Queen rearing calendar
Pick a graft date and get the date for every step, from confining the breeder queen to checking for eggs.
- Tue, Oct 20Day -4
Confine the breeder queen
Cage her on a clean, drawn comb so you know exactly when the eggs were laid.
- Fri, Oct 23Day -1
Set up the cell builder
Make the starter queenless and crowded with young nurse bees. Feed it.
- Sat, Oct 24Graft day
Graft
Move the youngest larvae, smaller than a comma, into cell cups.
- Sun, Oct 25Day +1
Check acceptance
Count the cups the bees have drawn out. Remove rejected ones.
- Thu, Oct 29Day +5
Cells capped
Cells are sealed now. Do not jar or tip the frame from here on.
- Mon, Nov 2Day +9
Make up mating nucs
Give each nuc a day queenless before its cell goes in.
- Tue, Nov 3Day +10
Move ripe cells
Last safe day. The first queen out will kill her sisters still in their cells.
- Thu, Nov 5Day +12
Queens emerge
Leave the nucs alone. A virgin queen is easy to lose to a disturbed colony.
- Wed, Nov 11Day +18
Mating flights
About five to seven days after emerging, weather permitting.
- Thu, Nov 19Day +26
Check for eggs
Look for a tidy laying pattern. No eggs yet? Give it another week before you worry.
Get reminders for every step in Hive Complete Pro.
How the dates work
A queen takes 16 days from egg to emergence. Grafting moves a larva under a day old, which is about day 4 from the egg, so she emerges 12 days after the graft. Cells have to be in their mating nucs by day 10, before the first virgin out can find and destroy the rest. Weather moves mating flights, so treat the last two dates as a window, not a deadline.
Track every graft, cell and mating nuc
Join the waitlist. The first 500 get Beekeeper free for a year.