Cell builder colonies managements
• Cell builder colony needs to be proper management and the same colony can be used to rear queen cells during entire season.
• Cell builder colony made queen less by removing its old queen. Grafted cells are easily accepted within few hours after making it queen less colony; better acceptance if de-queened in the morning and first lot of cells given in the afternoon or in the next day.
• This colony being queen less needs to be sealed brood or nursing bees to maintain the sufficient
population. For this purpose two sets of frames of brood (one with uncapped cells) are sufficient which
should replace two brood less combs in the colony.
• Frame containing grafted queen cups is to be placed in the center of the cells builder colony and
workers will start raising queen cells once accepted by the the worker bee's.
• Destroy the any queen cells reared on other brood combs, since these queen cells are not to be from selected stock.
• On the tenth day after the grafting: shift finished queen cells in to the individual queen mating nucleus or use the queen cells protectors to prevent cell destruction by any of the emerging queens.
• Mating the nuclei can be baby nuclei or the large 2-3 frame full depth of the nuclei. However, generally baby nuclei are preferred by breeders because these are easy to feed and also easier to stock or easier to find mated queen.
• Mating nuclei are placed in the mating yard having ample mature drones were from selected colonies are the better performing colonies.
• Young queen mates after 6 to 10 days of emergence during mating flights in the open air with a number of the drones in drone congregation areas and the areas having hundreds of drones.
• Queen starts laying after 7-11 days of mating and is ready for further use.
Transportation and Mailing of queens after successful mating of the queens, these can be transported in mailing queen cages easily.
• Standard wooden mailing cages are used for mailing the queen.
• One end of each queen cage is provisioned with the candy. The mated queen is placed in this
cage with 3 to 4 attendant worker bees in the colony.
• Queens can be also transported too long distances in these mailing cages.
• In many countries, queens are even mailed as the parcels in queen mailing cages
through department of the posts.
