...ll=1#post25261

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## Calum

> Wah!
> 
> Suddenly I have a vision of the missus padding round the apiary wearing just veil, gloves and wellies.
> 
> Calum - you are culpable for my mental disturbance - and did you really get stung on the todger? (ROFL)


Veil and gloves? who wears those ever (seriously)!
Yes on the todger, not as painful as the tip of the nose. Had worse swelling there too  :Wink: .indexbody.jpg
I'm the chap in the cap.

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## Jon

Yep. Good German Carnica are very docile. I remember the IWF videos and the woman who was demonstrating rarely wore a veil.

I was stung on the inside of nose last week. I was removing the cell from an apidea to check that the queen had emerged and a bee came out like a missile through the entrance slot and buried itself in my snout. My eyes were watering for 10 minutes afterwards and the worst thing is, it was not even my apidea. God knows what it was filled with. Psycho yellow mongrels.

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## Calum

thats why I always say
SELECTION and queen raising....
We have some neds with Buckies here, they are alright for a generation or two. After that iffy, very iffy.
The swiss have bred some lovely gentle black bees...
Our regional beekeeping expert says its easy to get much imprved gentle bees withing 3 generations of selection.

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## Jon

Anything showing signs of aggression should be culled and replaced before it gets to make any drones.

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## crabbitdave

> thats why I always say
> SELECTION and queen raising....
> We have some neds with Buckies here, they are alright for a generation or two. After that iffy, very iffy.
> The swiss have bred some lovely gentle black bees...
> Our regional beekeeping expert says its easy to get much imprved gentle bees withing 3 generations of selection.


Hi Calum, do have any evidence to back this up, I only ask as I look after both black and buckfast and Italian's, I've found it more to do with how clumsy the beekeeper is, and the weather to how their temper is, the temper of the bees has not gotten any worse with subsequent generations, I do keep hearing it will from other keepers but when I ask them if how they know this it's always third party information. 
Thanks Dave 


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## The Drone Ranger

Hi crabbitdave
I have noticed a lot of people on the forum who are interested in AMM have widened their definition of "local" to encompass the whole of the UK now  :Smile: 
It seems the theory is 
If you start with gentle Carnica then the bees temper will be worse in subsequent generations because you introduced non local genetics
If however you start with gentle AMM the temper will be worse in subsequent generations because of bad local drone populations
The local drones are always the same but the reasons for poor temper well they are flexible
These drones are of course the old narrow definition of local being 10 miles or so

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## madasafish

> Hi crabbitdave
> I have noticed a lot of people on the forum who are interested in AMM have widened their definition of "local" to encompass the whole of the UK now 
> It seems the theory is 
> If you start with gentle Carnica then the bees temper will be worse in subsequent generations because you introduced non local genetics
> If however you start with gentle AMM the temper will be worse in subsequent generations because of bad local drone populations
> The local drones are always the same but the reasons for poor temper well they are flexible
> These drones are of course the old narrow definition of local being 10 miles or so


I have 6 hives of third/fourth generation carnies. Calm as could be..I can and do  manipulate them in shorts and T shirt without veil. (in good weather of course)

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## The Drone Ranger

> I have 6 hives of third/fourth generation carnies. Calm as could be..I can and do  manipulate them in shorts and T shirt without veil. (in good weather of course)


I was wandering about near a couple of hives and a fast moving bee flew right into my eyeball
I must be getting slow I cant even blink quickly these days (that hurt)
Anyway as a parting shot it stung me on lower eyelid (that hurt as well)

I only like the ones where I can gently poke around without smoke doing inspections etc
I still wear a jacket and veil though 

Take your point about carnies madasafish there's no reason to expect them to go bad 

Up here its a bit cold for shorts being north of the brass monkey line

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## madasafish

Most of the time I wear a jacket and  veil and always light a smoker (which i rarely use). I have some 3rd generation buckfasts which are less calm at times.. although not aggressive.

Shorts weather is two weeks a year here: edge of Staffs Moorlands and 400 feet above sea level.

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## lindsay s

> Hi crabbitdave
> I have noticed a lot of people on the forum who are interested in AMM have widened their definition of "local" to encompass the whole of the UK now


Hi DR 
Its hard to define local because even if you take your own apiary as an example Im sure there will be variations in flora and micro climates just a few miles away. I would call bees that have been successful in Northern Scotland over many years as local even if theyre not pure AMM. (Dont ask me to define many years!)  Dark bees have always done well up here and some of them are hybrids. My mentors AMM bees would be flying on cool dull days when according to the books they should have been at home.  I agree with these two paragraphs from this article linked to Hive Alive.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/28290890 It does meander a bit and those Natural beekeepers deserve everything they get. 

  And Mr Carreck advocates breeding from bees already found in a location rather than those brought in from elsewhere, pointing to recent European research which found that in experiments across 11 different countries, honey bees originating locally consistently outperformed imported ones in their capacity for survival.

 "Another novel aspect of this project is that we will work with local beekeeping communities to breed from the bees they already keep, rather than using centralised national breeding centres that could produce stocks that are poorly adapted to regional climatic conditions and foraging landscapes.

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## Calum

> Hi Calum, do have any evidence to back this up, I only ask as I look after both black and buckfast and Italian's, I've found it more to do with how clumsy the beekeeper is, and the weather to how their temper is, the temper of the bees has not gotten any worse with subsequent generations, I do keep hearing it will from other keepers but when I ask them if how they know this it's always third party information. 
> Thanks Dave


Hi Dave, I have certainly met some awfuly aggressive mongrels here. From generation to generation the components of the buckfast will alter and this can leand to extremes. Especially where they are in an area where 95% of the other bees are carnica. In our "county" there are 1200 colonies, and most of the beeleepers breed their queens on site - unfortunatley not making use of the isolated queen mating site nearby.
That being said, I have some colonies of Carnica (lovely looking queen) bees with orange - red rings that are very nice to work with.

br
Calum

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## The Drone Ranger

Hi Lindsay

Oil seed rape brings lots of bees to our area (in the early season) both commercial and from up the glens etc to get a honey crop
That's swarming season and although I am using Snelgrove boards the new queens will be mating with "local" drones
Actually a lot of the drones might be more local to Calum than me 
The traveling bees will be gone by July when I do some queen raising but a lot of the drones could still be lodgers locally
I'm not sure how much the drone population is affected I expect commercial beekeepers keep drones to a minimum
So I am not sure "local" really means much here, although it might do in other parts of Scotland 
I have been guilty of doing a Martha Carney - hanging on for a honey crop from from real stinkers temper wise
It was a tempting mistake but a bad one because "one years seeds is seven years weeds" as they say in gardening 
I was reading one of old Brother Adams books though and he claimed breeding from ill tempered combinations (in the F2 as he says) did not produce ill tempered bees in subsequent generations 
I just weed them out myself  :Smile:

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