Beesource Beekeeping Forums banner

Rearing queens for a small operation

192K views 153 replies 49 participants last post by  Michael Bush 
#1 ·
I'm in my 4th year of beekeeping and I am a small operation with 6 production hives and various nucs through out the year. In this early phase of my beekeeping I don't plan on growing more than around 10 hives plus nucs.
I try to set a goal each year of starting to learn a new aspect of beekeeping. My first years have been focused on keeping the bees alive and nucs, with the specific goal of not purchasing packaged bees.
I think I have become reasonably competent with making spring nucs from swarm cells and helping my bees survive. But the issue I tend to run into is that when I need a queen I don't have one or suppliers are out, and It is a pretty long process (and a little pricey) to get one.
Also I have a few hives that have good traits and a few hives that have not so good traits (propolize the fool out of everything).
So I have decided my project for this year is to start learning queen rearing on a small scale.
My Primary focus on beekeeping is the production of Honey for sale and a fun learning experience for myself and my children.
What methods would you more experience beeks recommend for a beek with a small operation on a learning level?
I don't think I want to tackle grafting yet.
I have done some reading on general queen rearing and I may be looking at this wrong, but I figured I would determine which method of raising queens first and focus my reading and research on that method.

Thanks For your help.

David
 
See less See more
#2 ·
I am also a small operation beek. I would try the Miller Method. Beekeeping for Dummies tells you how to do it. But you might be able to find something online as well. But the Miller Method is the easiest way to raise a few queens.
 
#4 · (Edited)
I am another hobbyist with about a dozen hives hoping to raise my own queens this year. In other words, after doing some research I think the following should work for a small-timer like me, but haven't implemented anything, yet . . .

I don't think grafting is hard to learn, and once you learn the technique, you have the best flexibility for choosing which queens you propagate from. In other words the benefits of grafting are well worth the small effort to learn it.

Grafting tools are cheap. Buy a couple of different styles, then practice by selecting and moving the proper aged larvae from one cell to another. Don't take any steps to make queens from these grafts, just successfully moving them to a nearby cell is the goal. There will be lots of larvae to practice on and no big deal if you make mistakes. There are two skills being learned, here: 1) choosing the correct-aged larvae to transfer; and then 2) the actual manipulations to do the transfer. You will know you got it when the bees start accepting a high percentage of those transferred larvae. At that point, moving on to working with larvae for actual queen rearing will be easy.

After doing some research, I plan on using a Cloake board for my small queen rearing operation:

http://www.thebeeyard.org/rearing-queens-via-the-cloake-board-method/






.
 
#6 ·
#7 ·
Grafting is the easy part, learn how to make up a good cell builder and good mating nucs. Here is a very good system by Joseph Clemens for raising queens, but it does use grafting, but can be modified to be non-grafting system.

http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...ing-using-the-Joseph-Clemens-Starter-Finisher

Just one of the many ways to raise queens without grafting...
Raising queen cells without grafting - Cut cell method
By OldTimer...

http://www.beesource.com/resources/...queen-cells-without-grafting-cut-cell-method/
 
#8 · (Edited)
I don't think I want to tackle grafting yet.
I was at the same stage as you are, last summer. I was somewhat intimidated by the idea of grafting, and the need to build special frames etc. Then when I walked into local bee supply store, there it was, ready to go, complete, frame with bars etc. So I grabbed it 'for future use'.

As I discovered on my first attempt last summer, the grafting is the easy part. For my first attempt, I grafted 15 cups on a single bar, then put it into a queenless colony that was hopelessly queenless (or so I thought). They went to work on 8 of the 15, so for my first attempt, I thought that was pretty good, better than I expected. Here is what my bar looked like only 20 hours after putting it into the hive.



I wasn't really prepared to place 8 cells, so, I made up 4 nucs of 2 frames, then placed a couple cells into each. I did end up with 4 virgin queens in 4 nucs, and that's where I started to learn a few more of the 'not so obvious' issues of queen rearing, that apply no matter what method you use. My lessons were :-

a) We call them 'mating nucs', but if it's a dearth, the big colonies have a different name, they call them 'feeders'. Mating nuc can be robbed empty in an hour.

b) Grafting with the chinese tool was not at all difficult.

c) If you haven't thought it thru and planned in advance, making up mating nucs on the fly will burn up a LOT of resources, hence I only made 4. I actually tore down the queenless colony after they got the cells built, and used it to make up the mating nucs.

In this case, the whole exercise was essentially unplanned. I ended up with one split that didn't requeen themselves, totally broodless and hopelessly queenless, or so I thought, so I decided to experiment with a bar of grafts rather than shake out or combine. It was intended to be a learning experience more than a serious attempt at raising queens, just an experiment. When I got to the phase of tearing it down, I found eggs on one frame, but still couldn't find a queen in that colony.

Now that I'm over the 'fear of grafting', I have a completely different plan for the upcoming season. We are going to split all of our colonies as we come into the swarmy season, and all of those splits will get cells I've raised myself. It's much easier than I thought it would be, and just 'makes sense'. Using my own cells to queen the splits means I wont have to deal with the resource issues of making up mating nucs, and I can split on my schedule, not based on 'availability of queens'.
 
#9 ·
Vance G hit on it!! I just purchased and read Mels book over the WE and the Dolittle system with an excluder will be the way I go from here on. Just gotta get the timing down for my area. His way is great too and probably preferred but I always have a hard time finding the queen in a well built up colony. My 60 something year old eyes don't cut it. So the Dolittle system it is for me. A small time hobbiest or beginner with 1 good hive that wants increases cost free on bee purchases or queen purchases the OTS system is the way to go.
 
#11 ·
#13 ·
Thanks for all the Help and links! I figured the best thing to do for starters is order Mel's Book, so I Did. Regardless of what I do it looks like a wealth of good information.
Thanks also to Michael Bush, the actual 'First' thing I did was read your website.

David
 
#18 ·
The On The Spot (OTS) method is appealing to me as a newbie and I'll likely try it.
Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't get what the advantage of the OTS method is. It basically involves forcing e-cells, which are generally the lowest quality of queens available. All at the expense of sacrificing a frame of brood. I can see how it would be appealing to the beginner, in theory, but if you can select the right age larvae on the OTS method (and destroy the rest of the brood on the frame), you can select the right age larvae and graft from it. If you take a frame of 3 day old larvae and the first time you try grafting you kill 80% of the larvae you try to graft, you're still shooting better than the OTS method. I don't know, just don't get it.

The rest of the MDA Splitter method may work well for others, but the timing of my flows are way off for it to work down here. Maples start blooming around Feb. 1. First grafts usually start around March 15 (at the earliest). Honey flow starts April 1. Dearth hits June 1. I can't take a hive, split it 3, 4 or 5 ways, get queens reared and colonies booming, then recombine them into one hive and take advantage of the honey flow in a 3 week (at best) time frame. But hey, maybe it works better elsewhere.
 
#17 ·
Thanks Joe, (both for the correction and for the kind words).

I've been thinking specifically about this thread, and here is what I would do....

1. Setup a few (maybe 3) Cloake Board hives in the most convenient yard, and rotate comb and check for cells appropriately.

2. Practice grafting and using the CB properly....you could graft one hive each day or all at once...there is little to lose here if you get off schedule.

3. Eventually you will have queen cells...any that aren't needed can be harvested for royal jelly.

4. For each split, I would move the parent colony (keep in the same yard), and put the queenless split at the old location . I would put 2 48 hour old cells in each split.

5. When cells should be ripe, check each split....use the second cell to place in a split with a failed cell, or place on a newly made up split.

You could have 48 hour cells (that travel well) every day, a constant supply of royal jelly, and the extra forgers in the splits will keep them fed.
 
#21 ·
Specialkayme, my experience has been that the bees will pick some of the OTS induced larva and ignore some of the others. If I find that the queen cells look small I scratch them and use bigger ones. Despite what the texts say about emergency queens I find that the OTS method produces healthy active queens that overwinter well and produce a crop of honey. As you point out conditions are different down there in North Carolina, but up here in early June a strong double deep hive does a nice job with those E cells. I believe the key is to perform the intervention just before natural swarming is about to occur.
 
#26 ·
Despite what the texts say about emergency queens I find that the OTS method produces healthy active queens that overwinter well and produce a crop of honey.
I just don't see how it's easier or more advantageous than grafting.

The biggest issue people have with grafting isn't moving the larvae, it's knowing the right age larvae to graft. You have to do that with OTS anyway. So if you can identify the right larvae, why not just graft them? That way you save the rest of the frame of brood, rather than put powdered sugar in the cells to kill the rest.
 
#22 ·
I would suggest cutting the comb that had already been laid into....the directions (as posted above in the 'dummies' link) require the bees to do a bunch of things on your schedule....which will work fine under ideal conditions much of the time.

You can accomplish the same thing in one visit if you start with laid up comb rather than foundation.
 
#24 ·
Grozzie...you give me hope that is possible. As for you last year making a working cell starter/builder is intimidating. Will I be ruining potentially good production hives in a vain attempt:(
When do you feel your swarmy season is?
Will you split all hives prior to that and if so will you simply separate the two over wintered deeps and pull a cell in the one that seems be queenless ...if not what system are you considering?
Thanks
 
#25 ·
I haven't been posting on bee-l, but a couple of years ago we had a discussion on tips and tricks for queen rearing. The two that I remember as being most helpful were:

From randy oliver: put the frame you are going to graft from in the starter for a few hours...they will get nicely fed and be wet and easy to graft from.

From me: when I teach grafting, I have students first graft onto a glass microscope slide. It eliminates working inside the plastic cell, they can see and understand what they are doing better, and you can put it under a microscope and see it eating. This gives some practice and confidence. If I don't have a glass slide, a plate or plastic lid will do.

Everyone...if you d9nt have a grafting tool...order one and some cell cups next time you place an order with your supplier.
 
#27 ·
Specialkayme, with respect. I believe that you are mistaken in your thinking that you have to kill the rest of the larva with flour. That is not done. The bees finish the cells they want as workers, or as queens.
Take a scan down this pdf to photos 5 and 6 you see the initiated queen cells together with their sealed woker sisters, no mention of flour. You want the rest of the frame of larva to survive to be the workers to support the new unit.
http://www.mdasplitter.com/docs/IBA Keynote part 3.pdf
 
#31 ·
Specialkayme, with respect. I believe that you are mistaken in your thinking that you have to kill the rest of the larva with flour. That is not done.
I really don't think I am mistaken. Unless he evolved the OTS method further from 4 years ago. Which is possible.

Here are a few references to where I got my information and understanding from. Please feel free to let me know where I went wrong.

The bullet thing was .25 cal and you put them in ever other row and then every other cell and kill the larvae with flour.
Short answer: Read the MDA Splitter. It explains it.

Long answer: you put a .25 cal bullet in some cells of the proper age, shake flour in all the other cells (the one with the bullets in them don't get destroyed by flour), break the cell wall for the ones with the bullet in them, put them in a cell builder hive (or queenless hive) and you get queen cells.
You actually responded after that post, but didn't correct me.

Or you could read earlier versions of his book: http://www.mdasplitter.com/docs/IMN BOOKLET.pdf

Mel explains here http://www.mdasplitter.com/docs/OTS.pdf that the OTS method involves using the "TECHNIQUES AS OUTLINED IN THE I.M.N. SYSTEM OF QUEEN REARING (link above) TO DIRECT YOUR COLONIES TO REAR THEIR OWN, QUALITY QUEENS WITHOUT GRAFTING"

Within the I.M.N system, it says:

After several experiments, I discovered that common
wheat flour (the kind you use to bake or make a pollen supplement) will gum up the larvae making it
impossible for the nurse bees to care for them. By covering every third cell with something to protect
the larvae, such as bullets or cotton swabs, I could prepare a comb with larvae spaced just right. I can
put 100 bullets on a comb in three minutes and then the shaking of the flour takes only 15 seconds.
From Chapter 3

I use .257 cal. bullets placed in the cell to protect the larvae when flour is shaken over the comb to gum
up and kill the other larvae (See Fig. 5).
From Chapter 5

Now take the frame of larvae from the support colony and brush off the bees. Place the .257 cal. Bullets
in every 3rd cell containing a larvae always leaving 2 cells between larvae including between the rows on
the horizontal split frame insert. Flour is then shaken over the frame to gum up and kill the exposed
larvae.
Also from chapter 5.

Where was I mistaken?
 
#28 ·
I use plastic foundation. How feasible is to remove a Queen cell from that?
Is it death to the new queen if there is a small hole in the back of the removed cell?
Do most people doing ots type queen rearing use unwired wax foundation?
 
#29 ·
I've removed queen cells off of plastic foundation several times and each time was a great success. I carefully scraped them off with a hive too.. The small hole in the back I gently pinched closed, but the cells were within a day of emerging so I'm not so sure it would have mattered to pinch it closed or not. I've done it with freshly drawn never used for brood before, except this first time, and I've also done it on comb that had been used for brood a couple to three times previously. I found that the little bit more used comb was easier to cut the cell off of. I suspect that with comb that had been used for years may be harder to cut them off of, but I can't say from personal experience on that.
 
#32 ·
>Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't get what the advantage of the OTS method is.

Yes you are missing something.

>It basically involves forcing e-cells, which are generally the lowest quality of queens available.

I totally disagree. I get good quality emergency queens all the time.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesafewgoodqueens.htm#emergency

The concept of OTS queen rearing comes down to this theory:
"The inferior queens caused by using the emergency method is because the bees cannot tear down the tough cells in the old combs lined with cocoons. The result is that the bees fill the worker cells with bee milk floating the larvae out the opening of the cells, then they build a little queen cell pointing downward. The larvae cannot eat the bee milk back in the bottom of the cells with the result that they are not well fed. However, if the colony is strong in bees, are well fed and have new combs, they can rear the best of queens. And please note-- they will never make such a blunder as choosing larvae too old."--Jay Smith, Better Queens

Moses Quinby agreed with that concept:
"I want new comb for brood, as cells can be worked over out of that, better than from old and tough. New comb must be carefully handled. If none but old comb is to be had, cut the cells down to one fourth inch in depth. The knife must be sharp to leave it smooth and not tear it."--Moses Quinby, Mysteries of Beekeeping Explained

You can raise poor queens by any method including emergency queens. You can raise good quality queens by any method including emergency queens.

Mel is trying to assure two things: One is that they can tear down the wall (which you did for them) and the second is that it is the correct age larvae (because you chose it) while not requiring the skill of grafting.
 
#36 · (Edited)
>It basically involves forcing e-cells, which are generally the lowest quality of queens available.

I totally disagree. I get good quality emergency queens all the time.
The question isn't whether you can get laying queens from the emergency methods, or if they will head a colony. The question is whether they are better quality queens than supersedure or swarm prep queens. The evidence indicates that they are not.

"After removal of the mother queens, the majority of cell
construction was initiated within 24 h in all eight colonies.
Additional queen cells were constructed for up to two days
after dequeening, but no further queen cells were started on
or after the third day"
Tarpy, Fletcher, Worker regulation of emergency queen rearing in honey bee colonies and the resultant variation in queen quality. Insectes soc. 46 (1999) 372-377, 373.

So bees will rear emergency queens from varied ages of larvae. They don't do it all at one time.

"The rearing process in the second experiment illustrates
that workers did not preferentially raise queens from
brood sources that yielded higher-quality queens, suggesting
that future queen quality may not be an important
factor during this stage of queen replacement."
Tarpy, Hatch & Fletcher, The influence of queen age and quality during queen replacement in honeybee colonies. Animal Benaviour, 2000, 59, 97-101, 100.

A study that shows that the bees often don't choose the highest quality queen from the youngest larvae, and instead choose for a quick requeening in an emergency situation. The theory being they are foregoing quality for speed, in the event there is an issue in raising the queen that would leave them queenless. The result of which produces lower quality queens. Which isn't an issue in the emergency scenario, because as long as they get a laying queen in place, they can always replace with supersedure to get a higher quality queen later.

" with queens raised from young worker larvae exhibiting
high reproductive potential and queens raised from
older worker larvae exhibiting lower reproductive potential.
We verify that low-quality queens are indeed produced from
older worker larvae, as measured morphometrically (e.g.,
body size) and by stored sperm counts. We also show, for the
first time, that low-quality queens mate with significantly
fewer males, which significantly influences the resultant
intracolony genetic diversity of the worker force of their
future colonies."
Tarpy, Keller, Caren & Delaney, Experimentally induced variation in the physical reproductive potential and mating sucess in honey bee queens, Insect. Soc., 2011 (having a hard time finding the right volume and page numbers, so instead here's the actual article: http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/entomology/apiculture/pdfs/Tarpy_et.al.2011b.pdf).

Again, showing that queens reared from older larvae produce lower quality queens.

There is another article (that I can't put my hands on right now) that studied queen fighting between sister queens, and who ended up winning. Statistically speaking, when two queens were released and later fought to the death, the older larvae reared queen typically won, as it's venom sac was more developed (as is typical in workers, more so than queens). The older larvae reared queens had a lower quality and reproductive potential, yet was the queen that survived more often than not.

So the evidence appears to contradict your anicdotal opinion that emergency queens are "good." Sure they can head a colony. But bees don't select 24h larvae only when induced under the emergency scenarios. They induce 24-72h larvae. The 72h larvae will emerge first, usually win in queen fights, and is of lower quality than the 24h larvae. Ergo, emergency queens are of lower quality than grafted queens that are from 24h larvae, all other factors considered equal.

The concept of OTS queen rearing comes down to this theory:
"The inferior queens caused by using the emergency method is because the bees cannot tear down the tough cells in the old combs lined with cocoons."
I disagree with the theory, as it is not based on any form of evidence or reality.

-- they will never make such a blunder as choosing larvae too old."--Jay Smith, Better Queens
But what is "too old"? Is 72h "too old"? Because bees in studies will choose larvae that is 72h old to make queens out of. And 72h larvae produces inferior queens when compared to 24h larvae.

Yes, the bees will not select a larvae that is too old to be turned into a functional queen. But they often don't choose the best larvae to become the best queen. Instead, under the emergency situations, they choose older larvae to get queens faster, knowing they can be replaced with higher quality supersedure queens later on.
 
#34 ·
SpecialKayme, I appreciate the discourse. I believe that it has been a progression. The earlier IMN method was a version of the "Case-Hopkins" method.
As I understand the progression: He had the idea that instead of "flouring" the frame, and then turning the frame 90 degrees if he notched the bottom of the cell he might not have to turn it 90 degrees. I think the confusion may occur that when he said,
"TECHNIQUES AS OUTLINED IN THE I.M.N. SYSTEM OF QUEEN REARING (link above) TO DIRECT YOUR COLONIES TO REAR THEIR OWN, QUALITY QUEENS WITHOUT GRAFTING" I believe that he meant the technique of cutting the bottom of the cell wall, but did not mean the "flouring".
From the current printed book "OTS Queen Rearing" he says, on page 28
"Let's go back to the original hive on May 1st from which I removed the queen with two brood frames which leaves me six brood frames to notch. One week later, when the queen cells on those six brood frames are sealed, I assemble three, two-brood-frame starts and leave them in the same yard. I wait for one week so that the strong colony is the colony that does all the hard work raising the queen cells and sealing the brood".
The third sentence shows that the brood is not killed with flour after he notched the brood on May 1st it is left in the same hive. So from May 1 to May 8 the full energy of the hive is directed at finishing the queen cell and sealing the brood.
I think the current book lays out the method more clearly than the collections of pdf's did. What I like about the system is that each discrete two deep (20 frame) colony is used for increase at the time the bees in our region want to swarm. It is not entirely predictable, sometimes a colony will only put the swarm cells on fewer frames than what I wanted them to, and if that is the only colony you have in the system it can lead to an overy strong unit. However, I have worked around this, as I have expanded by doing several colonies at a time and balancing out as need be.
I hope this is helpful, I am passionate about this method, because starting bees with this method and then growing them on in Nucs with the online mentoring Michael Palmer has provided has turned me from a bee buyer to a bee seller.
 
#37 ·
"Let's go back to the original hive on May 1st from which I removed the queen with two brood frames which leaves me six brood frames to notch. One week later, when the queen cells on those six brood frames are sealed, I assemble three, two-brood-frame starts and leave them in the same yard. I wait for one week so that the strong colony is the colony that does all the hard work raising the queen cells and sealing the brood".
The third sentence shows that the brood is not killed with flour after he notched the brood on May 1st it is left in the same hive.
I don't follow you there. That quote doesn't appear to indicate that he does, or does not, kill any larvae.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top