Advanced selection program for Authentic Apis mellifera carnica
Big, strong and well-nourished queens have superior immune system and natural resistance to chalk brood disease and nosema, they live longer and they lay bees that live longer… that’s the guarantee of future success of a beekeeper’s colonies.
Well-established breeding system in Breeding & mating stations Medokost & Medovita
The breeding and mating stations Medokost and Medovita in Slovenia utilize a well-established breeding system that ensures consistently high quality in the queens produced. This system is designed to achieve an average queen weight of 220 mg or more, which is indicative of robust health and vitality.
Key Features of the Breeding System
- Rigorous Selection Criteria: The breeding process involves careful selection of parent colonies based on specific traits such as calmness, productivity, and disease resistance. Only the highest-performing colonies are chosen to contribute to the breeding program.
- Controlled Mating Practices: Both stations employ controlled mating techniques to ensure that queens mate with drones from genetically superior lines. This helps maintain genetic diversity while enhancing desirable traits in the offspring.
- Quality Monitoring: Each queen produced undergoes thorough testing for various characteristics, including temperament, swarming impulse, and overall colony performance. This data-driven approach allows for continuous improvement in breeding practices.
- Focus on Health and Resilience: The breeding system emphasizes producing queens that are not only productive but also resilient against common diseases and pests, ensuring the long-term viability of bee populations.
- Collaboration with Research Institutions: The stations work closely with research institutions to integrate the latest findings in bee genetics and health into their breeding programs, ensuring that they remain at the forefront of beekeeping practices.
The weight of a queen bee can indeed affect her productivity. A higher quality queen bee is correlated with better colony performance, development, and survival.
The weight of a queen bee changes throughout its lifespan, with an average weight of 214.4 mg 18 days after being taken from the mating nucs, but it reduces to 207.9 mg 8 days after the queen was accepted by production colonies.
Factors that can influence a queen bee’s weight and productivity include:
Genetic background: The queen’s genetic makeup can affect her overall health, fitness, and productivity.
Developmental conditions: The conditions in which a queen bee develops, such as nutrition and environment, can impact her physical and reproductive health.
Mating success: The success of a queen’s mating can influence her productivity and the quality of her offspring.
Adult environment: The beekeeper’s management and the colony’s environment can also affect the queen’s health, fitness, and productivity.
A quality queen can lay over 3,000 eggs per day during peak season, which is more than her own body weight in eggs in a day