Queens – Going For It

I can’t remember if we are currently experiencing “fool’s spring”, the “spring of deception“, or some other amusingly named phase, but my bees are certainly enjoying it. In my area—and indeed across nearly all the UK—March provided more sunshine and considerably less rainfall than usual. This delightful situation is bound to change. The only certainty about British weather is its unpredictability. Nonetheless, as the bees busily build drone comb wherever they can, my thoughts inevitably turn to queen rearing.

Contrasting Fortunes

Reflecting on bees in general, there are two notably contrasting stories that spring (haha) to mind. Here in the tropics of Cheshire, the season has progressed rapidly. While losses this winter were slightly higher than normal, with a few small colonies unlikely ever to thrive, most of mine are booming. My nucleus colonies (nucs) have been expanded to double height (six frames over six), and every hive already has at least one super. A nectar flow is clearly underway, notably boosted by the recent arrival of dandelions, and drone brood has become the main priority for most colonies.

Contrast my situation with the unfortunate experiences of my friend Mike Palmer, an excellent beekeeper in Vermont. He has suffered losses of 58% so far this winter, and he anticipates even more to come this spring. Mike raises local queens, manages varroa carefully, feeds his bees before winter, and truly knows his craft. His colonies were exceptionally strong during summer and at the time of their autumn varroa treatments. Yet, as he said, “Strong colonies and healthy brood. No mite damage. No DWV (deformed wing virus). They began collapsing in October.” Many in the UK mistakenly assume that American beekeepers neglect their bees, but that is generally untrue. The widespread losses experienced across the US suggest that something, perhaps a virus, is severely affecting bee populations. It has an ‘Isle of Wight disease’ feeling to it. I sincerely hope that a solution is found soon, and that whatever is happening there does not come to the UK.

Retiring Small Colonies

Right, back to the point. I’m sure there was one. Oh, yes – queens! Queen rearing is both enormously rewarding and, occasionally, soul-destroying. I am so happy with the results of last year’s efforts; our nucs are bursting, and the green-dot queens we made last season are looking fabulous right now. Well, not every single colony; there are always a few crappy ones. Those that are still on 3–4 frames will soon be replaced because they will never amount to anything. It is nearly always a waste of a bee hive to keep small, slow to build, colonies going. They normally have something not quite right with the queen.

When retiring a colony, we inspect thoroughly for signs of disease, verify the queen’s presence, and check the brood pattern. Previously, we might have simply re-queened these struggling colonies, but this season they will be completely replaced with fresh nuclei. It is tempting to use sealed brood from these retiring colonies to establish a cell builder (placing combs of sealed brood above a strong colony), but I worry about hidden diseases like nosema, which are only identifiable under a microscope. We rarely see dysentery, but occasionally those slow ones in the spring are slow because of nosema, which does not necessarily lead to bee poop indoors.

Leisurely Drones

I use excess brood harvested from super-strong colonies as part of swarm prevention to make cell builders. No point taking risks when making queens. However, once I have made some queen cells I will combine them with frames from the smaller (but hopefully healthy) colonies to make up nucs. These will then grow on into production colonies for the summer flow. If there is one. Many people say that a good spring leads to a poor summer, and so far, it looks like spring could be good.

Many of my colonies already contain sealed drone brood, and some drones have emerged, leisurely wandering about their hives like gentlemen in their smoking jackets, contemplating going on a flight someday soon. That means, in two to four weeks time, sexually mature drones will be on the hunt for virgin queens. Assuming, that is, the wind and rain stay away.

I put foundation-less frames into good colonies at my mating apiary, and at any apiary really, in the hope that they can do some good. My beautiful drones will enhance the quality of local bees by mating with virgin queens. If we are going to have sexually mature drones in 28 days I could start grafting in two weeks. The weather often wrecks such plans, sadly. There may be plenty of virgin queens and mature drones, but they ain’t going to be having much sex if it’s freezing cold, wet, and windy.

Cell Builder Already?!

With all this in mind, I decided to start my first cell-builder colony of 2025 today. I added a brood box containing mostly sealed brood above an already strong colony. Obviously, once that lot emerges, there will be a crazy number of young bees in the hive. I shall keep an eye out for any queen cells, and get rid of them. In fact, I have some little glass tubes that I will use to collect royal jelly from queen cells. I’ll freeze it until grafting time, then use it to prime cell cups if I happen to be using a paintbrush as a grafting tool. The paintbrush (sable 000) is the tool of choice when grafting larvae from newly made, and therefore soft, wax comb. If the cups are primed with a solution of royal jelly/distilled water (50/50) it is easy to transfer the larva from bristle to puddle. So said Peter Little.

If everything proceeds as planned, the first batch of queen cells should be incubating within three weeks, subsequently placed into mini-plus mating boxes. My over-wintered queens currently housed in mini-plus towers have rapidly expanded to four boxes and will soon need a fifth. My goal is to transfer these mature queens into nucleus colonies created from brood harvested from smaller hives. Then the five box stack is broken down into five single boxes, each with their own floor and lid. The frames are arranged so that each box has bees, brood, and food. Then they get a queen cell. Three weeks later, weather permitting, we have newly mated queens.

Rays of Sunshine

I fully expect the weather to mess things up, but I might get lucky. You’ve got to be in it to win it. Something like that. Predicting when we will get perfect mating weather is not something within my powers. If the first batch of cells does happen to result in well-mated queens, that will be pretty early in the season – around mid-May. Otherwise, if it doesn’t work out, we will keep plugging away, and at some point the Gods will smile upon our humble efforts. There is one ray of sunshine already – I have scrapped my Kieler mating nucs. Such a relief to be rid of them.

The next few months will be busy but fun. Oh, and we will be moving house too, just to increase the stress levels. Hopefully, we should be in our new house in Bramhall by June. May your bees be healthy and productive, and your season be a good one.