ENVS 2210 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Old Queens, Royal Jelly, Artificial Cell
7 Dec 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Queen Rearing
Part of the information is contained in the textbook plus lecture material
I will emphasize the following:
WHY REAR QUEENS AND WHAT IS NEEDED
- Why rear and replace queens?
● To produce more workers
○ Old queens lay less eggs than young queen
● To obtain higher honey yields
○ More populated colonies to split sell nuc colonies, to pollination etc
● To improve the health conditions of colonies
○ More populated = lower incidence of diseases and parasites
● Must be done with genetically improved queens
○ Cannot just grab any queen to do it
○ Choose a queen from a colony that performs well
- What does it take to rear queens?: understanding the bees’ reproductive biology
● Imitate natural conditions
● Understand the bees’ reproductive biology
● Acquire specific equipment designed to rear queens
● Get some training
● Acquire or select good bee stocks
○ Need to have records to select the best
- Natural production of queen bees
● Queenless colony
● Swarming
● Queen supersedure
○ Because queen is not well, not producing enough queen substances
SIMPLE METHODS OF QUEEN REARING
- Queen removal
● Produce queenless colony, then they have to rear a new queen
- Colony splitting (dividing the colony in two)
● Division of one colony into two and one half have the queen, the other half does
not
- The Miller Method
- The Alley method
● Introduce an empty comb into a breeding colony for 4 days
● 4 days, if the queen lays egg in that cell and the egg will be in embryo stage for 4
days and in 4 days the larvae will hatch
● After 4 days you retrieve that comb and cut cell strips with larvae
● Destroy 1 of every 2 cells
● Attach strip to the inferior edge of a comb
● Introduce comb into a queenless colony for 10 days
● 10 days later, they will produce queen cells
● Remove the comb and select cells
● Introduce queen cells into queenless colonies or divisions
● Good for beekeepers with few hives
- Doolittle method
● Most widely used method worldwide
1) Grafting
2) Cell building
3) Harvest of queen cells
4) Mating and harvest of queens
THE COMMERCIAL (DOOLITTLE) METHOD
- Grafting
● The transference of a larva from a comb cell to an artificial queen cells cup
○ Collect the larvae from cells from a good queen and transfer them to
artificial queen cups
● The larvae should be from valuable queens
○ Selected, colonies performed well
○ Queens acquired from a good breeder
- Grafting materials
● Artificial cell cups
○ Plastic or wax cell cups
■ Can be made by putting wax in molds
○ Diameter 8-9 mm
○ The wax cell cups are made with wooden molds
○ Easy to make a lot of them
● The holding frame
○ Contains 2-3 wooden bars with about 15 cells cups per bar
○ May be introduced into a cell builder colony for a short time before
grafting
● Very little science in queen rearing, so it remains the same for 100s of years
○ Not attractive for scientists to do research on
○ Low impact journal
- The grafting technique
● Spoon the larva by its curved side from the cell
● Touch the base of the cell cup with a downwards movement and leave the larva
at the bottom of the queen cup
○ Some like to put royal jelly mixture in the queen cup
Document Summary
Part of the information is contained in the textbook plus lecture material. Old queens lay less eggs than young queen. More populated colonies to split sell nuc colonies, to pollination etc. To improve the health conditions of colonies. More populated = lower incidence of diseases and parasites. Must be done with genetically improved queens. Cannot just grab any queen to do it. Choose a queen from a colony that performs well. Acquire specific equipment designed to rear queens. Need to have records to select the best. Because queen is not well, not producing enough queen substances. Produce queenless colony, then they have to rear a new queen. Colony splitting (dividing the colony in two) Division of one colony into two and one half have the queen, the other half does not. Introduce an empty comb into a breeding colony for 4 days.
