The cell builder colony is another important step in raising queen bees. The aim of this procedure is to create a situation under which bees will carefully nurture the young, developing queens. You will want to select a cell builder colony that is a strong colony that fully occupies a large hive. A 3-story hive will work to your best advantage, by reducing the available space to two hives. Confine the queen to the bottom box. This brood chamber should be equipped with an equal amount of brood and empty drawn cells for the queen to lay eggs.



Two combs of very young larvae should be placed in the center of the super (the hive body) and fill in the remaining space with combs of honey and pollen.

It is necessary to place the combs of unsealed honey and pollen along side of the combs of unsealed larvae. This makes it look like a natural brood nest. With the queen being confined, it will prevent her from entering into the super. Recruited nurse bees will feed the unsealed larvae in the super. The bees will soon become aware the queen is not occupying the nest. This begins the impulse of the nurse bees taking the steps to rear a new queen. This is the type of environment you will want to place newly grafted or started cells to be introduced for rearing. You will want to leave the cell building colony for 24 hours before inserting the newly grafted or started cells.

You will want to leave a space between the two brood combs in the super. The space needs to be wide enough to fit a cell bar. A cell bar is a wooden strip that holds queen cups for rearing queens.

If possible it is best not to rear queen during a heavy honey flow. A light nectar flow with ample pollen, preferably a mixture of pollens, is the best condition for rearing queens. If supplementary feeding becomes necessary, always use a mixture of 2 parts sugar to 1 part water for sugar syrup to simulate nectar. Never use diluted honey.

Grafting is the process of removing worker larvae from its cell and placing it into an artificial queen cup for rearing the larvae into a queen. You start the grafting process by preparing the bars of cells by sticking 20 plastic cups onto a wax covered board. The bar must be placed into a hive for at least 24 hours before grafting. During this time the bees will clean and condition the cell cups.

You will need a grafting tool to transfer larvae. Each larva is floating on a little raft of royal jelly and must be placed undisturbed into the bottom of the conditioned cups. The grafting tool must be able to follow the curve of the bottom of the cup to allow it to be inserted under the back of the tiny floating larva without touching it.

The best conditions to graft in is cool temperatures and well fed larvae, the priming of the cell cups with diluted royal jelly should not be necessary. Do not graft in very hot weather or in low humidity. The larvae could potential be damaged by dehydration. Only graft larvae that are under 24 hours of age from hatching and are floating on a good amount of royal jelly. Never expose the larvae to direct sunlight and work as quickly as possible.

The grafted larvae should be placed into an abundance of nurse bees that are far enough away from a queen that they will attempt rear all the cells. The age of the nurse bees range from 9 days to 12 days after they have emerged from a cell. It is always important to have a large number of replacement young bees available to the colony in order to provide nurse bees. The production of royal jelly depends on an ample supply of pollen or pollen substitutes. Lack of pollens leads to smaller, less well-fed larvae and queens. Also the nurse bees will lose their body reserves of stored nutrients and become susceptible to disease. It is very important to record the day the cells were grafted and the day the queens are due to emerge. A queen will emerge 16 days after the egg was laid, or 13 days after the egg hatches into a larva. Since the larva was grafted at 24 hours old, the queen will emerge 12 days later. If one of the queens emerge early, she will kill all the remaining cells. It is best if the cells are left until the day before they are due to emerge, it is then possible to move the cells from the cell build colony to the nuclei.

When you are transporting the cells to the nuclei, the cells must be handled gently to avoid damage to the immature queens. Make the transition to the mating yard. Do not shake or jar the combs or bars with cells, and avoid turning the cells from the natural position. Do not allow them to be exposed to direct sunlight, and because the queen nymph is susceptible to cold do not allow the cells out of the hive too long, or exposed to cold winds or a chilly atmosphere.

Cells should be distributed to the mating yard as soon as possible after the nucleus colony has set up. You do not want too much time to lapse or the bees in the nucleus will start building cells. It will be necessary to destroy all of these cells before inserting the raised cells into the nuclei. Only one cell is given to a nucleus. A wet, sharp knife can be used to separate adjoining cells on the cell bar. Each cell must be carefully removed from the bar and placed into the nucleus hive. First a side comb is removed from the nucleus to allow room for manipulation. A small depression is pressed into the face of the center brood comb and t he plastic base of the cell gently pressed into it.

Mark every nucleus with a date the young queen is due to emerge and the mother queen she was bred from should be noted. A virgin queen will mate and start laying about 10 days after she has emerged from the cell. In the fall this period can continue longer than the normal time. Do not open or move the nucleus during the mating period. It is important that the virgin queen start mating. The mating takes place while she is flying in the open and not in the hive. The mating does not begin until the queen is sexually mature. This takes place 5 to 6 days after emerging. The queen must mate within 20 days, if not she will remain infertile. Most of the queen rears will destroy all the queens that fail to lay on time, except in the fall when mating and expected laying time can be extended because of cooler weather.