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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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  • From: Nerissa Rivera <nerissa.rivera AT duke.edu>
  • To: "'ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org'" <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [ocba] Results of first queen rearing attempt
  • Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2017 12:09:47 +0000

Good morning,

 

Back in May I attended the Born and Bred workshop in Statesville and determined that I would give queen rearing a try, if for nothing else to help me develop new queens for my hives when I do splits.  My goal for this round was grafting queens from one of my gentler hives.  I chose to graft from a hive that had overwintered successfully and which I had already done a split in March because it was busting out at the seams.  The bees were some of my gentlest.

 

Last Sunday we grafted 31 larvae into queen cups. We were a group of five, one of whom was an experienced grafter.   Four of us did the grafting to get hands on experience.  I checked yesterday and the bees were making cups for 30 of the 31 grafts which so far is almost a 97% success rate. YAY!!!!.  We will know in a few more days how many actually develop into queens.  My husband James and I were very excited (almost like Christmas morning).    We hope to do our splits early next week and put the queen cells directly in the splits.  Any left over queens will go into an incubator and then a queen castle for mating.  

 

I realize that expecting a 97% success rate is not always reasonable but hope that we have continued success. Would love to hear from others who attended the workshop and are actively pursuing queen rearing, to learn about your experiences.

 

Nerissa

 

                                                                            

Nerissa Rivera/Associate Director

Karsh Office of Undergraduate Financial Support|Duke University

2127 Campus Drive  Annex, Box 90397|Durham, NC 27708-0397

www.finaid.duke.edu l nerissa.rivera AT duke.edu

919.684.6910 ph/919.660.9811 fax

 



 




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