CATDOLL : CATDOLL: What are the key points to grasp when breeding queen bees off-season?

What are the key points to grasp when breeding queens for bees off-season?

Only when the queen bee is of good quality, vigorous vitality, strong egg-laying ability and strong physique can the apiary have a strong bee colony and the beekeeper can obtain higher profits. So in which season can we breed queen bees of good quality?

In the south, bee farms breed queen bees from January to December. Some bee farms that move between the north and the south all year round consciously arrange the queen replacement work in September and October, because the queen is new in autumn and lays eggs quickly in the spring of the following year.

The life span of a queen bee is generally 3 to 5 years. The most active period for a queen bee to lay eggs is the first and second years. After 2 years, the egg-laying capacity gradually decreases. However, under good breeding conditions, some queen bees can still maintain a good egg-laying capacity within 3 to 4 years. In production practice, queen bees under 2 years old are often used. For bee colonies that are raised in different places all year round, the queen bee must lay eggs continuously for a long time, and the queen must be replaced after 1 year of use. Therefore, bee farms that are raised in different places must cultivate new queen bees every year and replace the old queen bees. Beekeepers often say, "A good queen is in one box of bees, and a bad queen is in one empty box"...

The queen bees bred in the natural swarming season from late April to early June have the best quality. Queen bees bred in this season have strong colony strength over the winter, fast egg laying, good reproduction, and few bee diseases in spring. The first nectar source of the following spring is strong and has strong honey collection ability. In May, there is less natural swarming of acacia nectar sources, and the queen bees can still maintain a strong egg-laying ability. Queen bees bred in other seasons are called off-season queen breeding.

Take Yunnan as an example, the temperature is low in January and February and there are few drones; Sichuan has many rainy days and low temperatures in February and March, which is not conducive to the mating of virgin queens, causing the mating time of virgin queens to be delayed. The success rate of the queens bred is not high, the quality is poor, and the egg-laying ability is not strong. They must be replaced after a short use time. Queens bred in autumn mate early, and virgin queens mate 3 to 4 days after leaving the hive, and lay eggs 7 to 8 days later. The success rate is good, but the quality of queens is not as good as those bred from late April to early June.

The queen bee bred off-season has poor egg-laying ability. The bee colony has spring brooding and low production in the production season. It has strong natural swarming, many seasonal diseases, and slow development. The single-queen colony cannot be put in the super, so only the double-queen colony can be raised. It loves swarming in the production season. Bees like to fly to trees. If the method of deducting the queen is effective at the time, the colony will decline in the subsequent production season. Why is the quality of queen bees bred off-season poor? I think this is because beekeepers violate the biological laws of bees. Bees are very sensitive to climate change and can feel the rise and fall of 0.25℃ temperature. Bees themselves have a very strong and sensitive sense of seasonal crisis, which is manifested in the gradual decrease of temperature in autumn, the decrease of queen bee production, the cessation of egg-laying, feeding larvae and dragging when there is a lack of nectar, and the cessation of production and wintering in the north.

The normal development of queen bees is that the virgin queens become sexually mature 5-7 days after leaving the cell, mate on the 8-9th day, and start laying eggs on the 10th day. In off-season breeding of queen bees, the virgin queens in early spring from January to March postpone the mating and laying time, and in late autumn from September to October, the virgin queens mate on the 3rd to 4th day and lay eggs on the 7th to 8th day.

Breeding a queen bee is actually two complete growth processes of two generations of bees. The virgin queen develops and mates successfully, lays eggs, and then develops into a bee. Only through labor can be produced bee products such as honey.

What everyone needs to pay attention to is that the quality of queen bees cannot be guaranteed if bees breed queens off-season. Bee farms that move north and south all year round adopt off-season breeding of queen bees, which results in the lack of flowers during the breeding period of the bee colony, low yields during the production season, frequent swarming, many seasonal diseases, loss of queen bee's excellent genes, and even collapse of the farm.

Fumei believes that it is necessary to be cautious when breeding queen bees in off-season. If you are a novice, it is best to wait until late April to early June to breed queen bees.

Note: This article was first published on Fumei Beekeeping

How to artificially breed queen bees?

It is necessary to choose bee species suitable for the local area to breed queens. You can introduce species from regular bee breeding farms, or you can select and transfer the best bee species from your own farm for breeding. It is best to introduce queen bees from other places every two years to avoid the degradation of species.

Second, having a good queen does not necessarily mean that a good queen can be bred. There must also be a good or auxiliary nectar and pollen source, which is another major condition for breeding a good queen. If the external nectar and pollen conditions are poor, the queen cannot be bred. When the nectar and pollen source conditions are average, reward feeding should be carried out every evening.

The above two conditions are not enough. It is also necessary to use large eggs to breed queens. Queens bred from large eggs are born with large body weight and good development. How to get large eggs? First, the queen bee should be imprisoned in a bamboo wire cage for 5-10 days. 4 to 5 days before the transfer of insects, the queen bee is released to start laying eggs. The eggs laid within 4 days after the queen is released are relatively large in size and weight, and gradually become smaller as the amount of eggs laid increases.

4. Choose a strong colony to raise queens. Strong colonies have better conditions in all aspects. It is best to raise queens in a colony with more than 12 frames of bees and sufficient honey and pollen in the nest. Confine the original queen in the nest box, select 1 to 2 small larval combs, first place the queen raising frame with the queen cell between the two larval combs and clean them for 4 to 6 hours, take out and transfer in 2-day-old small larvae to encourage them to accept, as long as they can accept a few. Take it out after 24 hours, remove the larvae, use a brush to brush each royal jelly that needs to be transferred, and then transfer in suitable small larvae within 12 hours. If the virgin queen comes out of the cell on the 11th day after the transfer, the quality will not be very good. Only the one that comes out of the cell in the afternoon or at night on the 12th day is the best virgin queen.

5. Organize a mating group. It is better to have 1 to 2 frames of bees with sufficient honey and pollen. A large group will waste the feeding power of worker bees, which is not good for the development and production of the whole farm. One day before the virgin queen leaves the cell, place the queen cell in the place where there is honey in the mating group. If the virgin queen has residual limbs or is smaller in size after leaving the cell, she should be eliminated immediately. Virgin queens usually mate and lay eggs on the 9th to 11th day after leaving the cell. Some virgin queens that mate for more than 12 or 13 days or more than half a month should also be eliminated. After the virgin queen starts laying eggs, whether she is a good queen depends on her performance after laying eggs.

6. Whether it is a good king or not depends on its performance in all aspects after laying eggs. In the mating group, after laying a full comb of eggs, it should be immediately exchanged with an empty comb in the strong group. After laying 4 combs of eggs in a row, it should be lured into the production group for further performance inspection. In the production group, the egg laying, honey production, nectar production, pollen production, etc. are not lower than the production of the same group, or even higher. This new king can be determined as a good king.

In the beehive, the honeycomb with queen cells is separated from the queen bee by partitions. This is the only way to cultivate a new queen bee. There is no other better way.

Artificially cultivate queen bees, and you no longer have to worry about running out of bee species. Have you learned it?

Special frame, 6 beeswax points on one, use beeswax stick to take up a little water and put the beeswax stick into the boiled beeswax half an inch, take it out immediately and put it on the place where the wax is dotted on the frame bar, and carefully take out the beeswax stick after cooling for a few seconds. 2-3 frames are fine, 5-6 points on each one, preferably half an inch apart, put it in the middle of the honeycomb, cover the beehive lid, let the worker bees clean for about 7-8 minutes, take out each wax bowl and take up a little royal jelly, put it in for about 15 minutes, and see the wax bowl with bees vomiting jelly, then move the small larvae in the honeycomb to the wax bowl and put it in the middle of the honeycomb, take it out after 2 days, and add the larvae in some wax bowls that are dragged out by worker bees. Don't affect the beehive when you put it in. After 9 days, you can see the capped bee pupae, and on the tenth day, you can gently cut it off and stick it on the edge of the honeycomb. But you have to cover the old queen bee inside with a cage.