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A mini starter-finisher hive model that facilitates queen rearing

Article  in  American Bee Journal · April 2005

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Final ABJ June 05.qxd 5/4/2005 3:36 PM Page 503

Apicultural Research

by TIAGO MAURÍCIO FRANCOY1, LIONEL SEGUI GONÇALVES2,

JOÃO JOSÉ DOS SANTOS1 and DAVID DE JONG1
Manuscript received for publication April 27, 2005

Abstract Introduction

I
Queen rearing is an important activity that is accessible to all nduced queen rearing of Apis mellifera is a very common tech-
beekeepers. In Brazil it is very common to use queenright queen- nique in beekeeping. It has been known since ancient times
rearing colonies, as they do not require special management. that a queenless colony produces new queens. Based on this
However, these starter-finisher hives are heavy, can be strong and knowledge, the ancient Greeks reared queens by isolating combs
defensive, and they need a large bee population to attain good containing young larvae and eggs, and covered with adult work-
results. We developed a new model of queen-rearing colony that ers, which reared new queens from the larvae (Laidlaw Jr &
was baptized “Ribeirão Preto mini queen-rearing colony”. This Eckert, 1962). Based on this knowledge, Doolittle (1881) devel-
new model consists of a Langstroth mating nucleus hive (holds four oped the basic technique that is still used today, with only small
or five standard Langstroth modifications (Morse, 1979).
frames), placed over a normal 10- Since the 19th century, queen-
frame Langstroth brood chamber. rearing techniques have been
The bottom of the nucleus is nearly universally based on the
adapted with a piece of zinc-sheet manual grafting of young worker
queen excluder material and the larvae into cell cups made of wax
nucleus is placed over a queen- or plastic and transferring these
right standard Langstroth hive. cups to colonies previously pre-
The sides of the nucleus have pared so that the bees sense that
hinged boards that cover the side they do not have a queen and are
frames in the lower brood cham- induced to rear new queens. The
ber. Tests were made comparing workers feed the larvae with royal
grafted larva acceptance and by jelly and rear new queens
weighing newly-emerged queens in (Laidlaw Jr & Eckert, 1962).
six trials made with three types of The original methodology has
hives: (1) a four frame or a (2) several variations, but the princi-
five-frame upper queen rearing ples remain the same. These vari-
nucleus and a normal (3) two-hive- ations generally involve grafting
body queen-rearing colony. The techniques, which consist of sim-
five-frame mini queen-rearing Fig. 1: Five-frame mini queen rearing colony in ple or double grafting of larvae,
colony gave as good results (in
the campus apiary. Old-fashioned clay drain eggs, and even cells with larvae
terms of percentage grafted cells (Laidlaw Jr & Eckert, 1962).
that reached the adult stage) as the pipes are used as hive stands. There are also variations in the
traditional model, even though it houses a smaller bee population types of hives used to rear queens, including starter and finishing
and is easier to manage. The mean weight of the virgin queens colonies (Vuillaume, 1957), queen rearing colonies (Johanson &
reared in the five-frame queen rearing devices was significantly Johanson, 1973), and mini queen-rearing colonies (Santos et. al,
greater (208 mg, n = 120) than those reared in the larger, two-hive- 1979).
body colonies (193 mg, n = 115) or in the four-frame queen rearing In Brazil, the most common way to rear queens is in queenright
box (182 mg, n = 104). queen-rearing colonies, usually constituted of two standard 10-
1
frame Langstroth hive boxes, separated by a queen excluder. The
Genetics Department, Faculty of Medicine of Ribeirão Preto, queen is placed in the lower hive chamber, and young larvae are
University of São Paulo, 14.049-900 Ribeirão Preto, SP, BRAZIL
2 Biology Department, Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters,
grafted into cell cups and then placed in the upper part of the
University of São Paulo, 14.040-901 Ribeirão Preto, SP, BRAZIL queen rearing colony, where the workers feed the larvae with royal
jelly and rear new queens. The main advantage of a starter-finish-
Telephone number: +55 (16) 602 3806 er colony is that it does not require extensive manipulations and
Fax number: +55 (16) 633 6482 can be maintained in the apiary as a normal colony. Brood frames
Corresponding author e-mail: lsgoncal@usp.br with unsealed brood are periodically moved up from the bottom

June 2005 503

Final ABJ June 05.qxd 5/4/2005 3:36 PM Page 504
Fig. 2: Five-frame mini queen rearing colony:
frontal view showing the hinged lateral covers.
These facilitated access to brood frames that can
be moved to the upper box, without needing to
remove the upper box, where the larvae are graft-
ed. The lower entrance of the hive was partially
blocked with a piece of plastic foam, as the
colony was not very strong.
chamber, where the queen is confined, to the chamber above the
queen excluder, in order to ensure that young bees go up and care
for the grafted larvae. These queenright queen-rearing colonies
work well with Africanized honey bees. However, these types of
hives are heavy, are hard to carry, need large bee populations, can
be quite defensive, and they consume a lot of food. We developed
and tested a new model of mini queen rearing hive, adapted from
an earlier model made by Santos et al. (1979), to determine if it
would be possible to raise good queens with a smaller and easier-
to-handle unit.
Material and Methods
The mini queen-rearing colony is composed of a five-frame size
Langstroth mating nucleus, with lateral folding boards hinged at
the bottom, and a queen excluder fixed to the bottom. It is placed
over a normal 10-frame Langstroth hive body (Figures 1 – 4). The
sideboards are used to cover the frames of the lower hive. We test-
ed two models, which had room for four or five standard deep
Langstroth frames. The five-frame hive was filled with three
brood frames, one grafting frame and one feeder frame, and the
four-frame hive held two brood frames, one grafting frame and
one feeder frame.
The five-frame mini queen rearing hives were prepared as fol-
lows: Three combs with open brood were transferred from a strong
single story colony to the upper part; the brood frames were
replaced by empty combs. The frame feeder in the upper part was
filled with 50% sucrose syrup to help attract the bees and to induce
them to feed the larvae in the grafting frame. The same procedure
was carried out for the four-frame mini queen-rearing colony,
except for using two instead of three brood frames. The fifth (or
fourth) frame was the queen-cell frame. Grafted queen cells were
504
Figure 3: Diagrammatic sketch of the five-frame
Ribeirão Preto mini queen-rearing hive showing
details of the bottom adapted with a queen
excluder. This is basically a five-frame “nuc”,
with a flat sheet queen excluder inserted into an
oval hole cut in the bottom. The hinged sides are
used to cover the side frames in the lower, queen-
right brood chamber.
always placed between two frames of open brood, and the feeding
frame was placed to the side. The brood frames were replaced
weekly, so that there was always young brood whenever grafted
cells were introduced.
Six tests were made in order to test the efficiency of the three
types of queen rearing hives (four and five-frame mini queen-
rearing hives). The acceptance of grafted larvae and the emerg-
ing weight of the new queens were registered. A normal double
10-frame brood chamber queen-rearing colony was used as a
control. Three tests for each model were made by grafting 27
larvae, divided into three bars with nine cell cups each; in the
other three tests, 39 larvae were grafted, divided into three bars
with 13 cell cups each. Thus, each colony received the same
number of cell cups. The queens were weighed with an analyti-
cal balance, right after emerging. The acceptance rate was cal-
culated by dividing the number of queens that emerged by the
number of larvae grafted. These acceptance rates in percentage
were transformed using arc sin and the data for the new queen-
rearing colonies and the control were compared using a variance
analysis (ANOVA).
Figure 4. The mini-queen rearing hive with one of
the hinged sides up to uncover the frames in the
lower brood chamber. The small five-frame box is
easy to remove or move to one side in order to
manipulate or remove the frames in the lower
hive chamber.
American Bee Journal
Final ABJ June 05.qxd 5/4/2005 3:36 PM Page 505

Results (Notions about genetics and improvement in bees) Proceedings

The mean grafted-larva acceptance rates ranged from about 55
to 60% for the three types of hives, being highest in the five-frame
queen-rearing devices. These rates (Table 1; Figure 4) were not
significantly different (F(2;15) = 0.2854; P=0.76).
The mean weight of the newly emerged queens was greatest for
the five-frame mini queen-rearing colonies, about 7% smaller for
the normal double hive body queen-rearing colonies, and about
12% smaller for the four-frame mini queen rearing colonies. These
results (Table 1) were significantly different (F(2;336) = 35.1409;
P < 0.001).
of the I Brazilian Apiculture Congress, Florianopolis, SC.,
Brazil. pp. 8 – 36.
Johansson, T.S.K. & M.P. Johansson 1973. Methods for rearing
queens. Bee World 54: 149 – 175.
Laidlaw Jr., H.H. & J.E. Eckert 1962. Queen rearing.
University of California Press Ltd. Berkeley, CA, USA. 165 pp.
Morse, R.A. 1979. Rearing queen honey bees. Wicwas Press,
Ithaca, NY, USA. 128 pp.
Santos, J.J., Message, D. & E. Corbella 1979. Utilização de mini
recrias para produção de rainhas. (Utilization of mini queen-

Table 1: Number of queens produced and mean weight (in mg) of newly-emerged Africanized queens for
each queen-rearing hive model tested in six comparative trials. The control hives consisted of two stan-
dard deep 10-frame Langstroth boxes, while the mini colonies had a normal 10-frame deep super below
and a four- or a five-frame upper box, separated by a queen excluder. All the hives had a laying queen
below the queen excluder.
5-frame mini-hive 10-frame hive 4-frame mini-hive
Grafted N o
Queen No Queen No Queen
Trial Cells Queens weight Queens weight Queens weight
1 27 20 208.7 11 193.8 18 195.8
2 27 18 203.4 17 188.5 14 178.5
3 27 16 215.9 18 199.8 20 182.0
4 39 24 197.2 28 184.1 8 181.7
5 39 17 215.9 19 199.4 28 178.2
6 39 25 208.0 22 194.9 16 180.8
Mean %* 60.6% 58.1% 52.5%
Mean weight † (mg) 208.2a 193.4b 182.8c
* Mean percentage of grafted larvae that resulted in adult queens. The number of queens successfully produced did
not differ significantly among the three types of queen rearing hives (Chi-square test, P>0.25).
† The mean weights of the newly emerged queens varied significantly among the types of queen-rearing hives
(ANOVA, P<0.001). Means followed by different letters are significantly different (Tukey Test, P<0.05).
Discussion rearing colonies for queen production) Proceedings of the
The two new models of queen rearing hives are quite a bit Apimondia International Symposium on Apiculture in
lighter in weight, easier to manage, and they require a smaller HotClimates, Florianópolis -SC. pp: 178 – 179.
bee population than the normal double 10-frame hive. The Vuillaume, M. 1957. Contribution a la psychophysiology de l’el-
weights of the queens reared in the different models of queen evage des reines chez les abeilles. (Contribution to the behav-
rearing colonies were significantly different (P < 0.001); the ioral physiology of the rearing of queen bees). Insectes Sociaux
five-frame mini queen rearing hives produced the heaviest 4: 113 – 156.
queens and gave approximately the same

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acceptance performance as in the other mod-
els. The mean weight of the Africanized
queens reared in the five-frame hive boxes
was higher than the mean weight (200 mg) Boxes are Ponderosa Pine/Corners are notched.
of Africanized queens reported by
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bees, and the ease of manipulation, as it is
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Acknowledgements
This research was supported by CNPq and Top Bars $.20, End Bars $.12
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References Call for Price.
Doolittle, G.M. 1881. How to rear good queens.
Gleanings in Bee Culture 9: 375 – 376.
1571 Hwy. 3 • Juliaetta, ID 83535
Gonçalves, L.S. & W.E. Kerr 1970. Noções Phone 208.276.3494 FAX 3491
sobre genética e melhoramento em abelhas.

June 2005 505

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