So I returned a week later, with only 2 hair roller cages in my pocket because that's how not confident I was that I would have achieved anything. We inspected the other hives first and then finally the bottom Bailey Comb change brood and to my astonishment there were queen cells- 4 queen cells! I was amazed and quite proud of myself! 3 were beautifully drawn and capped and one was encased in a load of free style brace comb. Not knowing how to free it as it was completed incased I sacrificed this one. I put the hair roller cages on two and made up a queen-less nuc from the frames in the bottom box to finish them off in. At this point I was winging it slightly, I hadn't expected any success so hadn't read much further into the process!
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| my 4 queen cells, the bottom right one entombed in comb |
I then performed a shook swarm on what was left of the Bailey Comb change and left them too it. Went home, grabbed another cage and went pack up to put in on the final cell. I did knock it slightly tearing it away at the base and I could see the queens white flesh inside but I pushed it back on gently, I had nothing to loose trying to save it!
Returning 6 days later I could not believe my eyes- I had 3 queens hatched walking about in their little cages! I was so happy that I'd actually managed it but now what was I going to do with 3 queens! I'd thought it through in theory but panicked at the reality. I took them all out of the nuc in their cages, popped them in my pocket and thought about it for a minute. I released one into the nuc it came from, made up the rainbow mating nuc for another and released the final into a queenless colony (I'd done an artificial swarm from them and then the parent queen went off lay and disappeared). I now hoped for good weather so they could mate, it was still touch ago with days of heavy rain predicted about 4 days after they'd be mature enough to mate.
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| bad picture but you can see the queen at the bottom |
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| hatched queen cell |
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| I set my mating nuc up on top of a spare hive at the back of the apiary |
I left them for 2 weeks mainly because of the weather, I was dying to see if they'd made it. I ventured into the nuc first, torch in hand to see any eggs, there they were- and lots of them! The mating nuc had a tiny patch of comb which was full of eggs! The old queenless colony didn't have any eggs and I couldn't spot the queen, I left them another week but it was clear this queen hadn't made it for whatever reason.
I'm writing this a few weeks on from my success and the nuc has been united with the queenless colony and the queen is doing well. The queen from the mating nuc went to another beekeeper who's hive had become queenless and she is doing well too!
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| eggs in the rainbow mating nuc |
Starting off doing it this I had no idea I'd manage it, and manage to do it successfully! I had a 50% success rate at grafting and 2/3 managed to mate. I'm beyond chuffed and feel more prepared to do it again. My advice for any of you thinking of giving queen rearing a go, just do it! If you have enough stock of strong colonies (I only had 2 when I started this) and a spell of good weather you pretty much can't go wrong. Having a group of other I could share my successes and mistakes with made the process much easier, I had people to bounce ideas off of and knew if it all went pear shaped we could help each other out. Its not some mystical art it just takes a little time, some good eyesight and remember to always be more prepared than you think you need to be!
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| Marking them is still not a strength of mine but isn't she beautiful! Also we've gone to our own marking scheme just to confuse things, she's technically a white queen |
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