Rearing new queens for our colonies is a rewarding and important practice that often gets mis-labelled as too difficult and complicated. This, is simply, not correct and with some planning and attention to detail new queens can be produced at a fraction of the cost that you will pay for them elsewhere.
Queen rearing is an organised process where thought goes into selecting which colonies are used. It is not the same as producing new queens by using swarm cells from any colony that happens to be showing signs of swarming. When you select which colonies you want to raise queens from you are beginning the process of improving your stock. You can choose the colonies with the traits you like and avoid using those with traits that you do not like. In just a few seasons you can make a noticeable difference to your colonies.
Every yea
