Queen excluders

Hi all,
Next year '13 THIS IS A WHAT IF QUESTION!
I want to control my best Drones.
I have 12 Hives.
Will graft from best Queen.
But lock in the not so good drones in the hives I do not want to (get at)
my best Bred Queens.
By lock in I mean with a QE under the brood as well as above the brood.
This will leave only my best drone box and others in the area I know to breed with my so called best virgin Queens.
Can anyone see any problems with this.?
Bob.

An excluder full of dead drones with their heads stuck is a grim sight.

You will also reduce the genetic diversity in the stock too much, or encourage mating with unknown untested drones from elsewhere.

Note your 6 best colonies. If you can, give them drone comb early. As it gets sealed, move it into the less good colonies to satisfy their urge for drones. The selected colonies will make more.

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Thanks Gavin, Thats a good idea. I will think about doing that.

MBC, Yes I had thought of that but as its only 8 days between each inspection, and don't forget I will be culling any capped drones I see in each hive.
Bob.

if you leave them on too long they could be completely blocked, alot of pollen will probably be knocked off

BobsBees said:

But lock in the not so good drones in the hives I do not want to (get at)
my best Bred Queens.

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Are there no other beekeepers or feral colonies in your area?

mbc said:

An excluder full of dead drones with their heads stuck is a grim sight.

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I have seen this in a hive when a Baileys comb change was not done properly, not good

Thanks for help

OK thank you one and all for your thoughts.
I have now been put right.
I have also joined the sbai forum. Wow what a lot of info on there, thanks Jon and gavin. I thought this forum was good, and of course it is, but there is much more about what I am interested in on the SBAI Forum.
I will not depart from here far from it. even if you do not agree with some of the posts, you NEVER stop learning.
I now have a very modified plan for next season, and it will mean more information from each hive needed involving more research from my past logs on all my hives, a bit difficult as I have been concentrating on breeding for all the new beekeepers coming on over the past three years.
But in the end it will mean better bees for everyone around me, including myself of course.
Bob.

Another question might be: Do the virgin queens fly to the same drone congregation areas as the drones you are encouraging?

There is a source of info on how to concentrate and contain drones on the Dave Cushman site:
http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/droneraise.html

Apparently Queen fertilization doesn't always take place in DCA's. I've read eye-witness reports in some of the older Beekeeping manuals that fertilization has sometimes been seen to take place within a few feet of the hive entrance - although even if true, it would be extremely unwise to rely on that happening !

Glad to see that someone-else is focusing on the role that drones play - the poor sods are so often either viewed as being largely unnecessary and ignored, or seen as undesirable and eliminated.

This will leave only my best drone box and others in the area I know to breed with my so called best virgin Queens.
Can anyone see any problems with this.?

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Just one - you have absolutely no control over the drone population in your area. You can try saturating the area with your own drones to improve the percentages, but a much better plan - if you have the time - is to take a few frames of drones, together with your Virgins in mating NUCs, and open 'em up in the remotest area you can find. That will still give no guarantee, unless you can be sure there are no other hives within a few miles radius. The problem however, is that such isolated areas are in very short supply. The boxes will need to be be left there for at least a week, possibly longer, depending on weather.

LJ

Little John said:

Apparently Queen fertilization doesn't always take place in DCA's. I've read eye-witness reports in some of the older Beekeeping manuals that fertilization has sometimes been seen to take place within a few feet of the hive entrance - although even if true, it would be extremely unwise to rely on that happening !
LJ

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It certainly does, and interesting to watch.

Thanks Little John,
I have not seen that page from Dave Cushman before, Food for thought indeed.
There is so much information on the Forum, you just need to know where to look.
All the best for 2013. Bob.

Apparently Queen fertilization doesn't always take place in DCA's

I would accept that, as little is set in stone where bees are concerned, but what is the probability? Not much use, that, if it happens to be less than 1%!! Little point in relying on it, that is for sure!

Another thing to note is the varroa angle. Drone brood is a target for the little blighters and affected drones may well be sub-standard, and there could be a lot of those if the colony has a high mite infestation. Further, transferring frames of drone brood to other colonies needs a careful watch on the varroa later on.

With multiple matings the area really needs to be up and running earlier than the average colonies or needs other helping factors; drones tend to wander from hive to hive anyway.

Hi,

You have 12 hives and how many hives are in your vicinity, 50, 100, more.
Do you really thing you will control fecondation depriving your "worst hives" from drones?

A good hive keep around 1000-2000 drones.

A queen choose 20 mates.

50 x 1000 = 50 000.

Your queen can choose between 50 000 drones minimum.

Honestly, Do you think your effort is worth? You are loosing your time.

You have to saturate your vicinity with your selected drones.
Withdrawing couple of thousands drones from 50 000 is ridiculous.
Adding 50 000 more drones from selected hives is better.

Your virgin queens may have the chance to copulate with them.
50% (1/2) chance to get good guys versus 2% (1/50).

This is a question of probability.


Cheers,

QueenMaster said:

This is a question of probability.

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Perhaps the virgins are only going to be let out for "midnight mating".