Planning my first attempt at queen rearing soon

[Culley]

It is coming into summer here in Australia. I want to try to raise a few queens with a graftless method and make nucs. I'm getting boxes and frames ready for nucs at the moment. The nucs are for my own use to grow into producing colonies and keep a few as back up.

Here's the plan...

Day 1

Take queen from a 3 story 8 frame hive and place her in a nuc

Take one or two of the boxes off the hive and shake the bees back into the hive so it's crowded and queenless (not sure where to put these boxes? Put them in 10 frame boxes and add them to another hive temporarily?)

Day 2

Open a strong hive and select a comb with eggs and very young larvae. Cut two strips of cells with eggs/very young larvae and use melted wax to glue them to bars so they hang vertically in a frame.

Place the frame in the middle of the brood nest in the crowded queenless hive

Day 3 (a week after Day 2)

Cut queen cells from the frame and pin them into brood combs

Make up 5-frame nucs with 2 frames of brood and 1 frame of honey. Use the queenless hive and the boxes that came off it as donors for the nuc frames. Use another hive for donor frames too.

Put the laying queen from the cell builder hive back on the original location?

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My boxes allow for about 12 nucs. Can I raise 12 decent queens this way?

Should I put 1 or 2 queen cells in each nuc?

Any comments appreciated...

[Michael Bush]

By day 2 they will already have queen cells.  If you have strips you want to use, do them on day 1.  2 hours after you make them queenless is good.

[rookie2531]

Mikes right, if you want your cells to be queens, put them in same day, otherwise you have to wait until all other eggs and larvae are too old.

And personally, I only use one cell per nuc.

[Culley]

Thanks - you made my plan even simpler! 

[OldMech]

I have not seen queen cells started before 20 hours, but dont have the experience Mike has for sure.
   If there are eggs in the hive they may well start their own cells on their own eggs, so check the entire hive when you pull your cell bar out, you may find you have a couple extra cells elsewhere.
   I have also pulled a cell bar out and found it empty, while there were a dozen queen cells started on their own eggs...  So I will often pull the old queen and enough bees to make up a double nuc with her, and then wait 4 or five days, destroy the cells they started and insert the larvae I want them to use...
   Like you said, I will pull one box off and condense the hive down to two boxes. If you put most of the eggs in the nuc and leave the capped brood in the hive and one frame in the nuc. It will help both get a good start. The extra box? Use it to make up the double nuc the old queen is going into. Eggs, a little capped brood, and some empty cells, both for storing resources and to give the old queen laying room..
   You will find that its pretty easy after you have done it a couple times, and quite satisfying to raise your own queens..  There are many ways to make it work, so long as you just remember that the bees will do all the hard work, as long as you provide them with the right circumstances and resources.

[Michael Bush]

They may not be noticeable, but according to Huber within 2 to 3 hours they will be feeding some larvae more and working on the cells.  In 24 hours it's noticeable.  Also in 2 to 3 hours they give up on their queenless roar and set to work making a new queen.  The further they get down that road the more likely they will finish their queen cells rather than the ones you add, or their queen cells in addition to the ones you add.

[Culley]

Yesterday I took the queen from the cell builder hive to a nuc, condensed the hive from 3 boxes to 1 box, and added a frame with two cell bars.

The first time through I could not for the life of me find the queen, so I went for a  break and had coffee, and found her easily when I came back.

[capt44]

I use the cloake board method and have very good results.
It lets the top of the hive be queenless and once they start drawing out the queen cells I pull a piece of sheet metal out making it a queen right finishing hive.
I like it for I don't have to set up a lot of hives, I just let the cloake board manipulate the hive for the purpose of what I need at the time.
Hey it works.

[rookie2531]

I haven't tried that way yet capt. Will give it a go next spring.

[Culley]

Was able to visit the beehives today and check on the cell bars. Lots of good cells! I only had six beetle traps left as the new ones haven't arrived yet, so I made up six nucs with cells. I put the cell bars back in the cell builder in case the beetle traps arrive tomorrow. Had dad and grandad out in the beeyard today cracking jokes which was pretty cool.

[capt44]

When I graft larva into cell cups and put them in the Queenless box I check on them 24 hours later. The cell cups they've accepted will have the queen cells drawn out 1/8 to 1/4 inch.
I'm sure graftless cell cups would be the same.

[Culley]

This is how the cell bars looked.


Making up nucs.

[bemused]

I'm going to be trying grafting next season, I've booked myself on a two day course to pick up the technique. Very much looking forward to it.