On-the-Spot Queen Rearing

[Kerri Phillips]

Hi all,

I am planning to follow the Low Technology Institute's schedule for on-the-spot queen rearing (Bee Report — 2017 Management Plan for Honey and Splits – Low Technology Institute (lowtechinstitute.org)) based on the Coweta Sustainable Beekeeping Method. My one surviving hive has been extremely busy during these warm, sunny days we've been having. I'm concerned they may be crowded and getting ready to swarm. I have not cracked open the hive yet to take a look, but I plan to in a week or so. I'm seriously considering performing the first split at that time. The schedule recommends end of April or early May for Wisconsin. So, this would be pushing the schedule by almost 2 weeks.

Anyone else feel like it could be an OK time to perform an early season split?

-Kerri

[Greg V]

Before thinking of the splitting, you should really know the status of the colony.

This is the critical time because the turn over of the winter bees to spring bees is taking place.

What you see as a busy hive, will change very quickly as the winter bees are dying.

I would not be thinking of splitting just because of this.

Secondly, you don't want to be mating new queens now; not the best time.

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[marvin]

The conventional wisdom is to shoot for Mayday.  The concern is drone supply and freaky weather that may inhibit queen rearing and mating flights.  Having said that, I have a hive now that has a lot of brood including drone cells.  And I have a queenless hive, so I slipped a frame of eggs and brood in as a gamble to save it.  If it works, I'll have a new queen by Mayday.  If not, I'll do it again (maybe).  But I wouldn't worry about swarming this early, so I'd still wait a couple of weeks and tilt the scales in your favor.

[Jeff Steinhauer]

Kerri,

I'm going to agree with Greg on this.  The success of splitting a hive and queen rearing is dependent upon not only the strength of your hive, but also the availability of drones to mate with.  When I checked my surviving hive on Saturday, they looked really good.  Lots of bees, and a great brood pattern.  What I didn't see anywhere was drone comb.  What I am hoping to do, is to wait until there is queen cells, than pull the queen and nurse bees out and place them in empty equipment.  If there are multiple frames with queen cells, I'll divide them up as well.  This won't likely happen until mid to late May, or even early June.  So I wouldn't push it this early.

Cheers,
Jeff S.

[Greg V]

Two years ago I had an emergency queen mated in April.

But I would not bank on this case to be a rule.

It was indeed an emergency.

Not the best drones either - most likely imported package drones.

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[Marcin Matelski]

I'm in northern Illinois and raise queens for myself, and some for sale. In my experience, queens that are mated before May 1 very often get either superseded or replaced by me before the season is over. I'm assuming that's partly due to drone quality and availability. Queens mated in May are 50/50. Queens mated in June are the ones that carry my colonies through winter and make honey crop next year. That's my experience.

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[Paul Zelenski]

Don’t worry, you’re bees won’t swarm … yet. Bees won’t swarm until this is a nectar flow. The new hive would starve in a week without nectar coming in. The first nectar flow strong enough for swarming is dandelions, which also happens to be the perfect time for first splits.

 

I know the weather is beautiful and we are all getting anxious to be in the midst of our beekeeping year. But, remember, this is WI; it will be cold again. Looking at the weather, we will have highs in the upper 40s again next week.

 

As has been mentioned, the most important part to considering the earliest you can split, is the availability of drones. While looking through my hives, I saw a smattering of drones in the strongest colonies, some even capped. So, it is theoretically possible to get a queen mated from a split now. But, that will only work if there are other strong hives near you and it will still be risky. Even my hives with drones don’t have the swaths of drone comb that make for reliable mating. The most likely drones to mate with now are the ones brought in with packages. Also, keep in mind that it takes drones awhile to mature and be able to mate after emerging.

 

The other question, besides if it’s possible, is “Is it beneficial to split this early?” The answer to that  is a resounding “No!” This time of year the limiting factor to colony strength and buildup is heat. The bees have more nutrition than they need (pollen is flooding into the hives), but can only raise as much brood as they can keep warm. The larger the cluster, the more efficient it is. Multiple smaller clusters have  more surface area and can keep less brood warm. So, if you are trying to maximize the number of splits you can make to increase your hives, it is still better to wait longer to split. You’ll end up with more bees splitting later. This doesn’t even take into account the fact that weather can turn cold and freeze out small splits, or make mating impossible.

 

I used to leave my colonies alone and not touch them until the dandelions were blooming (I would peek to make sure they had enough sugar and add winter patties if they needed them) and this worked fine. The only reason I started doing more manipulation earlier is because my nuc customers are anxious to get their bees. So, I do some things to try to get my hives moving more quickly in the spring, and to get them to raise a lot of drones early. Again, plentiful, quality drones are key to good queens. So, I add full frames of drone comb to my best hives in my mating locations to flood the area with quality drones.

 

If you are worried they are going to swarm (which they’re not) or you want to encourage them to build up fast for additional splitting later in the spring, the best thing you can do now is to add a ‘checkerboarded’ box to the top of the hive. If you can get out on one of these beautifully warm days, I take my hives apart so I  can clean all the dead bees off the bottom board and out of any unused boxes at the bottom. Then, I might remove a box from the bottom if there are some that are completely unused, but this is completely unnecessary; empty space at the bottom of a hive is mostly irrelevant this time of year. Then, I put it all back together, exactly as it was. If I’m very curious, I might pull a frame or two to check on brood progress, but I am not doing a full inspection frame by frame. Then, I might add a pollen patty on top of their current hive. Then added the ‘checkerboarded’ box of alternating drawn, empty comb and honey frames. If it’s a ‘breeder colony’ I will include a frame of drone comb. The pollen and checkerboarded box gives them a great way to expand upwards with room for brood and plenty of food.

Of course, only do this to strong hives. Weak hives are benefiting from the heat that gets trapped against the cover and adding an additional box will actually slow down buildup.  

 

Again, because beekeepers are anxious to get their nucs from me, I push the envelope as much as possible in the spring to get quality mated queens as early as possible. All this rigmarole is unnecessary as long as your hive has food and space.

 

This spring has been quite warm so far, and I think splitting will be early (if things don’t cool down for long again). I did make a spreadsheet that calculates the EARLIEST you can expect things in the process of raising a nuc based on observations. I can plug in the dates I see drone eggs, larvae, etc. Here it is with a range of dates for illustration.

 

Drone Eggs	1	25-Mar	30-Mar	10-Apr
Drone Larvae	3	27-Mar	1-Apr	12-Apr
Drone Capped	10	3-Apr	8-Apr	19-Apr
Drone Emerge	24	17-Apr	22-Apr	3-May
Drone Fertile	38	1-May	6-May	17-May
Queen Egg	1	12-Apr	17-Apr	28-Apr
Split Can Be Made	4	15-Apr	20-Apr	1-May
Queen Capped	8	19-Apr	24-Apr	5-May
Queen Emerge	16	27-Apr	2-May	13-May
Queen Mating First	20	1-May	6-May	17-May
First Eggs	24	5-May	10-May	21-May
First Capped	33	14-May	19-May	30-May
Confident Sale Date	40	21-May	26-May	6-Jun

 

Sorry this turned into a novel again, but I hope it was helpful.

 

-Paul Z

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[Paul Zelenski]

PS, all these early inspections also destroy the first early drones that are almost certainly on burr comb between the boxes.

[Scott Johnson]

Hi Keri,

Thanks for linking to the splitting post. And congrats on the overwintered bees. That's always a fulfilling feeling.

That's a pretty aggressive (maximalist) splitting regime. Not only do you need the drones out and flying, which may vary by year, especially with this rapid warm-up we're having, but you need enough brood to support the splits. Once we get drones, I usually let the hive dictate when to split. I never split anything under six full frames of brood and preferably eight. If I see filled or capped swarm cells, that's another trigger for me, but I've usually split them before they get that built up.

I think splitting is an absolute essential tool for beginning beekeepers. It prevents swarms, builds up your apiary, gives your mites a brood break to deal with, etc. I wish more clubs taught it regularly, including ours!

Wait to get in there before you decide. Make sure you have a) plenty of drones and b) plenty of brood frames before splitting. I'd be surprised if both of these were met before the end of the month.

Good luck!

Scott

========================================
Scott Johnson Ph.D.

Director
Low Technology Institute

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[Paul Zelenski]

We used to have a splitting meeting every spring, usually May. I presented the topic multiple times. I even hosted a hands on demonstration a few times. Obviously covid adds a wrinkle to that. I also have family things that make it hard for me to commit to specific times. But, I’m sure there are a bunch of other people in the group that are more than ‘qualified’ to do a presentation. I think it would be a great idea. And the discussion would be great, as all the variables and different goals make email difficult to give specific tailored answers. 

I will start considering splitting my hives in 2 weeks depending on weather, drones and hive strength. But as I said before, if I weren’t trying to satisfy customers there’d be no reason I’d be rushing like that. 

Following the hive is good advice for people not on a artificial timeline and there really is no reason to split as early as possible. 

On Apr 6, 2021, at 1:33 PM, Scott Johnson <sajjo...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Steve Dolan]

May I ask who is your source for mated queens for these early season splits that you develop into 5 frame nucs for your customers?  What type of lead time do you need to give the vendor?  I am assuming your not using your own/locally produced queens given the early time frame: I.e making splits end of April

Steve

Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 6, 2021, at 2:41 PM, Paul Zelenski <paulze...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Paul Zelenski]

I do raise locally mated queens, which is why I need to do so much prep work in order to ensure proper drone coverage for quality mated queens. It takes over a month from day of split until the queen is mated and has capped brood to guarantee her quality. Which means that splits made at the end of April will be ready around the end of May or the first week of June. Most people starting a hive are already getting anxious to have their bees by then, and it already takes explaining why they can’t have them sooner.

If I purchased queens, I could both make my splits later and provide them to customers earlier since it only takes a couple weeks to have a queen accepted and laying. If I knew of a queen provider that had quality, WI winter hardy queens, I would consider it. Otherwise using purchased queens for my nucs would really make them no different than nuckages.  

I used to sell nucs with the overwintered queens and let my hives produce the new queens. This was a way to provide the nucs to customers earlier as well as give them a queen proven to have what it takes to make it through winter. Unfortunately, many customers were not prepared to handle second year queens and had problems with swarming despite my warnings, so I stopped. Perhaps I should consider this as an option again for more experienced keepers looking for an earlier local option.

 

You can order queens this early without any problems, since they are tons produced in CA or down South. My understanding, however, is that you need to reserve them in advance. All the package producers and commercial keepers buy up massive amounts of queens this time of year. So, if you just call now you probably won’t get any for awhile. Any northern queen producers are going to be in the same boat as we are and not able to provide any queens until later in the summer.

The saskatraz queen producers tried to set up a system where  they proved their queens in Canada and then sent them to CA for grafting and production to get the best of both worlds. My experiences with saskatraz queens, however, were not impressive.

I do buy queens throughout the summer to improve or diversify my stock, but those usually come from Northern producers and are used for later splits that I keep and overwinter. If they overwinter well, they are added into my splittable population.

 

Like I said, I checkerboard, add pollen, and add drone comb to my hives to encourage early drones. This year with the early warm spell, I was able to do that on 3/19. I am definitely pushing the envelope on how early this can be done, but very strong hives will respond to the pollen with substantial buildup and drone production. Before making any splits, I need to assess the drone population to be sure the queens will be mated properly. I also meant that I will be considering splits in 2 weeks, but depending what I find 3 weeks or more is more likely.

Again, if I were just splitting for myself, I would save myself a lot of hassle and just split later in May when the bees naturally would be considering swarming. Splitting during swarm season is the obvious, natural timing.

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[Paul Zelenski]

I found a bit of time this morning to check my hives and thought I’d provide some pics as a follow-up.

 

Even with my checkerboarding and pollen, you can see that, while there are a lot of large larvae, there are few capped drones. The second pic has more capped drones, but I still no where near enough to get a bunch of queens mated. So, if we assume those chubby grubs will be capped in the next few days, the EARLIEST I could make spits would be a bit over two weeks from now. It’ll be much safer to wait a bit beyond that since there are a lot of drones on the way right behind that.

 

I did see full frames of pollen stored and more queen cups that I would have expected. This year is definitely trending towards an early spring and if it continues, people will need to be on the lookout for swarms earlier than usual.

 

[John Thompson]

Early spring, indeed. I just spotted a couple of dandelions in my yard.

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[Joseph Bessetti]

Hi Kerri,

The timing of your split really should be made based on the state of the hive.  A hive will naturally swarm when a number of key conditions are met, and because of that, the colony usually has ideal conditions for raising a queen.  These conditions include:  good nectar flow, strong colony that thermoregulates the hive optimally, strong hive with lots of young bees to raise queens and establish a new colony.  

You really can't judge them ready to split just by how busy they seem to be.  Get in there and look.  The bees should be covering the frames wall-to-wall, ideally filling at least 2 deeps so that you are making a strong split.  There should be lots of frames of brood (I like to see 8 or more deep frames), lots of pollen, and lots of fresh nectar.  It should look crowded.

I would caution you about being in too big a hurry to split and leaving either half short on stores or with inadequate resources to raise a new queen.   It is almost always better to wait and make a strong split than to leave them weak or short on stores.  A weak split will not only raise a poor queen, but if the weather gets cold and there aren't enough bees to cover the brood it could get chilled, brood will die, and the colony will be set back substantially.   As a colony builds up in spring they often have just enough bees to cover the brood they have and splitting them leaves one or both halves unable to thermoregulate.

In my opinion, wait until June, or at least wait until there is a bunch of nectar coming into the hive, which is often during   If you are worried about swarming, give them more space and check in on them frequently.  You can always split during an inspection if you find that they hive has naturally started queen cells.

Joe  

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From: mad...@googlegroups.com <mad...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Kerri Phillips <valk...@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, April 6, 2021 8:58 AM
To: madbees <mad...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [madbees] On-the-Spot Queen Rearing

 

[Kerri Phillips]

Thanks Joe, Scott, Paul and everyone who responded to this!

Basically, you talked me off the ledge from a potentially disastrous path. I'm just so excited to finally get all the way to spring with a surviving colony and I look forward to expanding the number of hives that I have going into next winter. This is complicated by the fact that the only equipment I have to expand into from this Langstroth hive is Layens. 

End result is I'm definitely waiting until at least May 1st and will try to get a look inside the hive on the next sunny warm day (which might be a while at this point according to The Weather Channel).

Happy Spring and may all your lawns glow golden with dandelions!

-Kerri

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[Paul Zelenski]

Sounds like a good plan. 

We’re still at the time of year when top priority is ensuring your hives have enough food. 

On Apr 8, 2021, at 8:57 AM, Kerri Phillips <valk...@gmail.com> wrote:



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