queen rearing

[sprocker]

just a quick question only got one colony this year and it is heaving with bees I want to rear a couple of new queens problem is cant see the queen I wear glasses and find it difficult to see eggs any simple sugestions on how to get a few queen cells out of this colony cheers

 

[Tom Bick]

One simple way will be hope they make swarm preparations and AS and if they are so full of bees a small two or three frame split into a nuc with a queen cell.

 

[oliver90owner]

Don't wait for them to prepare to swarm, demaree them now, or at your convenience, not the bees'.

 

[Tom Bick]

Don't wait for them to prepare to swarm, demaree them now, or at your convenience, not the bees'.

Yes demaree them, but Rab won’t that start that whole emergency queen cell argument all over again.

 

[oliver90owner]

No emergency queen cell argument at all. Queen present; so no emergency queen cells. Where is the problem?

 

[sprocker]

I was just thinking about putting a new drawn frame in the middle of the brood nest and leave it for a coupel of days and hopefully the queen will of laid in it so then take that frame out and put it in a nuc with brood food and some bees any thoughts would be much appreciated

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

No emergency queen cell argument at all. Queen present

More important - due to being Q+ plenty of happy young bees able to produce loads of royal jelly

 

[oliver90owner]

some bees

That is your problem. Are you trying for a good queen or a runt?

 

[ratcatcher]

problem is cant see the queen I wear glasses and find it difficult to see eggs

yeah, me too, but it's easy to fix

either, pop into a chemist and buy a pair of glasses for really close up work, or get your opticians to make you up a set of bifocals, with the bottom 1/4 of lens at double magnification of what you normally have, it makes you feel like your inside a goldfish bowl if wearing them whilst walking around lol but for standing at the hive and looking into frames works great

 

[sprocker]

well I would shake a few frames worth into the nuc and just gage it so could that idea work then .I might see about new glasses iam trying a magnifying glass at the minuet to see how I get on with that cheers

 

[Little John]

If the object of the exercise is to make a couple of queens, and if your hive really is "heaving with bees" - then simply do an equal split, ensuring that a frame of open brood is in each of the two boxes.

Watch those two boxes for a short time: one will settle fairly quickly; the other will display frantic activity as the girls search for their queen. You now know which box the queen is in.

Check the 'frantic' box in a couple of days for emergency cells. If you're lucky there will be more than one. If so, then don't mess with them, wait until they are sealed then put a cage around each cell, leaving just one un-caged.

If there's no creation of emergency q/cells, then swap over brood frames with the Q+ box, after carefully brushing the bees off, and try again.

When you eventually get your spare emergency q/cell - then is the time - either as an emerged virgin or as a sealed cell a couple of days before emergence - to put it in a mini-mating-nuc box (or something approaching one), together with 'some bees'.

All the above assumes that there aren't already any swarm cells in your current hive - it might be worth checking for their presence before you do anything else ... if there are swarm cells present, then you already have your 'spare queens' in the making. Just make sure that your hive doesn't swarm !

LJ

 

[Goran]

Last year I did play ( as process of learning) and produce few queens from emergency qcells. I got one colony which shown great in 2012. and last year also ( queen from 2011.). I could no afford to buy jenter, and I did the following: I prepared the colony with feeding and adding an full frame of pollen into box over qe. Then I took a frame with eggs where queen were at the moment and place it above, leaving queen bellow qe. The colony were bursting with bees ( it was previously in three boxes then reduced to two). All the rest of setup is like for the cloake board ( rotating brood box bellow, putting the board,etc..), only sixth day I take the frame and destroy all sealed qcells, leaving only opened ones. The later I did selection of remaining qcells and cut out appropriate ones. I still have three queens of that way in the hives. Two of them at one time this year had eggs in qcells and made me disappointed showing intention for swarming. But after a week, there were no eggs and relief for me. Overall at the end I am very satisified with them and I got few nice queens. Will see how they will show in coming lime forage..

 

[sprocker]

thanks for all the good ideas pleanty food for thought will get cracking and let you know how I fair with them

 

[Edwardking]

yeah, me too, but it's easy to fix

either, pop into a chemist and buy a pair of glasses for really close up work, or get your opticians to make you up a set of bifocals, with the bottom 1/4 of lens at double magnification of what you normally have, it makes you feel like your inside a goldfish bowl if wearing them whilst walking around lol but for standing at the hive and looking into frames works great

I did the bifocals too - great, but now switched to varifocals.