From owner-bee-l@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU Sat May 17 09:53:25 1997 Received: from CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU (uacsc2.albany.edu [169.226.1.21]) by vtaix.cc.vt.edu (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id JAA39702 for ; Sat, 17 May 1997 09:53:23 -0400 Received: from CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU by CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU (IBM VM SMTP V2R3) with BSMTP id 0531; Sat, 17 May 97 09:48:33 EDT Received: from CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@ALBNYVM1) by CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU (LMail V1.2c/1.8c) with BSMTP id 8305; Sat, 17 May 1997 09:48:33 -0400 Received: from CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU by CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 1.8c) with spool id 9355 for BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU; Sat, 17 May 1997 09:48:30 -0400 Received: from ALBNYVM1 (NJE origin SMTP@ALBNYVM1) by CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU (LMail V1.2c/1.8c) with BSMTP id 8293; Sat, 17 May 1997 09:48:30 -0400 Received: from sysx.systronix.net by CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU (IBM VM SMTP V2R3) with TCP; Sat, 17 May 97 09:48:25 EDT Received: from dialin9.internode.net (dialin9.internode.net [198.161.228.109]) by sysx.systronix.net (NTMail 3.02.13) with ESMTP id ta026825 for ; Sat, 17 May 1997 07:54:29 -0600 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Priority: normal X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v2.53/R1) Approved-By: Allen Dick Message-ID: <13542926702614@systronix.net> Date: Sat, 17 May 1997 07:52:43 -0600 Reply-To: allend@internode.net Sender: Discussion of Bee Biology Comments: Authenticated sender is From: Allen Dick Organization: The Beekeepers Subject: Re: Introduction of virgin queens, cells, nucs To: BEE-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU In-Reply-To: Status: RO > On the introduction side, I have introduced emerging queens into a nuc from > which the queen bee has just been caught many times with success. Maybe it is > the disruption of catching the queen that increases the acceptance. I don't claim to be an expert on this: maybe I'm just lucky. My understanding was that virgins lose acceptibility to the bees rapidly after emergence, so have never presumed to try to introduce an older virgin (more than a few hours old), except at swarming time when I have found them emerging or running around in a hive and grabbed a few to use later in the day elsewhere in my travels. At such times I can't recall ever having trouble with acceptance, but then again, I did not check back *too* carefully. I think I would have noticed though if there had been problems. In our queen rearing, on the other hand, we have been presented with emerging virgins a number of times when schedules get loused up for whatever reason, and again, we have not had much trouble having them accepted in either baby or 2 and three frame nucs. Again, though I did not presume to hold them more than a few hours, and after all these years, I guess the things that David was saying come naturally and I may have met the conditions without thinking consciously. At any rate, I cannot recall having had problems with rejection of virgins to the extend I have occasionally had problems with rejection of mated queeens - even after long and careful introductions, sometimes. To my taste there is nothing easier to introduce than a cell. David hit the nail on the head when he mentioned cell protectors. We use the JayZee BeeZee ones - the larger two tang ones are better if the cells are a decent size - and even put them on the cells *as soon as they are capped* in the cell holding colonies if there is any chance of a stray queen or early emergence. (Note: Jean-Marie sent me some European cell protectors, and I think we decided that the JayZee BeeZee are superior. I believe he purchased some subsequently). We stick cells into anything. Particularly, we like to make two frame splits above an excluder. We slip in a division board and introduce a cell all in one second trip. Acceptance and success is fairly close to the average acceptance level (for us) of mated queens, and cost is much less. Any duds we use as seconds on the successful ones when we move them out, so nothing is lost. As for introduction time, we find cells result in laying queens 11 days later about 75% of the time or better. With mated queeens on the other hand, typical release is *at least four days* and often seven, and I can't count on finding the queen laying until at least a week after introduction. I often wait the same ten or eleven days, since the release rate is so variable. Thus the difference between cells and queens is not great, and although that can be significant sometimes, on average, it is not important. I do direct release queens sometimes to cut the time, but it is time consuming, since much more attention must be paid, and weather and time of day are huge (uncontrollable) factors. > Also I have found that if the virgin queen is older i.e say 6 days as against > 1 or 2 days, the acceptance rate is better. I really can't recall having any virgins that old and can't comment. One reason is that I assumed that virgins that old are near the end of their mating window and risky. Allen