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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: Vic Nyman <nyman AT mindspring.com>
  • To: Orange County Beekeepers Association <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] Bee breeding
  • Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2013 19:18:21 -0500

This weekend, I had an opportunity to attend a lecture session from two
Commercial Queen Producers…

Managing drone populations was a primary lecture topic for both producers.
The target ratios for one producer was 30 full strength drone colonies for
every 100 mating nucs. The other targets 60 full strength drone colonies for
every 250 mating nucs. They each talked about the importance of saturating
mating areas with drones in order to overcome even small contributions from
neighboring, undesirable drones.

In addition to maintaining hive numbers, they both talked about the
challenges to deal with the rise and fall of drone populations within hives
throughout the year due to changes in nectar flow, pollen availability, and
other factors.

One of the queen producers said that most people are surprised to learn that
managing the drone genetics and mating conditions are just as or more
important than managing the queen's genetics.

Vic



On Jan 21, 2013, at 6:21 PM, Blair Christian <blair.christian AT gmail.com>
wrote:

> There's a great article in the Nov 12 ABJ about bee breeding. (pg
> 1059). It's an update from the russian bee breeders.
>
> The keys to maintaining a "pure" russian gene pool is having a diverse
> russian gene pool (they maintain 3 different population blocks) and
> mating in areas where there are no non-russian drones. I think I saw
> something like 60 drone colonies/1000 mating nucs
> http://www.russianbreeder.org/history-and-organization.html
>
> The thing to remember is that drones and virgin queens have different
> flight paths to prevent inbreeding. One group travels out, the other
> travels up I think... Lookup "drone congregation areas" for more
> information.
>
> Best,
> Blair
>
(snipped)



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