Rearing hive

[Finman]

Candipole?

IT has been researched, that extra feeding does not make Queens better.

Bees get enough nutrition from nature in summer. They do not even eate pollen patty when they get good quality pollen variation from nature. Compare with natural swarm queens.

Candipollen ... 97% sugar and 3 % raw pollen. No meaning in larva feeding. Mere sugar £ 4/kg.

 

[Finman]

Recommendations for the beginner at queens rearing detailed product and food preparation and adequate advanced nutrition supplements could be useful to make known here.

Candipole?

I recommend that you take pollen frames from other hives. You cannot get better food for bees.

If you do not have enough pollen in a nuc, bees eate larvae for their protein needs.

If you do not know what to do, use a hive in swarming fever to rear Queen.

Bees really do Queen cells even if you do not want. And without your help.
.

 

[Beefriendly]

adequate advanced nutrition supplements could be useful to make known here.

Candipole?

I'd simply go with plenty of pollen and honey...No necessity for anything else.

 

[Finman]

I'd simply go with plenty of pollen and honey...No necessity for anything else.

From where you get pollen?
.

 

[Beefriendly]

From where you get pollen?
.

Flowers mainly.

 

[Finman]

Flowers mainly.

That is a new concept to Queen rearing.

I have bought 20 kg irradiated pollen this spring and I make 200 kg patty from that amount. I rear only workers in early spring.

 

[sipa]

I make 200 kg patty from that amount. I rear only workers in early spring.

My point excactly !

Making sure that queen rearing colonies are well provisioned with protein, either pollen or protein mix ensures Worker Hypopharyngeal glands are well developed, thus ensuring adequate royal jelly production.

Sometimes at the critical stage the weather can be terrible preventing foraging and pollen stores become depleted.

 

[Finman]

Sometimes at the critical stage the weather can be terrible preventing foraging and pollen stores become depleted.

That makes sense. Or you load the hive with pollen frames.

But really complicated systems when I read all these balanced nutritions and shaking. Never met such during 50 years.

The worse the weathers, the more hives swarm and make swarming cells. How they do it?
.

 

[Hunajavelho]

This is simple and gives good queens, when 10-20 queens is needed at once. If more than 20 queens is needed use Brother Adams method (same as Michael Palmer).

Simple no extra gear queen rearing system which can be used all summer in the same colony.

1. Divide a very strong two story colony, which has brood in both boxes
2. Find the queen and put her with the frame she is walking in the upper box. Destroy all queen cells.
3. Shake nurse bees from 4 frames of open brood to the lower box.
4. In the lower box remove one frame (capped extra food for instance), put frame of young larvae in the middle and a frame with lots of stored pollen (bee bread) beside the young larvae frame. Place the emptly gap between those two.
5. Put a plastic sheet on top of the lower box
6. Put a ½ inch stick of wood on the plastic sheet, near the rear of the lower box, this stick provides a rear entrance to the upper box, close other entrances in the upper box.
7. Close the hive for at least 4 hours, more if the weather is bad
8. Do the grafting and put the frame of grafted larvae in the gap in the lower box
9. Wait 24 hours
10. Remove the plastic sheet and wooden stick. Place a queen excluder between the boxes.
11. Wait 4 days (5 days from the start) queencells are capped and it is good practise to protect them if you have gear for that. If not wait 9 days for the cells to be ripe and use them in any queenless hive by putting them between the frames.

 

[Goran]

Hi,

Just one question I am thinking of rearing a few queens this year as last year I got 3 queenless hives an the year before I got one so i want to keep some queens just in case as I lost a hive last year due to being queenless. I can find a lot of info on grafting and various other methods but I can't find anything specific on making a rearing hive Can I do it in a nuc box with a couple of frames of bees and brood or do I have to set up a complete queenless hive?
I only want to rear maybe 5/6 queens maybe 10 at the most. Or would i be better waiting until I see swarm cells and move them to a mating hive with some bees?

Once I talked with one commercial beek who explained me how he create " supersedure" cells. He use large colonies on DB frame for this. Basically in early spring in center of brood he place empty frame which was used for brooding sprayed with sugar syrup ( apple colour frame as he described). The bees clean it and queen start to lay, but can't do it asap, due to that on both sides on other frames bees start supersedure qcells - few of them. These qcells should be removed by 10th-12th day or bees will tear them down.
I sometimes when think colony grows too fast or to make them disturbance in their thinking of swarming I place directly frame in center of the colony ( not rarely with foundation). When I wrongfully estimate and colony isn't stellar and with placing frame with foundation in center gives me result with few qcells aside this frame. These qcells bees later tear down ( I observed it, like they were nonexistent before). I didn't yet use such qcells but by the logic are far better than emergency qcells.
Glad if this can help some.