Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: beepro on March 12, 2018, 05:48:24 pm
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Hi, All!
Earlier in the season I took my expensive queen at the verge of dying with not much hive population to
a Russian guy I met on CL. He promised to take good care of her. Well, he called yesterday to say that my queen is ready in a
5 frame nuc hive. Apparently, he and his bee buddy took my queen to the almonds run. This is the only way that they don't have to
constantly baby sit my dwindling hive. At the almonds there is a chance for this hive to build up. Now that the almonds run is over, the
bees are all back to their original location.
For my expensive queen, I am glad that she is alright. Saved from the jar of death! To compensate for their effort I will pay them $125 for this
nuc. It is less than the market value per nuc hive this year. Looks like I've made another bee friends or 2.
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Can you recognize this queen?
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Did he have this queen in a hive for the almonds?
If so he made approximately $200. Off of that hive for pollination.
Jim
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Jim, respectfully, I don't think they pay much if anything for a weak hive on the almonds.
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They could put a weak hive in a regular box, does anyone look at the hives? I had someone on CL contact me wanting to buy every hive I had.
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Most of the growers now inspect the hives and only pay for the ones that have, I think, 4 to 5 frames of brood in a 10 frame deep full on bees. If the Beek has weak hives they combine them to make a paying hive.
Used to bee the growers just were paying per hive but they were not getting good pollination even with lots of hives per acre. They had some expert beeks teach them what to look for and now they inspect.
Jim
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{Can you recognize this queen?}
Ace, If memory serves me correctly, the queen that Beepro was trying to save was a Cordovan. So yes, Beepro could recognize the queen.
blessings
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Van, her daughters might look the same or any other cordovan.
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I think, 4 to 5 frames of brood in a 10 frame deep full on bees.
Just thinking out loud, wouldn't a broodless hive be better for their purpose?
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Ace, yes maybe the daughters look the same. However if the Cordovan queen was open mated, most likely the drones are not Cordovan therefore the offspring would all be itialian or whatever.
I do have Cordovan queens that by chance mated with Cordovan and itialian drones producing both Cordovan and itialian workers. Cordovan are kind of a beautiful bee to me as they lack any black coloring, they are all yellow and brown. But understand breeding bees for color alone would be a terrible idea. May work for cats and dogs, even horses but not honey bees.
I do have 2 Cordovan alpha hives that possesses outstanding genetics. They have built up nicely in preparation for the flow which begins in a week or two. I have other hives that the queens are building up very slowly, waiting for the flow to begin before they crank out the workers. Guess which hives I am going to raise queens from? In humor I say, in humor. Lol
Blessings
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most likely the drones are not Cordovan therefore the offspring would all be itialian or whatever.
Is that the way it works? A Cordovan mixed breed would never look like a Cordovan?
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I think, 4 to 5 frames of brood in a 10 frame deep full on bees.
Just thinking out loud, wouldn't a broodless hive be better for their purpose?
Actually no. The bees get mostly pollen and a little nectar from almonds. If they are only looking for nectar as they do when bloodless, they will likely go farther for a better nectar source than the almonds. Brood requires a lot of pollen and makes them better pollinators
It is something the almond producers have learned the hard way. Weak broodless hives are terrible almond pollinators.
Jim
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Ace {Is that the way it works? A Cordovan mixed breed would never look like a Cordovan?}
Exactly: Yes Ace, that is correct. In this case a mixed breed is defined as one parent does not contribute a gene for Cordovan coloring.
Blessings
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Soooo... there is no Russky Sekrit Kiss(RSK), just SOP - as I have
just done myself in moving a developer colony onto 40 acres of sunflower.
Mind you the paddock flooded shortly thereafter so who knows if even the
hive body still exists!
As to paying them or not?
Let the market dictate.. I doubt the Russkys will get rich being nice guys
in helping BP out.
Bill
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most likely the drones are not Cordovan therefore the offspring would all be itialian or whatever.
Is that the way it works? A Cordovan mixed breed would never look like a Cordovan?
To be annoyingly pedantic for a moment - it's not so much a 'mixed-breed', but a 'mixed-mating' - because Cordovan isn't a breed of honeybee - it's a colouring. Usually (but not always) of Italians. Bit like the insect equivalent of an albino. Some basic info at: http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/cordovan.html
LJ
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Weak broodless hives are terrible almond pollinators.
Jim
Didn't know that.
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because Cordovan isn't a breed of honeybee - it's a colouring. Usually (but not always) of Italians.
So if it is a freak of nature how do breeders produce them and why do people want them?
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Ace, in my case the Cordovan bees are just Itialian. I need the color as a genetic marker. Cordovans are commonly use in scientific assays due to the fact of their coloring breeds true.
The Cordovans act like any other itialian. A freak of nature?? Don?t know I would call the bees that. There are pigment variations in many species, wood duck: recessive color is apricot wood duck,,,,,, red birds cardinal recessive color is yellow, with horses the gene is called a ?cream gene? palamino, pheasant: recessive variation is melanistic.
I do not believe the Cordovan color is available in Asia. I have seen advertising for such a bee, but international transport in next to impossible. I do believe there is a Cordovan in Aussie land. Perhaps if Bill ELTALIA reads this thread he can comment.
However LJ is using the term albino as a good example of a recessive gene. A good example, I almost used myself but reframed for scientific reasons.
I have tried extensive study of the Cordovan color in honey bees: PubMed, not google, but I cannot find bonafide literature.
Blessings
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Isn't it difficult to breed for recessive trait? There aren't that many yellow cardinals around.
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However LJ is using the term albino as a good example of a recessive gene. A good example, I almost used myself but refrained for scientific reasons.
Hi Van - it was the nearest analogy I could think of ... :smile:
Around the turn of the 20th Century, there was a fair bit of interest in 'Golden' Bees (undoubtedly Cordovan) in Britain, as Italians were very popular at around that time, and the Cordovan colour provided a very useful marker to detect when Italian-Cordovan queens had been mated to our rather unpleasant Black Bees. One guy even wrote a book detailing the mating (and thus promoting) these Golden Bees: https://archive.org/details/cu31924003427295 But over the years interest in them seems to have waned.
If I were interested in keeping Italians, rather than Buckfast and Carniolans, then I'd certainly favour the Cordovan colouring, as it's such a useful genetic indicator.
LJ
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Ace, yellow cardinals are extremely rare. I used that example because the weather channel just a week ago feathered one such bird. I did not know there was such a bird until then.
Some breeders in California breed exclusively for this color. Through the years one particular breeder has acquired many, 100 of hives with Cordovan queens. Thus the drones are all Cordovan from these queens and virgin queens can be wild mated yet the chances are they will breed with a Cordovan drone. A Cordovan queen will produce all Cordovan drones.
I know of another breeder in California that purchases artificial inseminated (AI) Cordovan breed queens. These are very expensive queens, $565 each, a little bit out of my budget range for Honey bees.
I can produce AI queens, I have the equipment and training. The training is $1400 a day with subsequent classes at $900 a day. Some folks don?t mind paying thousands, the money does not matter.
Blessings
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Ace, every queen that I raised, I took a pic of it for future reference. The laying queen going to the
caretaker also has her pic taken. This way they cannot switch my beautiful Italian color queen. Even if they do, I can still
make some more queens later in the season. I'm trying to go I.I. to preserve the Cordovan genetics here. The local Italians also
have the yellow upper bands and lower grey bands. It may be a stabilized genetics that I like to incorporate into my
breeding program this season. The end result might be a mite biting/mauling Cordovan bee. Still a work in progress bee program!
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An update:
So I pick up this nuc hive on Thursday. I did not get my old queen back. And the 3 frame of bees nuc hive they gave me
have no cap broods either. So they lied to me all these time. I got mad and did not speak to the one who called me afterward.
The 3 frame of bees that they gave me have majority of the 3 weeks old bees. No young nurse bees because there isn't any cap
broods. With this set up the foragers will be depleted with one month before any new bees emerged. Seeing this situation I did a combine.
I switch out the Jan mated queen with this nuc's new queen (because they did not give me my expensive old queen back.) Then took the nuc
box full of bees from the Jan queen stacked on top of the 3 frame nuc hive. Because there are 3 frames of emerging and cap broods from this
top nuc hive, they are safe for now. One booming hive taking their orientation flights today.
Switched out the queen and put another nuc box with young nurse bees and cap broods on. The future security of this hive is ensure!
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An update:
So I pick up this nuc hive on Thursday. I did not get my old queen back.
.... bummer. "Live and learn" comes to mind.
Along with that other "if it sounds too good to be true it usually
isn't, true" . I am thinking FlowHive [tm] as I write, and think on
your tale - lots of spin can sell almost anything to reasoning
people.
Bill
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Really sorry to hear that you were lied to.
LJ
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Gees, before you fly off the handle lets rewind. What you gave them was a queen guaranteed to die and maybe it did. It doesn't matter what you paid for it. What you got in return is a nuc for $125. If the nuc is in question then tell them the situation. What they do next will put the icing on the cake as to whether they are trust worthy or not.
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What they do next will put the icing on the cake as to whether they
are trust worthy or not.
.... lots of spin can sell almost anything to reasoning
people.
Bill
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I already made up my minds to not deal with these folks anymore. They are master at deceiving people in a
team approach. Fool me twice shame on you! Ace, would you go back the 2nd time for another taste of their
medicine? Isn't once enough, Ace? Frankly, I'm afraid to deal with them. So when I gave them the queen for safekeeping, I don't expect too much afterward. Somehow a good laying queen they will want to keep to make more queens from. When he said, your queen is very good at the
farm, meaning the almonds farm, I already knew that there is a very slight chance they will give it back to me.
So my final conclusion is to not deal with them anymore. This will save me lots of headaches in the future. How smart are you if going back knowing
that they are scammers?
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Beepro I would go back and prove to myself or let them prove it to me that they are scammers. If that is what shakes out then the last thing I would say to them is watch your backside because the way I see it is if they are pollinating almonds they got a lot more at risk then your favored queen. If you go back to them you are not going to give them anything you are going back to them to get something. If they give you brood or bees are you still going to feel you got scammed?
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Yup, got scammed this time!
They took my expensive queen and then gave me bees without any cap
broods. This is not how we raise bees here. At the backbone of the hive are the
young nurse bees. Without a few frames of them the Spring expansion will be very
slow.
I took care of that by combining their bees with a well mated strong laying queen and 3
frames of cap broods. Either way, I feel it is just a waste of time dealing with them. If they want to
do it right then they only have one chance to prove themselves. Since I have this
situation under control now, I will focus on getting the mite fighting bees for my next nucs expansion.
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Yup, got scammed this time!
I am very sorry to hear that. Nothing turns my stomach more than someone taking advantage of someone else. It makes my blood boil to the point I have criminal thoughts. I would be determined to even the score. Good of you that you can let it go. You are a better man then me.
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Focus on the positive not the negative. My days are filled with more + than - events. On the bright side,
all of my nuc hives are adding new bees every day. The hives are growing fast since it is officially Spring day here. Everywhere there are flowers blooming and
2 frame of new nectar added last week without any syrup feeding.
You can see them getting crowded with more workers added every week. At this rate of growth, I can make more splits very soon. My main goal for this bee season is to make more splits to put them out in the open field inside an old abandoned little shed (house.) This will be my backup bee yard just in case
something happen to my home yard. I still need to get some mite biting/mauling Italians queens this season. This will talk up most of my time doing I.I. this
season. With so many interesting upcoming bee projects this season all I can think of is how to make better mite resistant bees. Positive thoughts rule my minds everyday!