A Simple Guide to Rearing Queen Bees
As a beekeeper, one of the most rewarding and impactful things you can do is learn the art of rearing queen bees. Rearing your own high-quality queens allows you to selectively breed for the traits you value most - whether that's honey production, disease resistance, gentleness, or something else. And the good news is, it's not as complicated as it may seem.
In this in-depth guide, I'm going to walk you through the proven method for rearing top-notch queen bees. It's a technique I learned from the legendary Mike Palmer, and it's helped me produce consistently excellent queens season after season. By the end, you'll have all the knowledge and confidence you need to start grafting and raising queens of your own.
Why Rear Your Own Queens?
Before we dive into the step-by-step process, let's quickly discuss the benefits of rearing your own queens. After all, you could always just rely on swarm cells or buy queens from a reputable company (er, like us...) So what's the advantage of doing it yourself?
The main reason is that rearing your own queens gives you the ability to selectively breed for the traits you want. When you use swarm cells, you're at the mercy of whatever genetics the colony happens to have. And when you buy queens, you're limited to the traits the breeder has chosen to focus on.
But when you graft and raise your own queens, you get to pick the parent colony. You can choose the strongest, most productive, and gentlest bees in your apiary to be the foundation of your breeding program. This allows you to gradually improve the overall quality of your bee stock over time.
Some key traits you may want to select for include:
Honey production: Choose queens from your highest-yielding colonies.
Disease resistance: Identify colonies that consistently stay healthy and thrive.
Gentleness: Select queens from your calmest, most docile colonies.
Overwintering ability: Pick queens from colonies that make it through the winter in good shape.
Of course, you'll likely want to breed for a balance of these traits, rather than focusing on just one. But the key is that rearing your own queens gives you the control to shape the genetics of your apiary over time.
And as an added bonus, raising queens can be an incredibly rewarding and satisfying hobby in its own right. There's something deeply fulfilling about taking a tiny larvae and coaxing it into becoming a strong, healthy queen bee.
We only use use pure Buckfast breeder queens as mothers for grafting as this ensures we can control the maternal heritage of the F1 offspring. We then use the F1 daughters as drone mothers to flood around the apiary sites with pure Buckfast drones. I will cover this in more detail in a separate blog post.
The 10/10 Queen Rearing Method
Okay, now let's get into the nitty-gritty of how to actually rear queen bees. The method I use is called the "10/10" system, and it was developed by Mike Palmer, a renowned beekeeper and queen breeder.
The basic idea is to create a 'cell builder' colony that's primed and ready to raise high-quality queen cells using the emergency impulse (combined with the swarming impulse) and then to finish the cells using 'cell finishers'. Here's how it works:
Step 1: Prepare the Cell Builder Colony
The first step is to set up your cell builder colony. This is the hive that will actually raise the queen cells for you.
Day 0: Start by finding the queen in your strongest, most populous colony with plenty of capped brood. Gently mark her with a dot of paint so you can easily identify her later. Then, remove her and place her in a separate nuc box.
If the colony already has 10 frames of brood then you can proceed. If it doesn't you can pinch some frames of brood from other colonies to make up the numbers. The bottom box should have 10 frames FULL of brood. As much brood as possible! Make sure there's a good mix of capped brood, open brood, and eggs. This will be the foundation of your cell builder.
Now, place a queen excluder on top of the bottom box. This will prevent the queen from moving up into the top box.
Finally, take 10 more frames of brood from around your apiary and place them in an empty box on top of the queen excluder. This top box is where you'll be grafting your queen cells.
The key things to remember are:
Top Box: 10 more frames of brood in the top box
Separation: Queen excluder between the two boxes
Bottom Box: 10 frames of brood in the bottom box
Make sure there are enough bees in the bottom box to cover all of the new brood in the top box. This setup creates a very strong, populous colony that's primed to raise exceptional queen cells. The bees will be in a natural swarming mode, which is ideal for getting them to draw out high-quality queen cells.
Step 2: Hopelessly Queenless
Day 10: After 10 days, take the bottom box away and place on an upturned roof. Shake the floor off all bees into bottom box to ensure there are no queens floor. Return the floor to the stand. Place the TOP box onto the floor and check each and every frame for queen cells. If you see any queens you must remove them. If you miss just one, the whole process will fail. Shake off EVERY frame and get every single cell if they have been created under the swarming impulse.
Place queen excluder onto the top brood box (now bottom). Add a spare brood box to act as a shaker box. Find the queen from the original brood box and remove her to safe place. She can stay in a separate nuc for a few days. Then proceed to shake ALL the frames from the original bottom brood box into the brood box on the floor. All the bees will go through the queen excluder into the brood box. This means that if there was any queen in that box, she will be trapped by the queen excluder and you can safely remove her.
The aim here is to have one box. Full to the brim with nurse bees and NO QUEENS AT ALL. If you get to this stage, you are primed for grafting.
Step 3: Graft the Queen Cells
Day 10: After 1 hour of making the colony hopelessly queenless, now it's time for the fun part - grafting the queen cells! This is where you'll take tiny larvae from your breeder colony and transfer them into queen cell cups in the cell builder.
Leave the colony for one hour to ensure the nurse bees realise they are without a queen bee due to the lack of pheromone. First, you'll want to make sure you have all the necessary equipment. You'll need a grafting tool (I prefer a Chinese-style grafting tool), a frame of young larvae from your breeder colony, and some queen cell cups.
When it comes to the grafting process itself, the key is to be very gentle and precise. Carefully select the youngest larvae you can find - ideally less than 24 hours old. Use your grafting tool to gently scoop up each larva, being careful not to damage it. Then, place the larva into an empty queen cell cup.
I typically graft around 30 cells at a time, but you can adjust this number based on the strength of your cell builder colony. The important thing is to make sure you have enough nurse bees to properly care for and feed all the developing queens.
Once you've grafted all your cells, carefully place the frame back into the cell builder colony. The bees will immediately get to work feeding the larvae and drawing out the queen cells. You need to ensure the grafts get the best start by placing them adjacent to your best pollen frame PLUS your most capped (preferably with emerging brood) brood frame. Your pollen frame should contain as much pollen as possible preferably with lots of different colours!
This ensures the grafts are close to young nurse bees who will feed them royal jelly and also close to the protein source (pollen) required for making royal jelly. The set up should look like the picture below:
Step 4: Finish the Queen Cells
Now it's time to let the bees do their thing! Over the next 10 days, the cell builder colony will work hard to raise your grafted queen cells.
Day 12: After 48 hours, you'll want to check on the progress. Gently brush the bees off the frame and inspect the queen cells. Ideally, you should see plump, well-developed cells that are being actively tended by the nurse bees.
If the cells look good, you can start to set up the 'cell finisher' and transfer the cells over.
However, if you notice any issues - such as a lack of cells or poorly developed ones - you may need to intervene. This could involve adding more nurse bees, providing supplemental feed, or even starting the process over with a new graft.
The key is to keep a close eye on the cell builder and make adjustments as needed. With a little practice, you'll get a feel for what a healthy, productive queen cell builder looks like.
Step 5: Setting Up The Cell Finisher
Once you are happy that the cells have been started, you can move them over to a cell finisher. You can also use the starter to finish the cells but if you are trying to lots of cells, it's more efficient in terms of resources to finish them in the finisher, leaving the starter available to start the next batch of cells.
Day 12: To set up the finisher, you can use any standard configuration of beehive with supers on. Starting from the bottom, you want a floor, brood box, queen excluder, supers, feeder and roof. In between the feeder and the supers, place a new brood box and insert your graft frame alongside the pollen frame PLUS some frames of stores and open brood as this helps to bring the nurse bees upwards to finish the cells. Add some 1:1 feed and leave the bees to finish off the queen cells.
Step 6: Introduce the New Queens
Day 15: Once your queen cells have been capped over, it's time to get them mated and introduced into their new homes. This is a critical step, as a poorly mated or introduced queen can spell disaster for a colony.
The first thing you'll want to do is carefully remove the capped queen cells from the cell builder colony. You can either place them directly into new nucleus colonies, or hold them in an incubator until you're ready to introduce them.
When it comes to introducing the queens, there are a few different methods you can use. The simplest is the direct release method, where you simply place the queen cell directly into the colony and let the bees release her on their own.
Alternatively, you can let the virgins emerge in the incubator and directly introduce them into a hopelessly queenless colony. I prefer to add capped cells and let the virgins emerge within the colony. If you want to know about how to add mated queens to a colony, check out the blog below:
Whichever method you choose, be sure to follow best practices for queen introduction. This includes things like making sure the colony is hopelessly queenless, providing supplemental feed, and giving the bees enough time to accept the new queen.
With a little care and attention, your newly mated queens will quickly settle in and start laying eggs, ensuring the continued health and productivity of your colonies.
Tips for Success
Rearing queens can be a bit of a learning curve, but with the right techniques and a little practice, you'll be producing top-notch queens in no time. Here are a few additional tips to help ensure your success:
Use the Best Genetics
As I mentioned earlier, one of the key benefits of rearing your own queens is the ability to selectively breed for desirable traits. So be sure to choose your breeder colony wisely.
Look for colonies that exhibit the characteristics you want to see more of in your apiary - whether that's honey production, gentleness, disease resistance, or something else. These will be the foundation of your breeding program.
And don't be afraid to look outside your own apiary for exceptional genetics. Many beekeepers find great success by purchasing breeder queens from reputable commercial breeders and then incorporating them into their own breeding program.
Provide Optimal Nutrition
Proper nutrition is absolutely crucial for raising high-quality queens. The nurse bees in your cell builder colony need to have access to an abundance of protein-rich pollen and carbohydrate-rich nectar or syrup in order to produce copious amounts of royal jelly.
That's why I always make sure to include a frame of fresh, pollen-packed comb in my cell builder setup. And I'll often supplement with a protein patty or sugar syrup to ensure the bees have all the nutrients they need.
Taking the time to optimise the nutrition in your cell builder will pay dividends in the form of larger, healthier queens.
Keep Things Clean and Organised
Cleanliness and organisation are also key when it comes to successful queen rearing. Make sure all your equipment is clean and sterilised before use, and keep your work area tidy and free of distractions.
It's also a good idea to mark and label your frames and colonies to keep track of things like breeder queens, cell builder status, and mating progress. This will help you stay on top of your queen rearing workflow and avoid costly mistakes.
Be Patient and Persistent
Finally, remember that queen rearing is an art that takes time and practice to master. Don't get discouraged if your first few attempts don't go as planned. Every graft is a learning experience, and you'll get better with each successive round.
Stay patient, keep detailed records, and continually refine your techniques. Before long, you'll be producing high-quality queens with consistency and confidence.
Get Started with Queen Rearing Today
Rearing your own queens is one of the most rewarding and impactful things you can do as a beekeeper. It allows you to selectively breed for the traits you value most, while also providing you with a steady supply of replacement queens for your apiary.
And as you've seen, the 10/10 queen rearing method I've outlined is a simple, effective way to get started. By creating a strong cell builder colony and carefully grafting your queen cells, you can produce exceptional queens season after season.
So what are you waiting for? Grab your grafting tool and get to work! And if you need any additional guidance or support along the way, be sure to check out the resources on my YouTube channel. If queen rearing isn't for you want you just want the VERY best queen bees for your beehive, we supply a range of top quality mated queen bees throughout the season:
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