Post by robertb on May 31, 2009 17:52:05 GMT -5
Split a strong hive. the queen and one frame of brood go in a box on the original site, so that gets the flying bees. The other split gets the brood and nurse bees. I do this vertically, using a Snelgrove board, but it works just as well to do a normal split.
After 3-4 days, but a frame with a starter strip into the middle of the broodnest in the hive you intend to raise queens from. Leave this to get laid up.
Open the split with the brood and young bees, and break down all the queen cells. Give it the frame with the eggs. Obviously, do this before the eggs hatch, or immediately after they start to do so. The comb may need trimming, depending how much the bees have drawn it out; you need to leave enough space for queen cells to develop between the comb and the bottom bar.
If you have bees which make masses of cells, it may help to use a piece of rod to destroy some of the eggs at the bottom, leaving, say, every third egg. I never bother as my native British strain never makes that many cells. You should end up with some nice cells which can be distributed to nucs or queenless hives.
After 3-4 days, but a frame with a starter strip into the middle of the broodnest in the hive you intend to raise queens from. Leave this to get laid up.
Open the split with the brood and young bees, and break down all the queen cells. Give it the frame with the eggs. Obviously, do this before the eggs hatch, or immediately after they start to do so. The comb may need trimming, depending how much the bees have drawn it out; you need to leave enough space for queen cells to develop between the comb and the bottom bar.
If you have bees which make masses of cells, it may help to use a piece of rod to destroy some of the eggs at the bottom, leaving, say, every third egg. I never bother as my native British strain never makes that many cells. You should end up with some nice cells which can be distributed to nucs or queenless hives.