# General beekeeping > Native honeybees >  Location, location, location ...

## Kate Atchley

Mulling over plans for our Amm project in Ardnamurchan for 2016 ...

Drones, it seems, being heavy, opportunistic fellows, like to mate near home. They fly in the proximity to their apiary for longer hours than queens, ever hopeful.

Queens, it seems, being graceful amazonian females, prefer to fly 1-3 miles to mate in the afternoon. "Bring home fresh genes" their instinct tells them.

We have Amm bees in two apiaries within 1/3 mile of one another. So it's probably not clever to place the mating apiary between them, as we have. Perhaps the queens would be happier if it is 1 mile away. 

I'm wondering, for instance, if the queens, finding drones within a short distance of their apiary only, will be inclined to ignore them and chance their luck by flying great distances to mate? In our case, they could fly over to Mull ... quite a spree ... but not great for the pure breeding.

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## The Drone Ranger

HiKate 
How many distinct lines or unrelated strains of AMM do you have 
Do they all come from a couple of AMM breeders or have you been acquiring them widely ?

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## busybeephilip

> I'm wondering, for instance, if the queens, finding drones within a short distance of their apiary only, will be inclined to ignore them and chance their luck by flying great distances to mate? In our case, they could fly over to Mull ... quite a spree ... but not great for the pure breeding.


Not according to the AVM theory  :Wink:

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## Kate Atchley

> HiKate 
> How many distinct lines or unrelated strains of AMM do you have 
> Do they all come from a couple of AMM breeders or have you been acquiring them widely ?


The stock is all from Colonsay where Andrew Abrahams has about 60 colonies, drawn from a range of areas to begin with.

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## The Drone Ranger

Hi again Kate
What might be worth considering is having a central queen raising apiary
Then several satellite apiaries strategically positioned at some distance from that central one
I don't know the mating mechanism by which mates are chosen or if it is just random chance
In either case it would seem important to have drone raising hives with many unrelated queens producing them in the satellites

Best get that bag of stones and find the DCAs next summer  :Smile: 


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