using spare sealed queen cells.

[dpearce4]

i am thinking that over the next month i am going to get a few hives being split due to them wanting to swarm and producing queen cells. this im ok with im expecting it and have the kit to do the AS so not a prob. have enough to double hives plus nucs.

what im wandering is that if they produce a few queen cells can i use them to split other hives? and/or use to get rid of the queen from hell colony i have by doing an AS? if i were to do this whats the best way to graft them to the comb?

 

[oliver90owner]

The easiest way is to transfer (gently) a comb, with one good cell on it, to a queenless split. Job done. Done several times might get several queens. Remove the queen as in A/S and await for the cells to be capped, or almost capped in the hive, then split as many ways as you wish. I would not do a full A?S, but split off the queen leaving the queenless hive with a full complement of bees.

But do remember that cells from only your best queens should be used, and things like that. More to it, for the thinking beek, than blindly making new queens and colonies.

It's not rocket science and doesn't need any special techniques like grafting, so is really the simplest way of increasing (don't know why people who only want a few queens would go to the bother of grafting). Demareeing your chosen colony is likely to yield sufficient good queen cells unless you want more than just a few.

RAB

 

[dpearce4]

Cheers rab.

maybe when i said grafting i ment something else, what i ment was attaching the sealed queen cell to an exsiting comb in the hive i want the new queen to be used for. but i like the idea of adding the whole frame of brood as i dont have to worry about possible damage to the queen cell.

I have 3 hives that i would use for producing queens from, they are all placid and although not as fast laying as the queen from hell, i would prefer that.

 

[biglongdarren]

last year i made up my own mating hive that held a small cup of bees and a queen cell in a copper wire hanger,when the queen was mated and laying everything got lifted into a 6frame nuc,worked a treat, i now have 4 more of the these small hives all nearly made up and ready to go.
Darren

 

[Tom Bick]

Last year I cut a queen cell from a frame with a reasonable amount of comb with it say approx one inch around the cell and then pushed this part of comb onto the face of a frame in another hive and it was accepted and the queen is now heading a promising hive.

I did this as an experiment to see if it was possible when you are presented with a frame with multiple qc’s from a queen you may want to breed from.

I don’t know if I got lucky but will experiment with it again if presented with a frame with more than one qc’s.

 

[oliver90owner]

cut a queen cell from a frame with a reasonable amount of comb with it say approx one inch around the cell

No problem doing that. A few things to note - do it while queen cell is still open or when ripe (preferable?) as they are very easily damaged when sealed.

Not so easy as a first attempt.

Where there are a lot of cells, they may not all be best quality.

 

[rae]

We also cut a "spare" queen cell out of a colony and gave it to a hopeless cast with a failed queen last year. They raised it, got her mated and have made it through the winter.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

A lot of the old lags locally cut the QC out then make a holder for it by winding a bit of wire around a biro lid to make a bolder for the cell which they then hook over a frame in the host ive

 

[Poly Hive]

When you cut out a cell make sure you take a chunk of the comb with it so you have a "tag" at the top to press into the new comb. A sharp knife is very handy in the toolbox.

As Rab says the easiest way is to just transfer the whole comb. However you need to be sure you don't shake it as incipient queens in cells do not like to be rattled around.

PH

 

[drstitson]

as well as splits don't forget mating hives - not just useful for serious queen rearing but also if you have decent numbers of nice looking queen cells but not enough frames/bees to make enough splits - don't want to be depleting colonies too much.

you can pick up keilers without top bars for under £12.