Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum

BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => REQUEENING & RAISING NEW QUEENS => Topic started by: Dr. Cricket on May 16, 2013, 01:21:06 PM

Title: Queen rearing in Africanized Bee Zones
Post by: Dr. Cricket on May 16, 2013, 01:21:06 PM
I live in southwest Florida where there are a good concentration of feral Africanized bee colonies. The obvious assumption is that I don't want my virgin queens out there mating with feral drones. Do I have any options, other than artificial insemination, for producing queens or keeping supercedig queens from mating with AHBs?
Title: Re: Queen rearing in Africanized Bee Zones
Post by: Michael Bush on May 16, 2013, 03:32:41 PM
The people I know in such areas, just raise their own queens from the gentle ones and cull the mean ones.
Title: Re: Queen rearing in Africanized Bee Zones
Post by: Nature Coast Beek on May 29, 2013, 06:50:12 AM
Cricket...

You'll want to look into drone saturation. Dr. Larry Connor has written about this and has a good outline for a smaller operation on how to do it (http://www.wicwas.com/document%20files/monthly%20articles/larryarticles2006/LarryJune2006.pdf).

Also, take a look at theBMP for rearing honey bee queens. (http://www.freshfromflorida.com/pi/plantinsp/apiary/apiary.html). It has the specifications for the square inches of drone brood necessary.