Virgin queen

01 · WHEN TO CHOOSE ONE

The difference from a mated queen is not the price: it is who takes on the mating

With a mated queen you buy laying that has already started and the risk ends at acceptance. With a virgin you keep the uncertain part yourself: the mating flight. It fits if you work with mating nucs, if you are requeening several colonies at once with room in the calendar, or if you would rather the drone line came from your own apiary. It does not fit if you need that hive producing within three weeks.

02 · THE WINDOW

Three weeks, and the weather decides

She becomes active two or three days after emerging and the useful window runs up to about three weeks. Within that span she needs flying days: as a reference, 20 °C minimum, clear skies and light wind. A long spell of poor weather inside the window is what spoils the batch, because a queen cannot be «kept» for later. The month you introduce her matters as much as the queen herself.

03 · THE DRONES

Half the genetics does not come in the cage

In the Iberian Peninsula 15 to 20 matings per queen are cited, all with drones from the surrounding area: your district supplies the drone line, and without mature drones around there is no mating at all. A drone takes about 24 days to emerge and another 12 to mature, so plan for them five weeks ahead of the date you want the queen to fly.

04 · SELECTION

Iberian bee, and what the breeder selected for

These are Apis mellifera iberiensis queens, the subspecies native to the Iberian Peninsula. The line was selected for low winter consumption, for making the most of short flows and for hygienic behaviour. Read that as the breeder's aim, not as a promise about the colony you are going to build: the outcome depends on the mating, the surroundings and your management. Being Iberian is also what makes them eligible for grants under Spain's Plan Nacional Apícola; check the terms of the current call.

⚠ PRECAUTIONS

Mating depends on the weather, on the drones around the apiary and on the state of the receiving colony: none of the three comes in the cage. The hive or nuc that receives her must be queenless and prepared before she is introduced. Acceptance and the behaviour of the resulting colony are judged after several weeks of laying, not from the look of the queen.

05 · BEFORE YOU BUY

Who it suits and who it does not