Hallo.
I need to ask for some advice from those of you out there who raise queens. I've been trying for four years now
with very little success and it's driving me nuts. I know all the theory from reading a number of books on the subject, and i must
honestly say that the three first summers, i've only tried once or twice so i don't have a very long
record of failures (or experience). Anyway - here's what i do and what results i get:
I use a starter, into which i shake a lot of bees. I give them frames with plenty of honey and pollen, no brood, no queen (i DO know the theory of this).
I have also tried a very strong queenless starter colony with lots of capped brood added about ten days before the cells were inserted, to make
sure there is an abundance of young bees.
I have been using a Jenter box, which is a gadget where you lock up the queen for a day and then pick out larvae the right age for days later.
This year, i'm grafting by hand, using a size 00 pen, which i found even easier than using the Jenter thing. I have a steady hand and good
eyesight. I have no problems finding larva the right age and i have no problems transferring it to the cell cups.
I give the larvae to my starter and let it sit there for 24 hours. I then transfer my cell frame to the brood box of a strong colony, where i've put some open brood and pollen to
ensure the cells are surrounded by bees that'll feed them. When i transfer the cell frame, it appears the bees have accepted the cells. They're
clustered on the cell cups and appear to be feeding the larvae.
After the cells are capped, i put protectors on them. Sometimes acceptance will be low, like 5-6 cells out of 15. Other times, almost
all of them have been accepted and capped.
Now, on the day when the queens are supposed to hatch, i take the cells out. By shining a flashlight through the cell, i can clearly see
there is not a good queen in there. The cell will contain one of three things:
-A small undeveloped bee, maybe a worker bee, still white with purple eyes
-A small fully developed, but dead, bee
-A black mess on the bottom of the cell (rare)
Please give me some good advice.
/Mats Andersson, Stockholm Sweden
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