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Author Topic: making queens  (Read 17951 times)

Offline Kathyp

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making queens
« on: December 29, 2006, 08:09:32 pm »
i am not looking for a big bee yard, but with the cost of bees and queens, i'd like to be able to keep things going without a yearly, and large, expenditure.  i also do not want to get into the whole lab, queen cup, equipment thing.

i read an article a long time ago and don't quite remember all of it.  i didn't really understand it at the time, but it went something like this:  you take a small box, like a divided shallow super and put a frame of eggs in it and a couple of frames of foundation.  shake some workers in and let them raise a queen.  i'm sure there is some pollen feeding or something involved and it seemed they said you could raise more than one queen if you divided the box.

does this sound familiar to anyone?  seems like it would work.....kind of like making a little split without the queen, but with the queen potential?

Someone really ought to tell them that the world of Ayn Rand?s novel was not meant to be aspirational.

Offline Michael Bush

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Re: making queens
« Reply #1 on: December 29, 2006, 11:04:08 pm »
Here's a synopsis of the concepts:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesqueenrearing.htm

A walk away split is a way to get a queen:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beessplits.htm
My website:  bushfarms.com/bees.htm en espanol: bushfarms.com/es_bees.htm  auf deutsche: bushfarms.com/de_bees.htm  em portugues:  bushfarms.com/pt_bees.htm
My book:  ThePracticalBeekeeper.com
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Offline Finsky

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Re: making queens
« Reply #2 on: December 30, 2006, 02:44:37 am »


 you take a small box, like a divided shallow super and put a frame of eggs in it and a couple of frames of foundation.  shake some workers in and let them raise a queen. 

This is opposite to all what is my experience and what I have read.  We may argue about that how small nuc may raise a queen but that is not the meaning. Often when I prepare the hive to raise queens, it destroyes most of cells and raise under ten pieces.  When first hive want to swarm in summer, it is eager to raise queens and it goes well. It is easy to get 15-20 queen.

I raise my queens because they are expencive and losses are big. I raise twice as much queens what I need.  I bye from professional beekeepers a couple of queens, then I follow a while what they are and take descendants.  It is difficult to get from small yard good mother queens.

It is worth to get some queen rearing book and adapt the scale to own needs.

The secret is a size of queens. In small nucs raised queens are often almost worker size and they will not be good.

If you know some professional beekeepers, he may give or sell an old very good queen mother which he is going to kill otherwise. There you get good daughters. 

.




Offline Finsky

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Re: making queens
« Reply #3 on: December 30, 2006, 05:04:15 am »
Criteria of selecting queens

Breeding is same as selection from good alternatives. Without selection you are not a breeder.

Here is some criteria:

http://www174.pair.com/birdland/Breeding/NWC.html


Jorn Johanesson

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Re: making queens
« Reply #4 on: December 30, 2006, 05:10:43 am »
The dirty quick way:

Make a nuck set a side or a walk away split like MB says. Get a frame with new eggs from what you think is your best hive. With a sharp knife make a dropping bow cut through the area with new eggs. Remove the wax below the bow cut. Remove eggs from one side along the bow cut to eliminate cells to grow together.
On the other side remove three cell let one stay. Repeat this remove three let one stay along bow cut edge. Place the frame with bow cut in the walk away split or nuck. Wait 9 days until cells are sealed. Now examine the bow cut frame and remove with care remove the queen cells you don’t need. There should stay one in hive. The rest you can use in new established queen less splits. Those you of course have prepared in advance when you have a feeling of how successful this batch have been. You cut out the cells with a peace of foundation attached so you gentle can place it in a frame in new established hive.

A bow cut can give you 4-6 queen cells in a nuch  or walk away split. If you need more you have to dig deeper into this queen stuff. The bow cut is so simple that anybody can do it.

Offline Finsky

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Re: making queens
« Reply #5 on: December 30, 2006, 06:43:15 am »
The dirty quick way:


A bow cut can give you 4-6 queen cells in a nuch  or walk away split. If you need more you have to dig deeper into this queen stuff. The bow cut is so simple that anybody can do it.


The most simple and very succesfull way is to change to warming cells larvae from best hive. Then make mating nucs from swarming hive and you have no difficulties.

Offline Finsky

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Re: making queens
« Reply #6 on: December 30, 2006, 06:48:29 am »
The worst way

Take  hive's self made swarming queen cells and you will ruin your be yard.   You make your whole yard swarmy.

Second worst is take from good crossbreeded hive.


(different opinions no needed because they exit among natural beekeepers)

Jorn Johanesson

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Re: making queens
« Reply #7 on: December 30, 2006, 06:53:45 am »
please reread  her opening message! It was not about queen breeding, but keeping cost low.

Offline Finsky

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Re: making queens
« Reply #8 on: December 30, 2006, 07:51:26 am »
please reread  her opening message! It was not about queen breeding, but keeping cost low.

I cannot understand that comment. Head line reads "making queens". ....... that you need not to bye them......


Beekeeprs are odd people . When they bye the queen it must be the best. When they raise their own, it is enough if it resembles queen. :-D


Offline Cindi

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Re: making queens
« Reply #9 on: December 30, 2006, 10:58:10 am »
Honestly, it all sounds too confusing, everybody's opinions differ so much.  Gonna get a book on queen rearing.  Great day.  Cindi
There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold.  The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold.  The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, what the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee.  Robert Service

Offline Brian D. Bray

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Re: making queens
« Reply #10 on: December 30, 2006, 09:04:55 pm »
In raising queens you will find, probably, the widest range of advise imaginable.  I believe you need to focus on the needs of your operation and make your decisions from that. 
Finsky is a very knowledgable beekeeper but he is not a hobbiest--he makes much of his income from a sideline business.  Anything that does not yield the best results to him seems idiotic. 
I think it permissable for the hobbiest to experiment with various ways of doing things.  That's how we learn.  From those experiences we can chose what works best for our individual circumstances. 
I think every beekeeper should experience raising queens from brood frames in a nuc, doing splits, etc., so that they know why certain things should be down and why other things shouldn't be done.

Call me crazy but that's the way I look at it.  I try to answer the questions asked and let the beekeeper learn from the experience.

Life is a school.  What have you learned?   :brian:      The greatest danger to our society is apathy, vote in every election!

Offline Kathyp

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Re: making queens
« Reply #11 on: December 30, 2006, 09:54:05 pm »
i appreciate all info.  what i was thinking of was doing late split.  it occurred to me that if i could time it right, and have a queen ready to go, i'd give that split time to build up some before the weather changed.  i'd also not disrupt to much the honey gathering of the hive from which i made the split.

i like to experiment, but i like to do it in an informed way.  thanks to all for the ideas.
Someone really ought to tell them that the world of Ayn Rand?s novel was not meant to be aspirational.

Offline Kirk-o

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Re: making queens
« Reply #12 on: December 30, 2006, 11:25:35 pm »
I like to digest all the suggestions then work out what works for me.All I know is everytime I read Michael Bush's web page I learn somethig everything I've done
that he has suggested has worked for me
kirko
good luck
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Offline Finsky

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Re: making queens
« Reply #13 on: December 31, 2006, 02:11:21 am »

Finsky is a very knowledgable beekeeper but he is not a hobbiest--he makes much of his income from a sideline business. 

Oh no. I have had tens of years 15 hives per year. It is not sideline business. But my goal is to be a good beekeper who get top yields.

There basic is splended queens and stock which does not swarm.

Now I am half retired. I have 30 hives and too much honey. . Beekeeping is not a business in this scale. But if you do not care the money, beekeeping is really expencive hobby.  When I go to se my hives, every trip will cost 50$ in gasoline.  It is egual 20 lbs sold honey.

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Offline Cindi

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Re: making queens
« Reply #14 on: December 31, 2006, 11:40:57 am »
Last year I did a little bit of queen rearing using capped queen cells from a colony that had killed (or maybe she just died, I saw her being removed), cutting them out and putting in a a couple of nucs (5 nucs).  I don't think that the success was very good.  I had three nucs that became queenless after about a month, one of the queens was small, and one queen just did not make it.  So I did a lot of uniting. 

The small queen was the one that had the dead bee that must have bit her thorax and died, stuck so tightly onto this queen, that I knew she would not make it if I continued to try and get this bee off, so I killed her and united this colony.

It was a year of incredible learning and hopefully growth.  That experience last summer is not going to deter me from doing more queen rearing.  I can't wait for this upcoming year to put all my wonderful knowledge gained through everyone on this forum into practical use. 

Hooray for the dog days of summer a'comin' on.  The days are getting longer, minutes by minutes.  Great day.  Cindi
There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold.  The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold.  The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, what the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee.  Robert Service

Offline michelleb

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Re: making queens
« Reply #15 on: January 08, 2007, 01:00:10 pm »
Kathy,

I'm going to try and raise queens by taking a frame of eggs in new comb, eliminating surrounding cells similar to Jorn's description, and then laying the comb flat above a strong, newly (less than a week, probably just a day or two) queenless colony for them to build the cells. You have to put blocks of wood or something between the top bars and the donor comb so that there's space for the girls to build and move around.

The idea is, the bees will draw out queen cells straight down from the donor comb.

Then, carry on with putting capped queen cells in your mating nucs (like the boxes on Michael's page, or standard nucs).

I'll probably also try the Jay Smith method, which just involves those extra steps of cutting the comb into a strip and waxing to a top bar. Either way, I'm going to adhere to Jay's method of feeding the cell building colony (that feeds and caps the cell) honey and real pollen, rather than syrup/substitute, if they need feeding at all at that point in the season.

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Offline Finsky

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Re: making queens
« Reply #16 on: January 08, 2007, 01:08:29 pm »
Kathy,

I'm going to try and raise queens by taking a frame of eggs in new comb, eliminating surrounding cells similar to Jorn's description, and then laying the comb flat above a strong,

Where you those 50 queens when they will hatch during 2 days?
« Last Edit: January 08, 2007, 02:57:48 pm by Finsky »

Jorn Johanesson

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Re: making queens
« Reply #17 on: January 08, 2007, 02:33:16 pm »
Where you those 50 queens when they will hacth during 2 days?

That many. I do not think this will happen. Not even in a normal queenbreeding way. 5 to seven if a bowcut. I have only used this if no queen was at hand  when needed.

Offline Finsky

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Re: making queens
« Reply #18 on: January 08, 2007, 02:59:31 pm »

That many. I do not think this will happen.

You are right. And it is not easy to make mating nucs for beginner. But mistakes teach.

Jorn Johanesson

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Re: making queens
« Reply #19 on: January 08, 2007, 04:37:23 pm »
You are right. And it is not easy to make mating nucs for beginner. But mistakes teach.

I have used some simple tools. A 4-sided square box with lid but bottom made of hardware cloth. 8cm x 8cm x8cm. A small 1-frame nuc box size a quarter of LS. When I need those boxes filled I take a big big bucket and a 500gr honey jar. I now take 2 to 3 frames with young bees from strong hives (Be careful that the queen still is in hive). With a slap of hand on the frame over the bucket, and the bees will fall into it. Old bees will fly away and young bees will stay. Now and then slightly bang the bucket against the ground so that the bees are thrown back into the bucket. You need one coffe cup of bees for the one frame nuc so two frames pro queen should do. When you think you have enough bees start filling the boxes by filling the jar with bees and poor one jar into the square box. Lid on then the next square box. When done transfer the square boxes to a shadow place and with a brush put honey on the hardware clothe. Let the bees stay there for some few hours. No get the queens and grab one. Throw here into the box with bees. Feed again and then let the box with bees and queen rest until the morning. Here you throw the bees and queen to the one frame nuc box and with closed entrance transfer the box to the mating yard. This is the way you can handle nice or normal tempered bees. How to handle nasty bees (do you have those Kathy) I have no advice.