When do you start Qrearing?

domino · Apr 22, 2021

I'm in the South East and am very keen to start queen rearing, still a little cold but looking at the weather forecast I think if I started the 2nd week of May I'd have virgins out when the day time temp was >18oC and plenty of drones.

When do you start and where are you?

Ian123 · Apr 22, 2021

Obviously later the better as far as the weather’s concerned and depends how much you want to push things. I’ve got lots of drones in my largest hives with numbers increasing all the time. I’ll probably do a batch next week but rather depends on time available. It also obviously changes year to year.

madasafish · Apr 22, 2021

20th May last year
5th May 2019
Near Stoke on Trent.
Depends on weather.
Last year had a gorgeous sunny Spring
This year we have just stopped having frosts (approx 14 nights a month since Feb) and temperatures have risen above 10C -first time consistently this week since end Feb.

B+. · Apr 22, 2021

I'm in no hurry. Seeing drones is not a guarantee of fertility. They need warmth and an abundance of food (especially pollen) to develop properly.
Tom, Dick an Harry drones may be available from the beginning of May (which usually means I will start my first grafts around the beginning of May), but, selected lines won't be available until later - so it depends on the purpose. I want my selected line drones to develop in the best possible conditions so I'll leave it a week or two into May even if the conditions are good.

oliver90owner · Apr 23, 2021

I found the middle of May, onwards is likely good for mating., so aiming for emergence then is fairly safe...

B+. · Apr 23, 2021

B+. said:
I'm in no hurry. Seeing drones is not a guarantee of fertility. They need warmth and an abundance of food (especially pollen) to develop properly.
Tom, Dick an Harry drones may be available from the beginning of May (which usually means I will start my first grafts around the beginning of May), but, selected lines won't be available until later - so it depends on the purpose. I want my selected line drones to develop in the best possible conditions so I'll leave it a week or two into May even if the conditions are good.

Another thing to consider is the age of the virgin queen and the drones
The queen should ideally be 7+ days old and the drones should be 15-25 days old to be sexually mature. Clearly, this means drones should be 2-3 weeks ahead of the queens. Working back from this, you need to start your drones 2-3 weeks before your queens if you're doing selective breeding.