Poly Hive
Queen Bee
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2008
- Messages
- 14,097
- Reaction score
- 401
- Location
- Scottish Borders
- Hive Type
- National
- Number of Hives
- 12 and 18 Nucs
First of all you want young bees.
You can find the queen, and dinna raise your eyebrows like that please, and shake the bees into a container. I usually use a nuc box.
Or you can shake all the bees off some open brood, (not sealed) and put it above an excluder so that the bees will come through the excluder to care for them.
I work on the basis of one well covered frame per mini nuc.
For this little story I am using the phrase Mini Nuc for all the mini systems including plant pots. I kid you not they work too.
Having got your bees, take them home and put in a dark cool place and keep over night.
Meanwhile of course you have been busy and raised or collected some queen cells which you have been incubating in supers latterly in cages so you have some eager virgins ready to have some freedom.
In the morning spray the bees with water until they are really quite wet and in a miserable heap on the floor of the box. Measure a decent mug full into your Mini, which has damp sugar in the feeder compartment and leave them over night again in the dark cool place.
Next day pop in the virgin. This is fraught with issues which you need to consider.
Virgins are VERY flighty so the best thing is to get her out of the cage in to a pluffer, {aka plastic queen catcher} then blow her gently into the mini. If you lose control here you are stuffed. Take note. This is best done in a small room probably the bathroom.
The bees will be very happy to accept her as she is their only hope, they are broodless, queenless and hopeless, then salvation arrives.
In general in Scotland I found from making them up to seeing eggs was some three weeks. They may run faster in the balmy south and they may not. I just mention 21 days as a guide from my experience.
Once mated you can leave them to get to sealed brood stage to ensure the little colony survives or if you are in a hurry just take her out and put in a cell. I'd leave them a couple of days before offering a ripe cell as always remember the secret of success with introducing cells or virgins or mated queens is to give them what they expect.
They are great fun, they demystify queen rearing and they are very very useful to have as a couple of spare queens is a major asset aye?
PH
You can find the queen, and dinna raise your eyebrows like that please, and shake the bees into a container. I usually use a nuc box.
Or you can shake all the bees off some open brood, (not sealed) and put it above an excluder so that the bees will come through the excluder to care for them.
I work on the basis of one well covered frame per mini nuc.
For this little story I am using the phrase Mini Nuc for all the mini systems including plant pots. I kid you not they work too.
Having got your bees, take them home and put in a dark cool place and keep over night.
Meanwhile of course you have been busy and raised or collected some queen cells which you have been incubating in supers latterly in cages so you have some eager virgins ready to have some freedom.
In the morning spray the bees with water until they are really quite wet and in a miserable heap on the floor of the box. Measure a decent mug full into your Mini, which has damp sugar in the feeder compartment and leave them over night again in the dark cool place.
Next day pop in the virgin. This is fraught with issues which you need to consider.
Virgins are VERY flighty so the best thing is to get her out of the cage in to a pluffer, {aka plastic queen catcher} then blow her gently into the mini. If you lose control here you are stuffed. Take note. This is best done in a small room probably the bathroom.
The bees will be very happy to accept her as she is their only hope, they are broodless, queenless and hopeless, then salvation arrives.
In general in Scotland I found from making them up to seeing eggs was some three weeks. They may run faster in the balmy south and they may not. I just mention 21 days as a guide from my experience.
Once mated you can leave them to get to sealed brood stage to ensure the little colony survives or if you are in a hurry just take her out and put in a cell. I'd leave them a couple of days before offering a ripe cell as always remember the secret of success with introducing cells or virgins or mated queens is to give them what they expect.
They are great fun, they demystify queen rearing and they are very very useful to have as a couple of spare queens is a major asset aye?
PH
