queen castle or 5frame nucs

[tedh]

Josh and I want to try raising some queens this year from our Wayne's Bees hives.  We have two hives of Wayne's Bees and would like to have eight more queens to requeen the remaining hives with.  My thought is to pull two nucs off each of those two hives and use them for raising/growing queens.  Josh thinks we should go with a queen castle, four two frame setup. What does everyone else think?   Thanks, Ted

[iddee]

I would take 3 to 4 frames from the other hives and a frame of eggs from the Waynes bees, in a nuc. Mark the Waynes frame and 7 days later, destroy all queen cells other than on the Waynes frame. Make up other nucs from the other hives and add the waynes queen cells to them.

Use the other hives to make the waynes nucs, In about 6 weeks, they will be all waynes bees in the nucs.
That way, you don't deplete the waynes hives and don't have to introduce mated queens.

[tedh]

Thanks Iddee.  This may take a second to sink into my head, please bear with me.  Also a little more info: we aren't wanting to have more hives, just to have all existing hives queened with Wayne's queens.  So, with that in mind, I would use the "other" hives to build nucs, adding a frame of Wayne's Bees eggs. Kill all queen cells except for the queen cells on the Wayne's frames.  Let those queens emerge, mate, and start laying, remove the queens frome the "other" hives, and requeen with the Wayne's Queens? 

[iddee]

"" This may take a second to sink into my head, please bear with me.  Also a little more info: we aren't wanting to have more hives, just to have all existing hives queened with Wayne's queens.  So, with that in mind, I would use the "other" hives to build nucs, adding a frame of Wayne's Bees eggs. Kill all queen cells except for the queen cells on the Wayne's frames.""

YES

""Let those queens emerge, mate, and start laying, remove the queens frome the "other" hives, and requeen with the Wayne's Queens?""

No, kill the other queens and install capped Waynes queen cells.

No need to make nucs other than to make queen cells.

[tedh]

I like it a LOT!  Thanks Iddee!

[pistolpete]

my method for spreading good genetics around:  take my best queen and put her in a Nuc.  Notch several frames with eggs in the hive she came from.  11 days later use these ripe cells to make up several more Nucs (bees can be from other hives).  Strong hives make better queens than Nucs because they have better food and better temperature control.

My take on queen castles: virgin queens don't necessarily have perfect navigation.  They have a hard enough time finding the right box to return to, let alone the right one out of several holes in that box.  So you get more mortality from queens fighting than well scattered Nucs.   On the other hand, you can breed more queens with less stock on hand in a queen castle.   I like quality over quantity. 

If you don't have enough nuc boxes, just use some supers with a follower board.   I use scrap styrofoam for follower boards.

[tedh]

Thanks for the input Pete!

Iddee, not doubting your wisdom, how's this for a plan:  We'll make 4 nucs from the "other" hives.  We wait 7 days then go in and kill all queen cells in those nucs. Then we add a frame of Wayne's Bees eggs (round one). Seven days later we remove the Wayne's frames (with queen cells), kill 4 of the queens in the "other" hives and place the Wayne's frames (with queen cells) in those hives.  Add another frame of Wayne's eggs into each of the nucs (round two), seven days later kill the remaining 4 queens in the "other" hives and place the new Wayne's frames (with queen cells) into those "other" hives.  At that point we could add yet another frame of Wayne's eggs (round three) into the nucs and just let them raise their queens.  We'd end up with the eight requeened hives (plus the original two) and four nucs of Wayne's Bees, to over winter and sell (or give to lazy) the following Spring. The only difference from the original plan is that we'd wait the first week, kill all queen cells, THEN start adding the frame of Wayne's eggs.  Yes?  No?  Leave me alone you're bothering me and being stupid?  Thanks, Ted

[iddee]

OK. Do a few week's unneeded work.If you want more hives,make nucs. If not, why not just kill queens and add Waynes eggs to that hive. A week later, remove non-wayne queen cells  DONE

[tedh]

Wow! Killing queens and adding Wayne's eggs was our original plan!  Then, of course, we started to over think it, too much time on our hands and all.  Glad to see we weren't that far off.

It sounds like there are several options, some easier than others, but multiple ways of getting the job done.  All very good information and really sets my mind at ease, thank you!  As far as the "more work" goes, we still enjoy getting in the hives and "messing about", still look forward to Saturdays to see what the girls are up to...er...inspect the hives!  Thanks again, Ted

[iddee]

You can easily "love" them to death. Be careful.

[tedh]

Agreed.  If we don't have a specific reason to go in, we don't.  That's the main reason we upped the number of hives from 2 to 10.  More opportunities to enjoy them, it seems as though we have at least one hive that needs something.  One "out of pocket" as my sweet Mother-In-Law used to say.  Ted