Queen Rearing: A Beekeeper's Primer

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

Vern's plugging tool is nothing more than a length of half-inch copper tubing that's about five or six inches long and has an end that's been tapered, filed, and sanded with wet-dry sandpaper so that it cuts wax comb easily. After heating that sharpened tip a minute or two in the boiling water, he places the tube over the opening of a comb cell containing a young larva and, with a swift twisting and lifting motion, pulls the grub—along with its rich royal jelly and a small supporting section of comb—into the end of the tube. Then he blows sharply through the tube to dislodge the bundle into his hand so that he can deposit it carefully on the cell bar, where it will adhere to the warm wax. [EDITOR'S NOTE: Vern also suggests that, if you're plugging several bars of cells, you ought to keep a moist towel draped over the brood frame to prevent dehydration of the delicate young larvae.] And that's all there is to it: Without bothering with special lights, needles, or tiny wax cups, he's got the future queen safely in place with her necessary ration of royal jelly and a foundation of comb that the bees can use to build a queen cell around the larvae!

After filling three cell bars with larvae, Vern fits them into a frame and returns it to the nursery hive, where the bees cap and tend the royal cells for 24 to 30 hours. Late the next day, he transfers the cell frame into a special finisher hive that he designed to ease strain on his back. This split-level arrangement features a bottom story of two brood boxes that are divided in the middle by a queen excluder. While the queen is confined to the rear portion, which has half-inch ventilation ports/drone escapes on two sides, the front half serves as an area for honey storage and an entranceway for the bees. On top of the front section are stacked two or three honey supers. In the uppermost story of this "honeybee high rise", the frame of newly plugged queen cells is sandwiched between other frames of brood and honey . . . and a large gallon-jar feeder covered by an empty tin can tops off the entire structure.

On the tenth day, the cells must be separated very carefully before each is placed in a queenless colony or nuc, where the virgin will soon hatch. Since Vern's operation is larger than that of the average plugger, at this point he often has to "bank" his queens in a special frame containing row upon row of cages where the young monarchs will be confined until their eventual mating and sale. The small-scale beekeeper, however, can simply transfer each homemade queen cell to a queenless, well-fed hive . . . and then let nature take its course.

Whatever system you choose for rearing queens, the royal results—and your increased appreciation for the miracle that is a queen bee—will be well worth the effort!

A Mère et Père Bee Business

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print