Mating Flight problems?

[GSF]

Here's my concern. In the last 3 weeks I've caught about 17 swarms out of my  bee yard. Two were caught twice since they absconded. Those two finally said the heck with me and left for good. What has me concerned is this past week we've had rain about every day, not all day except yesterday. Today off and on about all day.

I'm thinking I read the window for a virgin queen is about a week. A week from what? When she hatches? starts flying? starts mating? Does the queen wait for the perfect day or does she go out for a couple hours? Thanks

[AR Beekeeper]

The clock starts when the virgin emerges from the cell.  The average time for eggs to be seen after emerging is 7 to 10 days, but it can be as long 21 to 30.

The virgin prefers a bright sunny day with no wind, and about 65-70 temps.  If she can't get a day like that she will take a chance and fly on a poor day.  The poor day fliers that are mated usually don't perform as well as a virgin mated in good weather.  The mating flight can last 30 minutes or longer, but those queens are usually poorly mated.  The best mated queens seem to be those that are on the flight for 23 minutes or less.   

[sc-bee]

The mating flight can last 30 minutes or longer, but those queens are usually poorly mated.  The best mated queens seem to be those that are on the flight for 23 minutes or less.

Just curious, how do they measure the lenght of a particular queens mating flight?

[Wombat2]

Just reading Brother Adam of Buckfast Abby's book - he tells of one season when a whole batch of 512 queens failed to mate due to adverse weather the whole time

[Dallasbeek]

Moral to the story is pick a good location for queen rearing.  The Sunbelt, not jolly old England, perhaps.  Except a lot of the Sunbelt now has AHB genetics mixed in.

[AR Beekeeper]

The study I read was done in Austria and they had nucs with clear plastic tubes for entrances.  The entrances had an excluder to hold the queen in or out until an observer allowed the queen to fly or reenter the nuc.  Queens were logged out and back in, and allowed to fly each day until they started to lay.  When they started to lay they were killed and the amount of stored sperm counted.

[don2]

Unless you plan to do scientific research I would study on what the bees do in your area  from the view point of a hobby beekeeper. Not being Mr. smarty pants understand. d2 

[sc-bee]

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[L Daxon]

I thought read that a virgin queen had up to two weeks to get mated and if she isn't mated by then, she never will be, or will be poorly mated if she only took a flight or two and a had limited number of couplings.

[johng]

I grafted a round of queens early this past spring and it took the queens almost three weeks before they finally got mated. They mated about the same time as the queens that I grafted two weeks after the first round. But, they did mate and most of them are doing just fine. Now I did have a few that were superseded probably because of the poor mating weather. But, all in all mother nature found a way to get it done and they will be getting their first super this week. 

[Michael Bush]

>I thought read that a virgin queen had up to two weeks to get mated...

She has three...

[GSF]

It seems that out of 16-17 swarms only one is queen less. Not bad for the weather we were having. Thanks for the replies.