Ok so as I just learned 75 % of the genetic material for the hive comes from the queen and 25 % comes from the drone(s). So with this in mind it really doesn't matter what type of bee one starts out with, it is the queen one ends up with that matters. So with this in mind If i purchase a cheeper type of bee and then switch the queen to a more expensive type, then in a little time, I would have a hive of the more expensive type of bee.
does this make sense?
What dose the more expensive be do :) RDY-B
they clean your car when not collecting pollen LOL i meant to say like the italian bees seem to be cheeper to purchase vs the buckfast bees , so buy the italians and then put a buckfast queen in then you will end up with a buckfast hive yes?
yes but you have to be careful about early superseder if this happens you are back to fump
once the queen mates-RDY-B
Quote from: rdy-b on December 28, 2010, 09:19:42 PM
What dose the more expensive be do :) RDY-B
...costs more?
Yes slacker. You are not stuck with the poor genetics you may get with your package, nucs or whatever you get. You can always re-queen to improve your stock. If you dont like Italian you can switch to carnolian or whatever is available to you.
How many colonies do you have?
If you have several, you can try a few of different stocks, or different breeders and see what you like best. No matter what you do, in time they will swarm or superciede and your new queen will mate with whatever drones end up in your area. This may be a good or bad thing.
I myself (not a seasoned pro) would rather get queens from several smaller operation that make me feel that real attention was put into the quality of the queens I receive. Then I believe a little mixing with feral genes (hopefully multiple generation feral survivors) is good genetic material to add to the mix.
Not to say that larger commercial operations have poor quality queens but they are likely production line queens and I dont like the idea. There is no way they can pay real attention to them, they may be banked for periods of time, have poor nutrition, or whatever else could happen when someone is raising thousands of queens and cant remember the last time or what they did last time with the queen.
My two cents, maybe less.
Absolutely! It will be a couple months before the old bees are gone.
The only caveat here is that sometimes requeening goes badly. Then you are out the price of the queen and still have the old genetics, and that might be the same price as the more expensive bees.
Sometimes if changing the breed (italian to russian, carni, etc) they don't accept the queen as well. And sometimes they don't at all. But in general...it does work.
That being said, I'm to the point where unless there is a problem with the original bees, they'll do pretty much the same thing as the more expensive bees. Although if you can get nice a mix of pretty gold bees and black bees that would be absolutely stunning!! :)
Rick
Alright, I'll bite. What makes a bee more expensive than the other? Could someone give me a rundown on most expensive to least expensive?
Quote from: slacker361 on December 28, 2010, 09:00:46 PM
does this make sense?
No, not at all. What are you looking for?
But you cannot get all good in one package...
You need
1) much foragers
2) good pastures
Even if you have how good the hive and pastures are dry, you get not much honey.
It is easier to nurse 2 lazy and calm hive than one grazy super hive
What ever the bees are, and they have good pastures nearby, they get a good yield.
When bees are decided to swarm, they yield during swarming fever is very poor.
If your main swarm escapes, you loose your year around work
My formula for beekeeping is
1/3 skill
1/3 weather
1/3 luck
Quote from: Acebird on December 29, 2010, 02:13:09 PM
Alright, I'll bite. What makes a bee more expensive than the other? Could someone give me a rundown on most expensive to least expensive?
I dont know .......why are there different prices on bees? some are under 100 and some are way over 100. i am not sure why some bees are more expensive than others
Quote from: slacker361 on December 29, 2010, 07:33:31 PM
Quote from: Acebird on December 29, 2010, 02:13:09 PM
Alright, I'll bite. What makes a bee more expensive than the other? Could someone give me a rundown on most expensive to least expensive?
I dont know .......why are there different prices on bees? some are under 100 and some are way over 100. i am not sure why some bees are more expensive than others
The price is used to cover the time and expensive equipment that breeders use to artificially breed the queens that they sell and the selection of desirable traits of bees to breed.
That is of coarse if the breeder is honest.