Queen Rearing in a Single Hive

This method was developed for raising very early queens and the person who introduced it to us (Bill Dartnall from Southampton -- thanks Bill) uses it to good effect well before the normal queen raising time. At Basingstoke, we have only so far used it in May. Bill starts around March as I remember.

The false floor is probably not necessary in May as the bees are getting to swarming time anyway and don't need so much encouragement to raise queens. In March or early April, they'll likely tear down the cells without it, because it's `too early, girls'.

Equipment

• A Cell Transfer Cage (e.g. Jenter) set into a brood frame.
• A Cell Raiser Frame fitted with Caps and Cells complete with hair-roller cages.
• A Isolating Floor Unit with a removable floor board, complete with two entrance blocks.
• A Spare Brood Box complete with matching frames of drawn comb or foundation.
• A Contact Feeder and light syrup and a spare Empty Super or `Eke' to house it.
• A Mating mini-nucleus or equivalent for each queen and some fondant for the bees to feed on whilst the queen mates.

Note At any time prior to commencement, place the brood frame fitted with the cell transfer cage into the hive.

Method

• Day One
  • Find the queen and place her on the brood frame with the cell transfer cage frame and free to run.
  • Transfer the remaining brood frames from the original brood box into the spare brood box.
  • Place the cell transfer cage frame, with the queen, into the centre of the original brood box.
  • Place a brood frame, heavy with honey and pollen, either side of the cell transfer cage frame.
  • Make up the original brood box with frames of drawn comb or foundation.
  • Fit a reduced entrance block to the original brood box and turn the box to face in the opposite direction.
  • Fit a queen excluder to the original box and place the isolating floor on top, without its insert and with its reduced entrance block facing in the original direction and now opposite to the lower entrance.
  • Place the spare brood box on top and restore to normal capacity by using frames of drawn comb or foundation.
  • Add the feeder, feed and close up.
• Day Two Rest day.
• Day Three
  • At 19:00/7pm, open the hive to the lower box, find the queen and confine her in the cell transfer cage.
  • Feed and close up the hive.
• Day Four
  • At 07:00/7am, open the hive, check the queen has laid and release her to run free.
  • Feed and close up the hive.
• Day Six Rest day.
• Day Seven
  • At 12:00/noon, place the insert into the isolating floor and position the alternative entrance block. Note that the upper box is now queenless.
  • Examine the upper brood box and remove any queen cells and young larvae present
  • Feed and close up the hive.
• Day Eight
  • At 12:00/noon or later, open the hive and remove the cell transfer cage frame from the lower brood box.
  • Transfer cells into the cell raiser frame and place the frame into the centre of the upper brood box.
  • Feed and close up the hive.
• Day Nine
  • At 12:00/noon or later, remove the insert from the isolating floor to restore full contact between the upper and lower brood boxes.
• Days 10 to 14 Rest days.
• Day Fifteen
  • At around 16:00/4pm, transfer the capped cells to mating nuclei.
  • Transfer the nuclei to their mating sites, supplying a good cupfull of young bees to maintain the queen until she's mated and laying.

Note: If necessary, the cells can remain in situ for a maximum of a further 7 days

The Isolating Floor

We made one from a standard floor, but assembled the surround without the actual floor boards, so that we have a U shaped wooden frame in the same planform as a hive body. We made a simple plywood board to fit within the grooves made for the normal boards, such that it can be slid in or out from the front of the surround to separate or unite the two colonies. On our present version, the board has a 1/4" filler underneath the front edge and a separate standard entrance block. In retrospect, I dont really see why we don't just attach this to the floor. We also have a full floor depth separate entrance block for when the false floor is removed, so that the entrance remains small. Our `simple plywood board' actually has a small central extension (landing board?), which proves to be a useful handle to help its removal.

A further change I might make is to put that 1/4" filler, or maybe just a metal strip, into the front of the U shaped frame with a corner brace, to strengthen the structure. The filler would then increase the risk of trapping bees when pulling the board, so the metal strip may be better.

Getting those young bees

• At the colony where you plan to collect them, ideally first find the queen (for safety). If you don't first find the queen check very carefully at each stage to ensure that you're not putting her in the mating nucleus.
• Take a frame from the brood area and shake it lightly above the brood box to dislodge the older bees, which hold on less strongly.
• Holding the frame above a suitable container, give it a good firm shake to dislodge a good quantity of young bees.
• You may need to repeat this with another frame to ensure you have plenty of bees.
• You can either pour the bees into the mini-nuc directly from the container, or you can carefully scoop them up with a cup.

Mating Hives

There are two commercially produced mating hives available from the Association or E. H. Thorne, the Apidea or Warnholz mating types, or you could make your own (quartering a super to form four is a popular method).

You could simply replace your old queen with the new cell -- not the best method, but it often works ok.

Timing Observations

It's interesting to study the above method and consider how it works and why the timings are as they are. This is really quite a clever method of small-scale queen rearing.

First lets look again at the life cycle of our new Queen from lay to emergence. It's important for us to note that from the moment the egg is laid until around day six there is absolutely no difference between a worker and a queen. Only when the young larva is raised as a queen do the changes occur that make the queen special. This cannot happen before the egg hatches and only becomes significant at around the fourth moult. From then on, our queen continues on a rich royal jelly diet whilst the worker's diet gradually changes to one of honey and pollen. This dietary change appears to be the only significant difference between the two regimes.

Now let's see how that compares with our actions during our queen rearing. Shortly before we start, we introduce the cell transfer cage, simply so that it is able to become `scented' by the colony and so has a familiar smell for the queen. On day one, we transfer the queen into the lower box, together with the sealed cell transfer cage, some stores, comb and foundation.

As the queen is now separated from the upper brood box by a queen excluder, from this moment on she cannot lay eggs up there, although she should continue to lay in the lower box. While we leave out the insert from the isolating floor and the two boxes remain in contact, the colony should also continue almost normally and there is only a small chance of bees in the the upper box raising queens for themselves. The flying bees returning to the hive land on the front and climb upwards to the top box.

In the evening of day three, we confine the queen in the cell transfer cage and that becomes the only place she can lay. We release her in the morning of day four and all the eggs in the cell transfer cage must have been laid in the preceding 12 hour period. This allows us excellent precision in our timing. We continue to feed during all this time to ensure thet the bees perceive a honey flow and the queen doesn't go off lay.

On day six we change the rules for the bees in the upper brood box by fitting the insert to the isolation floor. This dramatically changes things. Suddenly the bees there find themselves queenless and without any eggs or young larvae from which to raise a queen. From their view they have a disaster and little chance of recovery, 'though thay may just try to make a new queen from an relatively old larva. Note again that most flying bees will be returning and climbing upwards to the top box.

24 hours later on day seven, we transfer our ideally aged three day old `captured' eggs into the cell raiser frame and place it in the upper brood box where our cell raiser bees are now desperate for eggs or larvae of a suitable age -- and we've now given them some.

A further 24 hours and we can allow contact between the two colonies because the die is cast -- our bees in the upper box are now raising queens and it matters not whether they were for reasons of emergency recovery or for swarming. Now they should continue to raise them even in the presence of the old queen.

If at this stage we decided not to restore full contact we would still raise new queens, perhaps more successfully, but we would make it more difficult to reunite our temporarily split colony as their scents become forgotten. Reuniting after only 48 hours minimises the risk of fighting.

Our queen rearing work is now really done. All that remains is to `harvest' our queen cells sometime between the time they are sealed and the time they emerge and introduce them to their mating nuclei. Sometime soon, we'll restore the original colony to a standard one-box unit, using the nice new comb that has been built in the lower box. The upper box will by this time have few worker cells still to emerge.

Notice that during this whole procedure the queen never has to stop laying, although she may be slowed a little when first put in the lower box. Our colony continues to raise young worker bees throughout the procedure, so that there should be no loss of either foraging force or honey.