# Queen Rearing Time Line



## George Fergusson (May 19, 2005)

Chef, someone previously posted a link to an excel spreadsheet on a UK site used for queen rearing, I believe it was setup for use with some system, like a Jenter, but it should be generally applicable to about any system. A quick search...

http://www.angus.co.uk/bibba/files/queentimetable.xls

If it's broke, let me know and I'll dig it up for you. I've been meaning to muck with it and turn it into a more or less generic queen rearing calendar. Ain't got a round tuit yet.

George-


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Queen rearing plan:

Make sure you have a minimum four medium box strong colony or equivalent.
Make sure you have chosen a queen mother.
Make sure you have cell bars set up with cups etc.
Make sure you have a cell cup system of some kind. (Jenter, grafting, etc)
Make sure you have a "Floor without floor" box or just use a top and bottom and you'll have to restack a bit. To make A FWOF make a 3/4" by 3/4" piece of wood with a 3/8" x 3/8" groove in it. Hang it out 3/4" in front and put a piece across the front under the sides to make a landing board. Cut a piece of 3/16" laun to slide in for a removable bottom. Coat edges with Vaseline to keep from connecting. You can do it without the FWOF but this simplifies converting to and from a queenless cell starter and a queenright finisher.
Make sure you have enough mating nucs. (I like two frame medium nucs) unless you want to introduce the queens to the hives as virgins.

Days are counted from the day the egg is layed.

This is all done in one strong hive that already has the breeder queen.

Day	Action
-1	Set up top box with: Nectar- Brood- Brood- Pollen- Eggs- Cell Bar- Eggs- Pollen- Brood- Nectar. Put breeder queen in top box with Jenter box and cell cups brood, division board feeder, pollen and honey, over an excluder. Put all remaining brood and pollen in the bottom box. Put everything else in the middle. CONCEPT: This is so that we have some open brood and lots of food for the cell raisers in the top box. Also the cell cups and the Jenter box will get the smell of the hive and be polished by the bees.

0	Close breeder queen in Jenter box. Feed. CONCEPT: This is so that the queen will lay in the cell cups and we will know the age of the eggs/larvae.

1	Release queen from Jenter box. Feed CONCEPT: We are done with the queen laying and she is not excluded from the cell plugs in the box so that we know the age.

3 Set up Cell Starter/Cell Builder: Take the queen out of the top box and cage her. Put the top box on top of the inner cover (with a screen over the hole). Shake all bees from all the other boxes into the top box. If you dont think they will all fit, start with the brood frames and then add the rest until you cant get the lid on for all the bees piled up on the box. Put bottom box (as set up above) on the bottom board and release the queen there. Add an excluder on top of this and the middle boxes on top of that. Put a cover on that and a bottom board for the Cell starter. Put top box (with all shaken bees) on top of the bottom board and the inner cover on top of that. Feed. The field bees will fly out and return to the bottom part of the hive. The nurse bees will remain in the top, cell building box. CONCEPT: The object here is to make the top box into a queenless cell builder. Since they are queenless they will want to build queen cells. The bees are shaken into it to make both an overcrowded condition, which is a stimulus to swarm, and so that there will be an excess of nurse bees that can feed the queens. The queen is in the bottom box, so the top is queenless and we will be able to remove it without disturbing the bees much. This is the step that has failed most often for me. It is REALLY critical that the cell builder box be queenless AND very overcrowded with nurse bees.

4	Transfer larvae from Jenter to cell cups (or graft) with preference to those that are already started as queen cells and place in Cell starter. Feed nuc and cell starter. CONCEPT: The larvae are now the right age to transfer and the bees are now queenless enough to raise queens. We put them in the cups to convert them to queen cells. We feed so that the queens will be fed well.

6	See if queen cups are started. Feed. CONCEPT: By now the bees should have started all of the cells they intend to. If you want a queenright cell finisher, then remove the cover to the bottom box and the bottom board of the top box to reunite the hive. (You could also do this with a Cloake board or a FWOF, Floor With Out a Floor. The theory is that a queenright colony does a better job raising queens than when they are raising emergency queens.)

8	Cells capped. Check to make sure they didn't start other queen cells on the brood frames that might emerge sooner than yours. You can put these frames in another box with some bees or you can destroy it so the queen won't kill your other queens.

9	Start another batch of queen cells in this box if you want.

12	Make a shaken swarm box from other hives from brood comb (nurse bees) and divvy out bees to mating nucs and close up in the shade for the night. (Maybe use some QMP to hold them). Feed mating nucs. I use two frame mediums usually, so I skip that and just use a frame of open brood and a frame of honey and a few extra bees shaken in. CONCEPT: We need some queenless bees to accept the queen cells, and care for the virgin queen while she mates and starts to lay. We want to mix up a lot of bees and then redivide them to make them more accepting of each other and of the queen. Or, with the two frame nucs, we put some open brood in to anchor them in the nuc. We have honey so they can feed themselves without a field force and the queen and any brood she lays and the brood that is already in the nuc.


13	Transfer the queen cells the mating nucs. Open up the entrances for the nucs if you had them closed. CONCEPT: The bees in the nucs have had time to organize and hopefully they wont all drift back to their old hive. But they need to fly and the queen needs to be able to mate, so we open up the nucs. 

15-16	Queens emerge. Note: small cell queens may emerge earlier or not. Enlarged queens may be on time or a day or two late. In hot weather expect them a day early. In really cool weather they may be a day late.

22	First possible day to fly

25	First possible day to mate

27	Still mating

28	First day we may find eggs. Look for eggs. Dont panic if there arent any. Weather can set things back. Check again every couple of days. Also dont panic if there are two eggs in a cell for a couple of days. It should straighten out after a couple of days. If it doesnt then you can panic.

37	If we don't find eggs by now the queen isn't going to lay or will be a drone layer or we are so late in the year the bees don't want to rear brood.


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## george dilley (Sep 5, 2005)

you might want to look over this link http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/queenraise.html it has a lot of info in queen rearing


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## BWrangler (Aug 14, 2002)

Hi Guys,

It's really easy to build your own schedule. And this process can be used to simplify others queen rearing schemes.

First, all schedules are based on bee biology. Assign a single letter to a queen stage. And let each letter represent a single day. It can be done vertically or horizontally. I'll go horizontal here:

eeellllssrpppppi......mmm

e=egg l=larva s=cells sealed r=prepupa p=pupa i=imago m=virgin mating
from egg to imago takes 16 days

Now, let's add some import queen rearing info. I'll use capital letters for this:

ReeeGlllssrIppNpi......mmm....C

R=restrict breeder queen day 0
G=graft 24 hr old larva day 4
I=incubate sealed cells day 11
N=transfer cells to mating nucs day 14
C=cage mated queen

Now, let's remove some of the bee development notation to make things simplier:

R...G...ss.I..N.i......mmm....C

And method specific queen rearing notation can be added. For the Ohio Queen Breeders method it would look like this:

R..DG.U.ss.I..N.i......mmm....C
F T
P X

F=feed P=polish cups D=dismantle hive T=transfer eggs X=exclude queen to bottom U=unite

At this point, it usually easier to work vertically so that each row represents a single day rather than a column.

All kinds of stuff can be added such as drone comb management on the front end, etc.

This concept can be put in a spreadsheet with days automatically calculated along one edge and multiple batches sequenced through time by slipping and pasting the same schedule. If you do this, you will see why the cells are incubated on day 11.

I've made an example spreadsheet when I tested Steve Taber's modified method. You can see it and steal :>) it at:

http://bwrangler.litarium.com/schedules/ 

Regards
Dennis


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## Joel (Mar 3, 2005)

I agree except for the concept that we use the term 3 day old Larve as the industry standard for grafting purposes and in fact as your assigned values show it is still an egg. Beekeepers learing to raise queens will need to be aware of this. Having said that I like your system as it stands and am printing it to use in our operation, thanks. (for all the other stuff on your web site too, some of the best I've come across)

Thanks to the other good information too, it is really helpful as more and more I believe will need to have these skills in the coming years.

[ December 24, 2005, 08:28 AM: Message edited by: Joel ]


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## BWrangler (Aug 14, 2002)

Hi Joel,

That's a good point and might confuse someone. Thanks. That's what I get for just copying an old schedule without thinking of the differences.

The difference you note is due to problems of getting enough young larve for commercial grafting and the inclusive reckoning used with day zero for bee biology while most rearing schedules don't use it.

Here's an example: Since the eggs hatch on day 3, are the larva 24 hours old at the end of day 3, at the beginning of day 4, or at the end of day 4? How a person answers this question and applies the typical non-inclusive grafting schedule can lead to some very interesting experiences around day 14, 15 and 16 :>))

I chose to fix the day 16 as the imago hatching. For some reason it doesn't bother me to graft on day 4, but I get nervous when my queens are hatching on day 15 :>)))

And on a more practical level, when the breeder queen is restricted, the hive disturbance often causes laying to stop for a time. And, when lots of larva are needed for grafting, I've found it's better to work off the back end of the day rather than the front end. Some larva will be a long day old, but most will be just barely 24 hours old. When I worked off the front end, I often had to go hunting for enough 24 hour old larva to complete the grafting.

I'm glad you have found something of value at my website and with this example.

Here's another example of how this can be done horizontally with just a pen and paper. This example illustrates accelerated queen rearing:
012345678911234567892123456789312345678941234567895

e---G----s----N-h----R-mmmllC
.......e---G----s----N-h----R-mmmllC
..............e---G----s----N-h----R-mmmllC
.....................e---G----s----N-h----R-mmmllC

Days are along the top line.
Grafting cycles are read horizonatally.
Each character in the line represents one day.

e equals egg
G is Grafting
s queen cells sealed
N nuc caged cell
h is cell hatches
R is release caged/hatched virgin
mmm is virgin mating
ll is mated queen laying
C is Cage mated Queen

Regards
Dennis

Note: this example displays correctly in the editor but doesn't when displayed in a browser. The columns don't line up. To get the proper alignment, copy the example and paste it into a text editor like notepad.

[ December 24, 2005, 09:45 AM: Message edited by: B Wrangler ]


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## Chef Isaac (Jul 26, 2004)

If you restrict the queen to the bottom deep via queen excluder, it does not delay egg laying. Also, I do like the trick of putting a drawn out empty frame in the middle of the bottom deep on day 0 so when you pull that frame on day 4, you have larvae that are the right age to graft.


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## power napper (Apr 2, 2005)

Great Job B Wrangler!!Thanks for sharing!


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## BWrangler (Aug 14, 2002)

Hi Guys,

The first example I shared ran 18 hives, as a unit, through a multiple rounds of production.

Here's another example of Taber's method used to run several different sets of hives through multiple rounds of production. It looks complicated, but in actual practice it's rather simple, as you do the same thing to each unit on the same day of the week. See the Second Example at:

http://www.bwrangler.com/example.htm 

Notice I like to take SAB(Saturday) off and how the scheduled activities can be slipped to accomodate this.

If you have a color printer, using colors can be useful. Before color printers, I got out the trusty colored pencils.

Also, this is file is a .123 file. You can save it and open it up in Excel if it doesn't automatically open from within the browser.

Regards
Dennis

[ March 01, 2006, 04:09 PM: Message edited by: B Wrangler ]


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## Chef Isaac (Jul 26, 2004)

Thats a nice spread sheet. I made one up the other day to fit the important days of queen rearing into my days off from work (Friday and Saturday). I cant put it on the web like you can but I can send it out to anyone that wants it. It is simple. Fits my needs perfectly. Of course I havent used it yet







. It will happen this year!!


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## BWrangler (Aug 14, 2002)

Hi Guys,

I've changed my example spreadsheets to more generic versions. I've removed all of the stuff related to my priorities. And just left the queen rearing stuff in. 

http://bwrangler.litarium.com/schedules/ 

The first example uses the Cloake method sequentually. Just change the info in yellow area for your own situation.

The second example is a chart that will work with several different methods. Just print it off and use a pencil to fill in the dates, etc. I use this one when I rearing just a few batches of cells.

Regards
Dennis

[ March 01, 2006, 04:10 PM: Message edited by: B Wrangler ]


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## BWrangler (Aug 14, 2002)

Hi Guys,

I've made a webpage that replaces the example posted above. It's at:

http://bwrangler.litarium.com/schedules/ 

Regards
Dennis

[ December 31, 2006, 12:22 AM: Message edited by: D. Murrell ]


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## MichaelW (Jun 1, 2005)

Thanks Dennis,
It took me a few minutes to figure out why the days go ...911234...


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## TwT (Aug 5, 2004)

ok so its about 7 days from the day they cap the cell, it suppose to hatch, is that what yaw mean?


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## BWrangler (Aug 14, 2002)

Hi Guys,

I've tried to use a better day notation. 

Thanks 
Dennis


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