The nucleus mating "Kielers"
We essentially produce our mated queens in Kielers.
Starting up of the Kielers:
The Kielers are put into service from mid-April (blossoms of the colzas) to mid-May (blossoms of the acacias). We remove the package bees from our 10-frame hives. With one hive, we fill up around 10 nuc, approximately the size of a 500g honey jar full of bees.
Once it has been filled, we introduce a virgin queen directly in the nucleus. Afterwards, The Kielers are transferred in a dark and cool room. They remain closed for 3 days and 3 nights in order to reduce the desertion risk.
The collection of the queens:
In general, the queens are collected 3 weeks after the virgin queen is introduced (at the start of the season) or the royal cell is inserted (for the next rotations).
The day following the crop, a new royal cell of 11 day old is introduced.
The overwintering of the Kielers:
At the end of the season, we are always left with fertilised queens bee. The loss ratio is generally very important: > 50%. Nevertheless, in only 2 seasons, we have improved our success ratio (up to 25%) by feeding abundantly our colonies during winter. The feeders are filled every 4 weeks.
Queens’ breeding in nuclei Kieler Begattungskasten:
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We essentially produce our mated queens in Kielers. Starting up of the Kielers:
The Kielers are put into service from mid-April (blossoms of the (...)
