I know of a good drone congregating area close to my hives ( just tested by David Cramp using a drone with a virgin tied underneath)
but I believe that queens don't visit the nearest congregation area, partly to reduce inbreeding.
At EAS we learn where to place drone colonies - 2km away in a square around the mating area.
Last autumn (fall) I placed a lot of nucs close( 200 yards) to it and had less than a 50% successful matings. The rest were queenless.
This spring I place 16 nuc within 3/4 of a mile of the area on another apiary site and got 75% mating. The weather in both cases was
reasonable with days at 20 degree C. (We do get a lot of wind but these two sites are reasonably sheltered).
My question is how far away should I place the mating nucs to capitalise on this congregation area.
Frank Lindsay
Wellington
New Zealand
***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html