On-the-spot Queen Rearing

As we began repopulating our hives, we decided to try on the spot queen rearing. Some thought was given to trying a new process this year based on information found in the book OTS Queen Rearing by Mel Disselkoen. Typically, in this process you pinch the queen and let the hive create a new one. This process helps break the varroa mite cycle in a hive. Rather than pinch the queen as recommended in the process, we were able to take the good queens and start a nuc or requeen existing hives needing a new queen. One of the benefits to this is you are getting a queen from a hive that is already adapted to the weather for that location.

On-the-Spot Queen rearing is done by removing the original queen and enough bees to make a nuc, the remaining hive is strong enough to create their own queen. By notching a larvae cell within the first 72 hours, the bees develop the larvae into a queen. A queen is created when the nurse bees feed royal jelly to the larvae for the entire time of development. Bees know when to do this due to pheromone cues within the hive. When the existing queen is removed from the hive, the pheromone that prohibits the development of queen cells dissipates, allowing for queen production.

Varroa mites rely on the life cycle of the bees for their reproduction. The change of queens in a hive breaks the cycle of reproduction for the varroa mites because mites reproduce at the same time as the bees by entering brood cells before the bee pupae have been sealed in. Bees are in brood cells for their transition from larvae to adults, a process known as pupating. Varroa mites feed on honey bees internal fluids by piercing the bee bodies. Varroa mites can transmit a variety of diseases, two of which cause the death of larvae prior to the brood cell being sealed. The most common virus affects the wings of the bees and can cause deformed wings when there is a Varrora mite infestation.

During on-the-spot queen rearing, the development of the hive is also slowed down since there is a period of time where the hive is not producing any eggs. Bees aren’t producing honey during the time they are forming a new queen. We wanted to try this process to see if we could raise some queens that were local to our area, and also to see if we could lessen the infestation of varroa mites in our hives. We were successful in our endeavor of raising queens, but it remains unclear the impact on the reproduction of varrora mites. We will have to weigh positives and negatives as we go into a new year to see if this is a good process for us to pursue.