Synopsis : What happens when your queenright cell raiser swarms? Are cells being reared under the supersedure response doomed? This and other musings on miscellaneous aspects of queen rearing, together with some comments on clearing supers on queenless hives. Introduction I described queen rearing last week as The most fun you can have in a […]
Synopsis : Queen cell selection by the beekeeper or the bees – which is more reliable? Nectar collection and comb building by requeening colonies. Three miscellaneous queen rearing topics this week. Introduction May to July are the busiest months of the beekeeping season for queen rearing . We’re fast approaching the halfway point so I […]
Queen rearing involves presenting selected larvae – whether grafted or in natural comb – to a colony in such a way that they are raised as new queens. The cell raising colony is prepared for the introduced larvae, either by rendering it temporarily or permanently queenless, or by separating the part of the hive for […]
The oil seed reap (OSR) and hawthorn have finished here and there’s very little forage available for colonies. To make matters worse the weather has been changeable, restricting the time available for colonies to forage. Small colonies, such as casts that have been attracted to bait hives, have lacked sufficient numbers of foragers to store […]
[See previous posts on introduction, setup and grafting for queenright queen rearing] With any queen rearing it is critical to be aware of the timetable. Eggs are laid, hatch on day three, grafted on day 4, queen cells are sealed on day 9 and the virgin queens emerge on day 16. There’s not much variation […]