John H. Wrote:



Hi Bill:  What is the Vernon Stock improvement project. I have'nt heard of
it.
Look forward to your reply......John H




The Vernon Stock Improvement project was originated by John Corner I
believe in 1980 - 1985.  John Gates got his first Apiary job in this
project and stayed with it.  He can probably give you a much better
description of it but as I recall about 30 beekeepers donated 2 - 5 hives
(the best we have) from these strains through artificial insemination.  In
5 years improved bees for local conditions were created and as part of the
project taught anyone (including myself) how to raise queens, graft and
the principle of selecting stock and keeping line without inbreeding.
During the project we requeened our hives with this stock and at the end
the donated hives and stock were turned back over to the beekeepers to
keep.



To the best of my knowledge I am the last and only one left who kept this
stock without knowingly introducing another strain into it.  Our breeders
go through all hoops of operations including pollination and are sold
after graft each year with nuks to Alberta.  At the end of May we have
800 - 1000 queen mating units from 3 to 8 frames rearing queens.  They
have been celled from 20 breeders in even numbers so 50 daughters from
each breeder.  We start a new selection right then and the hives are
marked for good behavior, brood pattern, hygienic behavior, honey
production, speed of development and anything we do not like gets killed
and the bees are slashed together.  The good ones are laying in single
boxes with queen excluders and Dadant or with a honey super on until mid
August.



Around August 14th (this year) 144 singles are put on top of other singles
to create wintering colonies.  We catch and sell 140 queens.  Those are
the ones we advertised and we also have some extra 8 frame wintering
nuks.  We catch those queens and put their bees and brood above the queen
excluder, by Labor Day the brood is born and the combs are full of honey.
This year (just last week) we have already reduced the nukes to 144
wintering units so we will have only 140 tested queens this year.



All of our wintering units are scaled and fed to the proper wintering
weight.  125# for 2 high and 64# for 8 frame tops.  The initial weight is
written on front of the hive.  We also record mite levels and check for
any diseases.  We give another mark for wintering strength, spring
development, and stores consumption.



In April we select 60 possible breeders, those breeders will get a drone
comb to produce our mating drones.  At the same time we put in 2 MiteGone
formic acid pads.  Our drones are reared and born during formic acid
treatment and we have had no problems with drone sterility.  In mid May by
the end of pollination we bring those 60 designated breeders into the main
yard and select the final 24 into the breeder circle.  All other hives are
taken to "Bob yard" where all the nuking and mating is now done.



In one day I graft 2000 cells evenly from 20 breeders having 4 spare in
case no perfect graft comb can be found.  The breeders are made into queen-
less starters and in 2 days are queen righted by their own old queens as
finishers.  I aim for the cells to be around 7 - 8 days old when
introduced to the mating units.  The cells are retrieved by taking 10
cells from each master in sequence so a maximum of 50 cell daughters from
each breeder queen is installed.  About 200, 10 from each breeder are
caged and left to be emerged in strong banks as caged virgins, the rest of
the cells are sold or terminated.



At the age of 15 days all cells should be open and the virgins emerged.
We go and check all of the mating units.  We use JZBZ cell protectors so
it is easy to find out if the virgin has emerged.  Also in 3 frame units
virgins are easily visible and any bad looking, imperfect virgin or cell
not emerged is replaced by a perfect caged virgin.



So when the mating day and weather comes we have generally 800 - 1000
mating units with virgins of the same age in one gigantic mating yard.  50
daughters of each breeder are mating with drones mostly from 60 selected
drone mothers and some extra drones are left over from 280 pollination
units, which produced 500 super nuks for Alberta at the same time when
mating units were created and cells put in.  All this is done in two days.



The only thing we do not really care about is the color.  I personally
like the "mellow yellow".  It is actually a light brown but bigger then
normal queens.  We get yellow, black and anything in between.  We call
them yellow and black tigers by what yellow or black stripe prevails.



I hope I have satisfied your curiosity.  The Vernon project taught me a
lot but I also added some from my own experience over 30 years.



Yours truly,



Bill




Bill Ruzicka
Bill's Honey Farm - Home of the MiteGone Formic Acid Treatment
Kelowna British Columbia, CANADA

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