Hey Grant,
80 F. in the south today. (Deland, Florida)
Bees working white Dutch clover.

Grant said:
>I have not had consistent results with mail-order queens.

One can blame the suppliers but if you ever tour a large queen producer and
operation you will see there are many factors involved.
Stacks and stacks of caged queens.

Add shipping and the factors at the beekeeper end.

At times you get a
high take. Other times not.

Always a crap shoot.

With commercial beekeepers everything is about percentages. Cells are more
popular  than mated queens. Commercial beeks keep hundreds of queens banked 
when making splits.
When done many not used are pulled from queen banks and sold to Yankees or 
simply tossed. Same with cells.


> Now I have cells that hatch, some cells don't hatch, some cells are chewed
> up and the mating nuc raises their own queen, some queens emerge and get
> lost on their mating flight...

Welcome to the world of Missouri queen rearing.
few Tips:

At the time the bees are making swarm cells you can be very successful
raising queens in Missouri. Other times a crap shoot.

Too early in season or too late poor success.

Candle cells. Toss cells in which the queen does not move in response to a 
bright light.


think of queen introduction like building a fire.

Start with kindling then slowly add wood until burning well then you can
toss logs on the fire

start with  a frame of *young* bees on brood. Once the queen is
established add more brood .

to requeen a hive use the nuc rather than a caged queen.

Haste makes waste!

hope the above helps!

Missouri queen rearing has been discouraging for me. I need queens in March
so raising queens in a normal year in march is out of the question due to
lack of mature drones then .


bob

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