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Queen Rearing with Michael Palmer method

20K views 48 replies 20 participants last post by  aran 
#1 ·
Hi All,
I am looking at starting to raise my own queens this summer. After looking at many methods it seems the Michael Palmer starter is pretty reliable and will give me some large queens. I am only looking to raise around 30ish queens, is there any reason why I can use the starter hive the way Michael Palmer sets it up as a finisher too. Just want to make sure that I am not missing anything. I will not be raising more than one batch so I shouldn't need to keep the finisher stock after the one batch was done. Thanks for any help.
Josh
 
#30 ·
How do you introduce the virgins to the exstlbushed nuc? I started using them last year do to having cell viability issues (BQCV and some outher stuff) but the bees weren't reliably eating the candy plug in the JZBZ cage, meant a added trip witch was a bummer..

What is you catch cycle?
 
#35 ·
Re: Quaring with Michael Palmer method

How do you introduce the virgins to the exstlbushed nuc?

I dequeen the Apideas and after 3 hours I introduce the virgin queen from the top. Or the next day. I simply drop them in and have 100 % success. I know, that some find that troublesome. If you dip the queen in honey-water mixture, before introducing them, you are more successful in the beginning.

In fact, I introduce all my queens that way. I dequeen, wait a couple of hours, introduce the new queen. Bees are aware of the queenless situation after some hours, and are in panic at that stage. In this phase you can throw anything queen at them, they'll accept. Virgin, mated, young or old. Doesn't really matter.

Once they overcome the panic phase, they start making their own queen. Drawing emergency queen cells. From then on you are in a constant battle against the bees, if you try to introduce your queen. They want their own queen. You want them to accept your queen. They do not want it. It is instinct, I guess.

So the trick is, let them panic and come to the rescue in the right moment. Don't wait until they help themself.

I catch queens every four or eight days, depends. Another thing that I learned from Michael Palmer (who learned it from Kirk, I reckon)...


Guess it's a matter of perspective. From our perspective, shaking bees in the spring to re-populate mini's is just extra work nobody wants or needs. by wintering colonies in the mini's we can have first round of queens for sale a month earlier than folks starting from scratch to graft the first round.
My solution is by far not the solution for everyone in every place. It is just what I do. Didn't meant to down talk minis or overwintering. Instead I wanted to say, it is costly to winter mini mating hives. It costs time, work and a lot of sugar. And treatment against varroa. That is it, what I wanted to point out. I have very early queens, too. All a matter of applied bee knowledge, I guess.

I brought up the issue of mating nucs because I think many folks just starting, and I was guilty of this myself, read and ponder endlessly about how to make great cells, totally missing the detail that mating nucs require as much thought and pondering as the cell builder. And much like there are many ways to do cell building, there are just as many ways to accomplish the mating side of raising queens.
Well said.
 
#34 ·
Re: Quaring with Michael Palmer method

Liz Huxter from Kettle Valley Queens was telling us about how they got into wintering queens in the 4 ways. They were using medium boxes with half size frames in each
my 2 ways were defently inspired by the Huxtlers "duplex" system and Plamers
I believe the Huxters use shallows not mediums... over wintering on 4-5 1/2 shallow frames... amazing indeed. I din't have the guts to push it that far and pulled the dividers and dubble stacked mine for a total of 16 1/2 extra shalow (5.25" box) combs
l they stopped overwintering the nucs as the trend shift to fall re queening gave them a market for those queens. For those who want to see more about what we are talking about she has a good presentation https://vimeo.com/161651142

weather you like the foamys or not, many people who do any sort of volume of queen rearing use one form or another of mini... be it 1/2 or 1/3 frames, deep or shalow. single, 2 way, 4way, or the occasional 6 way

and as a demo of just what is possibly, they can get real, REAL tiny
I have made them in sizes as small as the one shown in the cut, which used a single individual comb honey section about one inch square (2.5cm),
- Jay Smith, Better queens 1949
Black-and-white Monochrome Monochrome photography Photography Stock photography
 
#37 · (Edited)
Re: Quaring with Michael Palmer method

I simply drop them in and have 100 % success. I know, that some find that troublesome
I was thinking that's what you did, but wanted to be sure, as you note literature suggests that would be troublesome..

I catch queens every four or eight days, depends.
I meant how many days is the queen left in the nuc.. and out of curiosity what age do you place the virgins?
thanks in advance


Reading this opened my eyes
yep... if you do walk away spits 40% of you queens end up being from a drone line that has no impact on hive traits your selecting for... add in the fact if you break the walk away in to nucs to use the cells the bees don't chew down the poor ones, and you end up with a lot of poor performing queens...
This fact we have known for a long time, but the "internet says"... lol

"He next tried dequeening a colony during a flow of nectar and pollen and permited them to build cells. Some of the queens that were produced looked to be fully developed queens and they performed well. However, in the spring one-third of his queens died so suddenly that no effort was made to supersede them. Seemingly, these queens had failed to attain full development" Laidlaw(1979) Referring to Doolittle, Contemporary Queen Rearing P169..
Only "some" of the queens looked good and performed well, but 1/3 of them still failed. Sam Comfort notes that in his experience only 20-30% of the queen made this way are any good

There are a LOT of very good reason to learn to graft, or use a method that alows the beekeeper to select the larva used (cut strips, cell punch, etc).
 
#39 ·
Re: Quaring with Michael Palmer method

I meant how many days is the queen left in the nuc.. and out of curiosity what age do you place the virgins?
The young queen stays about two or three weeks in the Apidea. Shortly after being mated she is removed, before that she lays eggs and the broodnest in the Apidea continues to live on.

The last queens of the year stay in the Apidea for about two months. Until they are used for late splits. This is in October.

Queens are usually from 0-2 days old when I introduce them. Age is not much of a factor for success. Although older queens tend to run too fast. Bees dislike running queens.
 
#41 ·
Certainly mating in full sized equipment takes a lot of resources. And finding queens is very labor intensive if she can hide anywhere. So large producers of queens will use minis. Not being a full time beekeeper I often have things get in the way and those minis need tending at the right time or they swarm, or starve. Another down side (and I don't have the latest data on this) is that it appears queens that lay longer before being caged are more productive. So the sized box that allows the queen to lay the optimum amount (whatever that is) is best. I think if you are only raising 100 queens or so per year using your standard sized frame is best. Most of our queens are raised to go in our summer splits for overwintering nucs. The few we sell can be easily found on the big frames. If I were doing 500 I would need more efficient queen catching.....
And msl, going from about 5 -20 colonies is easily done with standard equipment, esp if you time it right with your flows. And with the comb you had from dead outs you could almost double that or get a decent honey crop. Using 10 resource colonies can easily be split to 40 without additional drawn comb on hand all up to wintering strength by fall here in upstate NY (projected low of -8 on Feb 8th). Any comb given results in harvestable honey or another round of splitting.
Happy beekeeping!
 
#42 ·
And msl, going from about 5 -20 colonies is easily done with standard equipment, esp if you time it right with your flows.
sure, 2017 I did a 7x expsastion, on a good year, in full sized gear, with very little drawn comb.... (it was a split to far and I had to condensate some nucs come late fall)
But that was a good year, last year was NOT a good year.

Another down side (and I don't have the latest data on this) is that it appears queens that lay longer before being caged are more productive.
often repeated, almost never backed (and if your not caging and banking/shiping it won't mater.. as in my example of a BYBK saving swarms cells... Again my point is they are over looking a good tool, not that minis are right or wrong for a given sideliner)
There is one lonely Australian study that suggests better sruival, but the reality seems the longer catch cycle alsos mean you can be more selective , pinching poor brood patterns/drone layers and leaving better queens.. not necessarily creating them. Tested vs untested queens
Its worth a read, but it dosent show a significant ovariole difrance as some claim
Text Font Line Design Pattern

In fact it shows some odd things.... clipping the wings at 14 days gives larger sperm loads. being in the center position on the cell bar led to less ovaries and had a bigger impact than time spent in the mateing nuc, Banked queen performing better then fresh caught, etc that makes a lot of the data suspect, as does the very poor mating of the queens in general with a very low sperm count https://www.agrifutures.com.au/wp-content/uploads/publications/03-049.pdf

Laidlaw (1979) says "Young queens mated from nuclei are ready to use as soon as they begin to lay. They are now as good as they will ever be" Contemporary Queen Rearing, page 109
 
#45 ·
What is the reason for queen wing clipping?

I believe it was originally conceived as a means of controlling swarming. If the queen's wing is clipped she can't follow the bees into the trees, and will instead be in the grass in front of the hive. However, if that happens the bees will (mostly) go back to the hive and just wait until they swarm with a virgin. Therefore, queen wing clipping has deservedly fell out of favor.
 
#46 ·
Therefore, queen wing clipping has deservedly fell out of favor.
Not really.

It is the standard method for professional beekeepers and with the use of entrance boards/landing boards down to the ground, the queens will crawl back up into the hive. Clip only one wing, so the queen flies in circles in front of the hive. If you clip both wings, the queens hop and hop further away from the hive.

Clipping wings buys you valuable time so you don't need to check the hive every five/seven days. Instead you only need to check every two weeks.

Checking hives for swarms cells cost you a lot of honey. By checking for swarm cells you hinder the hive to work properly for that particular day. The honey income of one day is lost. Say 3 kg of honey per day per hive. I check 100 hives a day for swarm cells, making a loss of 300 kg per day. If I save three days of checking hives, by clipping wings, I harvest a ton of honey more per 100 hives, only by not disturbing the bees. Less work, more honey.

Brother Adam clipped every single queen before he introduced her into a hive. You can read this in his book.
 
#47 ·
I try to mark every queen in my operation for obvious reasons, but not every queen is clipped. However, I do clip every breeder queen. Yes, clip just one wing. Once, I fell way behind on inspections and found my breeder in a small cluster a few feet away from her colony. I was able to pick her up and start a new colony. After that experience I'm a true believer in clipping breeders. Should every queen be clipped? Not sure, but probably (if done well) it wouldn't hurt. This will obviously not prevent swarming, but "may" enable recovering the swarmed queen. Of course, you still need to find her on the ground before other bad things happen.
 
#48 ·
joshk

I used Palmer's methods last year, but in minature. I use mostly intermediate size frames (1" deeper than a medium) in my hives. I made a double deep, five frame nuc with these hives. I'd shake in bees and add frames of capped brood from other hives in the yard just as Mr Palmer describes. I'd put in about 20 grafts per "cycle". As it was my first year grafting I'd get about half of those to take. This worked very well for me, the hive made some honey during the process too!

As others have said the making of the cells is easy, getting to a mated queen, not so much. I used a combination of traditional nucs and the double styrofoam mini nucs from Mann Lake. I like these because the frames are a bit larger (they're like a 1/2 medium). After the queen rearing season I intended to round up the little frames and overwinter in some boxes I made for them that hold five and stack them three high. In practice I lost interest in get this done 'cause it was so **** hot in September this year! I have, however, overwintered two three frame clusters. I've had to feed them honey a few times but they're still hanging in there. Of course our winters are fairly mild, but we have gotten into the low twenties a couple of times. Going forward I plan to use the mini's for queens that I intend to sell.
I've made some three frame nucs to use to mate queens for my own use. That way I can do a newspaper combine to requeen full sized hives.

Good luck!
 
#49 ·
i use MP queen rearing technique and the queens that are produced are huge!

Its really not very difficult to do and im at best average at grafting. The 10/10 method provides so many nurse bees that they tend to compensate for my grafting skills.
I have had really good success doing this the last couple years and will be again using this method to graft 40-50 queens this year.
 
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