New to Queen Rearing

[Lord BuzzALot]

I am beggining beekeeping and I would like to rear  my own queens. The only problem is that I know nothing about it and I don't understand the websites I visit about it. How lond do I need to have kept the bees for before I do it? And how do I do it?

[Robo]

As a beginner, I would not recommend jumping right into queen rearing.  I would concentrate on honing your general beekeeping skills and knowledge first.  The queen is the center of any hive,  and the quickest way to loose a hive is by having a poor queen.  I would strongly recommend buying your queens from a reputable queen breeder for the first couple of years.

Also keep in mind, you need more than a hive or two to prevent in-breeding.

Once you have become an experienced beekeeper, then start experimenting with queen rearing.  You have many things to learn and deal with as a beginner and attempting queen rearing your first year will only reduce your chances of success.

Once you have some experience under your belt,  what you read about queen rearing will be understood and will make sense. Here is more info on the method I have adapted to over the years.
http://robo.hydroville.com/html/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=16

[TwT]

AIN'T KNOW SENCE TRYING TO IMPROVE ON THAT ANSWER

good answer Robo,,,,, I likes dat 1

[Michael Bush]

Queen rearing is challenging, fun and difficult.  A beginner might get very frustrated because you need a grasp of basic bee behavior to start with.  Queen rearing is pushing the envelope of controling bee behavior a bit further.

If you DO decide to try it, just don't get frustrated when things don't go as you expect.  Stop and analyze what the bees are doing (or more likely, NOT doing) and reread the books looking for why.

It's easy to think you can just put some larvae in queen cups in with some queenless bees and they will raise some queens.  Basically, yes, they will raise one or two.  To get them to raise 20 or 30 is a lot more difficult.  It requires larvae of exaclty the right age, lots of bees to care for the cells, lots of pollen and feed to feed the cells, exact timing for all of the things you need to do, and some careful manipulations to achieve all of this.