Selecting a Mating Apiary - Choosing The Best Mating Site - 2022 Mating Apiary

Today I'm going to talk to you about my new mating site for 2022. Hi, I'm Laurence Ederson, Blackman's in Honey. Welcome to another episode of No Nonsense Beekeeping. I have been on the lookout for a really top quality mating site for a couple of years now. I've shifted over from trying to produce as much honey as I possibly can into rearing queens And next year I'm going to dedicate a lot more of my time to it. You'll see a lot more videos on it as well. And I needed to fix a location to get the best possible mating success, and I think I found that apiary now. So in this video, I'm going to talk to you a little bit about that selection process, why I've chosen the River Apiary as my mating site for 2022, talk to you about some of the things that I've been looking for and why I think this spot is a really good spot to get good mating success. Right, so the first thing that I was looking for in North Wales where I am, it's very hilly. Some of my locations are up high. The Heather Apiary tops it off at about 1,000 feet or just under that. And then where I live in Nerkwith is about 650 feet. And then some of my sites around Mold are around 300 feet. The River Apiary is a little bit further away from that. And as you can imagine, there's quite a big river that goes past it. It is 125 feet above sea level. So it was by far and away the biggest honey-producing apiary of last year, and I attribute most of that to the fact that it's the lowest down. Makes a huge amount of difference. 2 things that I'm looking for here. One is that it's a couple of degrees warmer, and this is just something that I notice every single time I come down to this apiary. It's so much warmer than the other apiaries that I've got, and it's nowhere near exposed. So they're the first 2 things that I'm looking for. What is the warmest site that I've got, and what is the most sheltered site that I've got? And by far and away, it's the River Apiary. It's the lowest down, 125 feet above sea level. Whenever I come down here, it's the warmest site as well. But I'd say probably a little bit more important than that as well, it's so, so sheltered. Like, it couldn't be more sheltered. Up here you've got a bank of trees that goes up must go up kind of 40 or 50 meters because some of the trees are 10 to 15 meters tall. And then it just goes up a huge bank all the way to the top, and it's just woodland all the way around as far as you can see. And then it stretches all the way around this way as well, all the way to the back. And then you've got a little bit just behind the camera that's field, but then probably a couple of hundred meters behind that there's another row of trees. So you've almost got this 360-degree protection from the wind. And I know when it comes to mating queens, they don't like to go out unless it's the right temperature, but also they won't go out if it's too windy as well. So you've got this kind of area of protection. And like I said, they're the 2 big things that have drawn me to this site to get really good mating success. The next thing is the fact that it's such a good site for honey production. Now I think that might sound a little bit strange, but the way that I see it is if you've got little mini mating hives to keep them going, You almost want there to be a continuous flow going on. And I found this site here has been so good for that. It's just had a flow on from almost the beginning of May all the way through until now in November. You've got really good early spring flow, really good late summer flow. And then in the middle, you've got all of these deciduous trees that just give out a flow all the way throughout the year. So I don't want to have to mess around too much with feeding syrup. I'm probably going to leave them with a lump of fondant the whole time. But to have that constant flow going on, I just find is really good for the buildup of the colonies and getting them to the point where I can harvest the queens. The next thing is the location of where I am. By far and away, out of all of my apiaries, this is the quietest location. It's in the middle of nowhere, and then it's in the middle of that middle of nowhere. It really is tucked completely out of the way, and no doubt there will be other beekeepers around here. I'm not saying It's in a site where it's not going to be influenced by other people's drones. Of course it will. You'll have wild drones and you'll have other people's beehives. But as much as I can possibly limit that, this is really going to be very, very quiet. Lots of farmland around here, so there's not going to be a huge, huge amount of beehives. It's not like in a residential setup where there's going to be lots of different beehives dotted around. You might have a beekeeper here, but I really don't think there's going to be too many colonies knocking around. influence in the mating of those queens. And then another thing to say about the location where we are as well, and I know it's not an exact science and the queens will fly to drone congregation areas, but just the topography of this site, the fact that it's so secluded all the way around, and then the bees have got to fly up and high and quite high to get kind of over the ridge in that way, that's quite a way for the queen to go. So I'm hoping that if I can flood this apiary here, and I've got a little satellite apiary over there as well, If I can put really good quality drone colonies there and flood them with the right drones, I'm going to try and keep the matings as local as possible and influence the quality of the queens. Now that is highly ambitious and I have absolutely zero control over where the queens are going to go and fly. So all I can do is run this as a mating apiary for the first year, see what the quality of the F1 queens that I'm getting out of my F0 breeder queen. And then if we need to add further drone colonies at different satellite locations around here, we can do that and speak to other landowners as well, other beekeepers, and see if they interested in taking some of the drone mothers, some of the F1 queens, and some of my breeder queens and putting them at strategic locations, satellite locations around this apiary to boost the overall drone numbers in the wider vicinity. And I'd say in terms of a mating site, a mating apiary, that's about it. That's as far as my selection goes. Obviously all of the normal apiary stuff comes into play, like having unhindered access, 24-hour access, Vehicular access, so I can get my pickup truck down here because I'm going to need to be here very, very often now. The fact that it's really, really secure, like it's well and truly on someone's land, various different gates to get through, a few dogs knocking around as well, so it's a very, very secure location as most of my apiaries are. And that's it for the video. I said I'd do this video. You're going to see lots and lots of videos down here next year. I'm going to run it as a full mating apiary, going to have 70 mating hives down here. plus all of my breeder queens, plus all of my drone mothers. Going to be about 20 or 30 colonies here next year, plus the mating hives as well. So it's going to be incredibly busy down here. You're going to see lots and lots of bees. Anybody who buys queens from me, UK-mated queens from my own stock, this is where they're going to come from. So if you're interested in buying the queens, take a look on our website. They'll be available from around June, middle of June hopefully next year, depending on the weather. So I hope you enjoyed that video. As always, please hit the subscribe button, Please hit the bell so you're notified of every video, and I'll see you next time. Bye.