LASI queens

[Tremyfro]

Which batch was your order. I have order "June" mated queen and emailed LASI about order and likely delivery date and had no reply.

Mine was may 20th...and she arrived today. So it would seem they are on time with the deliveries....a note to say what they were sending would have been useful!

Swarm Did she give the table a wipe over?
No but she wiped her claws on a serviette!

dpearse4..... I'm hoping she will do a bit of housekeeping whilst she is with us...but after mating with the Welsh boys ....she will probably be down the pub singing rugby songs.

 

[dickbowyer]

Mine was may 20th...and she arrived today. So it would seem they are on time with the deliveries....a note to say what they were sending would have been useful!

Fantastic, I have ordered 1/6/16 batch. If continue to be on time will be making up nuc weekend after next for HM

 

[Obee1]

Tremy. How did you introduce her? (No I do t mean did you call her ma'am to rhyme with spam!). I just been reading that virgins 3+ days old are difficult to get accepted.
I introduced a one hour old virgin to an apidea by spraying her till she looked like a drowned rat and chucking her in amongst wet bees from a different colony. She is now mated.
I am expecting some virgins who are prob at least 3 days old - and have read to roll them in a cup of honey before walking them in. Quite how a honey covered bee walks I'm not sure!

 

[sipa]

....a note to say what they were sending would have been useful!

These are academics, not business people.

It wouldn't cross their minds to make sure recipients new what they were receiving.

 

[B+.]

I am expecting some virgins who are prob at least 3 days old - and have read to roll them in a cup of honey before walking them in. Quite how a honey covered bee walks I'm not sure!

Take a look at this https://youtu.be/ygS8m20ROQ4?t=1m39s

 

[sipa]

Talking about Health Certificates.

We recently had a customer in Azerbaijan who wanted a significant number of our overwintered queens.
He proposed to fly to Heathrow where I would meet him to hand over the queens for him to hand carry on his flight home. All with the permission of the airline. Prior to importation the Azerbaijan authorities wanted sight of all certificates and documentation.

To obtain the required health certificates and certificates of origin, proved to be nightmarish as coordinating timings was the key.
Be inspectors must inspect the entire apiary where the queens are being held, they then submit their inspection report to the NBU, it then has to go off to Brussels to be rubber stamped and returned to the NBU who then issue the document.

The certificate is only valid for 10 days from the date of inspection, it takes at least a week to be issued with no guarantee on timing, it could be even be longer. Very easy to miss the window for validity of the certificate.

Talk about hairpull

 

[BeeJayBee]

....a note to say what they were sending would have been useful!

These are academics, not business people.

It wouldn't cross their minds to make sure recipients new what they were receiving.

Not a good enough excuse for failing to send at least a receipt in with the queen. LASI is trying to make money from this queen selling, they should have the wherewithall to write something on a bit of paper. We are supposed to keep records, can we be confident that their record keeping is good enough?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

We are supposed to keep records, can we be confident that their record keeping is good enough?

According to some in the know - no it's not

 

[mbc]

Take a look at this https://youtu.be/ygS8m20ROQ4?t=1m39s

Theres a theory that the welsh gave the saxons england fairly easily as they kept moving their churches west so as not to have worship in the presence of these heathens who spoke like barking dogs.

 

[Tremyfro]

Tremy. How did you introduce her? (No I do t mean did you call her ma'am to rhyme with spam!). I just been reading that virgins 3+ days old are difficult to get accepted.
I introduced a one hour old virgin to an apidea by spraying her till she looked like a drowned rat and chucking her in amongst wet bees from a different colony. She is now mated.
I am expecting some virgins who are prob at least 3 days old - and have read to roll them in a cup of honey before walking them in. Quite how a honey covered bee walks I'm not sure!

First...I went to carpet world for some red carpet......then I screened all the local dignatories who wanted to get their phizogs on the telly....she wanted a private audience with her new subjects. She did that hand wave...you know the one...as she progressed but out the side of her mouth she deplored the arrangements ...apparently preferring to go in with a mop and bucket and a bottle of thymol....no pleasing some queens...
I had a nuc which had a queen cell in it...not yet emerged. So I removed the queen cell and put the queen and her servants in their carriage between two frames. If there is a moment between the showers today...we will see if she is out yet.

 

[B+.]

Theres a theory that the welsh gave the saxons england fairly easily as they kept moving their churches west so as not to have worship in the presence of these heathens who spoke like barking dogs.

Never mind the commentary. The video conveys the picture I wanted Obee1 to see

 

[clv101]

Yikes...you don't think these LASI virgins are imported do you? I understood they were from their own breeding programme. Although, this one will be open mated. I do expect the genes to be diluted somewhat....but perhaps she can manage to be hygienic in the hive she is introduced to.
ATM she is sitting on my coffee table.

It's not so much the genes being diluted. Remember the queen mates with a lot of drones, if only 1 of them was hygienic, that alone with this virgin being hygienic will mean that some of the workers are hygienic. You only need a fraction of the individual workers to have the right genes for the colony to be identified as hygienic.

So I think I'd prefer to use LASI virgins so as not to import to much 'alien' material but still be likely to get the hygienic characteristic at the colony level.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

You only need a fraction of the individual workers to have the right genes for the colony to be identified as hygienic.

but to what purpose? it's all wishful thinking that it will make any noticeable difference anyway.

 

[Motobiman]

Doesn't the LASI website suggest open breeding is the way to go with their queens?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Doesn't the LASI website suggest open breeding is the way to go with their queens?

Not according to Ratnieks - he admitted people were taking a chance with mating virgins in their area (chance of what I don't know - better bees maybe) it was all just a selling pitch to get us to buy his magic beans (sorry, bees) by what I could make out - other people who went to the talk were of the same opinion as well (including some SBI's)

 

[Motobiman]

So in your opinion this paragraph from their website is incorrect and open mating does not produce hygienic bees?

Quote
How can queen rearers produce hygienic queens? We compared the hygiene levels of colonies headed by queens reared from fully hygienic breeder colonies. Half were allowed to mate naturally. The others were instrumentally inseminated with drones from hygienic colonies. Several months later when each colony was full of the new queen’s workers we quantified hygiene levels. Colonies headed by instrumentally-inseminated queens had higher hygiene levels, but the colonies headed by open-mated queens were also highly hygienic. This shows that queen rearers could supply open-mated queens to beekeepers wanting hygienic hives. Queen rearers could supply beekeepers with young virgin hygienic queens to mate locally. LASI research has shown that it is simple to keep virgin queens alive in cages for one week prior to mating.
Unquote

https://www.sussex.ac.uk/webteam/gateway/file.php?name=lasi-annual-report-2014.pdf&site=60

 

[foghornleghorn]

So in your opinion this paragraph from their website is incorrect and open mating does not produce hygienic bees?

Quote
How can queen rearers produce hygienic queens? We compared the hygiene levels of colonies headed by queens reared from fully hygienic breeder colonies. Half were allowed to mate naturally. The others were instrumentally inseminated with drones from hygienic colonies. Several months later when each colony was full of the new queen’s workers we quantified hygiene levels. Colonies headed by instrumentally-inseminated queens had higher hygiene levels, but the colonies headed by open-mated queens were also highly hygienic. This shows that queen rearers could supply open-mated queens to beekeepers wanting hygienic hives. Queen rearers could supply beekeepers with young virgin hygienic queens to mate locally. LASI research has shown that it is simple to keep virgin queens alive in cages for one week prior to mating.
Unquote

https://www.sussex.ac.uk/webteam/gateway/file.php?name=lasi-annual-report-2014.pdf&site=60

That's probably open mating in there apiary which is stocked with hygienic bees so not comparing like with like

 

[Motobiman]

Quote
Queen rearers could supply beekeepers with young virgin hygienic queens to mate locally.
Unquote

I don't think you can't shoot the whole research project down using the word 'probably' and if the increase in hygienic behaviour in beehive colonies can be repeated, starting with large apiaries, then wild colonies will be affected positively and to some extent as well and the overall resistance of the bee population will therefore likely be increased.

Any increase in hygenic behaviour is better than what we have today IMHO.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

but your all hanging your hats on this mythical hygienic behaviour being any use against varroa.

 

[Motobiman]

but your all hanging your hats on this mythical hygienic behaviour being any use against varroa.

So what do you suggest?

We could always trust the agrochemical companies to come up with a solution or leave it to the government I suppose.

It's the only possible long term solution I can see at the moment.

Or maybe you could let us into your secret solution?