Queen Rearing Survey Results

Individuals who attended the May WVBA meeting were asked to complete a one page 10 question survey of interests in raising queens in conjunction with the talk I presented. The talk illustrations are in article posted preceding this report. Thank you to the 36 respondents who returned the survey. Some individuals offered multiple choices for the fill-ins - others did not respond to all the questions on the survey.

Question one asked if your bees had replaced their queen this year? 16 said yes and an equal number said no. Responses to ‘how many times,’ responses ranged from once (8 individuals), twice (5 individuals), one said 3, one individual indicated 8-10 times and one said replacement was in progress.

Question two asked: ‘what are the three ways bees replace their queens.’ Most (31 individuals) said via swarming, 27 said via supersedure and 23 said via emergency means. This last method is how beekeepers rear replacement queens.

Question three asked if you ever introduced a purchased queen into a colony? Twenty said yes and 12 individuals said no. When filling in ‘how many times’ the three most common responses were: 2 said yes, 3 said twice and four said 3 times (=9 responses). Also noted were 5, 6-8, 7, 7-10, 10 and 12 (6 responses) and on the higher end, 10+ ~14, 15 this year, 50+ and then three less specific responses were: lots, hundreds and gadkillions (=7reponses).

For question four, the survey asked if you ever introduced a queen cell into a colony?  Fourteen said yes and 19 said no.  When asked ‘how many tmes:’1 said 1, 4 said 2, 1 said 2-3, and 6 said 3 were the most common responses (12 responses). Additional responses were 7, 7-10, ~10, 10, 10+, few times and lots (7 responses)

Question five was: Do you want to raise queens’? Thirty said yes and only 2 said no. In response to ‘Why’: 2 said  Fun, 1 said interesting, 3 said Learn process (have experience), 4 said to be self-sufficient (sustainability), 9 said cost (save money), 1 said to sell nucs/queens, 2 said to expand number colonies, 1 said to requeen a swarm, 7 said genetics (locally adapted queen), 1 said to have queen who is not a jerk(?), 1 said young queens, 4 said have queen ready (when needed), 1 said easier to buy mated queen than raising, 1 said hive health, and 1 said already doing queen rearing.

Question six asked: ‘Do you want to learn grafting’? Twenty-one individual said Yes, 12 said no, 2 said maybe and 1 individual circled both yes and no.  

Responses to question 7 ‘What would be greatest challenge to learn grafting?’ 7 individuals said knowledge (learning/how to do it), 1 said timing/equipment, 1 said (lack of) experience, 10 said eyesight, 3 said tools, 1 said expense, 1 said just doing it,  1 said technique, 1 said they only knew how to graft trees (?), 3 said time, 1 said not killing “it” (presumably it = the larva), 2 said dexterity (steady hand), 1 said working quickly in a hot room, 1 said no space (they were renting), 1 said cell starter, 1 said never done it before,  and 1 said none because already doing it.

Since grafting is to raise “many” cells and takes lots of practice to learn how to do it and there is a cost of time and equipment, the survey, in line with my lecture on graft less queen rearing, asked in question eight: ‘Do you want to “raise” a few cells?’    Twenty-five said YES, 4 said NO, 1 said maybe, 1 said they weren’t sure, 2 said they Didn’t KNOW, and 1 said Not this year.

Question 9 asked ‘How can you (graftless) raise a few queens?‘ responses were : 1 said make bees believe they are queenless, 4 said create emergency (use emergency cells), 6 said split (walk away) split,  3 said let bees raise queen, 1 said put queen cell frame into box, 2 said nuc box (put queen cells in nuc), 3 said (steal) swarm cells, 2 said Miller method, 2 said Hopkins method, 1 said queen cage, 1 said Snelgrove board and 1 said cell grafting. NOTE: The last 2 are interesting responses - only a single individual said grafting and only 1 individual said Snelgrove, even though the two previous WVBA meeting speakers covered ow use of a Snelgrove board and 2-queen systems are queen rearing methods.

Tenth and final question was: Are you going to raise one or more queens this year?’ 18 said yes, 12 said no, 3 said maybe, 1 didn’t know and final response was hopefully!

Thank you to all those who participated, though not all in attendance did participate. We are in the process of determining a suitable time and place for interested individuals to practice grafting (the response was overwhelming (21 said yes,12 said no) and to demonstrate graft less techniques.

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