Queen-rearing
Why rear your own queens?
Every year we see many beekeepers panicking about queenless hives. If they had reared queens as a matter of course, this would not be an issue since they would always have a supply close at hand. Rearing queens is also a must for anyone doing their Intermediate or Senior exams. Even if you simply raise your swarm cells with no sophisticated grafting, you will always have plenty of queens.
Louth Beekeepers' Association Queen-Rearing Group
In 2021, we decided to participate in the national queen-rearing effort organised by NIHBS. The idea is to be able to provide good quality virgin queens to anyone who needs them this year. Next year, when these queens produce drones, they will flood the area with good quality genetics (the drones are an exact copy of the queen), so that next year's queens will mate to produce even better quality queens. As of the last week in May, we have produced 14 queens with a further 19 cells maturing, ready to emerge in the first week of June. It is hoped that this will accelerate over the coming weeks.
Queen-rearing references
- Reference information on queen-rearing, covering a dozen different methods, by Dave Cushman
- Beespoke.info on queen-rearing
Queen-rearing Documents
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