Queen Raising in York UK
by Tom Robinson  (1997)

I have written this article as a record of how two beekeepers in York raise about 200 queens each year. We raise queens conforming to the standards of the Dark European Honeybee and we hope these notes will be of help to other members.

John Acheson and myself devote ourselves to the task from early May till about July. For equipment we have about 60 colonies on Nationals, 150 Apideas, around 50 Nuc boxes mainly 5 and 4 frame, and two Jenter kits.

In March when the weather is favourable, we commence to carry out our Spring inspections and select those hives we will use for drone rearing. We give them an early feed to stimulate brood raising on the basis that only strong colonies will produce sufficient drones for our needs. We hold or transfer these colonies to a deeply wooded area away from our other colonies.

In early May, on Mondays, we choose a strong colony on a double brood box , and prepare what we refer to as a ‘Day one’ hive by confining the queen into a brood box beneath an excluder. The top box is arranged to have frames of eggs, young larvae and sealed brood, this may mean taking frames from other hives to complete this arrangement. We start off a number of hives in succession with this arrangement depending on the time of year and the number of sealed cells we wish to produce.

Having selected the queen we wish to use for laying the eggs from which the queen cells will be produced, we will put the queen into the Jenter on a Friday and leave for 24 hours, releasing her on Saturday providing she ha s laid up the Jenter.

On the following Monday, we return to the hives we prepared as ‘Day one’ hives, and convert them to ‘Day eight’ hives. This consists of removing the bottom brood box containing the queen, and after finding and removing the queen, throwing most of the bees into the top box which is now on the floorboard leaving it with nine frames, space being left for two frames to be inserted on the following day. We ensure that no eggs or young larvae are left in these very strong colonies as the bees will of course raise queen cells from them. The queen, and the remainder of the bees are moved to another site or may be newspapered to a queen-right colony over a queen excluder as a temporary measure to supplement her workers. We also need to commence more ‘Day one’ hives for the following week.

On Tuesdays we take the day old larvae from the Jenter and prepare cell bars to place into the ‘Day Eight’ hives which by then are crying out for larvae to raise into queen cells. We find that we can get an average of 80% converted into queen cells.

After the cells have been sealed, we count the number of sealed cells and then prepare enough Apideas or nucs to accommodate them. We over winter about two thirds of our drawn Apidea comb in specially constructed boxes that take approximately 36 combs over queen excluders on the tops of our colonies. We find that they clean the comb, and in Spring will fill them with either nectar or sealed honey, and it saves the labour of cleaning a nd preparing them.

Insofar as we can, the Apideas are made up with a comb of honey, an empty comb, and a comb with a starter strip together with the feed box filled with bakers fondant. This is completed on Wednesdays so we can fill each Apidea with bees and transfer the sealed cells on Thursdays. The Apideas are strapped up in eights, and after leaving them in a cool ,place for 24 hours we transport them to the deeply wooded site where our drones will now be flying. The nucs are placed in groups of four, facing different directions on stands.

Each batch prepared is recorded and in a season we may produce 12 batches . We tend to devote Mondays, Tuesdays and Thurdays to queen raising tasks . Honey becomes an embarrassment particularly when it is Oil Seed Rape an d chrystalised in the combs. We have not taken hives to the Heather for s ome years, and our colonies over winter on chrystalised honey.

As an indication of our queen rearing activities I include a table below of information from our records showing the relationship between sealed cells and the mated queens produced. In 1990, only 45% of sealed cells were converted to mated queens, and in 1991 and 1992 about 60%. I believe that with experience we are ensuring that each Apidea is well stocked with provisions, that the entrances are marked with different colours and many more drones are available at the mating site.

It can be seen that the conversion from day old larvae to sealed cells is about 80%, and from sealed cell to mated queen 60%. Approximately 50% of the day old larvae will be converted to mated queens..

Note that in 1990 more cells and queens were produced, but there was three of us working that year.

For those who like to see a time-table of events when planning a queen rearing programme, two of our members, Angus Stokes and Albert Knight, have devised a table based on Tom Robinson’s account above. This is intended for use with a Microsoft Excel, but the table can be used manually by copying it with all the days and dates left blank, these can be filled in to suit the chosen period. However if it is used as intended, then all that is necessary is to enter the correct start date at the top of the table, and then all the days and dates will change automatically.

Anyone wishing a copy of the template for use with Microsoft Excel for Windows can obtain it here