RAISING QUEENS
The Queen Bee is the head of the hive but, collectively, the worker bees control it. They have the ability to replace the queen should she fail for any reason. This can be done by the worker bees by using any previously laid egg or small larva in the hive and nourishing it with royal jelly, a kind of concentrated honey the bees can produce in small quantities.
It is this ability and need for a queenless hive to raise a queen that makes it possible to raise queen bees commercially and there are a number of commercial beekeepers located mainly in the southern (warmer) part of the US who raise and sell queens. The process involves grafting, cell building and incubation.

GRAFTING

A few days after the queen lays an egg, it develops into a tiny larva, is fed by the nurse bees and begins to develop at the bottom of the cell in which the egg was laid. The larva must be removed from the cell and placed into a larger queen cup in order to develop a queen cell. Grafting is this process of removing the larva from the worker bee size cell and placing it in the queen cup.

In order to graft efficiently, the breeder hive from which the larva are being taken must be managed by inserting an empty frame so the queen can lay enough eggs at one time to develop into a significant number of larva at the same age on a single frame. A one day old larva is about right for grafting but is so tiny as to be barely visible to the naked eye.

Before starting to graft, a number of plastic or beeswax queen cups are arranged on a wood bar and each cup is primed with a small amount of royal jelly. Using a specially made grafting tool with an end that resembles a tiny flat spoon, the larva is lifted out of the worker bee cell of the frame and deposited into the queen cup.

FINISHING CELLS

Once the cups are grafted, the bars are assembled into a specially made frame and inserted into the cell builder hive. This is essentially a queenless hive with an abundance of young nurse bees pulled from other hives in a manner described on the previous page. The bees nurse and feed the larva and build the beeswax queen cell around it as it grows. After about 5 days the cells are capped and the frame is removed as shown.

The capped cells are removed from the bar, transfered to a Styrofoam holder and placed in an incubator with controlled humidity and a temperature of 92°F for an additional 5 days. At this time, the cells are one to two days from hatching and are ready to go to the bee yard for placement into splits. An alternate to the incubator is to leave the cells in the queenless hive for the same period. However, this can be more problematic with cool night time temperatures in the early spring plus the fact that it is more efficient to use the bees for cell building - which can't be done anyother way.

FINAL STEP

Capped queen cells are extremely fragile. They must be kept upright at all times and the maturing queen pupa can be killed or damaged by the slightest shock or vibration. Cells are transported to the bee yard in the protective Styrofoam holder placed in a heated insulated cooler to provide a constant 92°F temperature. Individual cells are placed between frames in the queenless split for the bees to finish the job of incubation.

The virgin queen chews her way out of the queen cell in a day or two and is instantly accepted by the bees, as any queen hatched in the hive would be. This is in contrast to the introduction of a mated queen obtained from another hive or purchased; as these are more likely to be rejected by the bees and killed.

Even with the acceptance of the virgin queen, the nuc still doesn't have a queen until she is mated and laying. Mating flights can end in a meal for a bird or she can return to the wrong hive be rejected and killed. But, if all goes well, about two weeks after placing the cell, the split is a functioning colony with a laying queen.