Raising your own queens in beekeeping allows for selection of the best queens and spreading of genetics throughout the colony
- It is cost-effective and produces better results than buying commercially.
- A fire frame nuke box is all that is needed to raise fine quality queens.
- It is important to pull frames with larvae and nurse bees to ensure successful queen rearing.
- An excluder can be used to prevent the queen from being pulled with the frame.
- Capped brood and emerging bees can also be used to raise queens.
- It is important to check for larvae before putting in grafts.
- There are options for not having to graph, such as using foundationless frames.
Beekeepers Hyatt's and Reynolds demonstrate how to raise Queens in this video. Raising your own Queens allows you to select the best ones with the most desirable genetics, and save money compared to buying commercially. The setup needed for raising Queens is a fire frame nuke box, which can raise dozens of Queens.
The frames used need to have larvae and nurse bees that will make royal jelly to feed the developing Queen. To prevent the Queen from being accidentally transferred, an excluder can be placed on the hive, and frames of larvae can be placed in the second box. The Queen will stay in the lower box, while nurse bees move up to feed the larvae in the top box. The frames with larvae are then placed in the nuke box to develop into Queens.
Beekeepers can also place a frame of capped brood in the nuke box to help the Queens develop. It is important to check for eggs in the nuke box before placing the frames in, as the bees will start to build Queen cells from eggs if they are present. Overall, raising Queens can improve the genetics of a beekeeping operation and save money.
- Raising your own Queens allows selection of best genetics and saves money
- Setup needed for raising Queens is a fire frame nuke box
- Frames used need to have larvae and nurse bees that will make royal jelly
- Excluder can be placed on hive to prevent Queen from being accidentally transferred
- Frames of larvae are placed in the second box and nurse bees move up to feed them
- Frames with larvae are then placed in the nuke box to develop into Queens
- A frame of capped brood can be placed in the nuke box to help Queens develop
- Check for eggs in the nuke box before placing frames in to prevent bees building Queen cells from eggs