How To Raise A Queen Bee

The success of the colony depends largely on the quality of the queen. As a beekeeper you may notice a difference in the production of honey from one colony to the next. The difference in production can depend on several factors, one of which is the queen. Beekeepers call this trait as "queenlessness". When the queen is in the state does less brood rearing, drone layers and shows queenlessness, must be replaced. When beekeepers spot this condition going on in one of his colonies he will, what is known as "requeen " the colony. Requeening is basically introducing a new queen into the colony. Although queen bees can be purchased from commercial beekeepers, but prefer to raise the queen themselves in order to continue with a queen of the strain or stock of previous queens that has produced so much success in his colonies. Purchasing queen bees from a commercial beekeeper does not guarantee a queen of from a good strain. When rearing queens it is best to use larvae that are under 24 hours old. Larvae of this age have not been exposed to the worker's diet. It is important that the future queen larvae be fed queen jelly. Queens are raised from the same fertilized eggs as the worker bees. When the eggs are newly hatched, they are neither a queen nor a worker bee. Once the hatched larvae is 3 days old pollen is introduced into the diet of the larvae destined to become worker bees. On the other hand the hatched larvae destined to become queen bees are raised in what is known as the queen cell which has been specially built. There are requirements to raising a good queen. The needs to be an ample supply of nectar and good quality pollen, as well as an abundance of sexually mature, high-quality drones for mating with the newly emerge virgin queens. There must be suitable weather for mating of the drones and the queens. There needs to be a good queen mother to breed from, whose offspring worker bees (and colonies) seem to have the qualities desired, such as gentle temperament, disease resistance, low swarming tendency and excellent honey production. This is a summary of the steps to be taken for queen raising. A starter colony must be established for the beginning of raising queen cells. A cell building colony must be established. Then there is the grafting of the honey bee larvae. Last but not lest the transferring the mature queen cells to honey bee nucleus colonies for the mating stage. As a starter colony, choose a strong two-story colony that is headed by a two-year old queen. It will be necessary to locate and temporarily remove the queen along with the comb she is sitting on with bees, to a spare empty 8-frame box or nucleus hive. Then the 2-story hive needs to move about 2 meters to the rear of its original site. Now you can prepare the starter colony by placing an empty box with a bottom board and the lid on the bottom of the hive. Four combs of unsealed brood with the adult bees from the two-story hive must be moved to the empty hive. Also place a comb of unsealed honey and pollen with bees on each side of the brood. Fill in the rest of the empty box with empty combs. Take another 2 or 3 other brood combs with extra young bees and shake them into the 2-story hive. Add a feeder of sugar syrup to the starter colony. Since the bees will be what is known as "queenless", the nurse bees in the starter colony will be stimulated to feed and produce more brood food. Return the 2-year old queen and her comb to the bottom box of the 2-story hive.