REARING OF QUEEN-REES.

New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, Volume XVIII, Issue 6, 20 June 1919, Page 339

REARING OF QUEEN-REES.

By

A. B. TRYTHALL,

Apiarist, Ruakura Farm of Instruction.

The most vital point in successful beekeeping is to ensure that each colony is headed by a good queen. The traits in a queen-bee’s character are just as hereditary and the degrees between good and bad just as great as in any other kind of stock. A queen-bee should be prolific, of good size, colour, and shape, and keep her brood-nest compact and solid. Her progeny should be good honey-gatherers, diseaseresisters, reluctant swarmers, good-tempered, robber-resisting, of good colour, and not given to building too much brace-comb or collecting too much propolis.

The only way to secure queens with as many of these traits as possible is to persistently breed from stock showing these qualities. If in the apiary there is a colony which stands out pre-eminently above all others, that is the one to breed from. If there are none that are satisfactory it is advisable to send to a reputable queen-breeder for as many as one can afford, and after testing them in one’s own apiary breed from the best. It is not necessary to be constantly buying breeding-queens, as each importation may alter one’s standard, nor is it always advisable to breed from a queen before fully testing her, as it is quite possible the beekeeper may have a better one among his own stock.

It is best to breed only from pure Italian queens whose correct mating has been assured. Novices can judge the mating by noting the uniformity of the hatching brood as regards colour. Should the young bees show diversity of colour— being yellow-banded and others quite.blackthe mating has not been correct. The question of mating is always a difficult one, as . queens mate on the wing, and therefore it is impossible for the apiarist to select the sires. But as purebred queens, even though mismated, throw pure drones, it only takes a comparatively short dime to eliminate crossbred drones from an apiary. There is, however, still the chance of - contamination from other drones in the neighbourhood. To sum up the matter : By persistently breeding from the best it is possible to achieve wonderful results, while under careless management, or, as is often the case, no management at all, bees are sure to deteriorate.

Methods of queen-rearing are legion, but may be roughly divided into two classes— those which use the naturally built queencells, and those which necessitate the provision of artificial queen-cups into which young larvae are transferred. The former method is most suitable for beginners, or for use early in the season, as it minimizes the risk of chill to young larvae; while the second method is used largely by beekeepers who want to rear queens in greater numbers. As an example of the first method I will briefly describe what is known as the “ Stewart method ”, (after the noted queen-breeder, Mr. R. Stewart, of Crookston, Otago), and how to carry it out.

THE STEWART METHOD.

In autumn or very early spring place a comb containing a fair number of drone-cells in the centre of the brood-nest of one or more of your best Italian colonies, other than that headed by the choice queen it is desired to breed from, so as to get very early unrelated drones. By getting pure Italian drones flying before Black drones in a district it is possible to get a larger percentage of pure matings than would otherwise be possible. If in going through Black or inferior colonies at this time drone-brood is found to be in existence, it is best to either remove it or to place a drone-trap at the entrance of such hives.

Weight of evidence goes to prove that Black drones are either more alert or active or less susceptible to cold than Italians, and therefore it is necessary, if we wish to Italianize, to eliminate Black drones as much as possible. My experience is that early batches of queens are the most likely to show the highest percentage of mismatings, and an Italian apiary left to its own devices is almost sure to revert to the Black type in time. By judicious feeding or otherwise work one of your strongest colonies —which will be called No. i—in early spring until it has bees in two hive-bodies for preference. As soon as drone-brood is beginning to hatch out of the combs inserted for the purpose, as mentioned, go through the hive, find the queen, and place her in the top story with two frames of young brood and stores, leaving the remainder of the brood below, and place a queen-excluder between the bodies.

In three days’ time go to the hive—which will be called No. 2 —- containing the choice queen which it is desired to breed from, taking with you a nice clean comb that has not been used for brood-rearing more than once or twice, and insert it right into the middle of the brood-nest for the queen to lay in. In a further five days’ time return to No. i and remove the top body with queen and bees to a new stand—No. 3 —where they can remain permanently to build up to full strength again. Return to No. 1 and examine very carefully every brood-frame to see if any queen-cells have been started; if so, remove every one without exception.

Now exchange an empty frame from this hive with the special frame from No. 2 which was placed there five days previously. This frame, which should now contain eggs and probably very young larvae, is treated as follows : With a sharp knife cut a strip off the bottom of the comb right through the cells containing eggs and larvae, and another strip or two vertically down the comb as shown in Fig. 1, thus leaving plenty of room for the building of queen-cells. The cutting of the comb should be done as quickly as possible, in order to avoid any possibility of chill to the young larvae. If the day is at all chilly it would be best to do it in a warm room. The prepared frame of eggs and larvae is now placed in the centre of the brood-nest of No. 1 hive. Prior to the giving of this comb the bees in No. 1 were hopelessly queenless, having not only had their queen removed, but a hive containing no brood under eight days old. They will therefore be just in the condition to go to work to form queen-cells on the edges of the prepared comb, where marked by the crosses in the sketch.

In ten days’ time the queen-cells should be nearly ready to hatch. Examine the comb to see how many good cells are 'available, and after preparing the requisite number of nucleus hives, less one, or destroying the queen in hives it is wished to requeen, come back to No. I and cut out carefully with a sharp thin-bladed penknife all the cells but one. Then, after putting each in a West cell-protector, insert in the centre of each nucleus or queenless hive and leave to hatch out. Examine in two or three days’ time to see if young queens are hatched. If so, leave for a week or ten days, according to weather, and examine again to see if they are mated and laying.

If it is very early in the season or the weather is doubtful, it is advisable to introduce the cells into nucleus hives rather than dequeen hives for the purpose, as it entails less loss of time and bees in case the queens failed to mate, which is often the case in early spring.

THE DOOLITTLE METHOD.

As indicated, if queens are required in large numbers it is advisable to adopt the “ Doolittle ” principle of artificial queen-cups, shown in Fig. 2. These cups may be purchased ready-made from the appliance-dealers, or can be made in the following manner : Procure a round blunt-pointed stick (Doolittle used a hay-rake tooth for the purpose) ; the point should be about fl in. in diameter and quite smooth. After soaking the point in water for some hours dip it gently to a depth of fin. to fin. into hot melted wax for about one second or less, and after withdrawing it allow the coating of wax to cool. Repeat this process four or five times, after which the wax cup so formed can be removed from the stick (see Fig. 3). The wax cups can now be waxed into wooden cell-cups fitted with a short spike as shown, or on to small squares of wood similarly spiked by driving a small nail through them, to protrude about in., of they may be simply waxed on to the cell-bar without any wood foundation at all (see Fig. 4). This drawing also shows how the cell-bars are held in position in an ordinary Langstroth frame.

The only other tools required are a transferring-needle and a jelly-spoon (see Fig. 5), which also can be procured from the appliancedealers, or may be made out of knitting-needles by slightly flattening the ends as shown in the illustration.

Having made sufficient cell-cups and placed them on bars the beekeeper is ready to commence rearing operations. Hive No. 1 is

prepared in the same manner as stated for the Stewart system, and after removing the top box with queen, &c., to new stand No. 3, return to No. 1 and place a frame containing one or more cell-bars with cells right into the middle of the brood-nest, and leave for a few hours for the bees to discover their queenlessness and to warm and polish up the cell-cups given. A supply is now needed of royal jelly —the term given to the food supplied by the worker-bees to the young queen larvae, and resembling thick cream in appearance and consistency. This can be

procured from a previously built queen-cell. The thin jelly from a queen-cell in its early stages is the best for the purpose. If no natural queen-cells are available a hive should have been made queenless a few days previously so that a supply would be assured. Go to hive No. 2 —the choice breeding-queen hive —and procure a frame containing newly hatched larvae not more than twenty-four to thirty-six hours old, and take it into a warm room together with one or more cells of royal jelly and the bars of queen-cups which were placed in

hive No. i a few hours previously. With one’s back to the window, so that the light may shine directly into the cells of the remove the royal jelly from one of the queen-cells with the jelly-spoon and divide it among the queen-cups, placing a portion about the size of a pinhead into the bottom of each cup. . ' . ’.• One queen-cell usually provides about enough jelly for a bar of cups say, twelve to fourteen. With the transferring-needle now very carefully remove a tiny larva from a worker brood-cell, place it on the spot of royal jelly, and continue until you have tenanted all the cups, when the. bar should be quickly taken out and placed in the holding-frame of hive No. i from which it was taken.' Leave it there for the bees to carry on the work. Return the original frame of brood to hive No. 2 from which you borrowed it. - Next day look into. No. 1 and see how many cells have been accepted. In ten days’ time these cells should be almost ready. to hatch, when it will be necessary to prepare nucleus hives, as stated in . connection with the Stewart plan, and to give to each a West cell-protector containing one of these ripe cells. ■ If many young queens are' needed it is advisable to prepare a succession of No. 1 hives, and as some bees are better at accepting queen-cells than others it is a good plan to pick hives for the purpose whose bees show a tendency to build a number of natural queen-cups, as they usually accept grafted cells readily. The day after the grafts are given to No. 1 the queen-cells started may be removed and given to any other queenless hive, or placed in a well-populated super above the excluder on a queen-right colony, providing care is taken to see that the queen is kept below the excluder. The bees of this hive will carry on the work and finish the cells. ■ It is advisable, however, to place a frame containing brood on each side of the cell-bars in the super. No. 1 hive can now be given fresh bars of grafted cells, and the process kept up daily until the bees tire of the work. Usually the second bars given are the most successful as regards the number of grafts accepted. Some queen-breeders graft the larvae without using a supply of royal jelly at all, but the larvae leave the needle best if placed in the jelly at the bottom of the cell, and, personally, I always have the best results when jelly is used. It , is very necessary to avoid chill in all manipulations, as the larvae are very delicate and easily killed. Speed is therefore very desirable, but it can be attained' only with practice.

GENERAL.

In either system of queen-rearing, when preparing No. 1 hive by placing the queen above , the excluder,, it often happens that the bees form queen-cells on the brood-frames in the bottom body box. When, therefore, the top box with the queen is removed on the eighth day to a new stand it is necessary to search carefully and remove any such queen-cells that may have been formed, or one’s queen-rearing efforts will be a failure. b

It only remains to be said that the best results are obtained during a good honey-flow. If no honey is coming in it is advisable to feed heavily.