# How many queen cells?



## feltze (May 15, 2010)

We are going to attempt to rear our own queens for the first time. 

- Planning to use fatbeeman's method of placing egg-laiden cut comb on the frame bar for starter cells. 

- I have set up 3 bar frames (removable bars). 

- We are going to use Deep hive bodies for the queen starter colony

- Target number of queens 40+. We have a combined total of 40 active colonies and plan to pull 5 frame queenless nucs from each and would like to queen them up rapidly this spring. Potentially doubling our colony strength this year. 

How many 3 bar frames should we use in a queen starter colony? Tentatively we are planning 2 frames with 3 bars each. ... Too much? Not enough? 

Thank You

Eric


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Eric the number they will raise, and the number they will raise WELL, are two different things. The other complicating factor is it's very seasonal. For example if you started now, they would only raise a few, if you did it during peak swarming season they will raise a large number AND do it well. Your first year will be experimental, keep notes so you can refer back in future and see how many cells is correct at a particular date.

However, as a general rule, I would say one three bar frame is pretty much max, at any one time. If all you need is 40 queens, my suggestion would be get the bees to raise 3 seperate batches of 20 cells each. They will be good cells ( assuming the cell raisers are run properly). The reason for raising 60 is you will likely not get 100% mating. Plan the last bunch of cells to be hatching after the first two batches should have mated. So you can check to see they mated and replace failures with a new cell.


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## MWillard (Dec 8, 2008)

Eric,
As Oldtimer suggests, it is helpful to take detailed notes about what you are doing so you can reflect back and see where you can improve or change methodology.

I joined the ranks of queen rearing two years ago, joining a project here in VT headed up by Mike Palmer. You may have seen some of Mike's posts here before. Mike has been kind enough to teach several of us here in VT on how he raises queens. The knowledge transfer Mike has offered has been amazing. Learning from someone who has raised queens for 15yrs or so is a worthwhile effort if you can get them to teach you. We are truly blessed to have Mike in our stable here in VT.

Mike has a wonderful system on raising queens and it has proven itself out to me personally. In my first year of queen rearing, there was quite a bit of trial and error. Take good notes, it's great to look back and realize where you did wrong, after the fact  Last year I went with Mike's method of queen rearing and it has been amazing. The quality of the queens we produced were significantly better.

Similar to what Oldtimer mentioned, it's important to provide the bees with the proper resources to raise several quality queens. This goes for fresh pollen, honey, incoming nectar (simulated with sugar water if need be), and lots and lots of young bees. Don't underestimate the number of young bees it will take.

Here is a link to one of Mike's postings on how he raises bees. I can tell you this, if you follow his instructions, you will be amazed on the quality of the queens you produce.

http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...Cell-Building-Methods&highlight=Queen+Rearing


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## feltze (May 15, 2010)

Thanks for the input, 

We will use one 3 bar frame in a deep as the cell builder, plenty of honey and pollen. The field bees are bringing in nector and pollen now here in NC so the food source should be good. 

We will do 6 cell builder colonies. Each based from a different but quality existing mature colony. 

I'll keep notes! weather, temps, food, etc for next year. 

Again Thanks for the info!


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## wildbranch2007 (Dec 3, 2008)

feltze said:


> - Planning to use fatbeeman's method of placing egg-laiden cut comb on the frame bar for starter cells.
> 
> 
> Eric


don't know what fatbeemans method is but the following may help or not.

from a bee culture article, you nees 400 nurse bees per queen cell, to get the bees to start 20 queen cells, using 4000 bees per lb, that comes to 20x400=8000/4000 about 2lbs of nurse bees to start that many cells. plus they say you need 25% extra just in case so figure 2 1/2 lbs of nurse bees.. thats nurse bees not all the bees in a starter are nurse bees.
the more nurse bees the better fed the queens the longer the queens will last.


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## feltze (May 15, 2010)

Several of our colonies are as strong this spring as they were last summer. So we should be able to shake in 3 lbs or more of bees in each of our cell builders. 

Interesting information Mike, we can certainly use that as a benchmark!


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

I know a guy who knows what he is doing using two three bar frames in a cell builder. Were I raising queens i would only use one at first until I got somewhat consistant results and an idea of what a good strong cell building colony looks like and how to maintain it. Then, next year, I'd go to two.

Good rearing to ya.


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## feltze (May 15, 2010)

Update:

7 Mar Started a queen rearing colony (queenless), cut out lines of cells with eggs from a good colony and waxed them to the bars in about 3" sections. (3 bar frame)

14 Mar - checked the general health, looked ok, several cells drawn out for queens



19 Mar (today) did some splits on other colonies, checked the queen rearing colony for queen cells and have 6 nicely formed good sized queen cells, 

My bee math, 
4 mar earliest egg could have been laid, 20 mar earlies possibility of a queen
7 mar latest egg could have been laid, 23 mar latest the queens could emerge

Questions:
Does the queen rearing colony have to be queenless?


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

No it doesn't. A common method is to use a queenless hive for the first 24 hours to get the queen cells started. The cells are then transferred to a hive with a queen, which is called the cell finisher hive. The finisher hive is a strong hive with it's queen in the bottom box under an excluder. The day old cells are put in the second box, among combs of brood to attract nurse bees to the area, and pollen and nectar supplies.

A simple way to do this is make a queenless cell starter hive by putting a queen excluder between the two brood boxes of a strong hive. 8 days later have a look and see which box has eggs, that is where the queen is, move that box away a few yards onto a new stand and put a lid on it. Put your newly cut cell bars into the queenless hive, after it's been left at least 2 hours so they know they are queenless. A day later put the hive back together with the box with the queen on the bottom, then the box with the queen cells on top of that, with a queen excluder between. Lift at least two combs of young unsealed larvae up into the second box and put on each side of the queen cells, shaking the bees off first to ensure the queen is left in the bottom. Another way to achieve the same thing is to use a cloake board (can be googled).


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## feltze (May 15, 2010)

Great information. thanks.


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