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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

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From:
P-O Gustafsson <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Fri, 12 Oct 2007 20:02:20 +0200
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> What has been the experience of those
> of you who have used II in your queen production?  Is II a viable
> alternative to free flight mating in your estimation?

I find the greatest difficulty to be drone production. No problem to 
inseminate queens, it's a matter of few minutes per queen. But it's a 
different thing with the boys. They don't live long outside the hive, 
you got half an hour or so to collect the semen when taking them from 
the hives. If you want a wider selection of genetics, you need drones 
from many hives. Lets say you run 10 lines of drones that every queen 
should have a reasonable mix of semen from. That is probably on the 
low side for a sustainable long time program, 15 to 30 different lines 
would be better. Then you don't have the time to collect semen from 
them all before they are too exhausted.

Then we have the trouble to raise all the drones lines and keep them 
in hives until they get mature. Lock them inside with excluders, let 
them out for a pee pee now and then in the evenings, one hive at the 
time so they don't mix. Believe me, insemination is a piece of cake 
compared to keeping all those boys alive and happy! And in the end, 
many of them are "dry" anyway and of no use.

I still do a few inseminations every year, but rely on open mating for 
most of my "queen mothers".

> I'm contemplating taking Susan
> Cobey's II courses in an effort to provide my area's beekeepers
> with queens of know linage and known mating.  If II queens are not
> a viable alternative to open mated queens then I don't want to
> spend the money, time, and effort to provide II services to my
> area.

I bought her video, and learned from that. No need to go to 
school...her video (or DVD) is exelent and enough to learn II.

Mike, I find II valuble in research, but not so much in real life 
unless you have large funds to spend. Much better stay with open 
mating, if you have the area with your own genetic material available 
for mating. II can quickly lead to too much inbreeding. It's very hard 
to keep all those lines of drones you need...

-- 
Regards

P-O Gustafsson, Sweden
[log in to unmask]  http://beeman.se

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