Queen losses from 50% to zero

[Finsky]

I have raised queens tens of years. My normal losses were 50% from emerging queen cell to final colony. A couple years ago I made renewed my system

1#
BEFORE: I had mating boxes where I had devided langstroth box into 3-4 parts and each colony had own entrance on side.
Often bees or new queen  moved from department to another and queens killed each others.

NOW: I splitted with table saw polyuretane box into 3 pieces and clued missing wall witk polyuretane clue. Nuc box is warm and they had quite good brood are with small bee number.

2#

I raise queen in some hive and when queens emerge, I take from that hive one frame of bees and put them into nuc plus newborn queen. No accept losses because queen is their own. I move nucs 3 miles, so bees do not return their own hive.  Later I give frame of emerging bees and strengten the nuc.

BEFORE: I gived a new queen to strange bees or to nuc, where I had taken away former mated queen. They were not happy and often killed the new queen.

3#

Settling laying queen to final hive...

Australian research revieled that is you move laying queen to another hive, 30% will be dead if queen has layed under 2 weeks.

NOW I have changed the queen after 4 weeks laying and this year I have lost  zero queens in autumn changing. Still I have too much queens even if our leaves are falling down from trees.


System is very easy to work compared to old one.

4#

It is important that the queen cell may emerge freely in their own nuc. Bees feed new born queen from very start and no mesh is between nurser bees and the queen.

5#

When queens are enough in the mating nuc, you will se the nature of new bees and tendency of sickeness. You may eliminate unwanted queens.

******************
The most important in raising queens is that beekeeper select a good mother hive and so the queens. That is base of whole system. If bees raise their own queen, you have not selected it.    This year I have killed all their self raised queens because they are second generation of  good mother hive. Second generation is too hybrid.

It is good if you can affect on mating drone hives near mating nucs and drone hives are selected too. You need only a couple of miles safety distance to other hives and you can affect on mating drones.

In hybridization bees genome  transforms to natural direction (= nonselected) and colonies will be more swarmy and more defensive. Continuous selection for nonswarmy and calm bees will make beekeeping happy hobby.

If you like natural and wild bees and natural nursing style, you do that. But the style will be different than with commercial big hives.

A Last big mistake was that I tried to cross to very different strains of bees. The result was catastrophy: swarms and  nasty bees. They returned to nature when their "selected genes" returned to normal.   But I got a lot of disease resistancy. That was worth trying.

The tendency to forage much pollen makes hive strong. That is my new selection viewt but I have not got results on this area.

.

[TwT]

good writing finsky, I raise queens like your #4 example, I graft and put eggs in a 10 frame cell builder hive, I use the Base mounted plastic cell cups now, they work fine when transferring a cell to a nuc, just set it on top in between the frames, the flange on the cups hold it there, they work fine, I leave the queen in the hive for 4-5 weeks to see if she is a good layer. here's a picture of the plastic cell cups

[Understudy]

Finsky,

This method seems like a very good method.

I want make sure I understand this correctly.

You will add a queen cell to a queenless hive and let it hatch and let the bees nurse the virgin queen?

How would you keep the hive strong until she lays? Just add brood frames?

What happens if the virgin queen does not make it? Is killed because the hive has a laying worker or dies on mating flight or a variety of reasons. Do just add another queen cell?

Sincerely,
Brendhan

[TwT]

I know you asked finsky but here's what I do, is I make the nuc up the day before i install cells, I take a frames of honey, pollen with bee's on it and 2 frames of capped brood with bee's on the frame, the next day I put the cell in the hive and inspect a week later and look for the queen, then to see if she made it back from her mating flight and start laying ( I will always be looking for her during this time), if she didn't and I cant find her I will load another cell but you have to be careful here because she has 2 weeks to mate and if you look in that 2 week spand she maybe on her mating flight then so its best to wait and see. building nuc's day before you want have a laying worker.

something else I seen this year if your nuc ends up with a laying worker we loaded a Q-cell in the nuc and 2-3 weeks later she was laying like crazy, guest they killed the laying worker or it stopped laying, not sure but the new queen took over the hive.

I always forget little details when typing stuff, I could show you easier and never miss a beat 

[Michael Bush]

>2# I raise queen in some hive and when queens emerge, I take from that hive one frame of bees and put them into nuc plus newborn queen. No accept losses because queen is their own.

This sounds like you're letting them emerge in the cell finisher and then removing them.  But that would require "hair curler" cages or "nursery" cages wouldn't it?  Otherwise the queen will destroy the other queen cells.

But you also say:
>4# It is important that the queen cell may emerge freely in their own nuc. Bees feed new born queen from very start and no mesh is between nurser bees and the queen.

Which sounds like you're NOT using cages.  So I must be missing something.  Could you clarify, please?

[Finsky]

You will add a queen cell to a queenless hive and let it hatch and let the bees nurse the virgin queen?

I make mating nucs and I give a new born queen or queen cell to them.

How would you keep the hive strong until she lays? Just add brood frames?

Mating queen needs only one frame of bees. I raise queens in big normal hive which wanted to raise it's own queens - like for swarming.

What happens if the virgin queen does not make it?

 Many things happens if weathers are bad. Have so much new queens that no problems if something happens.  This year I killed some new queen because their descendants were too hostile.

For winter I have united small nucs. It is better to unite 2 equal size colonies.  Two week colonies together and unite then them to teh stonger colony to reach one whole box of bees. So they do not kill each others.

[Finsky]

, I leave the queen in the hive for 4-5 weeks to see if she is a good layer.

I think that this is important to see before you put the queen in the final colony.  If you have bad luck and shoose a wrong mother queen, big losses will appear.  But tendency for swarming you will see after a year = next summer.