Queen rearing

Raising your own queens lets you replace failing queens, make splits and choose the stock you keep. It also takes planning, spare colonies and several weeks of waiting. This page sets out the main steps and the timing. For buying and introducing a queen instead, see requeening.

Queen rearing is a skill best learned alongside an experienced queen breeder. Local clubs are a good place to find one (see clubs and associations). For a full Australian text, Extension Australia points to the NSW Queen Bee Breeding AgGuide from Tocal.

When to rear queens

• Spring and early summer. Drones are scarce in early spring and autumn, which can affect mating, and spring nurse bees (the young bees that feed larvae) provision queen larvae well.
• Only from colonies worth copying. Choose a breeder colony that is healthy, gentle and productive, and check its brood first (see inspections and records). Extension Australia recommends queens selected for traits such as honey production and low disease incidence.
• Only when you have somewhere to put the queens. Each new queen needs her own small colony until she is mated and laying.

What you need

• A strong colony to act as the cell builder, with plenty of young nurse bees.
• A breeder colony to supply young larvae.
• Queen cell cups and a grafting tool (for grafting), or a graft-free kit.
• Small mating colonies, called mating nucs (nucleus hives): one per cell.
• Sugar syrup and pollen or pollen patties for the cell builder (see feeding, water and forage).

Main methods

Grafting

Grafting means moving very young larvae from worker cells into artificial queen cups, so the bees raise them as queens. Penn State Extension says to use day-old larvae: very small and only slightly curved, not the more defined C-shape of older larvae. A cell builder then feeds them.

Graft-free methods

Methods such as Miller, Alley and Hopkins get the bees to raise queen cells from eggs or larvae without you moving any larva by hand. Penn State Extension covers them in the same guide as grafting. They suit a first attempt because no fine handling is needed.

Cell builders

A cell builder starts and then finishes the queen cells. Penn State Extension describes two common set-ups:

• Starter (queenless). Shake nurse bees into a nuc or single box with no queen cells or young larvae, and a frame of open brood in the middle flanked by pollen and nectar. It is ready for grafts a few hours to a day after you assemble it.
• Finisher (queenright preferred). Usually two boxes, with a queen excluder keeping the queen below the cells. Keep syrup and pollen topped up. Check the frames above the excluder for unplanned queen cells.

The same colony can do both jobs. Grafts can go in four hours to a day after the queen is removed. Penn State Extension notes that a queenless finisher is usually converted into a nuc after one use.

Timeline

Counting from the day larvae are grafted (“day 0”):

Day	What happens	Notes
-1	Set up the cell builder	It is ready a few hours to a day after assembly
0	Graft day-old larvae	About 4 days from egg-laying
4	Cells are capped	8 days after the egg was laid
Before day 12	Move capped cells to mating nucs	Before the first queen emerges; see below
About 12	Queens emerge	16 days from egg
Some days later	Virgin queen matures and flies to mate	Leave her alone

Sources: Penn State Extension and Washington State University both give about 16 days from egg to emerged queen. The other figures are worked out from that (a day-old larva grafted about 4 days after laying leaves about 12 days to emergence). Sources differ on exactly when to move capped cells, so ask an experienced queen breeder for the timing that suits your set-up, and move them before the first queen emerges.

Cool or very hot weather can slow development, so allow some margin. A queen that emerges early can kill her sisters in their cells, so do not leave capped cells in the finisher until emergence.

Mating nucs

1. Prepare one queenless mating nuc for every cell, with bees, some brood, food and enough room.
2. Place one capped cell in each nuc before the queen emerges (see the table).
3. Leave the nucs alone while the queens emerge and mature.
4. A mature queen mates with many drones, usually at a drone congregation area, and may make more than one flight.

Check for a laying queen

Do not open the nuc during the mating period. Once she has had time to mate, open the nuc gently and look for eggs and very young larvae, which show she is laying (see requeening for how to read the brood). If there are no eggs, wait a few days and look again before acting.

Give a new queen time to settle into steady laying before you move or sell her.

Record the date, the breeder colony and each nuc’s result, so you can see which stock performs well (see breeding for resistance).

Moving and selling queens

Rules on bringing bees and queens in from other states differ, so check your state department’s page before you move queens across a border. See registering your hives for how to find your state’s rules.

Checklist

1. Choose spring or early summer and a healthy breeder colony.
2. Set up the cell builder with plenty of nurse bees and feed.
3. Graft day-old larvae (or use a graft-free method).
4. Move capped cells to mating nucs before the queens emerge.
5. Leave the nucs alone while the queens mate.
6. Check for eggs, record the result and keep notes on the breeder colony.