Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
This isn't, perhaps, the best way of going about this, however. It is uncontrolled, and
you won't know until it happens just how many queen cells you are going to have
available. Also, the cells may come from hives that have characteristics you don't want to
propagate, such as a tendency to swarm excessively, foul temperedness or aggressiveness.
Sure, you can use queen cells like this in an emergency, but most beekeepers will agree
that controlled, planned and simple queen rearing is a far better bet.
Queen rearing means what it says. It does not necessarily mean queen 'breeding' - i.e.
the selection of certain traits and breeding for these over several generations until the
'perfect' queen is produced. This is indeed carried out by some beekeepers and research
labs in an effort to sort out the varroa problem or for the selection of hygienic bees that
will be resistant to American foul brood (AFB) and, indeed, the last part of this chapter
explores selective breeding. In the first part of this chapter, however, we just look at ways
to produce your queens, preferably from colonies that are good tempered and strong (so
that a small amount of 'breeding' comes into it) and in a simple and controlled fashion.
I have, therefore, included three methods here that are simple and easy, but there are
many other methods. If you want more information, you should read a specialist book
on the subject, and these are listed in the 'Further reading' section at the end of this
book.
CHOOSING THE TIME OF YEAR TO RE-QUEEN
Before you begin to rear your own queens you should decide at what time of year you
want to re-queen your hives. Autumn or spring are the two choices, and the relative
advantages of each season were discussed in Chapters 6 and 7. One thing you must
understand at all times, however, is that queen rearing is all about timing. Once you
have started the process, you must stick rigidly to a timetable for several weeks. So if
you are unable for some reason to be around at the appropriate times, don't start.
 
 
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