I subscribed to you site as I am planning on becoming an all Natural Beekeeper this year. I have built 4 - 27 frame insulated Layen's hive and I have made over 200 frame including 10 -7 frame swarm traps. I live in the Catskills of NY. I purchase 3 local nucs with over wintered 5 frames Langstroth nucs. I will be cutting the frames and attaching them to Layen's frames to get started. I really would like to catch some wild swarms hopefully. I had a lot of honey bees in the garden last years and there are no real close bee keepers near me so I hope I can catch some wild native bees.
Awesome! We plan to cover several styles of beekeeping, so you can choose the path best for you. Treatment free is starting to look like the wild horse.
This was great. I have a question for you about hive disposition--sweet or aggressive. Is it primarily the sperm of the male bee that determines this? Or is 1/2&1/2 between the drones sperm and the queen? Also, what are the cell sizes for those PF 100 and 120s Michael was taking about? Thx
A drone is a 100% genetic clone of his mother while the queen’s (for math) genetic profile is only 50% mother 50% father. This means each worker has 75% genetic makeup from their father. This is why in mating programs the drones are more important than the queen. It’s also why mite resistant breeding programs are difficult, because bad drone genetics quickly dilute any positive genetic progress, as they have more genetic responsibility.
I am unconvinced that 75% of the genetic makeup of a worker is from the fertilizing drone. The queen does not mate then produce drones with which she again mates. @@hyperhyve
Thanks for this interview with a natural beekeeper, I learned a lot!
Thanks for watching.
I subscribed to you site as I am planning on becoming an all Natural Beekeeper this year.
I have built 4 - 27 frame insulated Layen's hive and I have made over 200 frame including 10 -7 frame swarm traps.
I live in the Catskills of NY. I purchase 3 local nucs with over wintered 5 frames Langstroth nucs. I will be cutting the frames and attaching them to Layen's frames to get started. I really would like to catch some wild swarms hopefully. I had a lot of honey bees in the garden last years and there are no real close bee keepers near me so I hope I can catch some wild native bees.
Hope it all goes well for you. I’ve been a natural beekeeper from the start and don’t regret it.
Awesome! We plan to cover several styles of beekeeping, so you can choose the path best for you. Treatment free is starting to look like the wild horse.
This was great. I have a question for you about hive disposition--sweet or aggressive. Is it primarily the sperm of the male bee that determines this? Or is 1/2&1/2 between the drones sperm and the queen?
Also, what are the cell sizes for those PF 100 and 120s Michael was taking about? Thx
A drone is a 100% genetic clone of his mother while the queen’s (for math) genetic profile is only 50% mother 50% father. This means each worker has 75% genetic makeup from their father. This is why in mating programs the drones are more important than the queen. It’s also why mite resistant breeding programs are difficult, because bad drone genetics quickly dilute any positive genetic progress, as they have more genetic responsibility.
I am unconvinced that 75% of the genetic makeup of a worker is from the fertilizing drone. The queen does not mate then produce drones with which she again mates. @@hyperhyve