# mass storage of queens during the winter



## chillardbee (May 26, 2005)

In 1990, I was taking a beemasters course at sfu. During that time there was research being done of economical feasability of the mass storage of queens during the winter. This wasn't the first time that this was tried. In previous experiments, the queens were banked for 3 - 4 months because the geographical areas where the tests were done had shorter winters and the colonies were ready to split or to receive new queens.

The test that were done here were to see if queens could be banked for 6 months. A number of methods for holding the queens were tried from excluder cages to screend wood cages that were back to back. they were kept in hives that were either queen right (divided by excluder) and queenless colonies. Some queens were transfered to mini nucs for the last month of the test. These queens were tested to see if they preformed the same as queens overwintered in regular hives (honey production, brood, ect).

The highest servival rate were from the screened wood cages. I'm not including the ones transfered to the mini's. A servival rate of around 75% was achieved.

It is my belief that this method could be improved upon using different holding cages and controling the enviroment with in the colony for better thermal regulation. The benefits of overwintering queens would be
1. Fewer resources needed
2. Queens available first thing in the spring
3. Reduced labour
4. Reduced cost
5. You are breeding your own bee (hardier)
6. Summer mated queens mean a better mating
7. No purchasing or importing of queens (self effeciant)

One method I was thinking about was nucs made in july could produce 3 rounds of queens. the first 2 rounds go into the bank and the last are either overwintered in the nucs or the nucs are united to form doubles and the remaining queens go into the bank as well. 

Anyway, I think that there's still research to do on this. It would be nice to here from anyone who has tried this. For more info on those tests that were done by SFU, follow the link.

http://ir.lib.sfu.ca/bitstream/1892/6264/1/b14477099.pdf

PS. I'll be trying this on a small scale for next winter (60 queens in one bank). I'll take pictures and let you all know how it turns out.


----------



## Specialkayme (Sep 4, 2005)

Very possible that I'm missing something here, but what's the advantage of banking 20 queens over the winter as opposed to making 20 nucs and overwintering those nucs with the queens in them?

If at the current moment you are getting a 75% success rate, that would probably be the same overwintering rate you would get with the nucs. Plus, when you put 20 queens in a bank, if the bank runs out of stores, or gets too cold, or condensation builds up you just lost 20 queens instead of one. It's kinda like putting all of your eggs in one basket.

Additionally, Dr. Larry Connor has presented some evidence that banked queens might be inferior to non-banked queens. Possibly for a short period of time afterwords, possibly indefinitely after. I havn't seen those results personally, but I don't have the science behind it either. If Dr. Connor is correct, you just created 20 inferior queens by banking them, rather than having 20 better queens by overwintering them in nucs.

Either way, I'm interested. Keep us up to date on your study.


----------



## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

I can't find the article, but once read about a package producer in a european country who overwinters queens in banks.

He has a shed the banking hives are kept in, in total darkness through the winter and the temperature is not allowed to drop below 15 celsius, the temperature he believes bees form a winter cluster at.

He had other hives that were induced to raise brood, and these hives were periodically sacrificed to provide bees and brood to the queen banks.

His queen losses were quite high and I did think the whole process was quite "messy". Not something I would have enjoyed doing. 
However he was able to have early queens. When I have time I'll do a bit of googling & if I can find it I'll link it.

In my country, the early queens available go through winter in nucs, as per Specialkayme's suggestion.

Having done banking myself, I think doing it through winter would be quite an ask, there would likely be considerable losses plus difficulty managing the hive. But the only way we learn is trying new things, i guess.


----------



## rrussell6870 (May 14, 2009)

We have ran many studies on this. In fact we are housing about 500 queens at the moment. 

Thus far, we have seen too much decrease in performance after banking queens for a period of 60+ days... Thus we do not bank any queens that are to be sold.

However, we have seen the same benifits that you are seeing to having mated queens available at the first sign of spring, before it would be possible to get enough drone production going to naturally mate them.

Our studies show that virgins have a much higher survival rate than mated queens do, however, their longevity is decrease in some cases by about a year, and they are quite a bit slower about taking their mating flights and mating thoroughly.

Mated queens seem to pipe all winter and like you noted they have about a 25%-30% mortality rate which is most likely from the stress and malnutrition or even malabsorption of nutrients due to the stress.

Again, even the mated queens average a lower rate of performance after 60 days.

During the warmer months however, queens seem to be able to be banked much longer and maintain performance rates... this is most likely due to better quality nutrition and less stress caused by the instinctual need to follow their internal calendar.

We have been running these studies annually for the past 14 years and from our findings, I would have to say that mass banking is not so much the answer to the demand, BUT I will add that we run 200 indoor colonies of different sizes and configurations each winter... these are basically nucs that have controllable access to the outside, but the hive itself is kept in a consistant 68 degree lab... 

These queens maintain their performance levels each season... and still function properly when used in standard hives in the north during the next winters... so there is a way to store queens in a healthy environment over the winter and use them whenever they are needed... The biggest issue to making this a viable resource is that shipping queens any early than our industry already does would be near impossible without a heavy amount of incubation bees in each shipment, thus requiring bulk bees to be produced and shaken from colonies even earlier than mid Feb. and the bee keepers that would be receiving these queens would need to have a use for a large order at one time.

So keeping the queens healthy over the winter is not so much the issue as the shipping and the market may be.

Hope this helps!


----------



## chillardbee (May 26, 2005)

You are most likey to be right about that. I just wanted to see if anyone has tried this and I'd like to try it just to see if it works. Either way, the other option would be to overwinter nucs. I read a post from Micheal Palmer, he seems to have it down pat as far as overwintering nucs goes. 

In all likelyhood, I will end up adopting the overwintering of nucs.


----------



## chillardbee (May 26, 2005)

Yes, on second thought, nucs seem more effeicient. thanks everyone.

you see, I'm not trying to market the queens but rather have an early supply of queens to split my production hives BEFORE they go into pollination. The thought I'm having is to unite a nuc to one unit and keep the old queen in the other until pollination is done (about 2 to 2 1/2 months. Then I would cull the oldies and unite them, the former old queen to the new queens so that I could have a double again with a young queen for the duration of the summer flow and to go into winter with. By splitting like this I could breifly double the resources going to pollination and as singles produce a bit of honey and then going back to the original number I had before uniting just before our main flow starts to capitalize on the strong colonies for honey production. For me, the biggest issue is to have early queens.


----------



## rrussell6870 (May 14, 2009)

Being in BC, how many months would you have to keep them? Here we can mate queens clear through Oct and start again in early March... so 4 months max for us... stores may end up being your issue... maybe styrofoam nucs inside a temp controlled (or at least wind and rain free) shelter and just feed them throughout the winter... this will keep them small to save space and expense and maybe keep them warm enough to pull through... :scratch:


----------



## chillardbee (May 26, 2005)

yeah. we might be able to get queens mated in september if we supplied drone mothers for that purpose but the weather is already getting unpredictable at that point too. august seems to be the better month to get matings and even at the end of august the hives will be turfing the drones. I think the max I could hold out too before putting queens into a winter bank would the begining of october and thats from having them banked in hives previously to bring them to the point where i could have winter banks set up. October we start to get the monsoons (sometimes it's nice for a week). but we are looking at from october to mid march at least. By mid march we might have enough resources in the hive to be able to split, MAYBE. Start of april would be ideal. So, we're looking at banking for either 5 1/2 to 6 months respectively. Funny how 2 weeks can make all the difference.

Anyway. I light of the wisdom from others that have more experience in doing this and knowing that I've overwintered nucs successfully also, I'm going to argue against myself (first post) that nucs are better to overwinter.


----------



## mythomane (Feb 18, 2009)

Banked queens aint worth a dang! A couple of days is ok, but after that its all downhill.


----------



## HVH (Feb 20, 2008)

Will,

Have you ever considered Brother Adam's approach of swapping your over-wintered nuc queen for the older queen in your arrangement and then re-queening your nucs during grafting season? I like this because there is no down time. The nuc is maintained by the old queen until you get around to replacing her with a fresh one during the peak of queen rearing season. This is a continuous loop with all queens being from the previous summer. According to Brother Adam, over-wintered summer/fall queens are the most fecund and are less likely to swarm. 
Finding all those old queens is the hard part.


----------



## Ueli Hoffmann (Jan 26, 2011)

“It is also perhaps not generally realized that a spell of queenlessness, just prior to the main honey flow, will help check both adult and brood diseases.” – Beekeeping at Buckfast Abbey


----------



## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I used to think it was about how long they had been banked, but I've experimented with this and I'm no longer convinced of that. I've banked some for as long as three months, put them in an hive and they were laying in a couple of days and doing great. What seems to have a bigger effect is how long they were laying before you banked them. If you bank them right after they lay a few eggs, they never amount to much. I have tried to figure out why sometimes when I've purchased queens it has taken two weeks or more for them to start laying when my banked queens will start laying in only a couple of days. I wish I knew how they were handled.

As far as wintering, I've had the best luck when I put a terrarium heater under the bank and keep it tight and restock in mid winter. The problems I have are that the bees will cluster tighter leaving some queens not taken care of. With the terrarium heater it's warm enough for them to be a loose cluster that will attend all the queens.

I have not seen a bank last all through winter. You have to restock it.

So far it's only been experiments and often I hit a warm spell and someone in Texas buys all my queens before spring...

I also try to use the last batch of queens (so this usually only works in a year that they are still in the mood to rear queens in September or October) for overwintering.

My biggest problem has always been that I sell all the queens and have none to overwinter... but I guess that's not THAT big of a problem...

I agree, I think overwintering nucs may be a better way to spend your efforts. That way you have a nuc ready to take off come spring. But I always have a lot of people who want queens in April, and I don't have a good supply until the end of June...


----------



## Lauren (Jun 10, 2010)

rrussell, do you have troubles with the bees trying to fly out in the cold when the nuc temp is kept so warm? 

If temps fluctuated at night would it make a huge difference?

Do you have to keep food on them?

I have considered trying this but giving them an indoor and outdoor entrance so they could still cleanse..... of course where I am we rarely go more than two weeks without some kind of short break in the cold. 

Thanks.


----------



## camero7 (Sep 21, 2009)

I have a 40° heat tape under my nucs and they are encased in a Styrofoam structure. I have no problem with them flying out of the nucs when it's too cold to fly. They do tend to fly at lower temps than my production hives.

This link will give you a general idea of what I'm using:
http://www.mbbeekeeping.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=48&Itemid=59


----------



## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

I wouldn't even attempt to winter queens off comb in my climate. For a few early queens in a small apiary, regular nucs are enough. If you plan on wintering a large number of queens, then why not us a mating nuc box that will winter the last round of queens. 

This 4 way works great for me. I can winter 4 queens in each box, but lately I have gone to 2. This photo shows a mating nuc box set up with 3 nucs. 

In the spring, you can harvest queens from one box, and add that box to the top of another. Or, add a box with empty mating nuc combs on top and grow brood to restock your dead mating nucs. 

With them set up as 2 way, in the spring you can expand them each onto standard comb if you want by using the bag inner covers folded over one side, you can add a super that is open to the other. The queen will expand her broodnest up, and you can take off a nuc when you split the mating nucs up and begin queen rearing again.


----------



## KevinR (Apr 30, 2010)

Michael, 

Do you notice any wierd fighting etc, with thsoe 4 way nucs?

i.e. if you don't place the super exactly as you took it off. The bees would be from different hives at that point?

Just curious how careful you need to be with manipulating those hives.

Thanks


----------



## HVH (Feb 20, 2008)

Since CO2 is given to II queens to stimulate ovipositing I wonder if any of you guys have tried that to stimulate your banked queens?


----------



## chillardbee (May 26, 2005)

HVH said:


> Will,
> 
> Have you ever considered Brother Adam's approach of swapping your over-wintered nuc queen for the older queen in your arrangement and then re-queening your nucs during grafting season? I like this because there is no down time. The nuc is maintained by the old queen until you get around to replacing her with a fresh one during the peak of queen rearing season. This is a continuous loop with all queens being from the previous summer. According to Brother Adam, over-wintered summer/fall queens are the most fecund and are less likely to swarm.
> Finding all those old queens is the hard part.


 A good friend of mine has told me about this and it certianly is an option. Some of the reasons I may not do that is that at that time, my bees will be going into pollination, those bees have to look good and be ready to produce honey. By introducing a nuc into the queenless single, I'm giving them not only a young queen but a jump start with materials. I also need the old queen in the other unit for the duration of the pollination. One other thing is that If i keep the nucs back, even with the old queen, they will most surely swarm before I could get around to them.


----------



## chillardbee (May 26, 2005)

Micheal,

I'm thinking of overwintering 2-way 4 frame nucs too. I was thinking of designing the bottom boards so that they are double screened with a bottom rim so that putting them onto the double colonies to overwinter is little fuss. I've overwintered singles like this before and they have always done exceptional going into the spring. I'm cerious MP, how do you overwinter your 2-way 4-frame nucs? To me, it just makes the most economical sense.


----------



## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

KevinR said:


> Do you notice any wierd fighting


No, no weird fighting. The nuc under the bag doesn't have access to the super. Even with super above an excluder over multiple nucs, there isn't any fighting.


----------



## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

chillardbee said:


> I'm cerious MP, how do you overwinter your 2-way 4-frame nucs? To me, it just makes the most economical sense.


Me too CB. I winter the boxes on top of the inner covers of strong colonies. Keeps them out of the snow.


----------



## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

here's an interesting link

http://www.beekeeping.com/articles/us/queen_banks.htm


----------



## Kingfisher Apiaries (Jan 16, 2010)

I have larry in town right now. I will ask him. 

mike


----------



## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Seems quite clear that overwintered colonies are a better option. Perhaps another way to have queens available early is rapid shipping from the southern hemisphere. True there are problems with this strategy - AHBs somehow pop to mind first, regulations between nations, spread of diseases, speed of delivery, etc., but there could be solutions to many problems, too. Perhaps this is better started as a new thread. If I had the property, the private jet, and no one was regulating me (oh, yeah, and monkeys might fly out of my BEEHIVE), I'd be taking advantage of more than just timing of available queens.


----------



## chillardbee (May 26, 2005)

Part of the reason why I've been wanting to overwinter my own queens is to breed from my own stock. I could get queens from over seas but I don't think that they're as adapted for our region. Also, a friend and I are selecting our breeding stock from the better hives we have.


----------

