Hi Mike

> It is my understanding that the queens go to drone congregation areas different for those that the drones from the same bee yard (area) go to. 

Basically correct, but the drones in any particular bee yard will 
already be quite a mixture, due to drifting.

> how far away should the drone producing colonies be from the queen mating colonies?

This is a slightly different ball game... A breeder using open mating 
will attempt to saturate a naturally occurring isolated mating area with 
drones, probably setting out several rings of drone producing colonies. 
Because there is good coverage of drones, many of the matings will be 
'within strain' this must not be confused with inbreeding... Inbreeding 
is caused by the number of lines being used to produce queens and drones 
not being high enough (it is further complicated in US as the Italian 
race that is favoured has a low mating frequency).

If you are setting up small numbers of drone producing colonies, I 
cannot think of a distance that might give any advantage in mating.

I suspect the approach of a 'queen raiser' would be different (less 
drone colonies) to that of a breeder as the main interest would be 
getting the queen mated, not getting the queen mated within strain.

http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/matingbehaviour.html
http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/avm.html
http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/multiplematings.html


Regards & Best 73s, Dave Cushman, G8MZY
http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman or http://www.dave-cushman.net
Short FallBack M/c, Build 6.02/3.1 (stable)

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