# General beekeeping > Queen raising >  Mating 2015

## The Drone Ranger

Like Prince Charles and his plants I can see you playing music to the bees 
You have had a bit of rain recently I see on the weather forecast 
This is what we get http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-33574652
Not ideal for mating flights LOL!

I think Gavin must have had that in mind when he put his mating nucs on hills
Bit like Noah  :Smile:

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## Jon

We had 19c and sunshine today and I saw several queens from apideas on mating flights.
Has not been great this past few days though.

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## gavin

Was up the Angus glens this evening finding more heather sites.  That flood certainly looked biblical.  There was a long stretch of road at Prosen village with the tarmac all ripped up.  The estate owner had used a digger to make the road passable again but it must have been scary while it was happening.  4m high water rushing down where there was normally a trickle.

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## busybeephilip

> We had 19c and sunshine today and I saw several queens from apideas on mating flights.
> Has not been great this past few days though.


Looks like the weather for the remainder of july is a mix of rain /sun and 15 degrees tops here.  Means that for the honey producers in Norn Ireland the season is basically over now unless we get a weeks worth of sun which aint going to happen.  Not as much honey this year for me, probably just enough to pay for sugar if I just keep the best hives for winter.

The wee pesky wasps are starting to appear and sniff around the mini nucs, the weak ones will be the first to go.

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## Jon

Plenty of forage. Just need the weather. Time to hunt down those wasp nests.

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## Peter

[QUOTE=The Drone Ranger;30952]How are the bee breeders among us getting on

Hello all.

At last I have managed to start rearing queens again after moving house three years ago.  I now have 22 nucs (4,5 and 6 frame) set up (http://www.stratfordbeekeepers.org.u...s/July2015.htm) and did some grafting a couple of weeks ago after turning out and cleaning cell cups etc (everything was a bit mouldy, so had a good scrub in soda wash).

Grafted 22, but only 13 cells produced (the cell raiser was native and my grafting may not have been as good as it used to be!).  However, 13 was plenty as some of the nucs have queens that I want to keep.  De-queened and split nucs on Wednesday and introduced the cells, protected with hair rollers) on Thursday.  On Saturday I checked 3 of them; 2 had hatched and the other was just cutting her way out 11 days after grafting.

I am certainly glad that I did not start queen rearing earlier this year - so many colonies that swarmed in May have failed to produce a new queen.  It has been a disastrous year here and a number of our members are almost wiped out - and many probably do not know that they have been!

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## Jon

Good year for mating here Peter.
I had about a dozen queens mated before the end of May in Apideas and about another 100 in June.
Weather has got more iffy this last week or so but I saw a lot of queens flying from Apideas on Sunday.

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## The Drone Ranger

[QUOTE=Peter;30993]


> How are the bee breeders among us getting on
> 
> Hello all.
> 
> 
> I am certainly glad that I did not start queen rearing earlier this year - so many colonies that swarmed in May have failed to produce a new queen.  It has been a disastrous year here and a number of our members are almost wiped out - and many probably do not know that they have been!


Hi Peter 
I was chatting to some else who said much the same thing about losing queens early in the season
My early keiler minis (June)  had 5 mated out of 9 The others missing in action so to speak
Then a bit later 6 out of 6 made it (July) but in a different spot and settled weather

That's just as well because back at the hives several of them where I thought "time to check if that new queen has started laying" I found after mating my nice new queen had laid  two frames of brood and took off leaving some queen cells 

Must get a grip next year  :Smile:

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## gavin

The splits I made in May had poor mating despite a good number of drones in the apiary.  Those that make it in poor mating conditions sometimes fail later but unlike DR I haven't seen that (yet) this year.  June was better and there were a couple of days in the first few days of July that nudged above 20C but since then it has been cool and damp.  As Philip says the forecast for the rest of July is for day maxima of 14-16C.  In the west (including Colonsay) they are also having a poor season, maybe worse than here. 

Those who had many virgins out and about in June here have done OK - let's hope August returns to better conditions.

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## fatshark

The weather in the Warwickshire area was very poor early this season. March and May were notably colder than long term averages* - preventing early season build-up and wrecking a lot of early queen mating. The latter was also hammered by rain … May was ~50% wetter than average. The majority of the OSR was over before the first week of June and was largely missed due to the rain and colonies that weren't at full strength. These figures are for Coventry, but Peter isn't far away. It just shows how dependent we are on the weather for this game … 

I appreciate there are many here who can only dream about the good weather in the balmy Midlands. I think the important point here is that it's "relative to the norm". It feels like it's been a total carp year here because it's usually a whole lot better. 

With my imminent move North I'm looking at honey production possibilities of this puppy …

bumblebee.jpg

_Bombus polaris_, the arctic bumblebee

* weather data from the excellent Bablake School Weather Station

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## gavin

OK, Radio Scotland are saying 17-18C in parts of the east today.

Just been checking the Met Office site.  May was a little cooler than normal but the signals of the weather giving poor mating are not so easy to decipher.  With queen mating it is so often right on the boundary of the critical temperature and just a few days are enough to swing it.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/summaries/anomact

Hope the preparations for the final move are going OK FS.  Let me know if you want help with anything.

If you check 'mean maximum temperature' using 'actual' rather than 'anomaly' you'll see that Belfast has been marginally warmer than around here in May and June.

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## alancooper

In late June I introduced virgin queens into two hives that seemed queen-less (following a hectic period of me dealing with much June swarming preparations across my apiary). Last week I tested each by putting in a frame with eggs but no queen cells were drawn. I am hoping that both hives do have a queen that will start laying soon. The "feel" of the hives, however, is that they are queen-less. Is this familiar to anyone? have I missed something? What are my options?

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## mbc

About half marks so far here, that is, for every two cells I've grafted I get one harvestable queen with a solid pattern and no chalk brood.  I lost a whole graft to chalk as none of the daughters made the cut when it came to evaluating the brood.

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## The Drone Ranger

Hi AlanC
I think mostly mating will take 7 days plus 10 days to start laying and since they haven't attempted queen cells I would say the signs are good
It would be pretty safe to have a good look through for her and all going well she will be big and easily spotted

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## The Drone Ranger

> About half marks so far here, that is, for every two cells I've grafted I get one harvestable queen with a solid pattern and no chalk brood.  I lost a whole graft to chalk as none of the daughters made the cut when it came to evaluating the brood.


I sympathise with you there MBC I once requeened half my hives with daughters from my "best" queen and for some reason they were all prone to chalk It took years to sort out because once it starts it infects all the combs
If I had been more careful, like you have been, I would have saved myself a lot of work

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## The Drone Ranger

A good time put a virgin in is when they are expecting one so after a swarm has left and they have ripe queen cells (knock them off)
If you are lucky enough to have a virgin just hatched and captured in a cupkit cage or from a cell on the point of hatching elsewhere you can just walk her down between the outer frames
I found on another that if you have a pooter or similar catcher don't use it because she will smell of past queens you have marked and get attacked right away Doh!

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## Jon

In Belfast there was only one decent mating day in May, Saturday 23rd. I had a load of queens start to lay about 3 days after that.
They just wait for the weather window irrespective of the emergence date.
June was much better and there were at least a couple of days every week when queens could fly and mate.
The first week of July was very good but the weather had now become more changeable.
last Sunday 19th was good and I expect a lot of queens flew and mated that day.

DR. I start off my Apideas with a virgin queen. I turn the apidea upside down and open the floor. The queen gets shaken in out of her roller cage and gets a scoop of wet bees dropped on top of her. The apidea is left closed until the following evening when it is opened at the mating site.
Once that first queen had mated and started to lay I remove her 10-14 days later and put in a queen cell, preferably less than 24 hours from queen emergence.
This allows a check of the brood pattern.
I check the queens in a plunger cage as some which seem to be laying ok have a bit missing, usually part of a leg.

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## fatshark

Thanks Gavin … currently I'm after a 26 hour day and an 8 day week … oh yes, and a bigger van. The numpties in the hire company appear to have mixed up an extra long wheelbase, high top transit, with a fractionally longer, standard height transit.

Or I've got more broods and supers than I thought  :Wink: 

Useful map … what's happening with that little bit around Applecross that appears to have been less cold than pretty much anywhere else on the West coast?

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## The Drone Ranger

Hi John.
I have done likewise with the keilers just bung in wet bees and virgin no worries.
Getting one into a full size colony  needs a bit more guile 
The pooter problem arose because after using the queen from a keiler I had a virgin just hatch and wanted to put her in the now queenless mininuc I transported her in the pooter they attacked straight away though

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## Jon

I have never had great success trying to requeen a full colony with a virgin queen. I generally use a mated queen in an introduction cage and rarely lose one via that method.

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## alancooper

> I have never had great success trying to requeen a full colony with a virgin queen. I generally use a mated queen in an introduction cage and rarely lose one via that method.


Jon,
It sounds as if this is what I unsuccessfully tried to do. I have a nuc with a laying Q derived from the Q I got from you last year and could try introducing her to one of my Q-less full hives - but am reluctant to do this without the certainty of knowing that there is not already a resident Q.
Alan.

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## gavin

> Useful map  what's happening with that little bit around Applecross that appears to have been less cold than pretty much anywhere else on the West coast?


The guy in Applecross with the mini-met station in his back garden was trying out his new patio heater that month as well as the usual midgie eater that also uses bottled gas.   :Wink:

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## The Drone Ranger

> Jon,
> It sounds as if this is what I unsuccessfully tried to do. I have a nuc with a laying Q derived from the Q I got from you last year and could try introducing her to one of my Q-less full hives - but am reluctant to do this without the certainty of knowing that there is not already a resident Q.
> Alan.


Alan I would try another test frame to see if they raise queen cells 
If they don't then putting a queen in will be a very risky proposition (I think)

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## The Drone Ranger

> I have never had great success trying to requeen a full colony with a virgin queen. I generally use a mated queen in an introduction cage and rarely lose one via that method.


Its a high risk strategy and no mistake
Just hatched with no hive smell (incubator ?)best if the colony is expecting a queen cell to hatch at the time

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## The Drone Ranger

> The guy in Applecross with the mini-met station in his back garden was trying out his new patio heater that month as well as the usual midgie eater that also uses bottled gas.


Gavin best put the whisky away now  :Smile: 


How many queens from different sources are you using in the mating program Gavin?

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## alancooper

> Alan I would try another test frame to see if they raise queen cells 
> If they don't then putting a queen in will be a very risky proposition (I think)


Yes - another frame of eggs seems wiser. I will do this. Thanks.

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## Feckless Drone

> The "feel" of the hives, however, is that they are queen-less. Is this familiar to anyone? have I missed something? What are my options?


Most of my new Qs never start laying to the schedule in the books and generally its 3-4 weeks after emergence before I see eggs. These Qs are usually raised in vertical splits over a Snelgrove board or in poly-nucs in fairly strong colonies. Problem is that time is lost so I still worry about them. I get optimistic when 1. I see pollen going in AND 2. There are polished cells being kept ready for laying. I relax when 3. there are one or more patches of royal jelly being stored ready for use. 

If the colony is not working up a new Q from a frame of eggs then that suggests they are waiting. If you can get a spare Q-cell from someone you could pop that in and see what happens. I guess it would be destroyed or left. 

My success rate this year is running at about 2/3. I've staggered rearing over a couple of weeks in early June so as not to have everything dependent on a short weather window. And currently waiting to see outcome of a couple more, but these could not have been timed worse with the dreadful weather last week.

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## Peter

The weather in Coventry can be very different to here in the Alne Hills - very much warmer in the towns and cities.
But mating is not just about temperature.  We need good weather the previous autumn to set colonies up for the winter.   Then we need good weather for colonies to develop well in the spring and produce well-nurtured drones.  After that we need the sort of weather that encourages drones to fly (without the exercise they will be useless for mating).  Then finally, we need the right weather for queens and drones to fly and mate - not necessarily hot weather, but high winds and/or rain and/or low temperatures will not result in good mating.
But you knew all that already...

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## The Drone Ranger

Hi Feckless
I had 20 queen cells on a frame due to hatch on the 11 July
We had friends coming to visit and the timing overlapped so I put hair rollers on early
Bit too early I think because not one hatched  --- big hole in queen rearing plan  :Smile: 

The snelgroves are a bit more flexible because if you don't get a queen above the board you can bring larva up from below and have another go without much effort 
The new queens hatching are all staggered so the weather risk is a bit less problematic

I like the grafting and cupkit queen rearing as well but in my case it can go pear shaped just when I decide I have it sorted  :Smile: 

I think your advice to Allan will be right they are sometimes a bit slow to get laying 
Have you found sometimes an extra long wait heralds a drone layer ?

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## The Drone Ranger

> But you knew all that already...


You say that Peter, but until its all condensed down so well, I have to admit I hadn't considered half of your key points
Recently I also heard that pollen availability and quality while the drones are being raised affects their fertility
Don't know if that's right but it sounds sensible

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## Jon

Drones are at peak fertility between 15-30 days from emergence.
It is important to have a continuous supply all summer.
All my colonies at mating sites have at least 2 drone combs in them.
Queens need to be laying in drone comb from the end of March if you want any early mated queens as it will be more than 5 weeks until they are fertile.

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## busybeephilip

> Drones are at peak fertility between 15-30 days from emergence.
> It is important to have a continuous supply all summer.
> All my colonies at mating sites have at least 2 drone combs in them.
> Queens need to be laying in drone comb from the end of March if you want any early mated queens as it will be more than 5 weeks until they are fertile.


It is also important that colonies dedicated to rearing drones are well fed with thin syrup and given a pollen supplement so that you do infact have a strong population of healthy drones.  Some persons simply use a super filled with drone foundation on top of the brood box for the queen to lay in - you get plenty of drones this way.

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## The Drone Ranger

I am starting to realise my drones although very plentiful might in fact be fat lazy bees incapable of mid air hanky panky  :Smile:

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## Feckless Drone

> Have you found sometimes an extra long wait heralds a drone layer ?


DR - I have not kept notes to comment accurately on that. I rarely get drone layers, only 1 this year. What generally happens is that the Q disappears or fails to emerge (confession) when I dislodge the pupae.
I did spot a virgin Q yesterday in a mating nuc, she should be flying this week. Fingers crossed.

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## The Drone Ranger

I guess that's what happened to my queen cells when I stuck the cages on early

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## busybeephilip

Must say, I got quiet a few dud queens this year, some from black q cell virus and a lot more than usual were lost and many turned out to be drone layers from the start and some turned into drone layers after mating (post worker laying).  i'm putting it done to the very variable weather we have had this summer.  I marked my virgins after hatching for the first time so that they could be found quickly in the mini nucs, don't think that there is any correlation between drone layers/ bad matings and marking virgins but cant explain the higher than usual level of queens lost.  Just hope they will be producing worker brood come spring.

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## The Drone Ranger

https://youtu.be/3ZwH6IM6aLw
A small sample of what has been going on at the old homestead
Drone laying

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## Jon

Is that a 2015 queen or an older one laying that pattern?

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## The Drone Ranger

> Is that a 2015 queen or an older one laying that pattern?


Hi Jon 
That is a 2015 queen
on the 15/6 she was a virgin and that was her laying pattern on the 30/7

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## mbc

> Must say, I got quiet a few dud queens this year, some from black q cell virus and a lot more than usual were lost and many turned out to be drone layers from the start and some turned into drone layers after mating (post worker laying).  i'm putting it done to the very variable weather we have had this summer.  I marked my virgins after hatching for the first time so that they could be found quickly in the mini nucs, don't think that there is any correlation between drone layers/ bad matings and marking virgins but cant explain the higher than usual level of queens lost.  Just hope they will be producing worker brood come spring.


Any sign of bqcv and I was taught to discontinue using that colony for queen raising. Virus issues probably account for many of the problems which crop up without us ever realising there is an underlying problem.
Wally Shaw mentioned an interesting theory in one of his lectures at the bibba do las t year, which was that more queens mated in the second half of the season fail due to drones having a higher virus load later on and the possibility that they may pass something on to queens via an std, I expect the chances of picking up an std are quite high if you exchange fluid with a dozen or so partners at each romp.

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## The Drone Ranger

> Any sign of bqcv and I was taught to discontinue using that colony for queen raising. Virus issues probably account for many of the problems which crop up without us ever realising there is an underlying problem.
> Wally Shaw mentioned an interesting theory in one of his lectures at the bibba do las t year, which was that more queens mated in the second half of the season fail due to drones having a higher virus load later on and the possibility that they may pass something on to queens via an std, I expect the chances of picking up an std are quite high if you exchange fluid with a dozen or so partners at each romp.


I will be testing that theory soon mbc on a small scale compared to you though
Of the 13 new keilers I started recently 11 are still left 2 failed already 
So with any luck they can convince the virgin queen to run the gauntlet and get mated  
I have plenty drones partly thanks to a small but annoying team of drone layers from the last lot  :Smile: 
I'm hoping for more Arnold Swartzeneggers and less Frank Spencers after all the nosh they have been given

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## greengumbo

One of my reared queens was required in an emergency last week so I have a mating nuc with a new cell due to hatch in 6 days....chances of getting mated ? I would say very slim unless the weather improves !

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## mbc

> One of my reared queens was required in an emergency last week so I have a mating nuc with a new cell due to hatch in 6 days....chances of getting mated ? I would say very slim unless the weather improves !


Clear blue skies and high temp down here, I'm regretting my crystal ball didn't tell me to initiate another round of grafting some three weeks ago, I did start another lot later, ready to go out Wednesday,  but will the weather hold for these to get mated towards the end of august? Anybody selling accurate divination apparatus please pm me.

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## Jon

I have had several dozen queens start to lay in the past week and today is sunny and should reach 22c.
July was bad but August has been grand. I have queens which emerged on 6th August started to lay already.

That is an interesting theory of Wally Shaw's and there could be something in it. The most common virus, DWV, can certainly be passed on by drones like an STD during queen mating. There was some discussion of this a couple of years ago on the forum. Fatshark may have put up a link to a paper on this but I can't remember what it was. possibly one of the S Martin papers.

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## Greengage

> Good year for mating here Peter.
> I had about a dozen queens mated before the end of May in Apideas and about another 100 in June.
> Weather has got more iffy this last week or so but I saw a lot of queens flying from Apideas on Sunday.


Its probably none of my business but what do you do with all those queens ,just curious.

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## Jon

I sell them. There is huge demand for native queens and very few people rearing them in any quantity.

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## fatshark

> That is an interesting theory of Wally Shaw's and there could be something in it. The most common virus, DWV, can certainly be passed on by drones like an STD during queen mating. There was some discussion of this a couple of years ago on the forum. Fatshark may have put up a link to a paper on this but I can't remember what it was. possibly one of the S Martin papers.


You could try this for starters ... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18358488
However, I'm pretty sure that all the studies (there are others as well as the one above) are using instrumental insemination, rather than open mated queens. I wouldn't like to design the experiment to test the latter.

There might be a case to use repeated Varroa controls in drone rearing colonies ... I bet vaporisation is sufficiently unintrusive to be applied repeatedly. I've used it and not detected any slow-down in laying by the queen.

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## Feckless Drone

> Have you found sometimes an extra long wait heralds a drone layer ?


I thought my Q rearing had gone OK despite far from optimal weather in June, there were no drone layers just a couple of mating nucs where Qs disappeared. So - whilst inspecting and treating for varroa and feeding it was rather disheartening to see three colonies working on supercedure, with one or 2 Q cells right in the middle of the brood.
It seems too late to expect much. Anyone else notice this happening? Wonder if this is the start of my Q-problems due to poor mating this year.

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## Jon

There seem to be a lot of reports about supersedure this year but it is not necessarily a poorly mated queen due to inclement weather.
Some other possibilities were discussed in the STD thread.
Mites, virus, nosema, MAQS and/or other beekeeper miticides could also play a part.

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## gavin

> There seem to be a lot of reports about supersedure this year but it is not necessarily a poorly mated queen due to inclement weather.
> Some other possibilities were discussed in the STD thread.
> Mites, virus, nosema, MAQS and/or other beekeeper miticides could also play a part.


Yes to all that but locally we've had a high percentage of straight queen failures.  I've seen around 50% of splits fail in various Tayside apiaries including one just a mile or two to the West of your main site, FD.  My main apiary had even more.  All of the cases I'm thinking about had 6-10 colonies on site and all the signs of good drone populations.  Most of the failures are drone layers which does tend to be associated with early failures of those queens that did mate and get going normally.  

This year especially in the later summer I've also noticed lots of queen balling.  Is it particularly prevelent this year or is it the nature of the stocks I'm using?  Also wondering whether the high queen failure rate amongst those who have freshly obtained bees for the first time is due to queen balling triggered by over-long inspections by those in awe of their new charges.  Experienced beekeepers ought to see it happening and quietly withdraw.

Of course, if you see the old queen present then it is proper supersedure.

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## Jon

Balling is certainly more prevalent at certain times.
I tend to see more of it in late summer.
Of the couple of cases we saw last week one queen disappeared and the other was ok next time I checked.
The one which disappeared was laying a lot of drone brood so they were probably not happy with her anyway.

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## Adam

I've not seen balling for several years. I have had problems with my queens this year and supercedure which I attribute to varroa problems.

_Yesterday afternoon about 3 O'clock, I walked past a mini-nuc with the last virgin queen. The second day of 18 degrees, sun and little wind. A pleasant T shirt day. There was a cluster on the outside, so I watched. Over the course of 15 minutes the queen came out a number of times. She seemed to decide, "nah, I'm not flying today" only to go back in each time. I don't suppose she has mated and by this weekend it will be too late._

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## prakel

> Yes to all that but locally we've had a high percentage of straight queen failures.  I've seen around 50% of splits fail in various Tayside apiaries


Were these predominantly splits which had been given matured queens or ones made up with cells/virgins/recently laying queens?

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## Emma

Just using nucs with natural swarm cells, I got 7 nicely laying queens this year from 8 nucs. The eighth was a drone layer. One of the 7 disappeared after I sold the nuc, but from the timing of the queen cells that was probably just a case of accident or balling during an inspection. Brood pattern still looked fine.
Also raised just one in a Mini Plus. Made a terrible hash of it. Bees confined for far too long, bees died trapped on the wrong side of the divider, dead queen cell, rejected virgin - then finally ran in a virgin which got accepted & mated. I think she's ok - slight questionmark due to a handful of drone cells - checking again soon.
Won't be disturbing the others again till spring, though, so I won't see any late supersedures. Some of my normally placid bees have started taking a dim view of being disturbed - they do it every autumn - it's time for me to leave them be.

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## SDM

> Clear blue skies and high temp down here, I'm regretting my crystal ball didn't tell me to initiate another round of grafting some three weeks ago, I did start another lot later, ready to go out Wednesday,  but will the weather hold for these to get mated towards the end of august? Anybody selling accurate divination apparatus please pm me.


I posted on about 17th August that the first 20 days of September would be our best weather of the year. I can't tell you weather day by day but I've been dead right month by month the last 2 years.

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## SDM

> You could try this for starters ... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18358488
> However, I'm pretty sure that all the studies (there are others as well as the one above) are using instrumental insemination, rather than open mated queens. I wouldn't like to design the experiment to test the latter.
> 
> There might be a case to use repeated Varroa controls in drone rearing colonies ... I bet vaporisation is sufficiently unintrusive to be applied repeatedly. I've used it and not detected any slow-down in laying by the queen.


When setting up drone rearing colonies, just strip them of sealed brood, treat once with the vaporiser and at least they're off to a clean start.

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## Jon

> I posted on about 17th August that the first 20 days of September would be our best weather of the year. I can't tell you weather day by day but I've been dead right month by month the last 2 years.


Very few of my queens have flown and mated in September though in spite of a couple of Sunny days around 18-19c.
I was optimistic about getting a lot more queens mated 2 weeks ago but not so hopeful now.

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## SDM

I've been lucky then. My last lot mated around the 10th, have been introduced and are laying like its spring. I've got  more due to emerge in 2 or 3 days(just to see if they can mate). Most of my older queens are still raising a row or 2 of drones per brood frame, so there's some hope for them.

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## prakel

> When setting up drone rearing colonies, just strip them of sealed brood, treat once with the vaporiser and at least they're off to a clean start.


How, if at all, does that affect the raising of drones? Do you see an interim period with reduced drone production before they get back up to speed or do they just cary on as if nothing had happened? Just wondering whether there would be a need to factor in time delays to the queen rearing schedule?

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## gavin

> Were these predominantly splits which had been given matured queens or ones made up with cells/virgins/recently laying queens?


For example, at the orchard site that has featured on here ..... 

From three strong colonies in spring (one had 20 frames of bees in early May):

- 21 splits with a natural mature Q cell or grafted mature cell and 2-3 frames bees into Paynes nucs in May-June
- all queens emerged
- two were subsequently given another (grafted) Q cell after DLQs removed
- currently 11 have mated laying queens
- 2-3 or these have stuck at a small size and I fear for their viability, only 2-3 have completely filled the 6-frames
- they have been fed syrup perhaps every 2-3 weeks since midsummer (weekly would have been better)

A couple of DLQs in bigger colonies after ASs there too.  

The site has good forage through to late July in most years but this year some plants (rosebay willowherb, ragwort) continued flowering long after that.  Plenty of drones from my colonies and from C4U's and other commercial apiaries nearby.

Three other new sites of mine further west and south into Fife have had similar queen mating issues but the build-up of nucs has been better in two of them. 

Two beekeepers around Dundee called me out and both had started with about 10 colonies but were down to 2-4 viable ones with drone layers present in some of the others.  OK, both had also lost swarms.  At the association apiary near Dundee again more than half of splits failed to mate properly with DLQs prominent.  All of these had natural queen cells first time round, some grafted cells were subsequently added at the association apiary.  

We have had very few days at 18C or above and these queens missed those windows.

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## Greengage

I see a topic on the BBKA forum page where there is a differance of opinion as to wheather there are problems with queens, there are some strongly held views would anyone here have an opinion or is it just the weather and bad summer.
opps nearly forgot to show you the link: http://www.bbka.org.uk/members/forum.php?t=7805

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## Jon

> I've been lucky then. My last lot mated around the 10th, have been introduced and are laying like its spring. I've got  more due to emerge in 2 or 3 days(just to see if they can mate). Most of my older queens are still raising a row or 2 of drones per brood frame, so there's some hope for them.


8th September was a perfect mating day here and I saw one queen return to an apidea showing the mating sign.
That one is laying but I have not come across many others recently mated.
I found 3 more mated queens yesterday in Apideas at a site I had not checked for a couple of weeks but I was hopeful of a lot more than that.
The queens are still present in the apideas but a lot of them are now 4 weeks or more from emergence so may well start to lay drone shortly.
I have a dozen or so which emerged around 10th September and those still have time to mate.

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## Adam

> I see a topic on the BBKA forum page where there is a differance of opinion as to wheather there are problems with queens, there are some strongly held views would anyone here have an opinion or is it just the weather and bad summer.
> opps nearly forgot to show you the link: http://www.bbka.org.uk/members/forum.php?t=7805


Greengage, it was me that started the thread. I know that weather in other parts of the UK has been pants. In my corner of the world it's been OK this year. I don't usually expect to see winter losses however I am assuming some of my queens won't make it over the coming winter.

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## gavin

> I see a topic on the BBKA forum page where there is a differance of opinion as to wheather there are problems with queens, there are some strongly held views would anyone here have an opinion or is it just the weather and bad summer.
> opps nearly forgot to show you the link: http://www.bbka.org.uk/members/forum.php?t=7805


In my opinion, when you are dealing with something complex the more strongly held the view the less credence you should place in it.   Same applies here.

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## mbc

> 8th September was a perfect mating day here and I saw one queen return to an apidea showing the mating sign.
> That one is laying but I have not come across many others recently mated.
> I found 3 more mated queens yesterday in Apideas at a site I had not checked for a couple of weeks but I was hopeful of a lot more than that.
> The queens are still present in the apideas but a lot of them are now 4 weeks or more from emergence so may well start to lay drone shortly.
> I have a dozen or so which emerged around 10th September and those still have time to mate.


I saw a few more nucs yesterday which had cells from my last opportunistic graft, (grafted 10th August, emerged ~22nd August,) which I'd virtually given up hope on but now have some good brood, others from the same batch didn't so I shook these out. Rather pleasing as the late demand for queens has depleted my stocks more than expected.
Judging by this demand and the stories of queen problems I'm hearing this year, mating has been a lottery with a high proportion of virgins failing to mate properly through the latter part of July and early August. This roughly goes along with what I saw in my own operation though I don't seem to have suffered as badly as some. I suppose if you only have a couple of hives and they swarm and then the virgins fail it looks statistically calamitous, whereas with loads of virgins and only some failing it's a bit more bearable.

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## Jon

> whereas with loads of virgins and only some failing it's a bit more bearable.





> failing to mate properly through the latter part of July and early August


That was the worst period here as well, plus September so far.
I tend to graft two or three times a week and unless there is a really bad period of weather lasting two or three weeks I usually see several batches starting to lay at the same time, although there could be an age difference of a couple of weeks.

I had two hives which swarmed where a virgin went missing at some point.
I have seen a small number of drone laying queens this year, but have not had the problems with poor queen mating widely reported.
It has been a very poor season weather wise.

When Gavin was over here last week we opened quite a few colonies and many were too small for the time of year. I have started to combine some to get them to a decent size.
We could do with a couple of good weeks of ivy pollen coming in or winter losses will be high due to a combination of poor late season nutrition and poorly mated queens.

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## mbc

> When Gavin was over here last week we opened quite a few colonies and many were too small for the time of year. I have started to combine some to get them to a decent size.
> We could do with a couple of good weeks of ivy pollen coming in or winter losses will be high due to a combination of poor late season nutrition and poorly mated queens.


A lot of the nucs haven't moved on much or even retarded in the last month or so but the production colonies are looking good here with good bee numbers and ample stocks of pollen, I agree it would be nice if the ivy brought them up to weight.

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## mbc

Have you got close to your hoped for target of 400 mated queens Jon?

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## Kate Atchley

> That was the worst period here as well, plus September so far ...


Reassured to hear that you have had little success this month Jon. After the miserable results of July and August I tried for a late batch of queens. This time the cell raising went well and the queens looked promising but yesterday I found that they had either become DLQs, disappeared or were not mated/laying. They've passed their "sell by" date for mating so I'm winding down the mating apiary. So another very poor month (and/or beekeeper!)

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## prakel

Sounds like I best start tying up as many new sites as possible before the celtic bee breeders start setting up sunny-weather mating stations on the jurassic coast  :Smile:

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## Jon

> Have you got close to your hoped for target of 400 mated queens Jon?


Maybe next year! I haven't totaled up yet but it will be under 300. How did yours go this year?

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## Jon

> They've passed their "sell by" date for mating so I'm winding down the mating apiary. So another very poor month (and/or beekeeper!)


Sell by date is a variable concept with queens.
Early in the season non laying queens are just taking up space but at this stage I would leave them and see what happens.
In previous years I have had queens start to lay over 6 weeks from emergence.
What I don't know is whether the queen mates within the normal window of 3 weeks and for some reason does not start laying until much later or whether she takes a mating flight very late.
I normally expect to see eggs about 3 days after the mating flight.

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## Jon

> A lot of the nucs haven't moved on much or even retarded in the last month or so but the production colonies are looking good here with good bee numbers and ample stocks of pollen, I agree it would be nice if the ivy brought them up to weight.


My nucs are fine.It is the bigger drone producing colonies which have shrunk and I think it is due to mites. 
The unwanted side effect of setting colonies up with a couple of drone combs to produce drones at mating sites is that they also become mite factories.
I started treating in early August but they already had quite a mite load at that point.

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## mbc

> . How did yours go this year?


Not sure about definite numbers, I'll tot up from my book later, thanks for the incentive. My record keeping dropped off a bit when things got hectic so some of it will be guesstimate, you know how fishermen and beekeepers round up so expect fantastic figures :Wink:

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## Kate Atchley

> Sell by date is a variable concept with queens.
> Early in the season non laying queens are just taking up space but at this stage I would leave them and see what happens.
> In previous years I have had queens start to lay over 6 weeks from emergence.


Thanks Jon ... and interesting. Some I have just left so will see ... they're more than 5 weeks from emergence now.

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## The Drone Ranger

I don't think varroa has been a factor in the drone laying queen  scenario 
Can't tell what is at play but a lot of it has been going on

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## gavin

> I don't think varroa has been a factor in the drone laying queen  scenario 
> Can't tell what is at play but a lot of it has been going on


Isn't it simply the weather stopping otherwise decent queens going out?  We have gone for long spells without relatively still days of 17-18C and above, so it just hasn't been happening.  You have to fear for the wintering success of some of those that did start laying properly in a year like this.

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## Calluna4u

> Isn't it simply the weather stopping otherwise decent queens going out?  We have gone for long spells without relatively still days of 17-18C and above, so it just hasn't been happening.  You have to fear for the wintering success of some of those that did start laying properly in a year like this.


Completely with you on that Gavin. The June queens are very good and vigorous as are the ones in the later windows in July, but the May ones, that started off fine in the field, are failing all over the place, and I expect 'natural cull' to take care of most of the rest. Just not properly mated. August onwards are a waste of time with very few late successes.

I could see the lack of mature drones back in the early part of the season, and much to Jolanta's frustration delayed her starting queen raising until I knew there would be enough drones. thus most of our May ones were the result of those raised casually in the field (splitting etc) and they started off not bad at all much to my surprise, but about 70% of those either failed at the outset or laid normally but have now have now failed. I remember mentioning the lack of drone brood to you early in the season, we were just not seeing the drone raising as sufficient in April to do the business in May.

All down to unsuitable weather, no alternative sinister explanations needed. After all they mated just fine when the weather opened up for them.

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## prakel

> I remember mentioning the lack of drone brood to you early in the season, we were just not seeing the drone raising as sufficient in April to do the business in May.
> 
> All down to unsuitable weather, no alternative sinister explanations needed. After all they mated just fine when the weather opened up for them.


Here in the south we saw very strong drone production in April (at least, with the inland colonies), sufficient to persuade me to break my long standing, rather aribitrary rule about not starting queen rearing until at least early May. Rules really aren't made for breaking and the price was paid. 

The second half of June was good and the first week or so of August proved unbeatable although since then it's been questionable -here, early Sept normally sees a good weather window and very successful matings but I'm suspicious of this year's late ones, infact most have already been consigned to the experience heap for one reason or another.

So agreed from this end of the islands too, 'twas the weather.

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## Jon

June was far and away the best month for queen mating this year, along with the first few days of July. May only had a couple of decent flying days for queens.
August had a few decent days but it had all been downhill from there.
I still have drones in most colonies but they are probably well off peak fertility by now.
I checked some apideas today and they still have their queens but none are laying.

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## Greengage

What will you do with these queens over the winter if they dont lay.

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## Jon

They wont be overwintering if they are not laying soon!

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## Greengage

I see your man Rodger on the BBKA forum says he has many queens mated in October, dam i could have had a go in late Sept just for the fun.

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## Adam

Roger is in the S of England so he is blessed with warmer weather than some of us. I quite often enviously look at the weather forecast and see 20+ degrees in the S of England or around London and I am getting a NE breeze off the sea and it's 5 degrees cooler so my queens can't go out to play.

Assuming my last queen does mate, I now have a quandry - I was thinking of using her in a hive where the queen was not doing the business. However checking yesterday she's now resumed laying. Do I keep her in the mini-nuc and hope, make up a nuc for her by stealing some frames of brood from strong hives, or do I replace the queen with a paralysed back leg although she is laying well? Descisions Descisions!

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## fatshark

Mini-nuc ... mainly because I have exactly the same quandary with a limping queen. She's laying well and the colony are fantastic, but I suspect they'll dispense with her in due course.

I don't want to be the only one making the wrong decision  :Wink: 

I certainly wouldn't be weakening other colonies at this stage of the season and there's always the chance she won't be accepted by the hive ...

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## The Drone Ranger

Hi Adam 
What kind of mininuc
If its a keiler a second brood body can be fitted
Lift the drawn combs up into the upper box don't fit any more frames below just leave them to draw the wax down through both storeys
That gives a reasonable comb area for food and brood so the Queen might make it overwinter

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## Jon

I found a couple of apideas with queens just started to lay earlier this afternoon.
Be interesting too see if they are laying worker brood as these queens are 4 or 5 weeks from emergence.

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## Greengage

I would be curious to know what they do, so let us know if its not too much bother tks.

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## Adam

> Hi Adam 
> What kind of mininuc
> If its a keiler a second brood body can be fitted
> Lift the drawn combs up into the upper box don't fit any more frames below just leave them to draw the wax down through both storeys
> That gives a reasonable comb area for food and brood so the Queen might make it overwinter


Swi-bines - similar in size to Apideas. 
I overwintered one last winter although it was mild - welll actually it was a triple-storey one. They are not designed to fit together, however gaffa tape and squares of plywood over the front grilles worked, although a bit Heath Robinson.

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## The Drone Ranger

I know the one you mean Adam they are a bit small for the job
Still you never know they might make it like last year
I think if you can arrange a continuous bit of comb from top to bottom it increases the chances
Not really possible with a swibine stack though  :Smile: 

Sent from my LIFETAB_S1034X using Tapatalk

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## Kate Atchley

Took myself to Izmir province in Turkey for some SUNshine! Breakfast was on a hillside terrace bright with flowers foraged by masses of bees from the hives just across a wooded ravine. Their lavender honey is apparently exquisite. Maybe I'll stay!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

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## fatshark

Lovely weather in Ardnamurchan this week ... though perhaps not quite as warm as Turkey.

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## Jon

19c here today and queens were flying.
I found a few more apideas with laying queens as well.
Most of these queens are 4-5 weeks from emergence so jury still out on the brood status.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/w...tion/gcey94cuf

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## masterbk

There have been more instances of balling and a higher frequency of drone layers down here in Yorkshire this year compared with the last few years (although 2012 was worse)

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## alancooper

The weather is also terrific in Fermanagh. When I inspected my established hives last week (25th Sept), none of them had drones and none of the queens were laying. All were healthy and had large numbers of workers. Sealed brood areas had decreased markedly and there were few larvae. No doubt the queens will start laying again when worker numbers fall as autumn progresses. 
This has got me thinking about varroa control. Would treatment (I did mine with Apigard a month ago) be more effective if done at times such as this (that is, after regular hive inspections indicate a best time), rather than by following the usual advice of "treat after you have taken the end of summer honey crop? I appreciate that a novice needs simple rules and that an experienced beekeeper might not be able to inspect as often as a "hobby beek", but do association members find it effective to vary varroa control timings and practice to suit the bees?
Alan

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## SDM

It's not about the efficacy of the treatment so much as the fact that you would have a higher general Varroa burden because of treating later, but most of all because Varroa mate in capped cells so the reduced capped cell count would have much higher Varroa levels inside and your winter bees would have spent the first part of their lives with a bunch of disease ridden blood suckers.
Efficacy , shouldn't change , may even decrease with lower temps.

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## Adam

> Assuming my last queen does mate, I now have a quandry - I was thinking of using her in a hive where the queen was not doing the business. However checking yesterday she's now resumed laying. Do I keep her in the mini-nuc and hope, make up a nuc for her by stealing some frames of brood from strong hives, or do I replace the queen with a paralysed back leg although she is laying well? Descisions Descisions!


I decided to make up a nuc with my new laying queen on 4th October after she had been laying for just a few days (earlier than I would usually do so) - stealing bees and capped brood from two strong colonies. Queen went in late in the day at dusk. Today there's eggs and small larvae and the queen was seen too - walking across the comb in the sunshine. I removed the nearly capped queencell. I expect they started that when queenless. I do wonder whether such a young queen has enough pheromone to be considered a 'fully working model' by her subjects.

And the queen with just 5 working legs is still laying well so she stays - Any bets on whether she'll be laying well in March?

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## Jon

I have a queen missing half of one of its front legs which has been laying well in an apidea since early June.

I just got back from a week away and found quite a few more queens laying in Apideas.
A batch which emerged on 8th September seems to have come good.

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## SDM

I've got 2 that emerged on the 4th October just to see if getting them mated is possible. The weather here in Anglesey is as good as possible for the next week. Is there a prize for " latest mated queen" ?

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## Jon

Had another queen start to lay in an Apidea. This one had no eggs on Saturday so only just started.
It emerged some time in August. May well be a drone layer.

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## busybeephilip

I have my last mating nuc in the same situation - queen not laying at all even though the bees behave as if she is mated, she looks perfect and a good size, must check it this evening as the ivy flow might encourage her to lay

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## Kate Atchley

Came home from holiday to find one more of the late August queens laying worker brood. She took at least 6 weeks to start laying ... just as Jon has said earlier can happen.

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## mbc

Quite a few of my mini plus hives were amalgamated some time in early September after harvesting mated queens, some of the amalgamated lots had unmated queens (same age as the last round of mated queens caught) popped into a cage with a tiny bung of fondant just to help them survive the unite, others had no visible queens but some brood to work with. Nearly all these now have mated queens with good brood taking them into winter.  Only time will tell how many will make it through till spring.

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## Jon

Checked a few Apideas in have in the garden and all were full of brood.
They were bringing in pollen in a light mizzle.

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## gavin

A couple of days ago after the gales I checked my one remaining MiniPlus.  The roof was off and the feed rain-diluted with added flies so I lifted off the feeder to tip it out with no protection  :EEK!: .  Good number of bees inside, many with stings pointed at me but one was warm enough to fly straight up and land a sting in my cheek.  No idea on their brood status  :Smile: .

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## prakel

*single box deeps based on the Mini-Plus: 11/11/15*

157.jpg137.jpg161.jpg

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## Jon

nice looking cluster Prakel. My apideas are mostly doubles but are not as well populated as that.

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## prakel

> nice looking cluster Prakel. My apideas are mostly doubles but are not as well populated as that.


These little boxes with a comb area of approx 2.5 langstroth deep frames winter well in our location as free standing hives without any extra protection (other than bigger rocks/more bricks or steel discs to stop them blowing away). We've been playing around with various comb sizes and spacing for a few years now in the mating nucs. This is where OSB3 and rough cut stick frames come into their own, if something doesn't work as we'd hoped then it's not the end of the world if the whole unit cost less than £5 in the first place.

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## SDM

> A couple of days ago after the gales I checked my one remaining MiniPlus.  The roof was off and the feed rain-diluted with added flies so I lifted off the feeder to tip it out with no protection .  Good number of bees inside, many with stings pointed at me but one was warm enough to fly straight up and land a sting in my cheek.  No idea on their brood status .


I did exactly the same thing last week, but escaped without the sting lol

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