A Venture into Queen Rearing -part 1

 My association ran a queen rearing group this year via zoom, it wasn't a teaching group but more a group of us trying to figure out how to do this and be successful, and I'm not going to lie I joined thinking I probably wouldn't see it through. Queen Rearing is something I'd never even looked at and to me it seemed something only very clever beekeepers to do.

It was a great little group, we met weekly for an original plan of 6 weeks or so. We all shared our ideas and what we'd been reading to then formulate a solid individual plan, from characteristics we would like, what mating nucs to use, to the precise timings we needed. 

Thinking I wanted an easy life and grafting looked too hard I decided on the Miller Method. It seemed a very easy and least time consuming option. I was then planning to do grafting later in the season after I'd had my first go at rearing queens. I had my plan, my timings and equipment, as did the rest of the group and then it rained...and rained...and rained...and rained. 

It was now mid June and maybe even too late to start but I thought sod it, I'm just going to skip to the grafting so I ordered a queen rearing frame, tools and a couple of rainbow nucs which others in our group had spoke about. Like all Thornes orders it arrived super quick and I was ready to go. I'd read a little from the BBKA Queen Rearing Booklet and using tips from the group- like cutting down the side of the cells to access the larvae- I was ready to go. 

Most importantly I wrote an equipment list each time so I went to the apiary with my queen rearing frame and cups, grafting tool, bottle of water, cloth and torch. I forgot a pen knife but luckily my dad always has one! I was also going to use a method that no one had wrote about- The Belsey Method!!!

We needed to change comb in our strongest hive and luckily it's Queen is my favourite- Beastie. She is a darker colour queen, prolific layer, well tempered and a good honey producer. Although it was a strong colony we decided to do a Bailey Comb change and on my grafting day this change was a week in. So this meant I had a massive double brood hive and theoretically I thought with the queen in the top box there will be a queen rearing impulse in the bottom due to pheromones. Who would know if it would work? By this point others in the group had made attempts and failed ending up with queenless hives, unmated queens and the weather was still unpredictable. 

the giant Bailey Comb change hive, the colony I grafted from

So we moved the queen up in the bailey comb change, leaving me with freshly laid frames to take teeny tiny larvae from. I grafted on top of our storage box probably 8ft or so from the hive. I could see the larvae I wanted but I found it quite difficult to transfer them. I'd never done it before and I was pretty confident I'd mashed the first few larvae with my clumsy attempts using the bamboo graft tool. Then at about graft 5 I actually could clearly I'd managed to transfer one that looked pretty good so I was hopeful that at least one would make it. I grafted 8 in total, I wasn't expecting much, I felt I'd been heavy handed and it was a hot day, I was worried I'd taken too long and they'd have dried out too much despite my attempts to keep them damp with a wet cloth. I then put this frame back into the bottom box in between some open brood and told the bees the plan. I always tell them the plan, I'm not sure they listen but I feel I should include them! 

one of my grafts

I placed the grafting frame back into the bottom of Bailey Comb change

I learnt some valuable things grafting which will aid me next time:

- one of the group said get a head torch and wear it on your chin, I didn't think I'd need this but I think it would help massively because actually the light is never where you want it and holding a torch makes it clumsy. 

- Graft more cells, I don't know why I picked to do only 8!?

- take a pot to put your grafting tool in, I panicked when I thought I'd lost it, thinking how can I loose something bright red! Turns out I'd stuck it to the other side of the frame when I turned it over on the bench!

- use a board to angle the frame, I think this would make it much easier

Anyway it was too late to change plans so I hoped for the best, I would be thrilled if just one worked. I planned to return a week later...