Mating and Progeny Control

Mating control and progeny testing is the part of breeding concerned with controlling which drones a queen mates with, and with evaluating the mating quality of the queens produced and the performance of their offspring (progeny). Because half of the workers' genetics comes from the drones, if this step is skipped even the best breeder queen will not deliver the expected result. Planning drone colonies, isolated mating and instrumental insemination are the main tools for this control.

Why is mating the hardest link in breeding?

A few days after emerging, a young queen flies out of the hive and mates in the air at drone congregation areas. Drones from all the colonies within a few kilometres come to these areas. On one or a few flights, a queen usually mates with 10–20 drones and stores the sperm she collects for life in her sperm store (spermatheca).

In other words, the paternal side of all the workers a queen will produce in her lifetime is decided in a mating period of a few days. With open mating, it is not you who decides this side but the apiaries around you. The mating flight and the types and setting up of mating nucs are described on the "Queen Mating Systems" page; this page deals with the breeding side of the subject.

How is the paternal side controlled?

Drone saturation with open mating

In your own apiary you cannot control the surroundings, but you can tip the drone pool in your favour. By giving drone comb to selected colonies, you make sure that large numbers of the desired drones are present in the area during the mating period. This makes a clear difference, especially if several beekeepers in the same area do it together.

Isolated mating station

Only selected drone colonies are placed at sites such as islands, high mountain valleys or the middle of large forests with no other bee colonies for several kilometres around. The queens of these colonies are usually daughters of the same breeder, so the paternal side is recorded as a single line. Mating nucs are taken to the station once the drones have matured.

Instrumental insemination

In instrumental insemination, semen taken from selected drones is introduced into an anaesthetised queen with a special apparatus. It is the only method that determines the paternal side completely. It is used to conserve a particular breeding line, for backcrossing, or for single-drone insemination in research. The inseminated queen is kept in a mating nuc or a small compartment until she starts laying.

How are drone colonies prepared?

The most often forgotten half of mating control is drone production. A drone takes about 24 days to emerge from the egg, and about 10–14 days after emerging to reach sexual maturity. Drone production should therefore start weeks before queen rearing.

1. Choose the colonies: Produce drones from colonies that scored as well as the breeder queen. Make sure they are not closely related to the breeder you take larvae from.
2. Give drone comb: At least three weeks before grafting, put drone-cell comb or foundation at the edge of the brood area.
3. Keep them strong and well fed: In a nectar dearth, workers evict drones from the hive. Give syrup and pollen support if necessary.
4. Keep varroa low: The mite prefers drone brood; drones that grow up with mites have reduced flight ability and sperm quality.
5. Match the timetable: The queens' mating flights must coincide with the period when the drones are mature.

Do drone comb and varroa drone-brood removal conflict?

Yes. Drone brood removal, used in varroa control, takes capped drone brood out of the hive together with its mites. This is not done in breeding drone colonies. Keep separate records of which colonies produce drones and which have drone brood removed; control mites in drone colonies by other methods.

How is mating quality checked?

The first step in progeny testing is to see whether the queen produced has mated well. Once the queen has started laying in the mating nuc, look at:

• Egg pattern: A single egg in each cell, centred at the bottom of the cell, in a regular pattern.
• Brood density: A compact, continuous area of capped brood; few scattered empty cells.
• Drone brood in worker cells: Domed, bullet-shaped cappings in worker cells show that the queen is poorly mated or has run out of sperm. Such a queen is replaced.
• Delayed laying: If the queen has not started laying within three weeks of emerging, mating has most probably failed.

What is a progeny test and how is it done?

A progeny test (offspring test) measures the value of a breeder not from her own colony but from the colonies of the daughter queens raised from her. Because a breeder's daughters mate with different drones and work in different hives, the average of her daughters shows that breeder's true genetic value far better than a single colony does.

1. Raise a sufficient number (at least several) of daughter queens from the same breeder and mark them.
2. Introduce these queens at the same time to colonies of similar strength in the same apiary.
3. Wait until the workers are entirely daughters of the new queen; this takes about 6–8 weeks after laying begins.
4. Score the colonies for a year for gentleness, swarming tendency, hygiene, overwintering and productivity.
5. Compare the average of the sister group with the apiary average; use breeders from superior groups more in the following years.

How do weather and season affect mating control?

Mating flights need warm, still, sunny weather. During a long wet or cool spell, the queen either cannot mate at all or mates with few drones and is soon superseded. Plan breeding production for the period in your area when the weather is settled and drones are plentiful; towards the end of the season the number of drones falls rapidly.