Mating/laying Q = Mini-nuc < Nuc < Hive

[EmsE]

I'm relieved with that. Having 2 queens that will have hatched this week they should have been able to fit in a couple of mating flights before the poor weather came along. I'd really like to try queen rearing but need to get my head round the co-ordination and timing of tasks and was also concerned about whether queens raised like this were as good as those raised via an AS.

[Jon]

and was also concerned about whether queens raised like this were as good as those raised via an AS.

I have a queen in her 4th season now which was made from a grafted larva and mated from an apidea.
She has never tried to swarm either.

[Mellifera Crofter]

... She has never tried to swarm either.

What do you do with queens that do not swarm, Jon? Do you only use grafts from them, or would you put one of those cupkit blocks into their hives, or would you sometimes induce an artificial swarm?
Kitta

[EmsE]

I have her queen in her 4th season now which was made from a grafted larvae and mated from an apidea.
She has never tried to swarm either.

That the kind of queen I'm after. With a non-swamy strain would you leave the bees to supersede her naturally or plan her replacement with one that you've grafted?

[brothermoo]

What do you do with queens that do not swarm

Graft what you can from her... Or make her your drone producing colony of you are grafting from a different queen
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[Jon]

They tried to supersede her last August but I only realised that in hindsight as I collected a wee cluster of bees with a queen on a fencepost up at the apiary. I could not work out where it came from and then a couple of days later I found a single open supersedure cell in her colony. I must have collected the replacement queen when she was making a pit stop on a mating flight. Unfortunately I found her dead in the apidea I put her in a week later but at least the original is still there.

What do you do with queens that do not swarm, Jon? Do you only use grafts from them

MC. this is the crux of the matter. Most beekeepers make increase from the colonies which make queen cells so inadvertently they are constantly selecting for the swarmiest bees in the apiary.
If you change your mind set to grafting rather than harvesting queen cells, you should always be making increase from the non swarmy colonies.

[The Drone Ranger]

This is a pic of a cell punch queen cell being built
The stainless ring fits instead of the brown cup
Cupkit system that isIMGP0702.jpg

[gavin]

I spent 30 secs buying some brown cups at Thornes the other day - some people take all winter to make something similar!

Grafted in my lunch hour yesterday but by going home time the bees had eaten the majority of them. Despite the supercedure cell in the cell raising colony before I rearranged into a Harden/Wilkinson and Brown formation, I don't think that they were in the mood.

[The Drone Ranger]

Ha ha!

Gavin No matter how cack handed you are you can cell punch a very small larva
IMGP0669.jpg
this is how the rings are positioned over larva they are very sharp
You use a tool to push them through
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1qI17v29jc
then the ring with cell goes in the holder
IMGP0667.jpg
when the punched cell is in there you just take a very sharp knife and cut off the top of the cell
Shove them in a suitable queen rearing hive and wait
I did some yesterday a mixture of 20 grafts and punches only 5 takes It might have been weather
My satellite reception was breaking up this morning

[The Drone Ranger]

Just thought I might make a few observations from this years efforts to raise queens

By far the easiest method is to use a Snelgrove board and remove queen cells from some of the top boxes replacing with Queen cells from the better types

Second easiest just use the complete cupkit cassette system trapping the queen in there for a day or so then release her leaving the front off
3 days later holding the white part of the cupkit cell assembly put it over a brown cup and push a little
The cup now secure in the holder can be fitted to the brown base on the cell bar

Cell raisers, well again the easiest are the boxes over the Snelgrove, but the queen right Ben Harding comes close

Cell punching, very good if you have less steady hands, needs the right comb
Not too new that it's floppy, or too old with previous brood cocoons,
probably better to put the queen on a good super comb and trap her there till you get what you need

Grafting I only used the Chinese tool which works best on older comb because it digs into new wax
The JZ/BZ cups are easiest to graft into but the cupkit is better for those who need to cage the queens etc

The apidea is the best design of mating hive but the Keiler has the advantage of size and comb area as well as being a little bit cheaper
Liquid feed works but on the whole making candy means you wont be checking as often

The crack pipe queen catcher and marking cage get my vote along with the Posca pen

There are lots of other methods and good equipment for the job but I don't have any experience of owning or using them :~)