Instrumental Insemination of Honey Bee Queens with Dr. Jack Rath (391)

WEBVTT

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Hello, I'm Bridget Hawthorne, Hawthorne Hunting Farm from Cobden, Illinois, and welcome to Beekeeping Today Podcast.

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Welcome to Beekeeping Today Podcast presented by Betterbee, your source for beekeeping news, information, and entertainment.

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I'm Jeff Ott.

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And I'm Becky Masterman.

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Today's episode is brought to you by the Bee Nutrition superheroes at Global Patties.

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Thank you, Bridget from Illinois, for that wonderful opening from the floor of the North American Honey Bee Expo.

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Bridget, St.

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Bridget has some kind of a relationship with the bees.

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I don't remember what it is, but

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It's a be worthy name.

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There you go.

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That's nice.

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That's nice.

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I can't believe we're midway through June and

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this year is just flying by and I've still not ready for it.

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I I was telling somebody just because I've my equipment I'm usually a little bit

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better prepared and I do some painting, but because we wrote that book last year, like my equipment wasn't touched.

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And so I have been just

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fixing and painting as I go and and I think it's gonna be it'll extend my season.

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How how long it feels.

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One of the things about this time of year, depending on where you are in the country, you're either just finishing up your major honey flow or your pasture honey flow, and a lot of areas of the country were hitting a dearth

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For a beekeeper after rush, rush, rush through all the spring and early summer, hitting that dearth is is like coming to a screeching stop and you have to change your mentality.

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I just I it's a plug for Minnesota, but I you know

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I learned about dirths when I go to other states.

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Oh.

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But I'm just sorry.

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I'm sorry.

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But but yeah, the dirt dirths are so important to to learn about and understand.

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And

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most states will well, at at some point you always have a nectar dearth, but it seems too early to start talking about it for for me.

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But we can consider that other people listen.

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And dearths are you wanna make sure you're taking care of your girls.

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But you don't want to feed your bees if you've got honey supers on.

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That's a

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That's a pro tip.

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Yeah.

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That's an important point to bring up.

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Dearth is really seen

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almost immediately after you pull your honey supers and then all of a sudden you think, Well, jeez, the bees aren't gaining any weight and the queens are maybe shutting down depending what line of bees you have you find yourself in a bad situation.

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I know here in the Pacific Northwest

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As soon as the blackberries end, there's nothing till next spring.

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You literally will pull your supers in June and then

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Not have any on your colonies?

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Yeah.

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End of June, beginning of July, pole of supers.

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Now, I'm not speaking for the entire state.

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This is just for my general

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location.

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And part of our problem is that some beekeepers in Minnesota won't pull their their supers until September because we we go right into a nectar flow with Goldenrod.

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But if you're not managing what's going on in the brood nest

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meaning varia might sometime, I think in July, then you're you're kind of in in big trouble.

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It's really hard to get those those bees through the winter if they

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your winter bews are raised with a lot of mite pressure, which we have a lot of we have a lot of nectar flow and we have a lot of mite pressure in Minnesota.

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Two points there.

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One is in Ohio we pulled honey in in s beginning of September.

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Oh you did, okay.

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Yeah, and just left uh the fall flow on for the winter.

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It's really important to keep in mind that about the same time you're pulling honey supers, your summer bees is there, your froa is the highest

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levels and you have to balance and weigh w how are you going to treat for the high vo Varolo that your colonies are facing.

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versus getting your honey off and managing your way through that.

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It's just a completely different problem.

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That's why we have the Honey Bee Health Coalitions.

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Aurora Management Guide.

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Honey On, Honey Off, Dearth, NectarFlow.

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Which should be coming out this month.

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The updated guide.

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It is managing the dearth, pulling your honey supers, and then on top of that, uh managing uh the varroa load and the varro pressures that you may or may not be facing based on

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how you've prepared your bees.

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It is a juggling act for beekeepers.

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That it is.

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Managing through durce is important, so you want to make sure you have either frames of honey that you want to feed the bees

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or most beekeepers will start adding a feeder to their colonies to g help feed 'em, help get him through the rest of the season.

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And recognizing those signs.

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of a colony that needs food.

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Like looking in the corners of brood frames are their empty cells.

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Like you never want to see that.

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The bees always want pollen and

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carbohydrates, so honey or or uh nectar, open nectar by their brood.

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So you want to make sure that you're recognizing the signs in those colonies.

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an amount of food in the cells with the larva, you know, are they swimming in food or are they kind of squeaking along?

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Dry, yeah.

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You know what then help 'em out.

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It's the end of June.

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Where are we gonna be next month, Becky?

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We are gonna be in the number one honey producing state in this country, which is

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Otherwise known as North Dakota, the tri-state beekeeping meeting, which is Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota.

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Pass through Fargo, I've never spent time there.

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It's a charming town, but I uh what I'm excited about because I I I'm in on all these registration emails.

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Here's some

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heavy hitters who are gonna be at this convention.

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So we're gonna have a lot a lot of the bees managed in the US.

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Their owners are going to be at this convention.

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So it should be really fun.

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We have a lot of different great speakers and you are one of them, which uh you're gonna be talking about technology.

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That's fantastic.

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Technology in the Bee Yard.

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Yeah.

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If you always want to steer the conversation to technology, so I think this is gonna be perfect to give you a full forty-five minutes on it.

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But Randy Oliver is going to be there, so is Dr.

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Brendan Hopkins.

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Katie Lee Rogentorksh.

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I look forward to being there.

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How can be keepers find out how to attend that meeting?

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That's an excellent question.

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All the information is at Minnesota Honeyproducers.

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com.

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Did you ever do any artificial insemination or is it instrumental?

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Artificial insemination is, I think, what everybody thinks about, but in beekeeping, instrumental insemination is common too.

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And we have to be careful these days using the term AI too.

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Right?

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It's AI and B.

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It's a totally different meaning.

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Today's guest is Dr.

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Jack Rath.

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He is one of the original founders or the original founder of Better Be our primary sponsor.

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I look forward to having him on to talk to us about artificial insemination or instrumental insemination.

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We'll have to ask him which way that goes

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It'll be very interesting to talk about it.

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It is not an easy skill to acquire.

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So I I can't wait to hear his journey

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Hey everybody, welcome back.

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Sitting around this great big virtual beekeeping today.

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cable.

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We have Dr.

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Jack Rath sitting out in y I think you're in north northern New York, right, Jack?

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No, Vermont.

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Vermont.

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In Vermont.

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Oh, we're in Vermont.

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This is exciting.

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Becky in in Minnesota and I'm in Washington State.

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Jack, welcome to the show.

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It's a pleasure to be here.

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Thank you so much for joining us.

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We have invited you to the show because of your background in artificial insemination of queens.

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And as part of our Queen series this spring, we wanted to delve into this topic and find out what is uh artificial dissemination.

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I have to be careful using AI in today's lingo because it means a whole different thing

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Bees of AI, oh my gosh.

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Artificial insemination for the bees.

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How it's used in in commercial queen breeding

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and why it's used and how it's done.

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And we'll just kind of go into that because I think it's discussed a lot.

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There might be a picture or two on the internet, but we've not had anybody on the show who actually talked specifically to it.

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So

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Thank you for joining us today.

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My pleasure.

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And maybe we call it instrumental insemination today.

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Yeah, I.

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All right.

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Jack, if you would please, tell us a little bit about yourself and your background with bees.

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Well, I started with bees in high school, bought my first beginner's kit from

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Montgomery Ward.

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And I guess that ages me a little bit.

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Ah, Montgomery Wards.

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Okay.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Uh these came in the mail and

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That was in the good old days when Varroa was not even on the horizon and I started with a single package and

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Oh, by the time I went to college a couple years later, I was up to oh, six or eight hives.

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And I don't know that I ever lost a hive.

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It just seemed that you'd catch swarms and

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people don't want to hear how good it was in those days.

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Right.

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It truly was a different beast than we have today.

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But I

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you know, always have been a hobby beekeeper, you know, through college and high school and

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I had planned on going to vet school, but in the seventies getting into vet school was was pretty tough and my alternate career path and I had talked to Roger Morse

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about going to Cornell and doing a PhD with him, but I told him I really wanted to go to vet school so that if I got in I wasn't gonna do the bee course

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And that's how it worked out.

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I I did get into vet school and was a large animal practitioner, so working with bees now, I've gone

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from working with animals that weighed between a thousand and two thousand pounds and had four legs to ones that

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there were about three thousand per pound and they have six legs

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Yeah.

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Love that perspective.

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Yeah, that the visuals are completely different, aren't they?

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They are.

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And the the fact that we're talking about

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Instrumental insemination, which is usually the term used with honey bees, for reasons I don't understand.

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I did quite a lot of reproductive work in cattle and in horses.

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And we called it artificial insemination.

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And th there's no distinction that I'm aware of, but

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the generally accepted term for bees is instrumental.

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So, Jack, did you have honey bees throughout vet school?

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Pretty much.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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I remember it's taking a final in something and I got a call that there was a swarm and I think that one got away.

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I wasn't able to to leave the final but but yeah, it'd be pretty much most of the time.

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At what point did you start getting into breeding queens and then that leads you, I assume, to the artificial insemination?

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You know, the fact that working with registered dairy cattle and working with

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registered horses, you know, breeding quality stock was always an interest, you know, for my clients as a veterinarian.

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And with bees, you know, by that by this time, you know, there were some problems on the horizon.

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And I thought that, you know, doing some selective breeding with honey bees would be really interesting.

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I think I took a queen rearing class from Marla Spivak in Minnesota back probably twenty twenty ten or something like that.

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I I don't remember the year exactly.

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And

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Did that for a couple years and thought, boy, we've got to up the game.

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And I thought that, you know, instrumental insemination.

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I had some experience with some of the

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things that you have to do when you do instrumental insemination in bees.

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You work with a stereo microscope, which is a low power microscope.

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We usually work somewhere between

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six and ten power, but I had handled quite a few equine and bovine embryos and stuff, so I was

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comfortable working under the stereoscope and I had one so I thought that you know I'd be interested in in giving instrumental insemination a try.

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And my goal was, you know, the same as I had hoped for with horses and cattle that to get

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increased quality through selective breeding and the idea of something being purebred.

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And as I learned, bees have a much more

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Creative way of breeding than mammals do, and that is the queens are able to mate with multiple drones so that

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A good mating has several drones with different pedigrees, different strengths, and the strength of that queen

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part of it at least is in the diversity of her offspring.

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So that a as soon as I started II, I had to rethink everything.

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You know, you certainly don't want one drone source.

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You want to select from multiple lines to try to get, you know, different strengths in the stock that you produce.

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So so that's a a huge difference in

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the way you know we do it in in animals, you know, trying for purebreds.

00:16:56.500 --> 00:17:04.820
But I I learned instrumental insemination from Joe Latshaw, took a class from him out in Ohio.

00:17:05.160 --> 00:17:14.679
And the technique is it's not that difficult, but it it takes a lot of practice to become competent with it.

00:17:15.020 --> 00:17:26.060
And the thing I think that people often don't realize is there's much more to it than just the act of inseminating the queen.

00:17:26.120 --> 00:17:27.960
There is some prep work.

00:17:27.960 --> 00:17:37.800
The queens are typically one to two weeks old when they're inseminated, and you have to either keep them caged in a queen bank

00:17:38.480 --> 00:17:46.000
Or in a mating nuke where she is confined so that she cannot go out on a mating flight

00:17:46.040 --> 00:17:50.440
So and then there's some aftercare after insemination.

00:17:50.440 --> 00:17:55.160
You can't just say there your bread, go ahead and go into a hive and and do your thing.

00:17:55.160 --> 00:17:57.000
There's like a couple weeks after.

00:17:57.000 --> 00:17:59.560
So there's there's quite a bit involved

00:17:59.640 --> 00:18:03.320
And I don't think that that is always apparent to people.

00:18:03.400 --> 00:18:10.520
I think that it's apparent to people if they try to buy an inseminated queen because of the price tag.

00:18:10.520 --> 00:18:11.960
Yes, yes.

00:18:12.160 --> 00:18:19.600
So inseminated queens are not something that a backyard beekeeper would buy one and and put in in their colony.

00:18:19.600 --> 00:18:22.160
It's a very different purpose.

00:18:22.240 --> 00:18:24.000
Right, right.

00:18:24.140 --> 00:18:38.220
And there was a time, I think the first InstaMelean seminated queen that I bought was quite a while ago, and I don't remember what I paid for, but it wasn't a crazy amount.

00:18:38.120 --> 00:18:49.080
I don't think that they continued that program and to my knowledge most of those that are being sold now are are breeder queens and and they are pricey.

00:18:49.080 --> 00:18:52.440
In common literature they call 'em breeder queens.

00:18:52.480 --> 00:18:53.600
Right, right.

00:18:53.600 --> 00:19:00.240
I I think with the assumption being nobody would pay that kind of money unless they were going to

00:19:00.640 --> 00:19:05.600
you know, capitalize that investment and and produce more queens from from her.

00:19:05.680 --> 00:19:08.640
I was just thinking about all the mishaps everyone has with

00:19:09.040 --> 00:19:17.360
Queens, just a regular queen, and I can't imagine spending a lot of money on a breeder queen and then rolling her in a frame or something.

00:19:17.360 --> 00:19:20.240
It would just it would just be a heartbreak.

00:19:20.240 --> 00:19:22.000
You might say a bad word or two

00:19:21.960 --> 00:19:23.320
Let's talk about that.

00:19:23.320 --> 00:19:26.200
So what is the purpose of a breeder queen?

00:19:26.200 --> 00:19:32.920
Okay, the breeder queen is has the traits that you are trying to to propagate.

00:19:32.919 --> 00:19:40.760
And I think right now a lot of people are looking for Varroa resistance.

00:19:40.840 --> 00:19:49.559
But it's a queen that has the traits that you feel your customers are gonna want

00:19:50.340 --> 00:19:53.460
in the queens that they buy from you.

00:19:53.460 --> 00:19:55.779
Varough resistance is a big one today.

00:19:55.779 --> 00:20:00.419
Honey production and gentleness would be th maybe the top three.

00:20:00.419 --> 00:20:04.340
You mentioned drones already, but what do you think

00:20:04.640 --> 00:20:16.480
like the minimum size of an operation you would you would need to have if you decide to invest in instrumental insemination and you decide that you're going to

00:20:17.019 --> 00:20:24.220
try to control the stock and and then like you said, capitalize on the investment and and sell those queens.

00:20:24.299 --> 00:20:28.620
Well I I would think that i in in general you want at least

00:20:29.280 --> 00:20:36.080
two or three different lines that you can harvest drones from

00:20:36.820 --> 00:20:44.340
In addition to the stock that you're going to use to produce the Virgin Queens that you're going to mate

00:20:44.960 --> 00:20:53.360
So, you know, probably at least four different lines of of stock.

00:20:53.720 --> 00:21:04.840
One other challenge about this is that drones do not have a great sense of finding their way home.

00:21:05.080 --> 00:21:15.640
And studies have been done that show that many of the drones in a hive did not originate in that hive.

00:21:15.940 --> 00:21:26.659
So there are people, and I have not done this much, but there are people that are doing things like marking drones at birth.

00:21:26.440 --> 00:21:34.200
you know, with a a paint dot just like a queen is marked, so that you know that the queens that you are

00:21:34.540 --> 00:21:38.700
collecting semen from are those that you think they are.

00:21:38.700 --> 00:21:40.460
I I have not done that yet.

00:21:40.460 --> 00:21:42.700
I guess I really haven't worried about that one.

00:21:42.700 --> 00:21:44.060
I probably should

00:21:44.260 --> 00:21:57.140
When I was a graduate student at the University of Minnesota, it was the same time that Marla was raising uh selecting for the hygienic line and she did instrumental insemination and I did paint a lot of drones

00:21:57.340 --> 00:22:03.100
I I really remember though collecting those drones because you know how old they are, which is is good.

00:22:03.100 --> 00:22:07.900
You know you can you'll have sexually mature drones when you when you go to collect them.

00:22:07.900 --> 00:22:08.220
But

00:22:08.540 --> 00:22:11.420
It's a very beautiful colony when you do that.

00:22:11.660 --> 00:22:12.460
Yeah.

00:22:12.460 --> 00:22:13.580
Yes, right.

00:22:13.580 --> 00:22:18.940
But usually when you're when you're doing the marking though, you're taking that frame of

00:22:19.240 --> 00:22:26.840
brood into an incubator and then the drones are being released so that you can kind of

00:22:27.019 --> 00:22:28.380
mark them in mass.

00:22:28.380 --> 00:22:35.179
Otherwise you're you're gonna otherwise you could go for maybe their hair pattern, but that's yeah.

00:22:35.160 --> 00:22:41.080
We're selecting queens for the we called the big three the specific traits.

00:22:41.080 --> 00:22:45.560
So we're also selecting drones for specific traits from them as well?

00:22:45.560 --> 00:22:46.600
Yes.

00:22:46.460 --> 00:22:48.700
There is a lot to keep track of then.

00:22:48.700 --> 00:22:49.820
Right, right.

00:22:49.820 --> 00:22:54.780
And then because of the way that genetics works with honey bees, do you have to

00:22:55.419 --> 00:23:05.179
Then if you're selecting for three or four different traits and you're working with three or four different lines of bees, well, it becomes very complicated in my mind really quick.

00:23:04.940 --> 00:23:09.500
Because you have to make sure you have correct drone yards and your breeding yards.

00:23:09.500 --> 00:23:09.899
Right.

00:23:09.899 --> 00:23:14.299
Th there there's quite a lot of organization to it and

00:23:14.940 --> 00:23:22.380
So if you really don't you're you know the the queens that you want to use as queen mothers

00:23:22.740 --> 00:23:28.980
you know, you're looking for a queen that has those several traits that you're you're interested in.

00:23:28.980 --> 00:23:36.180
And likewise with the drones, you're just looking for colonies that are exhibiting the the traits that you're

00:23:36.320 --> 00:23:39.360
interested in in propagating.

00:23:39.360 --> 00:23:47.440
The other big challenge is when your customer gets these queens

00:23:48.140 --> 00:23:55.820
you know, that queen may have the traits that you're you're hoping for, but her daughters

00:23:56.519 --> 00:23:58.919
you know, the the jury's still out.

00:23:58.919 --> 00:24:08.200
So that you know that that's a another challenge that well I I look at it that you're going to be

00:24:08.880 --> 00:24:19.440
improving the stock in that area because the the neat thing about queen genetics is that the drones

00:24:20.480 --> 00:24:26.640
Are carbon copies of the Queen's genetics.

00:24:26.640 --> 00:24:31.520
You know, drones in that they're haploid, they only have one set of DNA.

00:24:31.880 --> 00:24:39.960
which came from their mother because they they have no father so that those drones will have

00:24:40.760 --> 00:24:49.960
what their mother had so that you you can be even though you know you you don't have any assurance that

00:24:50.679 --> 00:25:01.880
her offspring are going to have all the traits she does, you're going to be introducing genetics of those traits into your area

00:25:02.140 --> 00:25:05.820
Just to put it into context, this is a livestock thing.

00:25:05.820 --> 00:25:13.020
This is something that we've been able to do with livestock and and you have a lot and you already mentioned horses and cattle, but

00:25:13.320 --> 00:25:20.680
But could you speak on that a little bit more as far as how livestock has used these methods in the past?

00:25:20.680 --> 00:25:21.160
Yeah.

00:25:21.160 --> 00:25:23.000
You know, be because the

00:25:23.840 --> 00:25:26.080
you don't have the multiple meetings and everything.

00:25:26.080 --> 00:25:29.840
It it's far simpler in in livestock.

00:25:30.240 --> 00:25:33.440
And really you you're just selecting

00:25:34.019 --> 00:25:41.380
the traits that you want the advances that they're making with dairy cattle today are just astounding.

00:25:41.380 --> 00:25:47.139
You know, milk production is probably at least twice what it was when I started practicing

00:25:47.720 --> 00:25:49.800
Well, quite a few years ago.

00:25:49.800 --> 00:25:51.880
The Montgomery Ward days, you said.

00:25:51.880 --> 00:25:53.240
Yes, yes.

00:25:54.280 --> 00:25:58.520
Um but it it is simpler too in that

00:26:00.380 --> 00:26:07.100
that y they are going to breed true much more readily because you don't have the multiple

00:26:07.880 --> 00:26:11.240
offspring that she can produce.

00:26:11.400 --> 00:26:16.120
You have the breeder queen, then you have the daughter queens that are produced from the breeder queens.

00:26:15.860 --> 00:26:25.940
So when I buy a queen from my local queen breeder, am I buying that first generation from the breeder queen or am I buying like a third generation from the breeder queen?

00:26:25.820 --> 00:26:31.180
No, you're probably buying daughters of that instrumental queen.

00:26:31.180 --> 00:26:33.660
And and you'll see different advertisements.

00:26:33.660 --> 00:26:35.260
I've seen a few.

00:26:35.480 --> 00:26:45.800
Where they're advertising that they use Joe Latshaw's stock, his line of Carniolens, he calls it his Carnicle line.

00:26:45.800 --> 00:26:46.120
And

00:26:47.320 --> 00:26:57.880
I can't recall the name of his Italian line, but yeah, you would be getting daughters of that instrumental queen.

00:26:57.860 --> 00:27:05.860
Let's take this opportunity to take a quick break and we'll be right back after we hear from our sponsors.

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00:28:54.880 --> 00:29:02.960
I think that listeners can understand that this is already a challenging process in order to find the drones, collect the

00:29:03.540 --> 00:29:07.700
fluid and then inseminate the queens.

00:29:07.700 --> 00:29:13.700
But it's even more complicated than that because of the you have to time all of these events.

00:29:13.460 --> 00:29:24.900
So Jack, can you run us through if you're going to inseminate on a certain date just all of the different balls you have to throw in the air and juggle in order to make that happen?

00:29:24.840 --> 00:29:25.640
Okay.

00:29:25.640 --> 00:29:35.160
Um if if we were going to inseminate or you know if I got out my calendar decided I wanted to

00:29:35.820 --> 00:29:41.420
Inseminate on we'll say July 1st.

00:29:41.420 --> 00:29:46.700
The the first thing I'm gonna have to do is decide when to

00:29:47.600 --> 00:29:53.039
Graft to produce those virgin queens to inseminate.

00:29:53.039 --> 00:29:58.799
And if we were gonna wanted those queens to be inseminated on July 1st

00:29:58.940 --> 00:30:05.340
I would want them to be between one and two weeks old on July 1st.

00:30:05.340 --> 00:30:07.019
We'll say, let's say

00:30:07.880 --> 00:30:12.040
One week just for to give you a single number.

00:30:12.040 --> 00:30:18.440
That means I want those queens to emerge on about the 23rd of

00:30:19.740 --> 00:30:27.500
June, which means I want to graft them 16 days prior to that.

00:30:27.940 --> 00:30:37.860
which is the so I would be grafting about the 6th of June to have those queens ready.

00:30:38.140 --> 00:30:41.740
to be inseminated about the first of July.

00:30:41.740 --> 00:30:50.060
I'd also have to and and this time of year and at least in the Northeast, we're fortunate some areas that have

00:30:50.919 --> 00:30:57.080
profound dearths, there will be inadequate drones.

00:30:57.080 --> 00:31:04.600
And we're pretty fortunate most of the time when I'm inseminating, and I do it generally

00:31:05.580 --> 00:31:07.340
June and July.

00:31:07.340 --> 00:31:17.980
There's plenty of drones, so I don't have to do any pollen supplementation to try to incur or feeding to try to encourage drone production

00:31:18.419 --> 00:31:31.940
But you do need to be sure that you know in for queen rearing in general, we say you want to see that there is capped drone brood at the time you're grafting.

00:31:31.840 --> 00:31:42.960
because drones need to be about two weeks old to be sexually mature so that they could be collected at the time of insemination.

00:31:43.480 --> 00:31:48.120
But you know, that generally is not an issue in our area.

00:31:48.120 --> 00:31:55.640
Other areas where you've got dearths, there are times that you're gonna be real hard pressed to to get drones.

00:31:55.919 --> 00:32:08.480
Now in collecting the drones for semen harvesting, I typically do that by putting excluders, leaning them against the front of the hive.

00:32:08.519 --> 00:32:17.399
and catch those drones as they're returning from the hive or returning from failed mating flights.

00:32:17.519 --> 00:32:26.559
The advantage to that is that they are not full of feces and it's a much neater job to

00:32:27.019 --> 00:32:30.779
collect them if you're collecting them that way.

00:32:30.779 --> 00:32:34.779
But drones are fussy if it's not a sunny day

00:32:35.140 --> 00:32:46.260
You know, if it if I decide I told you I was going to do it July 1st, if it's a rainy day, then I either have to collect the drones ahead of time.

00:32:46.160 --> 00:32:47.760
And you can do that.

00:32:47.760 --> 00:32:55.200
There are I have cages which are drone confinement cages where I could catch them the day before.

00:32:55.200 --> 00:33:00.880
And then basically it's a cage with clean queen excluder on both sides.

00:33:01.019 --> 00:33:08.299
that you can put into a bank hive and those nurse bees will take care of drones pretty well

00:33:08.740 --> 00:33:17.940
I generally try to do it, you know, immediately after collecting them, but that requires a a sunny day to do it that way.

00:33:17.940 --> 00:33:18.260
And

00:33:18.660 --> 00:33:21.940
you know, we'll use the the drone cages otherwise.

00:33:22.420 --> 00:33:29.300
And your calendar is even complicated more, I would suppose, if you had a specific date that you needed the breeder queens.

00:33:29.460 --> 00:33:36.980
So if you need if you had a customer or if you had a production plan, then you have to count backwards from that date.

00:33:37.060 --> 00:33:38.020
Right, right.

00:33:38.020 --> 00:33:41.140
And and so we we should mention that

00:33:41.540 --> 00:33:43.780
There there's quite a bit of aftercare.

00:33:43.780 --> 00:33:48.980
You know, they've been in the bank for, like I said, a week to two weeks.

00:33:48.980 --> 00:33:52.660
After insemination, what I what I'm doing is

00:33:53.140 --> 00:33:58.180
The Virgin Queens emerge in Queen Cages in a bank.

00:33:58.180 --> 00:34:03.140
And I use the the wooden California mini cages.

00:34:03.380 --> 00:34:07.860
with that have the the candy plug that goes in the end.

00:34:07.860 --> 00:34:13.540
If you drill those out to 916, a queen cage will fit

00:34:13.920 --> 00:34:18.480
or excuse me, a Queen Cell will fit into the cage readily.

00:34:18.480 --> 00:34:28.560
I think Marley uses wire mesh cages, but I used used the the Jay-Z or the not the Jay-Z, the um California mini cages.

00:34:28.059 --> 00:34:37.020
and those go on a bank frame and you can you know have like thirty there and there's a little bit of a catch to that too.

00:34:37.020 --> 00:34:40.859
You have to put a little bit of candy in the bottom of that cage

00:34:41.139 --> 00:34:52.419
Because when the queen emerges, she's hungry, and if the nurse bees are not really attentive, the queen will crawl back up into her queen cell.

00:34:52.359 --> 00:34:55.000
to try to eat the remaining royal jelly.

00:34:55.000 --> 00:35:02.440
And they're smart enough to crawl back up in, but I have rescued countless queens

00:35:02.840 --> 00:35:09.640
stuck in their own queen cell because they went in headfirst to try to eat the remaining royal jelly.

00:35:09.640 --> 00:35:12.200
It is a huge difference rescuing a

00:35:12.980 --> 00:35:19.140
queen from her cell than delivering a calf, but have have done both.

00:35:19.140 --> 00:35:22.260
I think, well, I'm I'm doing obstetrical work now.

00:35:22.260 --> 00:35:23.060
Oh that's funny.

00:35:23.060 --> 00:35:23.540
So you

00:35:23.840 --> 00:35:24.400
Yeah.

00:35:24.400 --> 00:35:33.040
So you really need to, as these queens are emerging, I try to go in twice a day and just say you're out.

00:35:32.859 --> 00:35:45.900
And if she's out, I'll pull the queen's cell, crush the wax, and then push it back down in, and the wax will hold it, and then she's not she can't get back into her cell and get in trouble

00:35:45.859 --> 00:35:47.859
Oh, that is so cool.

00:35:47.859 --> 00:35:55.060
Also, after they're inseminated, you you generally keep them in the Queen Bank for

00:35:56.299 --> 00:36:03.740
About two weeks, and at that point, what I like to do is I'm raising queens, so I've got mating nucs.

00:36:03.740 --> 00:36:06.140
They then go into a mating nuke.

00:36:06.660 --> 00:36:09.060
And there is excluder.

00:36:09.220 --> 00:36:11.540
I call them queen includers.

00:36:11.540 --> 00:36:18.100
It's a little bit of little piece of excluder stapled to the small entrance of the mating nuke.

00:36:18.320 --> 00:36:26.160
that keeps the queen from attempting to go out on her mating flight, even though we have inseminated her

00:36:26.880 --> 00:36:34.400
She may not realize she's inseminated and she's not going to do well on a mating flight.

00:36:34.400 --> 00:36:37.760
The one that I go back and forth on is

00:36:38.580 --> 00:36:43.460
whether to clip a wing on inseminated queens or not.

00:36:43.780 --> 00:36:45.860
And I I do both.

00:36:46.340 --> 00:36:51.620
You'll get some aborted swarms with a clipped wing

00:36:51.660 --> 00:37:05.100
And if you find a puddle of bees on the ground close to a hive, it's usually a clipped wing queen who, you know, tried to go and she couldn't and the bees stayed with her on the ground.

00:37:05.040 --> 00:37:10.800
I've also had the I had one crawl underneath the hive that she left from.

00:37:10.800 --> 00:37:14.720
And so so there's there's some excitement there.

00:37:14.720 --> 00:37:17.760
How do you introduce the queens to the mating nucs?

00:37:17.760 --> 00:37:20.000
Are you using push in cages?

00:37:20.000 --> 00:37:22.160
No, I I d have them

00:37:22.740 --> 00:37:34.260
W what I do is they go into the mating nuke in the same California cage that you know that she developed in.

00:37:34.340 --> 00:37:37.940
But the candy plug is covered with tape.

00:37:37.940 --> 00:37:42.820
And you leave it for three or four days covered with tape.

00:37:42.820 --> 00:37:48.020
And then you can remove the tape and let them chew through the plug and release her.

00:37:48.020 --> 00:37:58.980
The other challenge, and there's there's different people do it different ways, I think Sukobi always does two doses of CO2.

00:37:59.180 --> 00:38:11.500
As the during the insemination the queens are anesthetized with CO2 gas, people feel that you get quicker development and maturity.

00:38:11.620 --> 00:38:18.740
If you do a second dose of CO2 either before or after insemination.

00:38:18.740 --> 00:38:20.980
And I've I've don't do that very often.

00:38:20.980 --> 00:38:23.540
I've really not found it necessary.

00:38:23.440 --> 00:38:31.839
I think it may have to do with if you're trying to inseminate queens real early, perhaps that second dose.

00:38:31.740 --> 00:38:35.740
is of benefit, but I generally don't find it necessary.

00:38:35.740 --> 00:38:44.220
And usually they are laying nicely within a week of being released

00:38:44.620 --> 00:38:48.860
And and usually they'll start laying, you know, within a couple of days.

00:38:48.940 --> 00:38:54.220
Do you know what your acceptance rate is for your inseminated queens?

00:38:54.260 --> 00:39:01.700
I'd say the acceptance rate, if you're going to call acceptance laying eggs in the mating nucs, is good.

00:39:03.140 --> 00:39:06.020
Probably 90% would be a guess.

00:39:06.020 --> 00:39:13.220
And then, you know, you you'll you'll there'll be some attrition when you you know when those

00:39:13.820 --> 00:39:21.020
queens go into a full size colony, you know, depending on whether you know the prep work has been done for that.

00:39:21.020 --> 00:39:22.300
I I think that

00:39:22.820 --> 00:39:33.300
It it's always better queen acceptance if the queen is introduced into a smaller hive, a smaller number of bees.

00:39:33.300 --> 00:39:33.620
So

00:39:34.160 --> 00:39:41.440
you know, introducing her into a nuke and then requeening with a nuke or something, I I think is a good idea.

00:39:41.440 --> 00:39:44.080
You know, that she's with herbes that way and

00:39:44.520 --> 00:39:47.560
chances of being accepted are are are better.

00:39:47.720 --> 00:39:48.040
Okay.

00:39:48.040 --> 00:39:51.240
I've got a checklist here, Jeff, but you've you look like you have a question.

00:39:51.480 --> 00:39:51.960
Go ahead.

00:39:51.960 --> 00:39:57.480
I I I was gonna bridge off into equipment for those who are technically

00:39:57.640 --> 00:40:03.720
Curious, but we can we can save that towards the end because that's probably not much of a Yeah, mine is mine is much more interesting.

00:40:05.400 --> 00:40:06.200
Okay.

00:40:07.319 --> 00:40:11.079
So you get the drones, but you have to collect the s the semen.

00:40:11.079 --> 00:40:11.400
So

00:40:11.640 --> 00:40:21.720
I think we just need to talk about that and the that process because it's absolutely fascinating and you have to have a very even hand to collect the semen

00:40:22.160 --> 00:40:31.760
Yeah, collecting for the drones is it's their goal in life, but it's terminal, whether it's done artificially or

00:40:32.580 --> 00:40:39.940
in the open sky and the the the process to cause a drone to

00:40:41.080 --> 00:40:52.120
ejaculate is you crush the head and then it's a progressive crush of the body and

00:40:53.460 --> 00:40:57.380
they they avert the endophallus.

00:40:57.380 --> 00:41:02.660
They're it it it it's worth if people haven't seen this it's worth at least looking at the pictures.

00:41:02.660 --> 00:41:05.859
It's a a complicated system of what happens.

00:41:05.859 --> 00:41:06.900
Basically

00:41:07.120 --> 00:41:11.040
half of their abdomen appears to turn inside out.

00:41:11.040 --> 00:41:15.760
And what you do at that point is and you're doing this under the microscope

00:41:16.539 --> 00:41:27.980
You squeeze the head, then squeeze the body, they kind of divert, and then you look under the microscope to see whether there is semen there.

00:41:28.580 --> 00:41:36.420
And drones that are immature will and and by immature I mean too young will have nothing

00:41:36.820 --> 00:41:40.100
Mature drones will have semen.

00:41:40.580 --> 00:41:45.460
And the semen is kind of a tan creamy tan color.

00:41:45.460 --> 00:41:47.620
The challenge is there is also

00:41:48.299 --> 00:41:51.420
a large mass of mucus.

00:41:51.420 --> 00:41:53.819
And the mucus is a real challenge.

00:41:53.819 --> 00:41:56.940
It will very readily plug the tip

00:41:57.580 --> 00:42:05.820
of the tiny pipette that we aspirate the semen into, basically what you're doing is

00:42:06.260 --> 00:42:15.700
And again, you're holding the drone, I'm right-handed, so holding her, him, with my left hand looking in the microscope.

00:42:15.820 --> 00:42:27.420
trying to get the drone and the semen in particular to come in contact with the tip of this micropipette and then with your right hand you're

00:42:27.720 --> 00:42:35.720
turning a dial to aspirate and you you just you you kind of want to make contact with the semen and then

00:42:36.920 --> 00:42:42.599
Pull away a little bit and pull that little bit of semen in.

00:42:42.599 --> 00:42:48.599
And you get about one microliter of semen from a drone

00:42:49.040 --> 00:42:57.840
A microliter is a thousandth of a milliliter, and it takes eight to ten microliters

00:42:58.480 --> 00:43:01.520
to fully inseminate a queen.

00:43:01.520 --> 00:43:10.960
So that you want, I generally figure on collecting if I'm gonna if I've got five or ten queens to inseminate

00:43:11.240 --> 00:43:19.960
I will go out and get 200 or 250 drones because I would say maybe depends on the day, but

00:43:20.680 --> 00:43:28.839
You seldom get semen from more than fifty percent of the drones that you are are collecting.

00:43:28.740 --> 00:43:34.900
Was it harder to learn how to actually inseminate the queen or to collect the semen?

00:43:34.900 --> 00:43:38.020
I that's a that's a great question.

00:43:38.020 --> 00:43:44.020
I I think that collecting the the drones is is quite a learning curve.

00:43:44.020 --> 00:43:47.380
Because the thing that's just heartbreaking is if you have a

00:43:47.720 --> 00:43:55.799
significant amount of semen collected, and then you plug that tip with mucus, you may be all done for the day.

00:43:55.799 --> 00:43:58.839
And all of that may go to waste.

00:43:58.839 --> 00:44:00.760
What you try to do is

00:44:01.620 --> 00:44:12.500
periodically pull the semen a little bit up into the pipette and then you've got a little tiny vial of saline that you rinse that tip periodically

00:44:12.920 --> 00:44:15.560
periodically with just to get rid of that mucus.

00:44:15.560 --> 00:44:17.960
The mucus is a real challenge.

00:44:17.960 --> 00:44:22.920
There's also different techniques of insemination.

00:44:22.960 --> 00:44:29.840
I think Sue Colby's video is available on YouTube and people can watch that.

00:44:29.840 --> 00:44:37.600
She is using a Schley apparat apparatus, named for Peter Schley, who is a German.

00:44:37.640 --> 00:44:49.480
And that technique, the queen is grasped, her her sting is grasped and pulled in one direction, and

00:44:50.420 --> 00:44:57.220
A hook is is used to pull the ventral fold back to open the queen up.

00:44:57.220 --> 00:45:01.060
So it's done with micromanipulators on both sides.

00:45:01.120 --> 00:45:12.320
The technique that I use, and it's Joe Latshaw's technique, it's a simpler instrument where you use a small pair of forceps to pull the sting

00:45:13.260 --> 00:45:25.820
and then you use a hook which is fixed on the queen tube to to hold the the ventral part of the queen

00:45:26.220 --> 00:45:37.579
open so that you you you're you're continually you're you're manually holding that sting and that does take some practice because you know just getting that sting grasped

00:45:37.720 --> 00:45:45.319
And the trick is you gotta do it with your left hand because you need your right hand to direct the pipette as you put it in.

00:45:45.319 --> 00:45:50.839
So it's I I I think the fact that I had done quite a bit of pipetting and stuff

00:45:51.120 --> 00:45:55.920
you know, with embryos and cattle maybe made that a little easier.

00:45:55.920 --> 00:45:59.760
And when the pipette is inserted, are you dialing it in?

00:45:59.760 --> 00:46:00.240
Yes.

00:46:03.760 --> 00:46:04.560
to her.

00:46:04.560 --> 00:46:05.520
Right, right.

00:46:05.520 --> 00:46:10.800
And and the the the one other hurdle that you've got to get past

00:46:11.720 --> 00:46:16.279
there is a barrier that you have to get past.

00:46:16.279 --> 00:46:24.680
And using the the forceps technique it it works out if you're putting just a little bit of traction on that sting

00:46:25.380 --> 00:46:38.180
opposed with that fixed ventral hook and if your pipette goes in at an angle you'll usually bypass that valve fold is the name of that structure

00:46:38.420 --> 00:46:49.940
pretty readily and we always have maybe an eighth of an inch of saline in the tip of the pipette and you inject that

00:46:50.780 --> 00:46:57.740
And you you don't want to see anything spurting out around the pipette.

00:46:57.740 --> 00:47:01.900
If it does, you know your positioning is wrong and you've got to reposition.

00:47:01.760 --> 00:47:08.800
But if that goes readily, then you just dial your dose in and that part is is pretty straightforward.

00:47:08.880 --> 00:47:11.280
Because I I think with the other method you have to

00:47:11.359 --> 00:47:14.960
I I think I remember you go down a little you go in down.

00:47:14.960 --> 00:47:15.200
Right.

00:47:15.200 --> 00:47:17.520
There's a zag, if you will.

00:47:17.839 --> 00:47:18.720
It's not a straight.

00:47:18.960 --> 00:47:21.599
And that just looked really tough.

00:47:21.599 --> 00:47:22.960
And so I I

00:47:23.620 --> 00:47:29.140
I lear I learned with Joe's apparatus and I like it and I'm very comfortable with it.

00:47:29.300 --> 00:47:32.740
One of the kind of the cool things about this is that

00:47:33.220 --> 00:47:34.740
You do need the drones.

00:47:34.740 --> 00:47:41.380
It's it's helpful if the queens are close to you and the drones are close to you, but you can also bring in the different colonies.

00:47:41.380 --> 00:47:42.339
So instead of

00:47:42.540 --> 00:47:48.620
having to go to different yards for the colonies, you can bring all that into close by geography.

00:47:48.620 --> 00:47:51.740
Is I I is your Queen Bank close to where you're doing

00:47:51.859 --> 00:47:53.300
The inseminations?

00:47:53.300 --> 00:47:54.660
It is, it is.

00:47:54.660 --> 00:47:59.780
A and and and generally the the drone colonies are also.

00:47:59.559 --> 00:48:03.480
So I I'm not driving all over the place collecting drones.

00:48:03.480 --> 00:48:05.720
That that's all done at home here.

00:48:05.720 --> 00:48:10.200
You might locate the like choose your colonies and then you might have to make a move make

00:48:10.540 --> 00:48:12.380
Move them in just so that they're close.

00:48:12.380 --> 00:48:15.820
But once they're all close by, then you're good to go.

00:48:16.140 --> 00:48:16.940
Yeah.

00:48:16.940 --> 00:48:18.460
When you're doing this

00:48:18.580 --> 00:48:26.260
Is it all in one day in one sitting, or can you collect a semen on one day and then the next day you you do the insemination?

00:48:26.500 --> 00:48:30.100
I try to do it all on one day because

00:48:30.620 --> 00:48:38.220
I'm not using I'm not using any extender with the semen and I'm not using antibiotics

00:48:38.420 --> 00:48:52.180
and I just have concern and you know you know being a veterinarian doing surgery in barns I'm I'm very very comfortable with clean as opposed to sterile

00:48:52.540 --> 00:48:59.900
Well we we can't we can't accomplish sterile, but we can accomplish clean and that works quite well.

00:48:59.900 --> 00:49:06.380
And but I I feel that that twelve or twenty-four hours that

00:49:07.440 --> 00:49:11.280
And the the semen will keep for long periods.

00:49:11.280 --> 00:49:14.560
It'll keep a couple weeks at room temperature.

00:49:14.560 --> 00:49:18.640
But I really worry without antibiotics.

00:49:18.720 --> 00:49:23.359
it it you may have some contamination issues.

00:49:23.359 --> 00:49:26.799
So I I try to inseminate the same day.

00:49:26.799 --> 00:49:28.880
I will, I'll sometimes

00:49:29.240 --> 00:49:36.680
you know, get all my semen collected and then, you know, go have supper or something like that and then inseminate them afterwards.

00:49:36.680 --> 00:49:39.560
But I've not done it the next day.

00:49:39.540 --> 00:49:46.900
You've done such a great job as far as talking us through something that is I think it's a hard thing to talk through, so thank you.

00:49:46.900 --> 00:49:52.180
But I have to ask you, what do you do with your inseminated queens?

00:49:52.320 --> 00:49:58.240
I am not selling them at this point and I I don't know how many I did last year.

00:49:58.240 --> 00:50:00.080
I'm guessing fifty.

00:50:00.080 --> 00:50:01.120
They are in

00:50:01.740 --> 00:50:10.220
in hives and nucs and they're becoming the breeders for this year, but I I just I don't feel that

00:50:10.720 --> 00:50:19.440
that I'm there yet as far as having something that is, you know, so superior that it's going to be

00:50:19.740 --> 00:50:23.660
worth the kind of money that people are are charging for these queens.

00:50:23.660 --> 00:50:26.540
Are you selling the queens that they're producing?

00:50:26.540 --> 00:50:27.340
Yes.

00:50:27.340 --> 00:50:28.140
Yes.

00:50:28.140 --> 00:50:30.460
And could you tell us about that?

00:50:30.520 --> 00:50:38.839
Yeah, yeah, we're I'm trying for you know I I think for many of us, you know, varroa resistance is

00:50:38.960 --> 00:50:42.480
the holy grail that we're trying to accomplish.

00:50:42.480 --> 00:50:51.360
I I think one concern that I have, and I work with a couple other queen breeders in Vermont and

00:50:52.140 --> 00:50:55.819
You know, we we we're all trying to accomplish the same thing.

00:50:55.819 --> 00:51:04.619
The the the one concern I have is that if we focus too much on

00:51:05.700 --> 00:51:16.900
a particular trait, especially if we're using one method for selecting those animals, we may be eliminating stock

00:51:17.320 --> 00:51:23.240
that is accomplishing the same thing in another way that we don't under understand.

00:51:23.240 --> 00:51:26.200
And I strongly believe that's a mistake.

00:51:26.539 --> 00:51:33.660
because you you're you're you're bottlenecking by by selecting just for one trait

00:51:34.020 --> 00:51:43.060
So that I I think that I I'm really intrigued by, you know, Randy Oliver's approach in

00:51:44.160 --> 00:51:50.560
not caring how the bees do it, just wanting that final product.

00:51:50.560 --> 00:51:54.720
You know, and he's got he's got I don't have nearly the number of hives.

00:51:55.180 --> 00:51:57.020
to to accomplish that.

00:51:57.020 --> 00:52:04.060
But I I do that I do have that concern that and we did UBO testing, which is a real interesting one.

00:52:04.060 --> 00:52:05.820
You've probably talked about that.

00:52:06.040 --> 00:52:13.720
But I I I think that we've got to I I do like to you know do a lot of might testing

00:52:14.339 --> 00:52:25.380
To only treat when we get above critical levels, so we're able to identify colonies that are getting the job done

00:52:26.000 --> 00:52:31.120
you know, without selecting too much y using only one method.

00:52:31.120 --> 00:52:32.240
Does that make sense?

00:52:32.320 --> 00:52:32.960
It does.

00:52:32.960 --> 00:52:35.760
But now everybody wants to know how to buy your queens.

00:52:36.160 --> 00:52:38.400
Okay, my queens are are sold

00:52:38.460 --> 00:52:39.740
Through Betterbee.

00:52:39.740 --> 00:52:44.860
You know, we infect I put cells into mating nucs this morning.

00:52:44.860 --> 00:52:48.940
But yeah, through through Betterbee, you can get get my queen's end.

00:52:48.920 --> 00:52:52.440
Queens from some of the other breeders in this Vermont program.

00:52:52.760 --> 00:52:54.280
You're not a good salesperson here.

00:52:54.440 --> 00:52:55.960
What are your queens called?

00:52:57.080 --> 00:52:59.000
They they they don't have a name.

00:52:59.080 --> 00:53:00.280
They don't have any so if

00:53:00.460 --> 00:53:04.780
So how would so if you go to Better Be, how are they described?

00:53:04.780 --> 00:53:08.380
Yeah, I I mean Better Be is selling Northern Queens.

00:53:08.700 --> 00:53:09.740
That's what I thought.

00:53:09.740 --> 00:53:10.060
Okay.

00:53:10.060 --> 00:53:10.540
Yeah.

00:53:10.540 --> 00:53:12.380
That's what I was going for.

00:53:13.480 --> 00:53:16.680
I'm glad that you're able to edit sales person.

00:53:17.000 --> 00:53:18.360
I think we're keeping the same.

00:53:18.600 --> 00:53:19.640
Oh okay, okay.

00:53:19.640 --> 00:53:21.000
Yeah, Northern Queens.

00:53:22.099 --> 00:53:22.820
Well Dr.

00:53:22.820 --> 00:53:24.980
Jackrath, that's been so much fun.

00:53:24.980 --> 00:53:27.540
I can't believe our hours passed so quickly.

00:53:27.540 --> 00:53:28.900
I enjoyed talking with you.

00:53:28.900 --> 00:53:35.220
I hope that you can come back to us again and talk to us a little bit more about the instrumentally inseminated Queens

00:53:35.520 --> 00:53:39.599
And we didn't even get into the fun stuff like the techie stuff like the equipment.

00:53:39.680 --> 00:53:42.079
Maybe next time we can talk about He he mentioned it.

00:53:42.079 --> 00:53:45.520
He mentioned it mentioned yeah, hooks and grappling hooks and

00:53:46.380 --> 00:53:47.579
Spreaders and stuff.

00:53:47.579 --> 00:53:48.859
So very enlightening.

00:53:48.859 --> 00:53:49.819
And you know what?

00:53:49.819 --> 00:53:56.859
I'll leave the I to the professionals and those who have a dedicated space, time.

00:53:57.460 --> 00:54:03.859
calendars and clocks to do it properly because it it takes a lot of dedication and I'm glad you're doing it.

00:54:03.859 --> 00:54:09.619
I I would add, in fact I'm I'm teaching a queen rearing class at at Betterbee

00:54:10.040 --> 00:54:12.440
I guess the 12th and the 13th.

00:54:12.440 --> 00:54:22.920
And one fellow that buys queen cells from me now took the class and called me afterwards and said, that's way too much work.

00:54:23.200 --> 00:54:28.400
And if you think that about queen mirroring, just wait for instrumental.

00:54:28.400 --> 00:54:28.880
Yeah.

00:54:28.880 --> 00:54:31.040
It it's a whole nother level, isn't it?

00:54:31.040 --> 00:54:31.440
Yeah.

00:54:31.440 --> 00:54:32.080
Yeah.

00:54:32.080 --> 00:54:33.520
Well thanks so much.

00:54:33.520 --> 00:54:34.240
My pleasure.

00:54:34.240 --> 00:54:36.080
Thank you for having me.

00:54:36.080 --> 00:54:37.760
There are so many things about being

00:54:38.440 --> 00:54:41.400
I know that I'll never get to and that I want to.

00:54:41.400 --> 00:54:46.040
I'm gonna add artificial insemination or instrumental insemination of Queens.

00:54:46.360 --> 00:54:47.000
Instrumental

00:54:47.660 --> 00:54:51.260
As a as a list of things I know I will never get to.

00:54:51.260 --> 00:54:52.620
Man, oh man.

00:54:52.620 --> 00:54:56.700
I almost want to say he didn't he didn't make it sound easy, but

00:54:57.220 --> 00:55:06.420
it's just even more complicated to that 'cause if you think about how hard it is to manage a colony of bees, you have to coordinate

00:55:06.799 --> 00:55:07.920
perfect management.

00:55:07.920 --> 00:55:09.200
You just you really do.

00:55:09.200 --> 00:55:15.119
You you need to you need to have colonies that you want to select from.

00:55:15.119 --> 00:55:17.839
So I mean like you have to be a good beekeeper.

00:55:17.839 --> 00:55:19.680
You have to have great stock.

00:55:19.359 --> 00:55:21.200
You just it's just it's funny.

00:55:21.200 --> 00:55:31.599
This is one of those things where I've done very little of it, but in graduate school I was able to do it a little bit and and it's one of those things you just don't forget.

00:55:31.599 --> 00:55:32.960
You really don't forget it.

00:55:32.960 --> 00:55:33.920
It's it's

00:55:33.820 --> 00:55:39.500
interesting, but boy, I would never in a hundred years decide that's what I'm gonna do now.

00:55:40.060 --> 00:55:43.260
Well, talk about patience and a fine touch.

00:55:43.059 --> 00:55:56.420
The person who's a veterinarian who's done artificial insemination of cattle and horses, I mean this is just an easy step over other than the colony management and all the yard prep and everything else that you have to keep track of.

00:55:55.960 --> 00:55:59.240
It it is it's amazing and it's exciting and I mean I don't know.

00:55:59.240 --> 00:56:02.040
It just makes you wanna order a Northern Queen.

00:56:02.040 --> 00:56:05.240
In retrospect, the Queen series, I think we should have had

00:56:05.440 --> 00:56:14.079
Jack on before the Olivers so we could talk more about the selective breeding with more informed understanding of what it takes

00:56:14.140 --> 00:56:19.260
to produce those and for Ray Oliveira's much appreciation to those people for doing what they're doing.

00:56:19.500 --> 00:56:26.220
It is it's interesting, just the the big picture and and I I love that beekeepers are invested in trying to

00:56:26.700 --> 00:56:33.820
have great stock, but the scale that people who are looking for these traits it's hard to do.

00:56:33.980 --> 00:56:37.500
I'm glad people are willing to spend time doing it

00:56:38.359 --> 00:56:42.440
And that about wraps it up for this episode of Beekeeping Today.

00:56:42.440 --> 00:56:49.960
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00:57:19.520 --> 00:57:20.960
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00:57:25.320 --> 00:57:27.320
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