Hi Pete
It just shows how important the queen suppliers are
Without them lots of beekeepers would not have access to quality queens
If I only had one or two hives buying a queen might be money well spent
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Joining or starting a queen rearing group and getting a couple of queens for yourself and a couple more to sell would be an even better option.
Simple queen rearing is not difficult and adds a whole new dimension to your beekeeping as well as providing you with better bees. Unfortunately most courses make it look complicated and that has led to misconceptions about it.
It only gets complicated if you are into queen breeding (as opposed to rearing) or if you want to make money (rather than save money) out of it.
A poll on a forum where a good number of the regular posters are actively trying to breed and improve native bees is obviously going to be skewed, I guess that a good many beekeepers who raise a few queens for themselves, and possibly a few for local distribution, will have been discouraged from voting on the poll because they fall short of some mythical ideal of breeding pure indigenous bees.
IMHO anybody who raises their own queens are accomplishing a great deal by being custodians of the currently successful genes in their area by capturing these genes through open matings with the best drones.
I personally fall into the jack of all trades camp myself. Down here it is impossible to actively select for one bee or another. Two miles apart as the crow flies I have apiaries, in one I have yellowy bees in the other I have dark bees and they've been consistent like that now for the three years I've had the two apiaries. In terms of temperament they broadly similar now, neither apiary would I go into without a suit on, but nor do I get attacked or followed, all things being equal.
Queen rearing fundamentally can be very simple and I will incur the wrath of here as well as elsewhere by stating that I see no issue with using the swarming impulse to garner queen cells If you understand why the colony is swarming. I live in a city, 1 or 2 hives and a couple of nucs in an apiary is pretty good going round these parts, having 2-3 hives a bunch of nucs and apideas is a luxury that not many people can indulge so you work with the bees and the space you have.
Hi Neils swarm cells should make good queens though
Sometimes people say that the queens so produced will be swarmy stock
Course if you have only one hive it doesn't matter if you graft from that hive or harvest a swarm cell you have the same stock
Also I think the bees are best at selecting larva to raise for queens
If you make a split where there are no queen cells present then you get emergency cells perhaps that's not so good
Snelgrove is better because although that is a split with no queen cells present the bees are in communication through the mesh and don't raise queens in panic
Plus as you progressively reduce the flying bees in the top the bees reduce the queen cells themselves always keeping their best choice
Quick question, what if the queen was removed from a colony/ or taken out in a nuc; being queenless the bees start emergency cells immeadiately, then if those are reduced to one or two while still uncapped, will those Q cells be worth keeping since the nurse bees can concentrate on feeding only them instead of many?
All the books say emergency cells are the least desirable of the 3.
I've had good queens from making a split and leaving them to get on with it but I suppose the probability is they are not as good as the other types.
"Walk away splits" seem to be more popular the other side of the pond. (from what I've read)
Anyone queen rearing by using queenless starter colonies is making use of the emergency impulse to get cells started. The ones who use queenright systems might be using the supersedure impulse but I am not convinced either way. Whatever method is used, if the queen cells are well provisioned they should produce strong queens. The only time I would discourage people from using swarm cells is when the colony is already too swarmy. I can't see how how swarm cells from a non-swarmy colony can possibly be seen as inferior.