Interesting to hear about queen rearing early in the season in Montana.
 
Our experience is similar. From the mid 70's to the mid 80's we ran a bee
breeding project in the Southern Interior of the province of British Columbia
Canada. Our area bears some similarities to the climate near Missoula. We would
finish our winter evaluations in the latter part of February, do our statistical
analysis, choose queen mothers and drone mothers for the new year and begin
drone rearing sometime in the last week of February. Some years we would be
working in a foot of snow at that time. By the first week of April we had mature
drones ready to instrumentally inseminate selected virgins. In some years we
also mated queens in isolation in our valley bottoms. We weren't too worried
about mismatings because there usually weren't many "natural" drones around at
that time. However, we did take precautions. We kept good weather readings over
the course of the project and I continue to monitor temperatures for early
season matings. Invariably we will experience temperatures permitting matings
sometime between the last week of March and the first 2-3 weeks of April. We've
had virgins waiting in our nucs for as long as 28 days, then mate and perform
well.
 
With our system it was necessary to gear up as early as possible. Timing was
critical. We wanted to be able to produce packages headed by our inseminated
queens and run them through an entire production season for evaluation- similar
to the way people were running packages imported from California at that time.
 
John Gates, Apiculture Specialist
B.C. Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food
4607, 23rd. St. Vernon, B.C. Canada, V1T 4K7
Ph:( 604) 549-5580
fax:(604) 549-5488
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