History
This is the start of twenty-six year of my queen breeding program. Early on, the losses were much higher than they are today while selecting for the most desirable characteristics for the Northwest, I now feel I’m much closer to my goal of having a heathy bee that scores high in mite resistance and Northwest survival characteristics. For others out there thinking of following a similar path I wouldn’t advice doing what I did. Stopping treatment cold turkey today will be very costly for you. Bees you buy say they’re mite resistant, but they aren’t, and the mites of today are much more deadly than they were 25 years ago. These days there are very simple tests for measuring the mite count. Locals are given free extra queen cells/extra mated queens should mite data indicate things are out of control. I’m happy to be the magic bag that replacement queens come from to improve your genetics. It is unfortunate that all my queens are not created equally great. A small percentage will be replaced in late summer. It is highly recommended that you add Instrumental Insemination to your program, because the drones flying from these high mite count colonies may not the ones you want mating with your future queen daughters.
General Comments/Goals for 2025
Colonies are looking good going into fall in regard to the mite counts. I continue to employ the live and let die principles. There are a number of reasons for this. Only me running all the work and my pockets are not that deep to evaluate all the internals happening in the hive. I have difficulty explaining how my hives manage the mites, and I feel it is important to continue to investigate this with what time there is. No treatment of any kind natural or otherwise has ever been used. Violation of this basis rule would upset the validity of the whole selection process. Looks like a mild wet winter coming. What’s bringing in pollen on Halloween in the Northwest crazy right. I’m very happy with the progress being made on the effort to get closer to a balanced Northwest bee. All colonies are presently stable with their mite loads. I’ve noted yellow jackets and hornet are killing hives and entrance sizes need to be managed carefully to avoid their entry. Spring mite level measurements are planned as final breeder selections are made. I don’t yet have the dead out percentages for this winter (too early) but should know in the early spring. Losses last year came in at 8% over winter. Last year’s new queens were a battle all season as May’s weather was so bad, mating was poor leaving me with many not mated at all and a group poorly mated that needed to be replaced out. Thankfully only a few failed in the distributed nuc’s. I battled this on and off all summer it seemed. On the other side the crazy weather promoted explosive spring growth and swarming tendencies. Swarming tendencies are graded in the selection process. I like very large colonies that you can stack many honey supers on and at night you may see a small beard (all the bees just won’t fit inside) at the entrance yet will not swarm. So with the hives this big you can imagine the size of the problem.
Here the “fast track” program continues. It was put together to identify up and coming breeder queens and produce a round of daughters very quickly for evaluation over winter. I’m a small operation and this makes a program like this possible. The highlights of the program are to identify up and coming top breeder queens that really stand out. Potential breed queens are used to produce up to twenty daughters, which are then returned to Nuc’s and hives for wintering. The daughters are carefully examined to see if they carry the same mite resistance as their mother. I attempt to see whether the beneficial traits are solely drone related or in the mothers’ genetics. The daughters will mate with new set of drones. Mite data always plays a big role in the selection process. These daughters are studied and ranked. This plan is working great and very exciting what it is yielding. The most important question asked about a new breeder queen is–What are her daughters like can be quickly addressed with real field data as each will have a winter under their belts. It can’t be emphasized enough the importance of having the desirable trait follow into the daughters with a different set of mating drones. I’m after traits that are in the mothers’ genetics. Once verified you have proved her drones also carry the desirable genetics. Drones are female in genetic material since they only carry the queens genetics.
I have not added any external queens to my general mating population in years only semen by instrumental insemination. Queens from outside apiaries are studied in location external to my mating yards until decisions can be made as to their future. Very often the semen from drones is collected from them and introduced into daughters from my breeders. I’ve found this to allow examination of the hive characteristics without the concern of general drone population contamination. Drone genetics reflect only those of the mother. The behavioral changes are slow enough to track and make future direction decisions from without the risk of introducing a broad potentially dangerous directional change into the general mating population.