Instrumental insemination of the queen bee. Drone seed collection. Central Russian breed of bees.

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pionerprodukt.by continues to publish videos from AgroExpedition on beekeeping farms in Tatarstan. Today we will take a closer look at the instrumental insemination of bees.

Instrumental insemination of queen bees begins with the selection of drones from the hive. We learned that the drone dies during mating, both during natural and artificial mating.
The laboratory is collecting sperm from drones, the minimum allowable number is eight to ten individuals. This is the volume of sperm needed to inseminate one queen bee. When pressing on the abdomen of the drone, the genitals appear. After that, the sperm is absorbed into a special device - a capillary. In order to squeeze out the genitals the first time, good skill is required. According to the employees, during training at the institute, more than one hundred drones had to be squeezed out to hone this technique.

The main thing in this process is that the sperm does not get on the abdomen during extrusion, otherwise it will have to be rejected. Due to the fact that the sperm of drones cannot be diluted and begins to thicken quickly in the air, it must be sucked into the capillary very quickly. The color of the selected semen is very important - it should be light cream in color, not white at all. White color indicates an immature drone.

The main unresolved issue in the instrumental insemination of bees is the lack of technologies that allow preserving drone sperm for a long period, for example, for the winter. At the same time, the instrumental method allows you to clearly control the genetic purity of insemination of the breed.

The second stage of instrumental insemination begins with the capture of the queen and placing it in a special flask, into which carbon dioxide is supplied from a cylinder in a strictly defined proportion to put the bee to sleep. With two microscopic hooks, the specialist opens the queen bee's vagina, after which the drone sperm is introduced from the capillary.

After the introduction of semen, the hooks holding the vagina open are removed and the carbon dioxide supply is turned off. A special mark is applied to the queen bee, which means that she is inseminated. After that, it is covered with a special glass lid and waiting for awakening. Usually the queen bee wakes up in five to ten minutes. All this time, experts are closely monitoring her.