Queen Rearing Special

Different Methods of Rearing Queen Bees by Sarah, Matthew & Alan

REARING QUEENS

In our EMBA community there is a range of skills and some beekeepers will have been raising their own queens for many years.  Some will have been beekeepers for many years and manage their requeening colonies with simple splits and swarm management.  In EMBA's effort to encourage local queens and bees, this newsletter outlines some simple basic steps in queen rearing with links to more detail on certain topics.  One of our winter talks will be on queen rearing in the Autumn and we have a series of queen rearing workshops in June at the EMBA apiary.  Rearing queens enables us to develop our colonies with preferred attributes such as calm, non-swarmy, productive bees or even varroa resistant tendencies.  

Finding the queen.... as time goes on we generally get better and better at finding the queen.  And if you do spot her on a frame during an inspection it is worth caging her, either on the frame (baldock cage) or in a butler cage, or having a nuc box close by just to pop that frame in while you continue inspections so you have more choices should you find queen cells or decide it is time to generate queen cells. Creating queen cells requires very young larvae (12 to 18 hours old), a frame of pollen and lots of young bees.

Finding Queen Cells - it might be that you have queen cells from your favourite colony because they are preparing to swarm and these can be so valuable if you are in a position to quickly distribute them into Nuc boxes with bees from this hive or any others to increase the chances of raising successful queens.

Nuc Box Method - Find the queen and place her in the nuc box, add a frame or two of sealed brood and stores.  Make sure your original colony has very young larvae.  You can start by looking at eggs and just cast your eye inward from eggs and right next to them there are slightly milky cells and these will be the just hatched eggs into larvae that make the best queen cells. Make sure also there are frames of pollen very close by.  The bees in the original colony will now draw queen cells which can be harvested or reduced to one.  It is critical that the queenless colony is inspected between four and seven days after the queen is removed and every queen cell but one removed (or distributed elsewhere). Four days ensures no young larvae to make more QCs from; seven days ensures that you get in before the oldest QC emerges and they cast.  All the usual precautions apply to ensuring the security of the nuc box by moving it away and facing in a different open direction from the original hive or better still, moving to another site.   Also this nuc box with the queen in might need feeding as all the foragers will stay with the original hive.

Vertical Splits and Pagden swarm management will produce Queen cells which can then be cut down to one or harvested to distribute in other queenless hives.  It is always sensible to ensure the queenless colony is hopelessly queenless and has no suitable larvae present to raise a new queen.  With careful handling cut out the desired queen cells that result from your split or Pagden, with a wide margin of wax, and secure in a frame using an
unfolded paper clip for hanging queen cells (easier to pierce the wax above the top of the cell, without causing damage) or with a tooth pick or squidge the edges into the middle of a frame.

Donor, Starter and  Raiser colonies:  (a bit of terminology) 
The Donor colony is where the very young larvae we have chosen to rear queens from originate.  The purpose of the Starter colony is to start drawing queen cells from the chosen donor larvae .  A Cell Raiser (sometimes called a Cell Finisher) is where the started cells are raised to maturity. The starter colony can become the cell raiser colony if left to do so.  A starter colony can be queen-right or queenless - we would recommend beginners start with the Ben Harden method (as described below) as a simple queen-right approach. Your starter colony will also be producing honey so there is no conflict in whether you focus on producing queens or honey.  You can also use a nuc box with lots of young bees, stores and a frame of pollen right next to the frame for impending queen cells, as your starter colony, this is known as a queenless starter.

Timing - it is very important to count the correct number of days from egg to hatch and Matthew Richardson has very kindly shared his versatile google spreadsheet for anyone to work out their queen rearing schedule here .  It is very useful to work backwards - from the approximate time queens are needed and then working out the steps along the way.  With google sheets which this link opens into - make your own copy (click on the file tab on the drop down menu to enable you to do so).  This means you can work from your own copy rather than the original. 

The Ben Harden method - is a simple method of queen rearing by a few manipulations of a colony using an extra brood box and some fat dummies (so that only four frames (pollen, stores and young larvae) are used.  Please click on these two links as they both provide simple steps and diagrams for using this method.  Firstly the Dave Cushman website: http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/benhardenmethod.html  and secondly The Apiarist: http://theapiarist.org/ben-harden-method-setup/  For many of us this is a great method that does not require anything too skilled or demanding!  Ben Harden has also written a nice book to explain different methods: available from Northern Bee Books http://www.northernbeebooks.co.uk/products/some-alternative-pathways-for-the-hesitant-queen-rearer-harden

Nicot Cup system: (or queens laying eggs directly into special cups) - here is a link for you to look at what it involves https://www.thorne.co.uk/queen/queen-rearing-kits/nicot-cupkit.html.  The queen is confined to the Nicot box for 24 hours, and the rest of the colony moves freely around her.  After that time she can be returned to the colony and the box placed in the starter colony to see which will be accepted as potential queen cells - further stages ensue and more detailed information can be found on various youtube sites.

Grafting - one step up in our skill set.... is the next stage in being able to create multiple queen cells and many beekeepers once they get started seem to become addicted to this process.  There are a series of articles written by The Apiarist on the Ben Harden method and grafting and here is a link to a very pragmatic 'how to' on grafting: https://theapiarist.org/how-to-grafting/.  Many EMBA members seem to use Nicot cups for grafting and there are budget options different suppliers offer different options too.  Grafting replaces the need to put the queen into the queen laying cage which, for some, can add an extra complicated layer to the process when grafting becomes practised.  

There is also the next stage of queens getting mated and the use of mini-nucs.  if you would like another newsletter on this please do email Sarah at secretary@edinburghbeekeepers.org.uk  or if you have any specific topics you would like covered in our winter talks programme or to be covered in a newsletter.

Happy Queen Rearing! 
Alan, Matthew and Sarah