Queen rearing

[psbeekeeper]

What do daytime and nighttime temperatures need to be when grafting so the larvae do not chill?

[Michael Bush]

It depends on how fast you are.    Room temps (70 F) on up work fine.

[psbeekeeper]

Thanks MB   Sorry, maybe i'm not asking the correct way.  I mean the outside temps when putting grafted larvae in the hive.....

[Michael Bush]

If it's still cold out you may be jumping the gun on queen rearing... but I have a schedule to keep and rainy days in Nebraska are always cool (we NEVER get a warm rain), so at times I'm grafting when it's in the 60's and raining.  But I only take them from the yard to the house 100 yards or so) and graft in my kitchen (with the fan off so they won't dry out) and then back to the yard. probably 30 minutes.

[rrussell]

So long as they are not clustering at night... that's where the big trouble comes in while building cells extra early... the cell builder can keep the temps the way they want them, nut if they must cluster, they will abandon many cells and cause you a lot of head ache... so the key is to watch the ten day forecast and try to schedule your cell building when there are warm enough temps at night that they will not have to cluster... we have builders in doors that allow us to start and finish cells even during the winter... these are full sized colonies, with the entrances reduced to tubes that lead to the exterior of the wall... thus the temp within the building keeps the hives from clustering and the draft from the entrance has no effect on the temp inside... hope this helps.

[Shanevrr]

How do you get them mated when temp outside is too cold and how do you fool them into making drones?

[rrussell]

Now that is a different creature altogether... for us there are three ways of getting early matings.
1. Southern climates that allow for drones to be produced year round...
2. Rearing drones via drone layer queens (unmated) in special hives that have nothing but drone cell combs to use specifically for ii...
3. Selecting for drone tolerance as a trait in specific lines so that those lines will have drones available at all times...

It really requires a combination of all three methods for an operation that focuses on trait promotion and has to produce mated queens in Feb.

In most cases, the producer is starting to graft after drone brood is already emerging, thus givibg enough time for the drones to mature before the queens are ready to start mating flights... but these methods can be a huge help when you need to rear queens even earlier than that... which is what the majority of the market demands these days... also, we try to get queens ready for our field testing on specific genetics especially early, because once the season really gets started, we are so overrun with work that we wouldn't have time to develop the queens we need for the research... hope this helps.

[Michael Bush]

My experience in trying to rear queens early is that it is a waste of effort.  I have learned to wait until the bees are ready to raise queens as evidenced by them raising lots of drones.  In my location any earlier than mid May is a waste of time and effort.

[rrussell]

Your right, it usually is more trouble than it seems to be worth... of course its location dependant as well... in our southern-most locations they never stop raising drones, but travel a few hours north or to a higher altitude and they don't start rearing drones until mid Feb... by mid May we are shifting focus to different regions as those deep south locations are finishing up the main flow and preparing for the dearth as the temps start hitting 100+...

Whether its really worth the effort or not depends on your customers and just how many of them are really demanding about getting mated queens for Feb and March... in most cases this group can make up 25% of your annual sales, so for an operation producing 1,000 queens per season, they can probably do without all of the extra trouble and just focus on producing more at a time when the season is in full swing... but for an operation that is producing 85,000 queens per season, that 25% can cover the expenses of the heavy manipulations and travel involved in making it work... its not easy, and it requires some serious investment on the part of the producer just to be able to pull it off and not have poorly mated queens... sometimes this means culling thousands of queens at once and having to restock thousands of mating nucs and start all over again... this is when you see an operations true colors... some simply cage the poor quality queens and pass them on to the customers in packages or as queens... others will deal with the fussing in order to protect the operations of their customers from losses due to junk queens... its a nightmare some years and a daymare others...

[Shanevrr]

thus why you have earned my business

[larry tate]

An old timer (lol) told me to "go with the flow". After trying to hurry nature has cost us tons of hard work and feed money we are taking his advice. Instead of the breeder feeding, etc to rush queens the buyer feeds if need be. Win Win situation. Good queen for the buyer no replacements for the rearer.

[TwT]

Drones is what I look for, I can work with the temps but you need drones to mate queens. start watching hives and look for capped drone cells.