On The Spot Queen Rearing: Part One - Stewart Spinks at The Norfolk Honey Co.
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- Опубликовано: 9 май 2018
- On The Spot Queen Rearing: Part One
I've been asked a few times to demonstrate the "On The Spot" Queen Rearing method so here's the video!
It's a fairly simple technique once you master the process, it involves removing the queen and forcing the colony into emergency queen cell production.
I've used a double brood box colony in this example but it works perfectly well on a single brood colony.
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Hi Stewart - Thank you for your very clear information and reassurance to a new bee keeper in Australia. Watched your settling in a new colony from a small box into its permanent home - a task I will be tackling soon in our Australian summer, and now just for interest - looking at on the spot queen rearing - which I am unlikely to need for some time (if ever) but so interesting!! Thanks for sharing your expertise. Kind regards, Esther
Thanks Stewart. Think I will give this a try. After a complete loss of colonies over winter, I've purchased a couple of nucs and now back in the game . Looking forward to another season hopefully and good one. Thanks for all your help Stewart.
Hi Jay,
Sorry to hear of your Winter losses, good to hear you're back up and running now though. Good luck with this season.
Stewart
Thanks Stewart really enjoyed this video, I checked the 2 hives last Sunday, and like you I wear glasses, again I did not get to see the queens in both hives, I need something else to magnify the cells and search. But this is a great help as I need to increase the 2 to 4 this season.Thanks Jimmy.PS hope your back is feeling better this year.
Hi Jimmy,
Thanks for commenting.
Splitting a colony into two nucs is also an easy option especially if they are throwing queen cells, but this method will also give plenty of queen cells.
Stewart
Ace thank you was looking forward to this video, Fingers crossed your next update will have multiple queen cells, I’ve read using this method to requeen your colony and reduce varroa with the brood break works well
Hi Jeff,
Yes, It will be very interesting to see how it all works out.
Stewart
Nice information. Learned once again from your great videos. Looking forward to a follow up.
Hi bluzervic,
nice to hear from you again.
Next step will be coming out in a week or so. Available early on my patreon support page.
Stewart
Thanks Stewart I'm going to try thismethod next year
Hi Tomislav,
Thanks for commenting, good luck with your beekeeping.
Stewart
Thank you!
Hi Stuart, first time commenting on your channel, well done and thanks for very informative video, I have done a lot of Queen rearing but have never tried on the spot, I will give it a go.Although I did see the end result, no queen cells on the notched frames.I see it is a year ago since this video was filmed so it may be difficult for you to remember but I noticed when you found the Queen on the brood frame, The bees were a bit jittery and some of them were running about with their wings open, I hope you don’t mind me asking but do you think this could be signs of a virus don’t want to come across negative but just a question keep up the good work you are brilliant Big 👍
Hi Stewart. Thanks for letting us know about this method and for the demonstration.
I also have to wear my glasses, but even then I find it difficult to spot the very small eggs.
I might have to use a magnifying glass to check I've selected the right cells.
When you cut away the cells below, do you leave the bottom edge of the cells you are hoping the bees will make into Queen cells, or do you break that bottom edge too?
Hi Paul,
Thanks for the comments.
I break the bottom edge of the cell to be used as a queen cell, this allows the bees to draw a queen cell from it straight down rather than at an angle. Let's see what happens with this attempt, sometimes they ignore the opened cells and simply use other cells they want to use.
Stewart
@@TheNorfolkHoneyCo
I wanted to clarify if it's you larva or eggs in the cells you are looking for.
I really enjoy your channel, thank you for all the information on raising honey bees!
Hi,
Thanks for commenting, I'm glad the info is of use to you. Could I tempt you to check out my other videos on my support page www.patreon.com/norfolkhoney
Stewart
Wont they automatically produce a queen if the old queen has been removed?
great Info. I will try it. Is this called on the spot Queen Rearing ?Looks very easy,and can you cage the Q. cels while in the brood box ?
Hi Lonnie,
Yes, it is called "On The Spot" queen rearing. There's no real need to cage the cells as they will be removed once sealed and the bees that will be on the frames will be from the same colony as the queen cells so have no reason to destroy them.
Stewart
what I was thinking of was extra Queens to keep for some more splits? chageing those Queens
Looking forward to the follow up. 😀
Hi Mark,
Thanks for the comment, the follow up will be posted on my patreon page. www.patreon.com/norfolkhoney
Stewart
So we can't see the follow up without paying? I wouldn't have spent 20 minutes watching part 1 if I'd known it was just a big click bait video. *sad*
Hi Thomas,
I'm putting in a huge amount of time and effort, spending a small fortune on equipment to create these videos.
It's not click bait as I have demonstrated how the process works fully to create the queen cells.
If you don't consider that what I am doing is worth just $1 per month then I'm sorry but my content obviously isn't for you.
Stewart
The Norfolk Honey Company it is sad that we won’t get to see it. Patreon is a great way to make extra money but try to keep the two separate, so as not to leave people feeling disappointed. promote your patreon videos on RUclips but make the video series completely separate.
You have a great channel, I learn a lot from you and I look forward to seeing more.
Mark
The information I make available and produce for everyone isn't worth $1 per month to you?
Thanks Stewart. I'm keen to see how this turns out. I've only started in beekeeping but it's progressing very well and I would like to try moving to the next level come spring (down here). One of my queens is excellent and I would like to try to capture her genetics.
I use poly hives. Do you feel there is any particular advantage in using a dedicated nuc box compared to making up some polyurethane insulating "follower" boards (for lack of better description) to reduce the volume of a conventional 8/9 frame box? Down here in Australia we can get high density polyurethane boards that are typically used for underfloor insulation etc. I thought they could be used to reduce the volume, or possibly even as a divider to split a box horizontally if the base was also modified to provide two opposing entrances.
While nuc boxes are cheaper than full size boxes, I wonder if that cost advantage is reduced by the convenience of having just one box size, used throughout the apiary with simple but reversible modifications to suit other purposes such as queen rearing, mating boxes, etc? I have yet to try this but I'm sure I'm not the first to think of it so I'm interested in the opinions of other experienced beekeepers.
Hi Peter,
Thanks for your comments.
Remember the workers' genetics come from both virgin queen and drone so make sure you have plenty of the "right" drones in the apiary for mating too.
The nuc box is a unit in its own right so for me is easier to handle. If I had lots of insulation blocks to have to store it would probably drive me mad! No reason why you couldn't do that on a small scale though, it has the same effect. Try it out and see how you get on.
If you have the ability to store the spare blocks and it works for you then give it a try. My own preference is for a self-contained nuc box without too many additional parts to get lost but then most of my nuc boxes have bees in them most of the season anyway.
Stewart
Thanks Stewart, I'll see how I go come Spring. I may finish up buying nuc boxes, I do have a coreflute one but it's not really a long-term solution in my opinion. My thoughts were it's easier to store a few insulating blocks than to store whole nuc boxes when they're no longer required, Also no transferring to full boxes etc, just add a frame, move out the divider, add another frame, move it out some more etc.
Ironic you replied now, I was just listening to your podcast while cycling. Take care and thanks for the insightful information.
Pete if you're just raising a few queens for a hobby size apiary you can just wait for the "target hive" to get swarmy. Harvest the frames with queen cells and make up your nucs or use queen castles. I do this method and it's been making such good queens. The bees know when to make them better than we do. You end up with a lot of "may queens" which are actually extremely good due to being raised on a honey flow. I'm in Illinois USA so adjust your timing to your swarm season. It's easy and before you know it you have 12 nucs going.
Mike Ries Hi Mike, thanks for taking the time to reply and suggest that, I’ll definitely look at doing that. I’m really looking forward to spring down here and the possibilities that offers. In the meanwhile I’m counting myself as fortunate to live in a place where the pollen and nectar is still pouring into the hives (add 6 months to the calendar for the northern hemisphere equivalent).
I'm in Champaign, Illinois USA. Spring honey flow is on. Nice meeting you. Good luck and have fun with bees. I do.
Hello buddy. I'm starting a new hive now. How do you recommend I start my hives? 3 frames in each hive, 5 frames in each hive or 10 frames in each hive and place a second floor; I'm not interested in honey production this year just to increase the population as much as possible. I will give them syrup and pollen. Thanks again for the help buddy
Have been a subscriber to your channel for a time now. I just noticed that your frames have a longer "ear" on each end of the top bar. With only 6 years of experience I'm still pretty ignorant but have to ask about that.
Hi Steve,
Because of the RUclips channel, I run several different kinds of beehives and they all have different sized frames. The longer lugs (ears) on some brood frames are probably the National beehives, the commercial beehives have shorter lugs. All of the super frames have the longer lugs so it could be those also.
Stewart
perhaps you should have mentioned Mel Disselkoens book on (On The Spot Queen Rearing).
Hi utubedaveg,
Thanks for commenting.
If I knew about the book I most certainly would have. I'm not trying to claim this method as my own just as a method that beekeepers can try to create more queens or increases.
Thanks for mentioning the book, I'll look out for it and mention it in any follow ups to this video.
Stewart
Hope that comes good it seems remarkably easy and I'm going to give a try thanks
Hi Den,
Yep, it's a really simple way of producing queen cells when it all goes right! FIngers crossed the bees perform on cue!
Stewart
You don't mark the frames that you notched?
Hi Michael,
I haven't marked the frames in this video but there's no reason why you shouldn't.
With so many things to remember while producing these videos it's easy to forget to do something and marking the frames would have helped but I'm going to be breaking down the entire colony on my next visit so will be working through all the frames one by one so won't miss any queen cells (fingers crossed!).
Stewart
What fuel do you use in your smooker its going very well there
if the intention, as is the case here, is to find the queen, then why not use a queen excluder? what i am meaning is if the queen is in the top box, when you put the top box back on and start to go through it, there is nothing stopping her going down to the bottom box. Basically so you dont find her
Hi,
If I'm searching for the queen in a double brood box I'd remove the top box and place it on the roof, check the bottom box first and then check the second box before putting it back on top of the first box.
Stewart
it just threw me that you put the top box back on the lower in this vid is all
hi , can bees still swarm off with no queen cells . ?
Hi Shane,
Having removed the old queen and in the absence of virgin queens the colony won't swarm.
Stewart
thankyou .
Would you be giveing them a bit of feed for better quality Queen It could help during this fractious weather we are haveing. Another good Video
Hi John,
There is such a good nectar flow at the moment with plenty of pollen coming it there really isn't any need. The weather here has been perfect for the past week so I'm anticipating good things when I check in with them a week after this video was recorded.
Stewart
what happend with the cell punch method ?? u failed and u said u wud try it again
Hi Juan,
It's only really just starting to warm up here enough to start getting into the queen rearing so I will be giving it another go over the coming weeks.
Stewart
Im very impressed by the musical bee sting ouch. I hope i dont have an allergy to bee stings (dont know as I have never been stung by a bee) though i am sure I will find out soon enough, keep my epipens handy i guess
Hi,
I can be very musical when I need to be! lol.
Stewart
Where do you get the Styrofoam NUC you put the queen in. I think they would be great for Canadian winters.
Stewart ots part 3
Part two?
Hi Jack,
Posted this evening, Enjoy.
Stewart
Nowerdays bees dont sting anymore. They express their disapproval by making loud buzzing noises near the camera