Preparing a hive to rear queens: dilemma

[beekake]

So, the colonies are building and my plan is to rear some queens this year (got shown how to do it last year). The original intention was to make a strong colony (double brood) queenless (she'll be going into a nuc to start again), then support this through the cell building and larval rearing phase before moving the queen cells into mating nucs (and the original queen back in, probably).

Then I read this months BBKA magazine about using a sort of Demaree arrangement. That might be a bit more convenient than moving the original queen around and would leave her to keep on laying and reduce disturbance, not to mention moving nucs around. Having said that, messing around with snelgrove boards and things does not sound like my cup of tea this year. It's got to be simple!

Does anyone have experience with either of these techniques who could offer advice on the easiest thing for a queen rearing newbie to tackle in their first year?

Thanks,

Beekake

 

[sipa]

It really depends how many queens you intend to rear.

You might want to investigate the the Cloake Board, you are using a strong colony (Double or Triple Brood) as a combined Starter / finisher.

Here is a link to a paper by Dr Susan Cobey

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rc...-oCQAQ&usg=AFQjCNFo3l6Wki_kMj1asAs96dh7grzIXQ

Or the Horesly board as an alternative.

 

[Norton]

I think that you will find that Sue Cobey is not a Dr.

 

[sipa]

FFS... whatever...

at least I tried to help the OP

 

[Jimmys Mum]

Thanks for the link sipa

 

[drstitson]

Morris Board slightly more elegant and convenient IMHO - enables generation of QCs in regular batches.

 

[sipa]

Quite right DrStitson, I meant morris board Duh !

 

[BigAshW]

They have this link on queenright breeding on beebase

https://secure.fera.defra.gov.uk/beebase/index.cfm?sectionid=80

It leads to an interesting PDF document.

 

[oliver90owner]

It's got to be simple

Demaree with a second brood box is simple. Helps to avoid swarming, too.

When you have your queen cell(s) you simply transfer the frame with queen cell to a nuc with plenty of house bees added. Transferring any extra emerging brood will give them a good start toward a strong colony after the new queen gets laying.

The end of next month will be plenty early enough to start (IMO), if you don't want to be worrying about the new queen(s) getting mated in most areas. Could be OK now, of course, but I find the UK weather is just too fickle for reliable outcomes. What you don't want is either unmated drone layers or queens which are soon superceded because of incomplete mating.

 

[blackcavebees]

Here there isn't much drone brood yet, so may be handy for you to slip a frame of drone foundation into a couple of your selected colonies earmarked as drone producers now, as drones have to be sexually mature, so your talking 5+ weeks hence. Different colonies from the ones you are rearing queens from.