Making queens

[Tremyfro]

I would like to make some queens. I have read a lot, talked a lot and watched a lot. Still some of the methods puzzle me. Last year I made a nuc. Took several frames of brood...one with some queen cells...shook some bees into the nuc. Put honey and pollen in. The bees looked after the queen cells.....the first one out killed the others...went on a mating flight came back and laid up the hive with eggs. So I understand this way and the timings and about putting in a test frame if necessary.
I would like to use a queen cassette. Transfer the cups with eggs to a queen cup frame. Put the frame in a nuc with lots of nurse bees and food. The bit I don't get is why that nuc can't finish the cells. Why are they transferred to another hive. And why to a brood box over a queen excluder? I don't understand why the bees would finish the queen cells. If there is a queen downstairs in the other broodbox? Why does this work?

 

[Goran]

Weak colonies can't produce nice queens. You need to produce queens in strong colonies crowded with bees, which barely can fit in the hive. It is on the edge of swarming, or better to say on the peak of colony strength, at least I understand that way. If I recall right from books each queen larva need 1200-1600 portions of feed to have proper result. So in that way you can see how weak colonies hardly can accomplish that.
Transffered to other colonies to look after them - after they are sealed, and q. rearing colony free for another round. Brood box over qe, I assume to put between frames of open brood above, while queen is below. That way house bees will look after qcells, and queen cannot reach the qcells above.

This seems to me you are describing cloake board method - with queenright colony for rearing.

 

[oliver90owner]

Goran is absolutely correct with most of what he posts. Some will argue that 'nice' queens can be reared by tiny colonies, but that is not worth the risk, particularly for multiple queen production.

Re the feeding/finishing of queen cells in a queenright colony, think here of queen pheromone, demaree or queen loss. An old queen in a large colony may be superceded due to sparse queen pheromone; moving brood further (and further) away from the queen leads to queen cells being developed; no queen pheromone (lost queen) immediately triggers emergency cells to be developed.

The first emergency queen cells sealed are often built over older larvae, so are culled leaving those developed from the youngest larvae.

That is why multiple queen cells can be developed very easily in large crowded boxes which are hopelessly Q-.

After sealing, or at the point of sealing, transferring to smaller units is a better use of a queen rearing set up. For only one single batch of cells, it is clearly not as important. Think here - those rearing large numbers of queens on a serial basis may well place sealed cells into an incubator for pupation, so no bees being used at that stage.

As you are aware, the first queen out may kill all the rest. Therefore to rear multiple queens they must be kept separatedvat emergence. Those with incubators take suitable precautions (they will have many queens emerging almost at the same time) and others will place each sealed cell into a small box with sufficient bees to keep the pupating queen warm. That small box could be with just a cupful of bees up to a nucleus hive. The smallest boxes (apidae) are used until the queen is mated, after which she would either be used elsewhere or sold.

Queens will eventually be placed into a hive with sufficient bees to allow rapid colony expansion. If selling commercially, the beekeeper wants the most efficient use of the available resources (the best workers:queen ratio) whereas an 'end user' queen rearer must have sufficient bees available, to allow those reared queens to expand into usable units.

All queen rearing works on the same principles, just different methods are used, dependent on the intensity of production. You should pick a system which suits your resources and needs.

Even when I had 25 colonies, or more, I was able to easily produce sufficient queens (for my own use) without resorting to more than demaree-ing and splitting colonies into nucs, each with a good queen cell.

With only three colonies, your problems might be choosing a good queen from which to rear your next generation and having sufficient bees to make up nucs without weakening your production colonies
(choice of more colonies and less honey, perhaps?).

Not all queens are good ones. Some can lead to 'poor temperament' colonies, as an eample. Those
queens need to be culled and the bees either requeened or re-united with other colonies. Such is beekeeping that arriving at queens with all the required traits means careful selection of breeding queens and destruction of some of the reared queens - unless you have dedicated breeding lines set aside for just that purpose.

RAB

 

[Roola]

Goran is absolutely correct with most of what he posts. Some will argue that 'nice' queens can be reared by tiny colonies, but that is not worth the risk, particularly for multiple queen production.

Re the feeding/finishing of queen cells in a queenright colony, think here of queen pheromone, demaree or queen loss. An old queen in a large colony may be superceded due to sparse queen pheromone; moving brood further (and further) away from the queen leads to queen cells being developed; no queen pheromone (lost queen) immediately triggers emergency cells to be developed.

The first emergency queen cells sealed are often built over older larvae, so are culled leaving those developed from the youngest larvae.

That is why multiple queen cells can be developed very easily in large crowded boxes which are hopelessly Q-.

After sealing, or at the point of sealing, transferring to smaller units is a better use of a queen rearing set up. For only one single batch of cells, it is clearly not as important. Think here - those rearing large numbers of queens on a serial basis may well place sealed cells into an incubator for pupation, so no bees being used at that stage.

As you are aware, the first queen out may kill all the rest. Therefore to rear multiple queens they must be kept separatedvat emergence. Those with incubators take suitable precautions (they will have many queens emerging almost at the same time) and others will place each sealed cell into a small box with sufficient bees to keep the pupating queen warm. That small box could be with just a cupful of bees up to a nucleus hive. The smallest boxes (apidae) are used until the queen is mated, after which she would either be used elsewhere or sold.

Queens will eventually be placed into a hive with sufficient bees to allow rapid colony expansion. If selling commercially, the beekeeper wants the most efficient use of the available resources (the best workers:queen ratio) whereas an 'end user' queen rearer must have sufficient bees available, to allow those reared queens to expand into usable units.

All queen rearing works on the same principles, just different methods are used, dependent on the intensity of production. You should pick a system which suits your resources and needs.

Even when I had 25 colonies, or more, I was able to easily produce sufficient queens (for my own use) without resorting to more than demaree-ing and splitting colonies into nucs, each with a good queen cell.

With only three colonies, your problems might be choosing a good queen from which to rear your next generation and having sufficient bees to make up nucs without weakening your production colonies
(choice of more colonies and less honey, perhaps?).

Not all queens are good ones. Some can lead to 'poor temperament' colonies, as an eample. Those
queens need to be culled and the bees either requeened or re-united with other colonies. Such is beekeeping that arriving at queens with all the required traits means careful selection of breeding queens and destruction of some of the reared queens - unless you have dedicated breeding lines set aside for just that purpose.

RAB

That was an excellent response and very interesting, thanks for taking the time to write it

 

[Tremyfro]

Thank you so much for the replies.
So, if I understand it correctly, the large colony will raise the Queens because they have the resources and the queen pheramone is reduced in the top box, when a queen excluder is introduced. I move the open brood above the QE and the capped below and leave room for the queen to lay.
Once the queen cells are capped, remove them to apidea or nucs.
This year I would like to increase the number of colonies.
I have a Carniolan queen. She lays up a good brood pattern, the bees are nice to handle, they made lots of honey. They didn't swarm or even make queen cells last year...I did juggle the frames though.
As the other two colonies are not particularly pleasant to work with...I have ordered a Buckfast queen.
My plan is to use the Carniolan and the Buckfast to make F1 queens. I can use the Carniolan colony to host the queen rearing as it is a large colony. If I use the cassette, I won't have to make the nucs until after the bees have made the queens so won't be depleting the colony..I have a few apidea.
Then re-queen the other two hives and make 3 apiidea/ nucs. If all goes well with that, after the colonies have built up enough and there is enough summer left...I would like to make 3 more nucs to over winter.
I may be being a little ambitious. It depends on how the colonies do...if the weather picks up!

 

[Tremyfro]

I have just read through again, O9O and Goran replies. I am going to save them for future mulling over. Such detailed and thoughtful information! It was very kind of you to help me understand about the need for a strong colony and the pheramone part....thank you...I've got it now. The comment about 'end user' is particularly pertinent for me as I only have limited resources with 3 colonies...one of which is little more that a nuc from last year...although it is increasing rapidly now. I am not expecting to crop much honey this year from my large colony as it will be providing bees mainly.

 

[REDWOOD]

I still have not owned a colony that I would be completely happy to raise queens from but nothing in the world is perfect only the world itself.

 

[Tremyfro]

I still have not owned a colony that I would be completely happy to raise queens from but nothing in the world is perfect only the world itself.

I know what you mean! Last year the nuc I bought...grew well and within a short time was producing queen cells. It also made a 3 supers of honey. I had only just started out keeping bees....I had done 2 training courses. Also a few apiary sessions...until EFB stopped that. I had understood that whereas a full colony may swarm...it was more unlikely that a nuc with a new queen would. Clearly, my nuc didn't read that bit of advice! So there I was ...with little equipment....lots on order but because of the wonderful summer...couldn't get deliveries. The most I could do was move stores and give extra space for the queen to lay. I did have a nuc box. So to stop the swarming preparations...I took frames and queen cells out of the bought nuc and put them in the spare nuc box. All was well. The original nuc colony settled down and make honey and the new nuc made a queen. As the summer went on it became apparent that the bees in the original nuc and also in the new nuc were headed by queens which were a bit buzzy, flew up at your face , circled you and followed for a few metres...every time we did inspections. They had no respect for the use of smoke! So during the winter, I discussed with my OH about these two colonies and decided to re-queen if they had the same attitude this year.
We haven't yet done our first inspection for this year but when putting fondant into the hives...they were not pleased to see us....forgivable due to the cold weather...but I don't think they are likely to be nice to work with this coming summer. We decided together to re-queen. I have ordered a Buckfast queen and already have the Carniolan....so hopefully we can do the breeding of gentler queens for these two hives and eventually make some increase too.

 

[For want of a better word]

I have ordered a Buckfast queen and already have the Carniolan....so hopefully we can do the breeding of gentler queens for these two hives and eventually make some increase too.

May I suggest you get a copy of The Principles of Bee Improvement by Jo Widdicombe ( Northern Bee Books) as it simply covers aspects of honeybee breeding without all the confusing genetics stuff!

Many like to go down the Buckfast F1 bee requeening annually rout, however unless your breeding set up is on the scale and isolation and controlled mating of the PRO Buckfast bee breeders, I fear you successes in producing a nice Buckfast bee will be somewhat disappointing!

I can see that for massive honey production in an area where there is a following for not utilising the local bee population, annual requeening with the F1 is possibly the only way to go, and many honeyfarmers have traditionally done this.

Buy your Buckfast queens in... cull any new queens produced... do not attempt to breed from the F1.... the drones they mate with will definitely not have the pedigree you would wish for!


Yeghes da

 

[Goran]

Some people here do simple thing to get at small scale excellent grown qcells and queens and without extra kit. After main forage ( second part of May). They narrow the space for colony ( taking off boxes) to get them overcrowded, and if needed feed to accelerate getting them in swarming mood. After that they get enough swarm qcells of desired colonies for their small operations.

 

[Finman]

.
If you have 3 hives now, it is extremely expencive to rear couple of own queens. That rearing hive will be more or less meshed in its mind and its honey yield will be smaller.

Rearing queens is very easy, as I do nowdays. When a hive start to rear swarm celld, I move new larvae from good hive to the queen cells.

But from where you get good larvae to rear, when you have only 3 hives and propably they are mongrels.

When you buy 3 good mated queens, they are better than you ever get from your own hives.

 

[B+.]

.... without all the confusing genetics stuff!

Many like to go down the Buckfast F1 bee requeening annually rout, however unless your breeding set up is on the scale and isolation and controlled mating of the PRO Buckfast bee breeders, I fear you successes in producing a nice Buckfast bee will be somewhat disappointing!
Buy your Buckfast queens in... cull any new queens produced... do not attempt to breed from the F1.... the drones they mate with will definitely not have the pedigree you would wish for!

Most people can produce queens. It really isn't that difficult. However, breeding bees is something quite different. It requires a knowledge of genetics and the means to produce known matings. In this country, that really means instrumental insemination since we lack the isolated islands used by our european neighbours.

The Buckfast bee is, by definition, already hybridised and should never be used for breeding purposes. Even Brother Adam recognised that the Buckfast was dependent upon frequent crossings with pure lines and regularly incorporated new genes into his stock. I have seen significant deviation even among sister groups of professionally produced Buckfast queens and subsequent crosses can be really quite aggressive. If you buy a Buckfast queen, its like buying a packet of seeds to grow in your garden. The breeder has already made advantaeous crosses so you don't have to. Any gardener who has saved the seed and tried to grow the plant again the following year knows the results will be disappointing.

 

[For want of a better word]

Most people can produce queens. It really isn't that difficult. However, breeding bees is something quite different. It requires a knowledge of genetics and the means to produce known matings. In this country, that really means instrumental insemination since we lack the isolated islands used by our european neighbours.

The Buckfast bee is, by definition, already hybridised and should never be used for breeding purposes. Even Brother Adam recognised that the Buckfast was dependent upon frequent crossings with pure lines and regularly incorporated new genes into his stock. I have seen significant deviation even among sister groups of professionally produced Buckfast queens and subsequent crosses can be really quite aggressive. If you buy a Buckfast queen, its like buying a packet of seeds to grow in your garden. The breeder has already made advantaeous crosses so you don't have to. Any gardener who has saved the seed and tried to grow the plant again the following year knows the results will be disappointing.

Thank you B+ exactly what I meant to say.... in other words!!

Yeghes da

 

[MuswellMetro]

May I suggest you get a copy of The Principles of Bee Improvement by Jo Widdicombe ( Northern Bee Books) as it simply covers aspects of honeybee breeding without all the confusing genetics stuff!

Yeghes da

reading it now, while SHMBO is watching the Voice

 

[B+.]

Thank you B+ exactly what I meant to say.... in other words!!

np...just waiting for the Buckfast advocates to have a go at me now ;-)

 

[Hawklord]

Am I right in thinking the cell starter colony needs loads of nurse bees to feed the larvae, whilst the cell finisher needs more mature bees that produce wax needed to build and cap the cells?

 

[B+.]

Am I right in thinking the cell starter colony needs loads of nurse bees to feed the larvae, whilst the cell finisher needs more mature bees that produce wax needed to build and cap the cells?

A developing larva needs food, food and more food (and warmth/humidity). Don't worry about wax builders. Any colony that has enough nurses will have more than enough older bees to seal the cells. The starter colony doesn't contain ONLY nurse bees. It contains a range but predominantly nurse bees

 

[Tremyfro]

This is such an interesting subject....I have ordered the recommended book...once it arrives I will probably be quiet for a few days whilst I absorb the info! Thank you everyone.
It sure is going to be an interesting summer!