Queen Rearing

[Neil]

Hi All,

I was going to try and raise a couple of queens, using two brood boxes. The original brood box Q/excluder two supers then another Q/excluder and the second brood box on top of that. If the bees produce a couple of queen cells would this encourage the original brood box at the bottom to swarm?

 

[MuswellMetro]

Hi All,

I was going to try and raise a couple of queens, using two brood boxes. The original brood box Q/excluder two supers then another Q/excluder and the second brood box on top of that. If the bees produce a couple of queen cells would this encourage the original brood box at the bottom to swarm?

short answer is No, but they are bees and dont read books

several diffrent vaiants, one in ben harden method on cushmans site that raisies them directly above the first main brood over a QE then moves them up above a further QE and two supers

i intended to use your demarre method this year as an AS but the donar hive i wanted to requeen has made QC too early ( ie SATURDAY)but if they make them at a more normal time again i will start again

you need to decide what to do next to make the nucs, being on 14x12 i have modified a national triple box to 14x12, (£hornes sell a twin box) a triple box is a brood box divided by division boards into two three frame Nucs and one re queening four frame Nuc in the middle ( the 4 frame is open to bottom to allow smell to come up through QE and runs like mother and daughter supercedure)

never used the triple box before, so have to see what happens

 

[Midland Beek]

Get a queen and a sealed queen cell in the hive at the same time ... out pops the swarm.

 

[drstitson]

there are various methods along the lines you're suggesting which all essentially rely on supercedure type cell production NOT emergency or swarm cells.

perfectly possible to raise cedlls in queen right state or above a horsley or cloake board (the latter uses a QE which gets blocked off for a day to make the bees Q-, start raising cells but then when Q+ again raise them as supercedure cells.