Queen Rearing Classes

Betterbee is proud to offer two sessions of our popular, two-day queen rearing class on the weekends of June 15th and 16th at our headquarters in Greenwich, NY. The class will include both lecture and apiary sections. The emphasis will be on methods of queen rearing that require grafting, although non-grafting methods will also be discussed and demonstrated. The following topics will be covered:

• The biology of queens and factors influencing quality of queens
• Grafting and alternatives
• The Doolittle method and variations used in queen production
• Equipment and materials needed for queen rearing
• The importance of drones
• Setting up finishing colonies
• Mating of queens
• Utilization of locally raised queens
• Choosing breeder queens
• Common pitfalls and how to avoid them

Sessions will start both Saturday and Sunday at 9:00 and go until 4:00.

Saturday will begin with classroom sessions on queen biology and queen rearing methods. There will be a section in which students get an opportunity to practice grafting queens. Lunch will be provided. The afternoon session will include more lecture and practice setting up swarm boxes and starter/finisher colonies. There will be another grafting session with the grafts going into the finishing colonies.

Sunday will consist of more lectures dealing with record keeping, selection of breeder stock, and mating of queens. We will also talk about troubleshooting and the common pitfalls. In the afternoon we will check and see how well the grafted cells have been started by the bees. Each student will have the opportunity to take home 2 ripe queen cells for introduction into their own hives.

Class size will be limited to 15 students to allow for personal instruction. The charge for the class is $270.00 and includes lunch each day as well as your own grafting tool and two ripe queen cells.

If you are interested in doing some reading prior to the class we recommend:

• Successful Queen Rearing by Marla Spivak
• Contemporary Queen Rearing by Harry Laidlaw

Please call for suggestions on lodging in the Greenwich, NY area.