Queen bees, 2nd part

2nd part, Colmenares Suizos queen bees.

Our bee temper control team.

The collectet drones are carried to the lab in this cage.

They are set free in this box for a while.

The poor drones are smashed and crunched to eyaculate. Notice the little perle, on his surface is the semen to be collectet.

Yes, I really look guilty. Killing those little drones don't make me happy. But it is the only manner to get the semen. I hope, once in the drone heaven, they will forgive me.

With a tip the semen is very careful sucked. At least 7 drones are necessary to inseminate 1 queen.

The queen is anaesthized with C02 and hold in this tube, called queen holder.

The queen is hold upside down.

With the dorsal and ventral hooks, the vagina is exposed and hold in place.

The tip is inserted in the vagina and the semen injectet in the oviducts.

After being inseminatet the queen is still anaesthized for a while.

Shortly after she recovers. She is marked and returned to her hive.

Near five days after, she begins with the egg laying. A job that lasts for her whole life. Pretty boring I guess.

The hive with the queen is tested for a whole year. Only if the hive meets our required standarts we expect, we use the queen as a breeder queen. Usually we have 8 different breeders.

From the breeder queen we get the larvaes to graft. The following process is the same as to get the virgin queens to be inseminatet, unless...

...the queen cells are kept in transit in the incubator.

For mated queens, the cells are introduced in a mating nuc where the queen will born. Once sexually mature, the queen will make the mating flight. It happens once in her life with an average of 7 drones.

Parcial view of our 1800 mating nucs.

To deliver virgin queens, the queen borns direct into a queen cage.

For export to any place in the world mated queens, the queen cages are shipped inside a special container for airfreight.

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