Raising Queen 🐝 Bees Episode 1

It's time for us to raise a few Queen Honeybees here on the farm. This is about as early as you can raise Queens here in southern Ohio. These new Queens will go on mating flights in early May. We explain how and why we do what we are doing. Making a small hive "hopelessly Queen-less" triggers the emergency instinct in honeybees. We add a few grafts and the bees do the rest. It's all about having healthy bees, good nutrition and timing. Follow along as we will have additional videos to go along with this one.
Filmed entirely at Appalachian Heirloom Plant Farm & Apiary, Winchester, Ohio with a Motorola Z4.
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Video compiled with Shotcut.
Royalty free "Plain Folks" music from Videvo.
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#Honeybees 3Polyhive #Queenbee
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[@PatrickPease]

Larv' is just the coolest cool guy hobby beek slang i ever heard

[@tonywestsbees6042]

Love raising Queens!

[@eastsussexbeesandwildlife5801]

That was a great informative video, thanks. Best wishes from the UK.

[@tonywestsbees6042]

Thanks. I'm glad it could help. There is a follow up video to that one too.

[@familyhearingandbalancecen9777]

Enjoyed your video and great delivery!

[@tonywestsbees6042]

Thanks! More videos coming.

[@stuartdavies6516]

Excellent video

[@tonywestsbees6042]

Thanks

[@matthewsweeney2577]

First time watcher👍.

[@tonywestsbees6042]

Thanks, glad to have you along.

[@benjamindejonge3624]

Great pallet too

[@tonywestsbees6042]

👍🏻

[@massachusettsprepper]

It looks like you had pretty good success on that first one with 6/10. I'm definitely going to be trying some queen rearing myself this year. Thanks for sharing my friend.

[@tonywestsbees6042]

Thanks. I seem to have better luck with JZBZ cups for sure. I just ordered more of them. We will see how these and the next batch turn out. I'm not a commercial breeder so I have little grafting experience with the small number I do each year. With more practice I'm sure the % will improve. I'll followup.

[@massachusettsprepper]

@@tonywestsbees6042 yes sir, I'm sure it's like anything else the more you do it the better you get.

[@tonywestsbees6042]

Hey, just check the cells, on the JZBZ, they finished 7, not 6. 7 out of 10! Just made splits for these.

[@massachusettsprepper]

@@tonywestsbees6042 that is awesome brother. I can't wait for the weather to get warm enough so I can start grafting myself.

[@fishmut]

Awesome video , some queen rearers put a bit of honey in the cells before grafting but some not a lot of acceptance and others do ok with it, then there’s others using Royal jelly with their grafts and have very very good acceptance 90% and up, and also putting the graft cells in the day before grafting to let them clean them up before grafting into them as well helps with acceptance , good luck. 👍

[@tonywestsbees6042]

👍🏻

[@johaunrivera3994]

Very nice, I like to take the cells that I find and just use the royal jelly makes grafting a lot easier and it's better for it to sit in some nice jelly good not to let that go to waste

[@tonywestsbees6042]

👍🏻

[@VaderSpade]

I would have saved a little royal jelly from the open queen cells you destroyed and used it for a wet graft.

[@tonywestsbees6042]

I have thought of that and will try wet grafting next month and see if that helps our acceptance. thanks for watching.

[@MinnesotaBeekeeper]

Did you remove the mean queen's drones too?

[@tonywestsbees6042]

Absolutely. In any hive that I do not like the genetics of, I will cut out or remove drone comb all year long from those to reduce or eliminate those traits the best I can.

[@jannamosby7215]

Why do you take out the queen egg larva from the hive? Just curious ! Thank you.

[@tonywestsbees6042]

This video is a how to make a Queen bee. We raise our own Queens each year from select mother Queens.

[@jannamosby7215]

@@tonywestsbees6042 Thank you!

[@philipmontgomery5626]

Do you sell queens?

[@tonywestsbees6042]

We sell a few

[@robinsonaenasi9800]

Why are get rid of the queen shells?

[@tonywestsbees6042]

We are creating Queens not getting rid of them