Question about queens offspring

[tom]

Hello All

   I have something i would like to know if a hive raise thier own queen and you have a bigger hive that is mixed with carniolans and italians what would the offspring be. Two of my hives are of this mix but my third hive is of another mix now if the queen from the third hive mates with the drones from my other hive what will the offspring be and would thier temper be like. My first hive is the only one with drones and they are tan mixed with black the queen is carniolan bred with cordovan italians so would my virgin queen offspring be carniolans or italians or both.


Tom

[Brian D. Bray]

The offspring of the young will be whatever the type the drone that the queen originates from.  If you have one hive of Italians in a yard and the rest of the hives are Carnolians then you will probably get the mix you want from queen out of the Italian hive.  However if there are other hives in the neighborhood the changes that the queen will mate at least once with a drone from the other hives just as there is a good chance it will mate with a drone from its own hive.
Since the queen usually mates multiple times the odds against getting a specific cross exclusively is proportioninately small the more hives are in the area.  Queen growers will often put their mating nuc out in remote loactions where they are sure there are no other bees within a minimum of 2 miles and 5 miles is preferred.  Then the queens from the nucs can only mate with the drones from the other hives in the yard.  Yet even here there is still the remote possiblity of feral drones upsetting the apple cart.

I hope this helps.

[tom]

Hello

  This helps shed some light on the subject there are no feral bees around here and i am the only one within 10 miles with bees some people came thru several days ago and where looking for feral bees and they said they could not find any in the trees they had marked in the spring so my bees are the only ones.

Tom

[Brian D. Bray]

It sounds like you are in an ideal queen breeding area, if it stays that way.  Odds are though that your bee yard will be the source of more than one feral colony and those trees those people marked may have bees in them over the next few years.  It would be a good idea to locate those marked trees and monitor them if you plan on getting serious on raising and breeding queens.