Section 8.1 – Dominating an Area with the Selected Strain

As we progress through the programme to improve our bee stocks it pays to give some thought to how we are going to consolidate any improvements we may have gained through our efforts to establish our selected strain. We have been monitoring our colonies and keeping accurate records to enable us to see at a…

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Section 7.1 – The Mating of Queens

by Brian Holdcroft Photo courtesy of Richard Senior The Mating of Queens – Use of nucs, mini-nucs and mini+ nucs   Whether you are using natural queen cells, emergency queen cells, grafted queen cells or cells produced from larval transfer kits (such as Jenter or Cupkit), the next step in the process is finding a…

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Section 5.1 – Queen Rearing Methods

Photo by Roger Patterson Queen Rearing Methods There are so many techniques of queen rearing, and so much has been written about them, that it may seem unwise to add any more. Studying too many methods can be a source of much confusion and leave one overwhelmed and unsure of how to proceed. Like most…

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Section 4.14 – Record Card Instructions

Colony Record Card How to use This card is designed to be a multipurpose card that can be used for normal hive management as well as for bee improvement in one apiary, multiple apiaries, or in a bee improvement group. The data collected on each card is for one colony. The summaries at the end…

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Section 3.1 – The Selection of Local Stock

Record-keeping: the selection of local stock The honey bee colonies in our area should be viewed as our resources for selection and improvement. We may only be responsible for a handful of those colonies so there is a great incentive to co-operate and work with other beekeepers in the area to increase our sphere of…

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Introduction

This initiative is available for all beekeepers, from the geographical area of England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands, to participate in. It is designed to promote the improvement of local bees and the development of local ecotypes and to avoid further input from imported bees. It is recognised that…

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