# easy small scale queen rearing method???



## beestudent (Jun 10, 2015)

Hi, I am looking to make a few queens, and would like a small scale method. for not more than 10 or so queens, if that. any ideas?


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## bamabeedude (Jun 2, 2015)

I'm a beginner myself, but check out "Mel Disselkoen-OTS queen rearing" on YouTube. He uses the Miller method. It seems to be a simpler method compared to others, uses less equipment and less resources than the others. I, like you, am interested in queen rearing on a small scale and look forward to posts from others with much more experience.


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## beefarmer (May 2, 2010)

check out fatbeeman on you tube, he has a couple diff. ways.


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## Tenbears (May 15, 2012)

Tell me about your plans for the queens there are many methods that will suit small scale queen production. The best, easiest, or most reliable may depend on your plans. 

If you are replacing queens, individual in hive replacement my be prudent. Not looking for a brood break. OTS with finishers would be the ticket.


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## ruthiesbees (Aug 27, 2013)

I'm running topbar hives so they are foundationless, but this is how I do it. From the production hive, add 2 or more new undrawn bars so the bees make new wax and the queen lays them up with eggs. After 3-5 days once you have a small circle of comb and new eggs (depending on the nectar flow), remove the queen from that hive over to a nuc or queenless hive. Make sure you introduce her properly so she doesn't get killed.

Leave the bars of new eggs in the main hive for the workers to create queen cells. They will usually pick the new combs to rework because the wax is so soft. Leave the hive alone for 10-12 days and then go back in it. You should have about 10-15 capped queen cells that you can cut out and place in queenless nucs. Leave a few cells in the main hive to allow them to requeen.

After a bit, if you don't like the new queen in the main hive, you can get rid of her and reintroduce the original queen to the hive. This is the method I use in late June/early July to provide a brood break for the main hive as well as creating my overwintering nucs. (they are the original queens). If you have more queen cells than you can use, be sure to contact the local bee club and see if any members want a capped queen cell.


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## Cub Creek Bees (Feb 16, 2015)

Ruthie's way worked for me. I split my best hive May 29th, and pulled queencells for two nucs. The original hive and one nuc are now queenright. One nuc didn't take, I gave them a pad of fresh wax and eggs yesterday to let them try again.


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## ruthiesbees (Aug 27, 2013)

Cub Creek Bees said:


> Ruthie's way worked for me. I split my best hive May 29th, and pulled queencells for two nucs. The original hive and one nuc are now queenright. One nuc didn't take, I gave them a pad of fresh wax and eggs yesterday to let them try again.


Glad to hear it worked out Cub Creek. I've started caging my extra hatched virgins in roller cages with a worker or two, so I have a backup in case the main one doesn't work out. Not sure how well that is working for me yet. Only tried it on one hive so far and they are not cooperating with me. But it sure beats having to wait another 16 days for a queen. They seem to "store" pretty well in one of the queenless hives that has a virgin queen. They seem to feed all of them for at least the first few weeks. Any unmated queen after 21 days will be useless anyway.


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## zhiv9 (Aug 3, 2012)

Joseph's method detailed by David has worked well for me and uses a manageable amount of resources for a hobbyist/smaller scale beekeeper. 

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?310851-Queen-Rearing-for-Hobbyists


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

A few good queens:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesafewgoodqueens.htm


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Beestudent - I'd highly recommend reading very carefully David LaFerney's post, his article, and his thread from 2011 regarding Joseph Clemens system. You'll want to spend some effort making up a ventilated nucleus and an upper box for the feeders. 

The small-scale approach allows for more first-hand experience, grafting a small batch every 11 days (you can even run 2 of these and feed one larger cell finisher colony every 4 or 5 days) from March through September. If I had tried this 7 years ago, I'd have 19 times the experience iI have now. If I had made up 4 of these rigs, I could have tried just about every method i've heard of. There is no replacement for the hands-on experience.

Also, it doesn't require a lot of bees - you don't have to wait for a lot of colony strength to build up like you do with a really large "bee bomb" cell finisher colony.

If you get to the point of routinely making high-quality queens, your colonies will likely be running strong all year because you can always re-queen. 

I've been re-gearing my operation to more nuc's and fewer queens because of the success rate is going up with Joseph Clemen's system.


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## gnor (Jun 3, 2015)

Michael Bush said:


> A few good queens:
> http://www.bushfarms.com/beesafewgoodqueens.htm


That's as simple as it gets. Thank you.


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## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

I used the OTS method in combination with a cloak board and got a half dozen of the fattest queen cells I ever saw


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