Queen Rearing Course – July

We are running a queen raising course at Woodstock in July and would like to canvass interest from members who would like to find out more about this fascinating topic. The course will follow the process of queen raising from setting up a queen raising hive, selection of larvae, grafting, hive manipulations and setting up mating nucs. This process takes over two weeks and we will invite students to participate on three critical days: set-up, grafting and moving queen cells to mating nucs. The course will be run by member Andrew Brough who raises queens throughout the summer and gave a talk on this topic to members earlier in the year.

At the first session, Andrew will give a detailed explanation of the process and we will have a practice at grafting. The actual grafting day will be eight days later and for this Andrew will supply suitable larvae from his own stock. The final session will take place just over a week later when the larvae have been capped over and are a few days from emerging. The timing is, of course, dictated by the bees!

The dates are as follows:

Saturday 3 July – presentation on the process and hive setup – 2-3 hours in the afternoon

Sunday 11 July – grafting – 2-3 hours in the afternoon

Tuesday 20 July – setting up mating nucs and transfer of queen cells – 2 hours starting 1830hrs

The cost is £35 per person and we can have up to eight attendees. Each participant will graft their own larvae and if successful will be allowed to take away one mated or virgin queen in a returnable mating nuc. Because you will be expected to help with setting up the queen raising hive and the hive manipulations, you need to be confident handling very strong honey bee colonies and be able to recognise larvae by their age. You should also bring any visual aids (reading glasses, magnifying glass etc) you may require to see one day old larvae.

If you would like to participate, please complete the form that is in the Members Area