1 Introduction

One of the tasks of the Breeding Instructors is to pass on their knowledge related to queen rearing. They teach any beekeeper who wishes to rear his or her own queens the basics as well as the rearing techniques so that the beekeeper can become autonomous in the apiary.

For some, queen rearing means technical skill and the pleasure of mastering the finer points of beekeeping; for others, it is about obtaining queens more quickly and in greater numbers in order to multiply their colonies; for others still, rearing goes together with race, quality bees and enjoyment in the apiary. One may even identify with all of these themes at once!

Whatever your motivations, this document is intended to be didactic and to help you learn the basics of rearing. I am going to explain a simple and effective way of producing your queens. It is not THE method, nor the only method, nor the best one, but MY method, which works very well when one is content with rearing one series of queens per year.

The Breeding Instructors and queen producers who produce large numbers of queens will use more advanced techniques, but the basics remain the same.

When one begins queen rearing, one is often intimidated by grafting or by the rigidity of the rearing schedule. But once one has understood the basics of reproduction in the honey bee, everything becomes crystal clear.

I suggest that you start by following this method and then, according to your curiosity and your wishes, consult other works so as to broaden your field of competence and develop YOUR own rearing method, the one that feels instinctive to you. In chapter 6 you will find a series of documents to go further.

1.1 Queen management in the apiary

F0, F1, hybrids, local bees or foreign bees? Which queens should I have in my apiary?

The Breeder-Beekeeper is therefore a beekeeper who will create his or her own F1s in the apiary. To do so, an excellent pure F0 queen is required. By rearing from this queen and producing new queens in the apiary, the beekeeper will obtain fine F1s which will be excellent queens for honey production (thanks to the phenomenon of heterosis), while inheriting the characteristics of their ancestry selected by the Breeding Instructors.

To obtain the F0 needed as a genetic source and mother of the F1s, the beekeeper may either buy one directly from a Breeding Instructor, or go and take brood from one of them, rear queens, and go up to the mating station to produce his or her own F0s. This is the method that will be described in this document.

Every beekeeper can thus benefit in the apiary from the enormous conservation and selection work carried out by the Breeding Instructors and thereby have quality bees.

1.2 Breeding Instructor or Breeder-Beekeeper

Rearing and selection are by no means reserved solely for the Breeding Instructors. Quite the contrary: the transmission of knowledge through rearing courses in the local sections is one of the essential points of the Breeding Instructor’s specification. It is their duty to share their knowledge and to pass on to everyone the queen reproduction techniques as well as the methods of selection. The aim is that every beekeeper should be able to become a Breeder-Beekeeper and carry out his or her own rearing and selection. What you are reading is one of the clearest examples of what the Breeding Instructors do to train beekeepers and help them become Breeder-Beekeepers. The courses organised each year in the local sections and the various courses given by the Valais group of SAR Breeding Instructors complement this document.

The other essential points in the Breeding Instructors’ specification, which distinguish them from Breeder-Beekeepers, are that they must maintain lines recorded in the Herdbook (queen register) by preserving the purity of the Carnica race and therefore avoiding any hybridisation with other subspecies, as well as operating the mating stations and the test apiaries. These tasks are carried out under the supervision of the Breeding Commission of the Société Romande d’Apiculture (CE-SAR) and our technical supervisor, who ensure strict compliance with the directives of Apisuisse and provide scientific follow-up of SAR breeding.

The whole of the work carried out by the Breeding Instructors is therefore based on transmission. Transmission of knowledge, as described above, but also transmission of high-quality genetics. To do this, every beekeeper can go and take selected brood from a Breeding Instructor and thus benefit from the enormous amount of work provided by our group.

Once a beekeeper has become a Breeder-Beekeeper and masters rearing, and even selection, he or she may quite legitimately enter F0 queens in the Herdbook and continue selection on that line. The only condition is that the queens must meet the purity requirements of the CE-SAR (morphological measurements and DNA). Any Breeder-Beekeeper wishing to commit to this path may contact the cantonal head of the Breeding Instructors, who will be pleased to coach them through this transition.

2 Equipment

In this chapter we shall describe the equipment required for rearing a series of 15–20 queens.  This is the ideal number of queens that can be obtained with the rearing method described below, using the bees from about one hive to populate the nucleus boxes.

2.1 Cell builder colony

As your cell builder colony, you should choose in your apiary a strong hive with a large bee population, gentle enough to make manipulations easier, and with a strong propensity for rearing: several starts of queen cells can be observed.

As a rule, I choose a hive that is bringing in a crop, which guarantees that there are plenty of young bees and enough bees to keep the brood warm in the event of a cool spell.

2.2 Brood

In order to go up to the mating station, it is necessary to rear your queens from selected brood. In French-speaking Switzerland, the SAR Breeding Instructors are available to provide this free of charge. Their queens are measured (morphological measurements and DNA) in order to guarantee racial purity.

You will find the up-to-date list of Valais Breeding Instructors on the FAVR website. In addition, blind test apiaries provide valuable information on the quality of these lines. Since the ancestry of these queens has been recorded for generations, the instructor will be able to advise you as well as possible on which mating station to use in order to maintain a low level of inbreeding.

2.3 Rearing equipment

There is a multitude of different tools for carrying out queen rearing. Whether for grafting frames, cell cups, or grafting tools, dozens and dozens of references can be found from suppliers of beekeeping equipment.

I am going to present here the equipment that I have used for many years. This equipment is intended to be simple, economical and easy to use. I advise you to begin by using this equipment and then, once you have mastered the basics of the rearing techniques, to test other types of equipment in order to find what suits you best. But using what I suggest is a good way to begin.

Grafting

Fig. 1: Chinese grafting tool at the top and Swiss grafting tool below

The grafting tool is used to transfer larvae from the selected brood frame into the cell cups. With a little practice, the Swiss grafting tool is extremely effective (especially when the wax of the frame is fairly soft), and the Chinese grafting tool is very practical when the wax is fairly hard.

Fig. 2: Grafting frame Frame with 30 cell cups and Nicot system

As a grafting frame, I use a frame with Nicot cell cups for 30 cells. This is a good compromise for successfully obtaining a series of 15 to 20 cells each time, and the distance between the hair roller cages (plastic protections to prevent a queen that emerges before the others from destroying the other queen cells) is small, which will limit the building of brace comb between the cells in the event of a strong nectar flow.

Fig. 3: Cell cups New plastic cell cups from the Nicot system

Each year, the small cell cups that will receive the larvae can be replaced in order to work cleanly.

We still need to speak about the essential element for going up to the mating station without drones: the filtering box. The purpose of this device is to filter the bees mechanically by making them pass through a queen excluder, so as to be sure to populate our nucleus boxes only with bees and thus avoid bringing foreign drones to the station.

Fig. 4: Filtering box 6-frame nucleus box with a super fitted with a fixed queen excluder.

There are many systems available commercially. I am going to present here the one I use, in my opinion the simplest and the most common in French-speaking Switzerland. It consists of using a standard 6-frame nucleus box (wooden or an Apibox) together with a super under which a queen excluder is fixed.

 

Fig. 5: Opening for funnel 50 mm hole in the hive cover. Fig. 6: Opening for funnel

In the cover of the nucleus box, a 50 mm hole is made in order to pass the funnel through it. This hole must be able to be closed again with tape or with a removable piece.

Fig. 7: Removable cover This element forces the bees to pass through the queen excluder. A fine mesh allows ventilation of the hive and allows smoke to pass through in order to direct the bees.

We also need a removable cover which can be slid inside the super so as to force the bees to pass through the queen excluder.

Fig. 8: Candy without honey 2.5 kg pack of Apifonda candy.

Last indispensable item: the bee measurer. Indeed, it is necessary to populate the nucleus boxes with about 100 grams of bees. To measure this quantity correctly, one may use a yoghurt cup, a soup ladle, or even a cube with a 7 cm edge.

2.4 Nucleus boxes

Fig. 9: Mating nucleus Apidea model

As a mating hive, I use Apidea boxes, ideal for cool nights in the mountains and of a size that represents a good compromise between the quantity of bees needed to populate them and the mating results. The boxes can be prepared during the winter, but the candy must only be added when they are about to be used. Otherwise, it will harden and the bees will have difficulty eating it.

The first step consists of preparing the mini frames. A strip of foundation 2–3 centimetres wide is cut and glued to the top of the frame using a little melted wax. No need to add more, the bees will build the rest. A longer strip would be inconvenient when populating the boxes.

Check that the queen excluder is well fixed next to the entrance and in the open position (Fig. 12).

The feeder is filled (to about ¾) with honey-free candy (for example Apifonda or a mixture made at home in the following proportions: 10 kg of icing sugar and 3.8 kg of bee syrup available commercially). It is forbidden to put candy containing honey in it, in order to avoid the spread of diseases on the station.

Check that the opening in the crown board is properly aligned with the opening in the mini frames. It seems obvious, but it is very annoying to have to reopen a box in order to turn a mini frame around. Finally, if the boxes have already been used a little and the lid does not hold firmly, I add a strip of tape to make absolutely sure that the crown board will not open during population or during the introduction of the cells in my cellar. Fig. 10, 11 & 12 : Preparation of the boxes Mini frame with a foundation starter strip (top left) Ready box with candy filling 2/3 of the feeder, correct positioning of the mini frames and tape if the lid does not hold well. (top right) Queen excluder open before going up to the mating station. Do not forget to close the door before populating the boxes.

2.5 Treatment against varroosis

In order to avoid the proliferation of varroa in the nucleus boxes and in accordance with the regulations for going up to the mating station, a treatment against varroosis is compulsory. In this respect, the simplest approach is to use an oxalic acid solution by spraying. In chapter 4.4 we shall explain how to populate the boxes and how to use this product judiciously.

Fig. 13: Oxuvar 5.7%, 275 g container By adding 250 ml of tap water to this solution, one obtains a 3% mixture that can be used in a sprayer.

You can obtain it from all suppliers of beekeeping equipment. (For example, the Oxuvar 5.7% solution from Andermatt BioVet AG, available in a 275 g format. By adding 250 ml of water to the solution, one obtains a 3% mixture, which is ideal for this treatment.) For more details, consult the product data sheet.

2.6 Bees

We saw above that we need a cell builder colony. We shall also need bees to populate the nucleus boxes. In order to spare this fine colony that we have used as a cell builder colony, we shall take bees from weaker hives, those that do not produce / will not produce a crop, for example. What matters is that they have many young bees.

To obtain the 100 grams of bees that must be placed in each nucleus box, one should count one side of a Dadant brood frame packed with bees. I count about one frame for two boxes. For a series of 20 boxes, we therefore need 10 frames of bees, which represents almost an entire hive. I

always put 1–2 more frames than necessary so as to have enough bees at the end and not have to repeat the filtering operation a second time to complete the last boxes.

2.7 Marking and introduction equipment

Fig. 14: Small equipment for marking and introducing queens: glue varnish, Nicot introduction cage, marking plunger and numbered discs.

When your queens are ready to be introduced into your colonies, they will have to be marked and confined in an introduction cage. Here too there is a whole range of different types of equipment; I am going to present here only the equipment that I use. To mark the queens, I trap them in the marking plunger and with the glue varnish I fix a coloured disc onto the queen’s thorax. For introduction, I use Nicot cages with a little candy to block the entrance.

3 Planning

Planning a rearing programme is as essential as all the beekeeping practice related to it. Indeed, in order to go up to the mating station on the correct date with nucleus boxes in which the queen has emerged for a few days and which show good cohesion among their inhabitants, it is crucial to observe a strict schedule.

This schedule means that, unlike general beekeeping practice where one can always postpone work in the apiary, here strict compliance with the timetable is necessary, and this sometimes means having to work in the rain or in bad weather.

3.1 When should rearing be practised?

The first essential question is: “When is it wise to rear queens?” The answer is simple if one observes nature: during the swarming season! Yes indeed, not surprisingly, it is when the nectar flow is strong, temperatures and sunshine are present, that conditions are optimal for the bees’ natural instinct to lead them to rear new queens in order to swarm and multiply, or else to requeen.

It is therefore during this period (from the beginning of May to the end of June depending on the geographical location of the apiary) that the optimal conditions are met for queen rearing.

There is no point in starting too early, because if one wants to have queens mated in the apiary, drones will be few in number and not sexually mature, and if one wants to go up to the mating station, one risks having queens ready too early. What is more, temperatures in the mountains at the beginning of June are often cool and may reduce mating success.

The Breeding Instructors, for their part, often start earlier and finish later in order to make maximum use of the station opening period. But for a beekeeper who will do only one series in the year, the ideal is therefore to begin rearing at the beginning of June so as to go up to the mating station in mid to late June.

3.2 Queen development cycle

To understand properly how to plan the rearing process, it is necessary to master the queen’s development cycle.

Fig. 15: Queen development cycle Three days after laying, the egg hatches and becomes a larva. Between the eighth and ninth day the cell is sealed and the queen emerges on the sixteenth day.

The egg laid in a queen cell is exactly identical to a worker egg. The transformation is triggered by a change in food during the larval stage. If workers are fed royal jelly and then a porridge of water, honey and pollen during this phase, the queen, for her part, is fed only royal jelly, and moreover royal jelly with a particular composition.

One then understands why it is important to take the youngest possible larvae to make our queens, because if the larvae are too old, they may already have been fed with porridge and this will subsequently have an adverse influence on the queen’s development (risk of the rearing being rejected by the bees or incorrect development of the queen).

Another key stage: the sealing of the queen cell between the 8th and 9th day after laying.

During the 10th and 11th days, the final moult transforms the larva into a pupa. The cells are particularly fragile during this transformation and it is very important not to shake or jolt them during this period.

On the 13th day the pupa starts to develop pink eyes and the queen will emerge on the 16th day.

Depending on the temperature prevailing in the hive, development time may vary by more than one day.

She will still need another four to six days to become sexually mature and able to be mated. That is why it is important that she remain in the box for at least two days.

3.3 Rearing calendar

Contrary to what was explained in the previous chapter, and in order to make calculations easier, breeders take as the reference day the day on which rearing begins rather than the day on which the eggs were laid. That is to say that day 0 is the day on which larval transfer (grafting) is carried out. With this calendar, the queens will therefore emerge on day 12.

The second time reference is the date of going up to the mating station, because there is no flexibility at that point. In Valais, the stations are open on Saturday mornings between 7:00 and 9:00, so the date for beginning rearing must be calculated on the basis of this information.

I am not going to describe the rearing technique in detail here for the moment (what type of starter to use, etc.), because that matters little for establishing the calendar.

Working backwards from this date, we shall be able to define the rearing calendar. Taking into account the fact that, before going up to the mating station, the queen should spend at least 2 days confined in the nucleus box with her bees in order to establish good cohesion in this mini-colony, and taking into account the development cycle seen above, one obtains the following calendar:

Day	Operation
-1	Preparation of the starter
0	Grafting and introduction of the grafting frame
10	Preparation of the boxes and introduction of the queen cells. Put everything in the cellar
12	Emergence of the queens
15	Going up to the mating station
29	Retrieve the boxes from the mating station

In order to make this calculation easier and avoid mistakes, I have created an Excel file that allows us to prepare our schedule easily.

It then becomes possible to note the important milestones of our rearing schedule in our diary and thus not miss any step.

4 Rearing

As explained previously, the rearing method that I am now going to describe is one method among many others. But this method is the simplest, the one that requires the fewest manipulations and that most of the time gives excellent results. I have used it for many years and it is ideal for rearing only one series of queens.

Breeders speak of a Starter for the colony that will begin rearing queens during the first 24–48 hours. The bees of the Starter will build the first centimetre of the queen cells and create the bed of royal jelly in which the larvae will bathe. The Finisher is the colony that will take care of the rest of the rearing up to emergence. When one wants to have many cells drawn or when nectar flow conditions are not optimal (outside the swarming period, for example), the use of a Starter in which one ensures there is a huge quantity of young bees often gives better results. However, this requires a certain technique and many manipulations, which makes this method less accessible to the novice breeder.

The method that I am going to describe in detail is the method that I call the Cell Builder Colony Method. It is one and the same hive that will play the role of Starter and Finisher. Moreover, since we use a strong hive that will almost certainly bring in a very fine crop, with this method we shall make minimal use of this colony and the loss of crop will be minimal. Refer to chapter 2.1 to know which colony to choose.

4.1 Preparation of the cell builder colony

If you follow my advice and carry out your rearing during the fine season, in the middle of a strong nectar flow, there is no need to treat your cell builder colony specially before the big day. Indeed, we are sufficiently advanced in the season for the hive to have enough young bees, honey and pollen. A small inspection of the colony 3–4 weeks before rearing can reassure you as to the presence of 2 good pollen frames and a large quantity of sealed brood. If this is not the case, it may be wise to choose another colony.

Day -1 | Thursday 1 June

According to our planning, I have to orphan my cell builder colony and graft the larvae on Friday 2 June. We are the day before. My colony is strong, it already has a super full of bees and with some honey. I am going to put bee escapes in place in order to remove the supers and concentrate the bees in the colony.

Day 0 | Friday 2 June

Fig. 16: Cell builder colony Situation of the cell builder colony after removal of the super.

I go to the apiary early in the day when calm still reigns there. To begin with, I take the opportunity to remove the super and brush off any bees that may still be there. I am going to place it on another hive that is strong and needs space in the supers. I then open the hive and am pleased to see that it is overflowing with bees: the 11 frames of my hive are completely covered with bees.

Mission of the day: remove as much open brood as possible, as well as the queen. Indeed, the more open brood remains, the more larvae the bees will have at their disposal to draw cells. But we want them to draw cells on the larvae that I am about to introduce. I therefore inspect the hive and remove 5 frames with open brood as well as the queen. I take a frame of honey from my reserve or remove one from another hive and put everything into a 6-frame nucleus box, at the opposite end of my apiary, with the feeder filled.

Fig. 17: Cell builder colony Situation of the cell builder colony after removal of the open brood and addition of foundation

I tighten the frames remaining in my colony, add a sheet of foundation on the edge of the brood (in order to give them building work so that they do not build between the queen cells), and prepare an empty space in the centre between 2 frames of sealed brood.

We are now ready to introduce the grafting frame. We must still wait at least 3 hours for the hive to feel queenless, otherwise it will not accept the larvae to be reared.

4.2 Grafting

We have explained that it is necessary to take larvae that are at most one to two days old. Here is what larvae of that age look like:

Fig. 18 - 20: One- to two-day-old larva Swiss grafting tool (top left) Larva placed in its cell cup (top right and bottom right), Chinese grafting tool (bottom left)

Once the correct larvae have been identified and there are enough of them, there is not much to explain about the grafting technique: one has to practise! The aim is to transfer the larvae from the frame coming from the mother and place them gently into the cell cups. Do not be afraid at the beginning of piercing through the comb or of having to try several times; it is not one of the easiest gestures and it requires good eyesight. If necessary, the Breeding Instructor will gladly give you a hand. The only important point is not to injure the larva during transfer. With a Swiss grafting tool, the ideal is to take the larva from its back (outer side of the crescent) and place it gently in the middle of the cell cup, starting with the extremities and then the back. With a little practice, one can easily graft about thirty larvae in five to ten minutes.

Tips: Depending on the light conditions, I often use a headlamp to illuminate the bottom of the cells. Several colleagues use glasses with strong magnification. One can even find some with built-in lights on the sides. It is also easier to place the frame on a slightly inclined support so as not to have to hold it.         Fig. 21 & 22: Miscellaneous equipment Frame stand for the grafting frame and magnifying glasses with built-in light.

Once all the cell cups are occupied, you can introduce the frame into the free space in your cell builder colony. If you go to a Breeding Instructor to do the grafting and have to return to your apiary to introduce the frame, it is enough to wrap it in a damp cloth and place it in a nucleus box.

Fig. 23: Cell builder colony with the grafting frame The grafting frame is introduced into the empty space in the middle of the hive. The bees will quickly start rearing our larvae.

The larvae can remain outside the hive for an hour without any problem. The essential thing is that they do not dry out. Our cell builder colony is now complete and the bees will immediately begin to take care of our larvae.

Fig. 24: Closed starter Using a 6-frame nucleus box as a closed starter makes it possible to transport the grafting frame under good conditions.

If for one reason or another you need more time before returning to the apiary, you can readily combine the use of a closed starter with that of the cell builder colony. To do this, you can take a few frames heavily covered with bees from the cell builder colony and place them in a closed nucleus box, leaving an empty space in the middle for our grafting frame. A sheet of plastic film should be taped on as a crown board. It is also important that this box be well ventilated. Personally, I use an Apibox from which I remove the bottom board.

When your grafting frame is ready to be introduced, it is enough to make a cut in the plastic film over the empty space with a cutter and introduce the frame through this opening. In this way, the bees that populate the hive will stay quietly in the box.

Once the frame has been introduced, it can remain like this without any problem for a few hours. As soon as you return to the apiary, you can again replace all the frames in the cell builder colony so as to let as many young bees as possible take care of the larvae.

Day 1 | Saturday 3 June

Fig. 25: One-day-old queen cell About 1 cm of wax (base of the queen cell) can be seen, along with a large quantity of royal jelly surrounding the larva.

After 24 hours, you can take a look at your grafting frame to see how many larvae have been accepted. One can see that the bees have built a small piece of wax about one centimetre long on the cell cup and that the larva is bathing in royal jelly.

The number of larvae that the cell builder colony takes in hand depends on many factors: the rearing period, the weather during these few days, the colony’s propensity to rear, the quantity of food and pollen present in the hive, and many other criteria. For example, I have sometimes obtained a 100% success rate during a rainy period when the bees could not leave the hive and, conversely, had poor results during a strong nectar flow.

However, by following this method, one can count on a success rate of 50–70% (whatever the external influences). Having grafted 30 larvae, one reaches the desired 15–20 queens without difficulty.

4.3 Fitting the roller cages / incubator

Day 6 | Thursday 8 June

Between the fifth and sixth day, the bees will seal the cells. Depending on the age of the larvae you have taken, this can easily vary by one day. At this stage, two options are available to you:

• Place the roller cages around the cells to protect them in case a queen cell elsewhere in the hive, outside the grafting frame, emerges
• Transfer the cells into an incubator

Fig. 26 & 27: Sealed cells Sealed cells (top) and cells protected with roller cages (bottom)

In the first case, it is enough to take the frame out and gently brush off the bees in order to slide the roller cages around each cell. This is usually fairly easy, but it may happen that the bees’ urge to build has been such that they have built between the cells. In that case, a heated blade must be used to cut away the excess comb carefully so that the cell will pass into the roller cage. If we have done everything possible in our favour by adding foundation and using a grafting frame in which the cells are as close together as possible, we should not have many problems. If you decide to use an incubator, it is enough to transfer your cells (protected by the roller cages) into it after having previously set a temperature of 35°C and checked that the humidity level is high (between 60 and 75%).

Small incubators for chicken eggs can easily be found commercially for around one hundred francs. These electronic incubators can regulate temperature and indicate humidity level. A small fan provides a homogeneous temperature throughout the box. It is easy enough to improvise a support in order to place our cells with their roller cages inside.

Fig. 28 & 29: Incubators Incubators for chicken eggs. Electronic settings, ventilation, humidity control.

This technique has several advantages: the cells will remain at the correct temperature whatever the weather, and you will have finished using the cell builder colony earlier. You can therefore recover the brood frames as well as the queen and reintroduce everything into your colony and put the supers back on. Your colony will only have been used for 6 days, and you will not even notice the difference in terms of crop.

4.4 Preparation of the nucs

Day 10 | Monday, 12 June

On the tenth day of rearing, the pupa’s eyes are already well colored. It has emerged from its cocoon and is no longer sensitive to shocks. In addition, it is less sensitive to temperature variations. It is therefore possible to transfer the cells to the mating nucs.

Fig. 30: Empty cell Using a lamp, the pupa can easily be seen inside its cell. Here, the dead larva is stuck to the bottom of the cell. The transparency of the cell is clearly visible.

First of all, it is advisable to check whether the pupae are alive in the cells. It would be a pity to spend a lot of time preparing the nucs only to introduce dead queens. To do this, simply candle the cells using a flashlight. At this stage of development, you should see the queen moving or, by turning the cell, see her slide from one side to the other. In this way, you can verify how many cells are viable. Even in an incubator, it regularly happens that one or two cells do not develop fully.

Once you know the number of live queens, you can begin preparing the nucs. In Chapter 2.3, we explained how to prepare the nucs.

Fig. 31: Nucs ready to be filled The nucs are placed upside down and open, ready to be filled with bees.

You can now place them upside down and open, ready to receive the bees. At this moment, take the opportunity to check that the queen excluder closing the entrance of the nuc is in the open position. It is always complicated to have to open it at the mating station when the bees go out for the first time after several days.

Fig. 32 & 33: Filter device ready for use Do not forget to strap everything together and check that the removable lid has been removed. Experience speaking…

Next, prepare your filtering device, the oxalic acid sprayer, and the brush. You then open one or several hives to collect bees. Frame after frame, spray the oxalic acid solution (3 to 4 ml per side of the frame), then brush the bees with short, sharp movements into the funnel so that they fall into the filter device. It does not matter if some bees fly away; these are foragers, and we only want to keep the young bees.

The operation is repeated for the desired number of frames according to the number of nucs to be populated (10–12 for about twenty nucs).

Once this work is finished, lift the filtering device by holding it on both sides and give it a short, sharp tap on the ground to make the bees fall down. Then remove the funnel and close the passage opening. This task, as well as the following steps, is much easier to carry out with the help of a colleague.

Fig. 34: Filtering By lightly smoking the bees from above (through the mesh of the removable lid), the bees are forced down into the lower part of the filtering device.

Next, prepare the smoker (with plenty of smoke) and the removable lid. Remove the strap that holds everything together, lift the filtering device again and give it a short tap on the ground to make the bees fall down. Without waiting, the second person removes the lid and quickly inserts the removable lid. We can now gently and gradually smoke the bees to make them pass into the lower part of the filtering device. When you feel that the lid meets the queen excluder, you can stop. There is no point in forcing it, as you would only crush the drones and the remaining bees.

When all the bees have passed through the queen excluder, proceed in the same way as when removing the lid (a short tap on the ground), remove the super and replace it with the nuc lid. The filling operation now follows. Using our measuring cup or soup ladle, take approximately 100 grams of bees and pour them into the nucs.

Fig. 35: A ladle of bees is poured into each nuc and they are closed immediately. To prevent the bees from flying away too much, they can be lightly sprayed with a little water. Do not drown them either!

While one beekeeper takes care of this, the other closes the nucs. To prevent the bees from flying away too much, they can be lightly sprayed from time to time. Another solution is to leave the box in the cellar overnight and populate the nucs in the morning when it is cool. The bees, slightly torpid, will move very little.

Once all the nucs are filled and closed, release the drones and the remaining bees from the upper part of the filtering device and put the equipment away. The nucs should be taken to the cellar or to a cool, dark place for the next few days.

Two to three hours after filtering, the queen cells can be introduced directly into the mini-colonies.

If you have used an incubator, your work is finished. If, on the contrary, you kept the cells in the cell builder hive, you can put back the frames that were set aside as well as the queen and replace the supers.

5 Transfer to the mating station and use of the queens

5.1 Transfer to the mating station

Day 14 | Friday, 16 June

The day before going to the mating station, check that all queens have emerged. It should be two days since the queens were expected to emerge (plus or minus one day depending on the age of the larvae at grafting). In any case, queens that have not emerged by day 14 will never emerge, and there is no point in taking them to the mating station.

This is also the right time to check and complete the mating station form provided by the Breeding Instructor from whom you obtained the brood. If you have not yet done so, it is also time to inform the person responsible for the mating station of your arrival.

Day 15 | Saturday, 17 June

Early in the morning, you can load your nucs and travel to the station recommended by your Breeding Instructor, such as Les Toules or Moiry in Valais. In Valais, these stations are open between June and September. Upon arrival, you must present your mating station form to the person in charge on site. They will indicate where you may place your nucs and will carry out random checks to ensure that everything is in order (your initials marked on each nuc, absence of drones, sufficient food supply, etc.).

5.2 Retrieval of the nucs

Day 29 | Saturday, 1 July

After two weeks of “holiday” in the mountains, it is time for your nucs to return to their respective apiaries. As with the trip to the mating station, you must arrive early in the morning to collect them. On site, before closing them, you can close the queen excluder to ensure that the queen will not leave in the lowlands for a final mating flight.

Fig. 37: Nucs returning A shaded place and at a distance from other apiaries is ideal for storing your nucs.

Preferably, find a shaded place to set down your nucs, away from a large apiary. In case of dearth or weak population in a nuc, it would otherwise be quickly destroyed by strong colonies.

5.3 Marking / Preparation for introduction

Once the queen is laying optimally in her nuc, one generally waits at least until the first generation of bees has emerged before introducing the queen into another colony.

At this stage, prepare the equipment presented in section 2.7: marking disc, glue and a toothpick, cage, candy, tape, hive tool and smoker.

The first step is to prepare the cage by filling the front compartment with candy. It must be neither too runny (the bees could drown in it) nor too hard (the bees would struggle to eat it and the queen’s release would take too long).

Fig. 38: Marking equipment Colored glue, discs, toothpick, cage prepared with candy, marking plunger.

On a table, prepare the glue as well as a disc (have a second one ready in case the first falls) and a toothpick whose tip has been moistened beforehand. Open the nuc and remove the frames one by one to locate the queen. Once found, hold her by the abdomen between your fingers or by the wings and place her in the marking plunger. I leave the nuc open during the marking operation, as we will still need to take bees afterwards.

 

Fig. 39: Applying the disc After placing a drop of colored glue on the queen’s thorax, pick up a disc with a previously moistened toothpick and gently place it on the glue. Maintain pressure for a few seconds before releasing the pressure exerted by the plunger.

Fix the queen between the mesh of the marking plunger (without fear of holding her firmly—the foam protects her from excessive pressure), place a good drop of glue on her thorax, then pick up the disc with the toothpick and place it on the drop. Apply light pressure for a few seconds, then release the pressure of the plunger. Leave the queen in place for about one minute to allow the glue to dry properly.

I then place the queen in the cage and collect about six young bees from the nuc to serve as attendants in the cage. Once finished, I wrap a strip of tape around the cage to prevent any accidental opening.

A video showing the complete procedure for marking a queen is available at the following address: https://favr.ch/elevage/tutoriels/

5.4 Introduction of queens

As with rearing, there are as many introduction methods as there are beekeepers: the 9-day method, the 7-day method, dipping the queen in honey, crushing the old queen on the cage and introducing it directly, and so on. I will explain here a proven method to maximize the success of introducing quality queens. You are free to test other methods according to your preferences and beekeeping practice.

5.5 Production colonies

The basic and essential principle for introducing a new queen is that the colony must feel queenless. This may seem obvious, but I have seen many failed introductions because this parameter was not verified before introducing the cage. Nowadays, it often happens that a second queen is present in the hive (supersedure), and one believes everything is fine once the marked queen has been found and removed.

To ensure that the hive is truly queenless and to maximize the chances of successfully introducing these quality queens, I suggest, for production colonies, the seven-day introduction method:

Make the colony queenless and, seven days later, check for the presence of queen cells. You are then certain that the colony is queenless and already raising new queens. It will therefore not be surprised by the appearance of a young queen. The cage can be introduced directly into the middle of the hive between two frames (do not forget to remove the small protection at the entrance of the cage, and do not remove the attendant bees). There is no need to remove the queen cells.

After 24 hours, check whether the queen has been able to exit the cage. If not, scrape away almost all of the remaining candy and reintroduce the cage, then check again the next day. If the queen has left the cage, close the hive without inspecting it further so as not to disturb her. Wait at least one week before checking whether she has been accepted.

I have used this method for introducing my purebred queens for more than 15 years and have achieved an excellent success rate. If, by chance, the bees do not destroy the queen cells and the queen is not accepted, I consider that there is a problem with the queen I introduced and I allow the colony to raise its own queen to replace her later.

The ideal period to replace queens in production colonies is late summer–autumn. During this period, there are fewer bees in the hives, the queens are easier to find, we have young queens available in our nucs, and the colonies are more inclined to accept a young queen. In addition, the new queen will have been spared one treatment. However, one should wait at least three weeks after introducing the new queen before carrying out the second treatment (or introduce her after the second treatment).

5.6 Nucleus colonies

For nucleus colonies, the queen can be introduced directly at the time of their formation. It is even preferable not to leave this small colony queenless for too long in order to avoid robbing.

6 Going further

I hope that, through this document, I have inspired beekeepers to become breeder beekeepers and to enter the fascinating world of queen rearing. The techniques described in this document provide a basic guideline. If you wish to progress, it is essential to practice, rear, rear again and rear even more, but also to deepen your knowledge in order to master several rearing techniques that can serve as multiple strings to your bow, giving you greater flexibility in your apiary work.

Here is a list of books that will allow you to learn more about rearing and selection and that I strongly recommend:

• L’apiculture, une fascination. Tome 3. Editions SAR. ISBN 9783952386606
• Pratique de l'élevage en apiculture. Questions et réponses. Karl Weiss
• L'élevage des reines. Gilles Fert. ISBN 9782840388173

I wish you every success in this wonderful adventure and, above all, many enriching exchanges and much enjoyment!

For the Valais Group of Breeding Instructors SAR
Julien Balet

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See also:

• Principles and methods of queen rearing
• F1 queen rearing
• Drone rearing
• Practical Guide: 4.6.1 Mini-Plus
• Practical Guide: 1.6.5 Varroa treatment in queen-rearing nucs
• How to introduce queens?

Sources of illustrations

4, 5, 7, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 17, 23, 24, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39 Julien Balet
1, 18, 19, 20, 27, 30 L’Apiculture, une fascination. SAR
2, 3, 6, 8, 9 Bienen-Meier
13 Andermatt Biovet
15, 25, 26 L’élevage des reines. Gilles Fert
21 Apimat

Author

Valais Group of Breeding Instructors SAR - Julien Balet

Imprint

All rights reserved. Printing, reproduction and free use permitted only within the framework of breeding courses conducted by the SAR Breeding Instructors.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Yves Laurent Martignoni, François Juilland and Pierre Brawand for proofreading the document.

Thanks also to Editions SAR for kindly authorizing the use of the graphic charter as well as content from the collection L’Apiculture, une fascination.