Getting Better

[Bush_84]

My first venture at queen rearing yielded three queens, which went down to two after two of my mating Nucs decided to combine on their own. Very poor turnout. I learned from my mistakes and my second round has ten of seventeen cells capped.





This is the last batch of the year. Hopefully next year will continue to improve.

[cao]

Nice.  I hope to try some queen rearing next year if I can find the time.  This year I got behind and was chasing swarms and splitting with queen cells.  Increased from 20 to 42 hives this year.

[Bush_84]

I went from three to ten. Once these queen cells are ripe I'll be busting up my weakest hive into more Nucs.

[Michael Bush]

http://www.bushfarms.com/images/RackOfQueens2.jpg
http://www.bushfarms.com/images/RackOfQueens.jpg

The secret to a nice picture like this is to fill in the few missing cells from another rack just before you take the picture.  :)  But most of them were drawn...

[Bush_84]

http://www.bushfarms.com/images/RackOfQueens2.jpg
http://www.bushfarms.com/images/RackOfQueens.jpg

The secret to a nice picture like this is to fill in the few missing cells from another rack just before you take the picture.  :)  But most of them were drawn...

Lol ya that'd do it!  I'm just happy with the size of the cells and getting most of them to this point. This is only my second time rearing queens. First time I had five queens cells and only three of them were grafts. Out of those I only have two laying queens. I had three but two of my mating Nucs decided to combine on their own. They literally left brood and moved into the box next to them. Found the dead queen at the entrance.

[Eric Bosworth]

http://www.bushfarms.com/images/RackOfQueens2.jpg
http://www.bushfarms.com/images/RackOfQueens.jpg

The secret to a nice picture like this is to fill in the few missing cells from another rack just before you take the picture.  :)  But most of them were drawn...

Lol ya that'd do it!  I'm just happy with the size of the cells and getting most of them to this point. This is only my second time rearing queens. First time I had five queens cells and only three of them were grafts. Out of those I only have two laying queens. I had three but two of my mating Nucs decided to combine on their own. They literally left brood and moved into the box next to them. Found the dead queen at the entrance.

I've never seen them leave brood before... That is a little strange. I am a little torn about queen rearing. I am just starting to see goldenrod bloom. I have not done any queen rearing but pollen from the goldenrod flow would help raise good queens. My problem is I would want them to start nucs for winter and I am not sure if I would have time for them to build up enough. I saw something about making punches for the punch out method from 7.62 brass that looked a lot easier than grafting. I need to talk to my neighbor to see if he has some brass that failed quality control for reloading. My guess is 223 would work just as well.

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[GSF]

Eric, first off - I don't know. I would tend to think 223 is too small.

[Michael Bush]

I think you need something more like a 7mm Rem Mag or equivalent.  Bigger might even work better.  Like a .416 Rigby or a .378 Weatherby...