Through the selective breeding process, by constantly checking and evaluating hives, we are able to decide which hives have the desirable traits to carry forward to the next generation. We like our local stock for their hardiness in our environment and mite tolerances, but need to keep the defensive behavior in check, so we get help and basically a head start by constantly bringing in top quality genetics from those that came long before us, like the Parks family lines of Italian bees (now Wooten Queens). The Parks are considered to be pioneers of the bee industry.

We import their super sweet Italian Queens by the hundreds each year from Wooten Queens in northern California. The queens from these lines produce some of the most gentle bees available and are great honey producing bees that build up fast and handle stress well. All traits we all enjoy and strive for in any bee breeding program. So that's half of the battle fought for us by folks that have paved the way for queen breeders.

By importing hundreds of Italian Queen bees annually and distributing them throughout this region, both in our own hives and the ones we sell to the public, we are in effect watering down the gene pool locally with very gentle bees. All of which have these desirable traits are coming from outside of our Africanized "Killer Bee" dominated part of the country. Not only is this good for the public, it also increases the sweet bees in our own area for our breeding program. 

So how do we create special "Drone Mother - Donor Hives" that we use for our queen rearing program? And how does that work? (you might ask)

First we dedicate about 400 of our hives to create mating zones that will produce large amounts of drones by adding an extra drone frame to each one. This is to better control the gene pool in these mating zones. 

Obviously we can not completely control what drones are going to be in the area, but the late great Bob Harvey taught me his "out compete" method many years ago. So, when the area is flooded with drones from our favorite hives, there is a lot less competition from potential "mean bees", as some like to call them. Or any other outsiders for that matter - mean or not.

Next, we graft from the previously selected mother queens, the ones from our own previous year's stock that show the best mite resistance found when doing all the checking and grading mentioned above. Then as the grafts develop into their "cacoon state", we place these queen cells in "Mating Nuc" boxes with a small group of queenless mixed age bees that will gladly await her emergence once they sense they have a future hive mother on the way. 

These mating Nucs are then placed in the center of our mating zones for the young queens to emerge in the ideal location for them take their mating flights. The Bee Place Drones will be strong in the surrounding two to three square mile area the virgin queens fly to when they go on their mating flights. 

Each queen will go out on her mating flights when they are around a week old. They travel a couple of miles away from their home, to avoid mating with siblings, to locate Drone Congregation Areas (DCAs) where they will mate in midflight (see attached) with 10-20 drones on average. 

Normally one flight satisfies the Royal apatite, but occasionally a second and even third flights have been recorded.
(Tom Seeley has done some great field work along these lines that he shares results in his lectures)

Once she is happy, she never leaves the hive until it's time to reproduce again. Except this time, she's not the new generation coming in, she'll lay eggs to be her replacement and swarm with about two thirds of her daughters and a few sons. This swarm will start anew and the chances of survival is questionable. 

For this and several other reasons, we work to prevent our colonies from ever feeling the need to swarm. Adding more boxes to basically stretch their cavity and providing more growing room for food stores and raising more young.