14 - Mating Nucs Make-up with CO2

[pihlpet]

I have a question about time, 15 minutes, thats quite much i think,

is it enough for older bees also to "forget" their home. What i mean is that without co2 older bees will fly back home if it is nearby, will treating them such a long time make them forget about their home and queen, and make them accept their new mating-nuc and a virgin instantly, or will there still be natural drift home.

And do You need to keep bees in a "cellar" overnight or can You use them instantly after "collecting"?

[filmitfilmit]

these videos are great but leave so maNY QUESTIONS UN ANSWERED

[ottoallen1]

i thought queens and drones had to be flying to mate? mating nucs? do they mate inside or flying...than what ?

[ApiaryManager]

@ottoallen1

Yes. The queen may fly from the nuc to mate or she may be instrumentally inseminated. Either way, the purpose of the mating hive is just to support the queen until she is producing worker brood. After that, she will probably be sold. The bees are unimportant.

Special drone producing colonies will be sited near the mating apiary.

[Fentanyl3]

So, step by step, what is hapening here?

[ApiaryManager]

You probably have to view the series of videos in order to understand the complete process. This is step 14

The video shows young worker bees being narcotised with Carbon dioxide so that they can be handled safely. A coupful of workers is placed into each mating hive (nucleus colony) along with a ripe queen cell (one that is due to emerge from its cell the next day) and sugar syrup (food). That queen will be supported by the workers until she has mated and is producing worker brood.

[Fentanyl3]

Thank you for a courteous reply, I wasn't sure if these were being put together as mating nucs, packages bees for sale, or ?

[ApiaryManager]

No problem :-)

This is a mating nuc. A package would usually contain about 3lbs of workers and the queen would usually be caged for transport.

[rimsa80]

why is he putting 2 queencells in one hive?

[ApiaryManager]

@rimsa80

My guess is that he expects to lose a few and wants to make sure that each nuc has a mated queen in it.

Each stage in the queen rearing process is not 100%. queens are lost at each stage so he probably over-produces in order to get enough mated queens at the end of the process.

[wiredforstereo]

@rimsa80 There are a couple of reasons. First to make sure there is one good queen per nuc. Second, the first hatching queen will usually kill the other, and therefore, sooner hatching queens are selected for in a kind of forced natural selection like there would be in a natural hive. It's more expensive, but produces better queens in the long run.

[CORRIGEEN71]

typical example of man fucking with nature again fuck the bible and gensis

[ApiaryManager]

I think your comment is ill informed and, quite frankly, rude! Do you understand what is going on here?

[dragonforceRus]

if that is bees just fly away stupid things

[ApiaryManager]

The Carbon Dioxide acts as a drug and puts them all to sleep.

[ApiaryManager]

Excellent video clip - but I am curious about the narcotising of the nurse bees with CO2.

- Gilles Fert refers to the danger of them suffocating in his book. Any problems with this?

- Treating the queen with CO2 as part of the II process is said to AGE the queen. Does the CO2 age the nurse bees too? Have you noticed any problems with them being able to produce food for the emerging virgin queen (see email)?

[Duboisi]

The queen cells are kept seperate and are added at the end. (The packing guy has them in a small white bucket.)