Altigoo-Apiculture

Les ruches dadant 10 cadres

JMF64 — 2018-08-18T10:25:56Z

Sur l'exploitation, nous travaillons principalement avec des colonies de petite taille. Nous gérons seulement 150 ruches Dadant 10 cadres, en rucher fixe. Elles remplissent plusieurs fonctions :

Elles produisent les mâles nécessaires à saturer notre zone de fécondation [1] .
Certaines sont équipées de trappes à pollen pour la production de pâte protéinée à destination des éleveuses et des ruches à gelée,
Nous tirons 1 à 2 paquets d'abeilles en début de floraison du colza pour remplir les Kielers,
Nous prélevons généralement un essaim sur 3 cadres à la fin de la saison, pour le renouvellement des cadres,
Elles assurent une production de miel en été pour dédommager les propriétaires des ruchers,

Conduite des ruches

– Remérage :
Nous nous efforçons de maintenir une très grande diversité génétique pour améliorer la rusticité des reines vis à vis des maladies. Cf les travaux de David R. Tarpy.

En début de saison, nous renouvelons 1/4 de nos ruches, en enruchant des ruchettes avec reines issues de lignées nouvellement testées.
En fin de saison, nous éliminons les reines de 2 ou 3 ans (1/4 du cheptel) en les remplaçant par des reines fécondées issues des nuclei.

NB : Pour les ruches, l'âge moyen des reines est de 2 ans ... alors que 90% des reines en ruchettes ont moins d'1 an.

– Lutte anti-varroas.

Été : 2 passages avec de l'acide oxalique en dégouttement + des langes cartonnés imbibés d'amitraze, dès la récolte des hausses (avant la ponte d'abeilles d'hiver),
Hiver : 1 application d'acide oxalique en dégouttement + langes cartonnés imbibés d'amitraze, hors couvain [2].

– Lutte contre les maladies.

Grâce à notre conduite (rotation de cadres très rapide, 90% de reines de moins d'un an ...) nous maintenons une faible pression en maladies sur l'exploitation.
Nous n'utilisons JAMAIS d'antibiotique que ce soit pour lutter conter les loques ou contre Nosema.

– Nourrissement :

Nous ne nourrissons jamais [3] les ruches. Nous ne stimulons pas les colonies non plus avec du sirop dilué.
Début mars, au tout début de la ponte des mâles, nous distribuons une peu de pâte protéinée à chaque ruche en même temps que l'introduction des cadres à mâles.

La conduite des ruches en video

Les différents formats de ruches utilisés sur notre exploitation spécialisée dans l'élevage des reines et la production d'essaims

[1] On introduit un cadre à mâle dans chaque ruche au début mars.

[2] L'arrêt de ponte est peu marqué depuis une dizaine d'année dans notre région. Nous intervenons généralement pendant la seconde quinzaine de décembre

[3] à de très rares exceptions près !

Mated queens

JMF64 — 2016-11-30T10:11:51Z

Each year, we produce more than 5000 naturally mated queens dedicated to the sale. Those queens are coming from inseminated strains “Brother Adam” -Buckfast bee- selected from our production. They are fertilised in nuclei (Mini+ or Kieler) in a zone saturated with males. We generally start the collect 1 or 2 weeks after the laying.

The queens are provided with an identification card which indicates the grafting date, the pedigree and the lot number.
They are not clipped or marked.
The mated queens' sale begins in May and ends mid-September.

2017 sale conditions & prices for the mated queens:

Minimum order: 15 queens
2017 season Ht price: 25 € HT
100% deposit is required for the definitive order. It is cashed at the moment of the expedition. The balance has to be paid at the reception of the queens.

Shipment prices

:
The queens are collected at the beginning of the week and posted on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The shipping fees in metropolitan France are:

12.50 € HT for a delivery within 48h
25.00 € HT for a delivery within 24h
Free for order of 50 queens and more.
For other countries, ask us for a quotation before.

Important:

At the reservation, we will send you an estimate of the delivery date. The order will be on hold until we receive back this estimate signed and the deposit check.

Virgin queens

JMF64 — 2016-11-30T10:08:43Z

Coming from grafts realized on “Brother Adam” strains –Buckfast bee- the virgin queens are sent with attendant bees, 1 or 2 days after their birth.
The virgin queens' sale starts at the end of April and ends mid-September.

2017 sale conditions & prices for the Virgin queens:

Minimum order: 15 queens
-* From 10 to 30 queens: 8,5 € HT
-* More than 30 queens: 7,5 € HT
A 100% deposit is required for the definitive order. It is cashed at the moment of the expedition. The balance has to be paid at the reception of the queens.

Shipment prices

:
The queens are collected at the beginning of the week and posted on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The shipping fees in metropolitan France are:

12.50 € HT for a delivery within 48h
25.00 € HT for a delivery within 24h
Free for order of 50 queens and more.
For other countries, ask us for a quotation before.

Important:

At the reservation, we will send you an estimate of the delivery date. The order will be on hold until we receive back this estimate signed and the deposit check.

Inseminated queens

JMF64 — 2016-11-30T10:04:53Z

Each year, we inseminate more than 150 queens for our selection plan. Some of them are put on the market step by step. In 2011, in order to satisfy the growing demand for breeding, we inseminate queens specifically for the sale.
The queens are inseminated at the start of May. It is only mid-June that they are sold, after a minimum of 3 weeks of laying eggs.
We mostly propose “Brother Adam” queens -Buckfast bee- coming from our selection.
Moreover, we can propose you Carniolan or Caucasian queen bees, as well as inbreeding of many origins from different genetic pools.

2017 sale conditions & prices for the Inseminated queens:

Overwintered queens, available from mid-April Ht price: 250 € HT
Queens of the year, available from mid-June Ht price: 200 € HT

Important:
It is very hard for us to tell in advance when the queen will be fully fertile. Thereby, we don't ask for a deposit at the reservation.

Shipment prices

:
The queens are collected at the beginning of the week and posted on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The shipping fees in metropolitan France are:

12.50 € HT for a delivery within 48h
25.00 € HT for a delivery within 24h
Free for order of 50 queens and more.
For other countries, ask us for a quotation before.

”Tribride” queens

JMF64 — 2016-11-30T09:56:11Z

The Tribride queens (triple hybrid) come from strains Carniolan x Caucasian, fertilised in an environment saturated with Buckfast males. The Tribride queens are put on the market from June to mid-September.

Sale conditions & prices for the Tribride queens:

Minimum order: 15 queens
2017 season Ht price: 28 € HT
100% deposit is required for the definitive order. It is cashed at the moment of the expedition. The balance has to be paid at the reception of the queens.

Shipment prices

:
The queens are collected at the beginning of the week and posted on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The shipping fees in metropolitan France are:

12.50 € HT for a delivery within 48h
25.00 € HT for a delivery within 24h
Free for order of 50 queens and more.
For other countries, ask us for a quotation before.

Important:

At the reservation, we will send you an estimate of the delivery date. The order will be on hold until we receive back this estimate signed and the deposit check.

Testing of our strain queens

JMF64 — 2016-11-30T09:30:31Z

We accord a lot of importance to the breeding of males. We own 200 hives provided with males frames, all located on a circle of 5 km of diameter. On our production, over 50 different strains take part of the queens' fertilisation. We hope to improve significantly the vitality and the natural defence of the colonies with this large genetic diversity.

The queens are fertilised either in nuclei of type Kieler, in Maxi+ or in 6 frame hives. Those queens are also on apiaries specially dedicated to the fertilisation situated in the centre of the perimeter.
According to the colonies behaviour in a case of natural change of queen in the hive, our estimation is that over 90% of our breeding males are participating to the fertilisation.

You can graft with low risk on our queens.

Mated queens' production

JMF64 — 2016-11-30T09:27:32Z

We produce yearly 4000 mated queens, exclusively in Kieler nuclei.
The Kielers are filled with package bees collected in our 10 frame hives. We usually begin the Kielers the week following the start of the rape-seed flowering. This technique allows us to control the swarming without enfeebling the colonies. In April, the hives are generally removed twice.

The start of the nuc:

We use virgin queens borned in incubators for the start of the nuclei. They are introduced directly with the package bees without particular restriction. Beforehand, the feeder is filled with candy.

The nuclei are brought at the honey house in a complementary black room and are refreshed regularly with a micro-watering system,
The colonies are remained closed for 3 nights. At the fourth night, we move the nuc on their support and open the bottom trapdoors a few minutes later.
15 days later, we check the success rate,
we remove the first queens 4 weeks after the start of the nuc. This long period lets time for the nuc renewal which is made by the young bees that are taking charge of the next queens. It's with this specific extension that we succeeded to limit a lot the desertions between the capture of the 1st and the 2nd queens.

Comments:

With the insertion of the virgin queen, the success rate is generally > 90%,
the biggest risk with the start of the nuc is the desertion in the days after the opening of the trapdoors. The colonies' confinement in a fresh and humid atmosphere seems to limit significantly this risk. However, we regularly still have problems with a batch each year…

Monitoring of the nuc during the season:

On the crop day, the nuc are feed with very diluted syrup. This sugar supply stabilises the orphan micro-colony. The quantities are adapted in function of the reserves and of the honey flow.
We remove some frames from the strongest nuc to avoid the overpopulation, which would arise problems for the next crop. Those frames are used to reinforce the nuclei that didn't give queens or to create new nuclei.
The next day, we introduce 11 day old royal cells,
the next crop of queens will take place 3 weeks later. We make 4 to 5 rotations/nuclei during the season.

Notices:

In the last 2 years, we have gradually ascended all our nuc on supports which facilitate the crops and the cells' insertion,

The production of fertilized queens in Kieler:

Swarms' production

JMF64 — 2016-11-30T09:21:51Z

Each year, we produce 1000 overwintered swarms.
Those swarms are almost all produced on 6 frame hives. The hives provide us the necessary of bees to fill the Kieler nuclei.
In March, which is also the start of spring, we open all the hives to check the sanitary conditions and to estimate the reserves. We note the colonies' strength (strong, medium or small) and we feed them, if necessary.
The following nights, we move the hives depending on their vigorousness to homogenize the apiaries.
Right at the beginning of the colza blossoms, we start the colonies' dividing up on 5 or 6 frames.

We let the queen with 2 sealed brood frames + 1 reserve frame + 2 building frames + 1 warm partition. The dividing up is made during the nectar flow. The foragers are making the colony bigger for a 6 frame hive, 1 or 2 weeks later.
The remaining frames are placed in an empty hive. If possible, we need a minimum of 2 brood-frames to constitute the new swarm. We add one building frame + 2 warm partitions; then we move the hive on an apiary located in our fertilization zone.
The next day, we introduce the fertilized queen bee of our choice, or more frequently, a 11 day old royal cell. Afterwards, we add 1 L of diluted syrup, even in a case of honey flow, in order to encourage the acceptance.
As soon as the queen is laying eggs since 1 week or more, the hive is moved on an apiary outside the fertilization zone.

6 weeks after the swarm constitution, the colony is on 5 or 6 frames.

Until 2012, we were dividing again the colonies to produce “swarms with a queen of the year”. One medium or strong hive at the end of winter (80% of the bee population) was giving 2 swarms during the season.
Since 2013, we place a honey chamber on those swarms as the sweet chestnuts blossom approaches. Those small hives will participate in the testing or our strain queens, for the honey production.

Swarms' production:

Le greffage

JMF64 — 2016-11-30T09:07:08Z

We graft 3 times/week from the end of March until mid-September, which represents approximately 60 mornings/year.
Each season, we produce more than 15 000 royal cells.

In order to maintain a large genetic diversity, each year, we graft on 60 lineages coming from inbreeding.

At each grafting, we take off frames in 10 strains colonies. Those frames containing different origins of queens are offered to the bee-keepers 5 weeks later.

The grafting always takes place in the morning time and we use Chinese Grafting tools. Each grafting takes one hour for a total of forty bars.

The grafting frames in our strains:

The graft:

The breeders colonies

JMF64 — 2016-11-30T08:58:02Z

We rarely use the starter (maybe we are wrong?) .Until 2010, we were using orphan colonies. While today, we changed for a double system which is composed of:

orphan breeders on super-frames,
breeders on Dadant frames in Cloake Board system. This system allows us to detect the lineages with the best maternal instinct and to select this temper.

Our work with the breeders:

There is 1 or 2 grafting in each breeder:

3 times a week (Tuesday, Thursday & Saturday morning), we introduce 2 clips of 14 queens-cell cups containing very young larva grafted 1 hours earlier,
meanwhile, we remove the cells' batch introduced the past week and we place it in the incubator.

Each 8 days, between 2 grafts, we lift up the broods:

we take 2 opened frames with their nurse bee (queen side) that we move into the breeding compartment,
we move down the 2 frames, now with a capping, lifted up the previous week.

The feeding:

At each graft, we put protein dough into the breeders,
Depending of the nectar flow conditions, we also distribute ½ to 1 L of diluted syrup or water mixed with honey.
Each month, every breeder (orphan or Cloake Board) is treated with oxalic acid to reduce the Varroa pressure.

The behaviour of the breeders:

The royal cells' production in a Cloake system:

Closed starter: