# Small scale queen rearing?



## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I've never succeeded at queen rearing without putting a dent in honey production. But Marla Spivak says her method (which I'd call "age grading") doesn't hurt honey production, at least not in the starter. If you put the cells in your hives, instead of setting up mating nucs.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesqueenrearing.htm


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## Velbert (Mar 19, 2006)

http://www.westernbee.com/qs30/products.php?pid=74&detail=true


5 Frame nuc NOT A Bad Price


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## mcooper (Dec 3, 2009)

Velbert said:


> http://www.westernbee.com/qs30/products.php?pid=74&detail=true
> 
> 
> 5 Frame nuc NOT A Bad Price


I checked with hem last week, shipping was $60 on $45 of goods. That would have hurt.


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## mcooper (Dec 3, 2009)

Michael Bush said:


> I've never succeeded at queen rearing without putting a dent in honey production. But Marla Spivak says her method (which I'd call "age grading") doesn't hurt honey production, at least not in the starter. If you put the cells in your hives, instead of setting up mating nucs.
> 
> http://www.bushfarms.com/beesqueenrearing.htm


I've been reading your website for a couple days now, it's great!

I wouldn't mind hurting honey production in one of my 5 (two story deep hive body) hives...would using only one of my big hives work? 

I plan on using the nuc boxes and a queen mating box for letting the new queens start laying in. I guess I could just kill off the old queens and put a sealed queen cell in the hives a day or two later....but I'd lose some brood production.

ETA: If I can produce 6 queens that are tested then another batch of 6 I'll be content. That gets my main hives new queens in the first batch with one to spare and 6 for nuc boxes and giving away. I'm looking at really low production levels here.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

IMO if you want to make increase then setup your splits and put queen cells in them. If you want to requeen, just put a queen cell in the hive. Remove boxes until you find a good population of bees to care for the cell and put it there. She will most likely supersede the old queen and if she doesn't they probably didn't need a new queen anyway.

But if you want to do mating nucs, you can make a strong hive queenless (by putting her in a nuc) and after you have your cells ready, break that same hive up into mating nucs.

I like two frames, one of honey and one of brood, for my mating nucs. It's minimal resources and easy to set up.


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## Paraplegic Racehorse (Jan 25, 2007)

I think I might be tempted to just artificially swarm them:

1. About a week after swarm cells are laid, set up empty nuc or hive body on a raised stand and a big white sheet spread on ground and draped on stand to make a sort of ramp.

2. Shake frames of bees onto sheet, making sure to get a fairly even layer on the sheet.

3. Watch them walk right into your new nuc or hive body.

Many of the bees will return to the original hive, which will finish raising one of their "swarm" queens.

Additional splits can be made with some of your swarm cells, but if you only want to double your hive numbers, this should work just fine.


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## sylus p (Mar 16, 2008)

mcooper said:


> I'm going to maintain the genes of my bees that have survived the 3 years even *if they are a bit mean *by keeping at least 2 queens (or raising new ones) in nuc boxes.


Yes!! Breed from the mean ones!! I think my post about mean bees for hire was deleted. (Moderators, did you delete my post? If yes, why? If no, where did it go?) Anyways, right on, breed the mean ones. The are more fun to work. Cheers!


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## mcooper (Dec 3, 2009)

They aren't mean as in they attack me and chase me back to the truck, they just weren't the most gentle hives I've had. on a scale of 0 to 10 with zero being ungloved hands and no smoke and 10 being trying to kill you; I'd put them at a 3.5 or 4. They definitely need smoke and I needed a veil, but I didn't get stung or have one crawl up my pants.

Also they have no SHB visible and the one hive of gentle bees I have is chocked full of them...My guess is that there is a correlation.


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## mcooper (Dec 3, 2009)

I don't want an increase in production hives...past 6. I would like to have a couple to few nuc boxes with good queens that I maintain nearly year round so I can ensure I'll have enough hives even with winter die off.... I can repopulate the nucs with swarms and/or splits as needed. 



Paraplegic Racehorse said:


> I think I might be tempted to just artificially swarm them:


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