From: mailto: Indiana Queen Breeders Queen Cells Available Saturday, May 21st

Available at East Central Beekeepers Picnic and Auction (See notice below)

My name is Tim Caldwell I am a life member of The Beekeepers of Indiana I also am a member of the Indiana Queen Breeders Association (IQBA) IQBA works with Purdue University and Indiana Beekeepers to develop a bee stock to be a winter hardy, hygienic, honey producing bees

To help make this line available to local beekeepers, I am going to be offering ripe queen cells at a discounted rate of $3 00 each All the money will go back to the Queen Breeders The Queen Breeders are a 501C3 non-profit and are funded by donations and residuals from breeders selling stock If you have never worked with queen cells, now is your chance to try! 😃

What you need to know

The queen cells will be 2-3 days from hatching when you receive them MUST be inserted into a split ASAP You will need to keep them warm while transporting them home (This can be accomplished with a small lunch style cooler and a bottle of hot tap water with a rag wrapped around it

Advance Preparation at Home

You will need a small nuc, or split, made up so that it has been queenless for 24 hours before you introduce the queen cell This can be accomplished by removing 2-3 frames of mostly capped brood with the adhering bees from a colony and placing in a nuc box along with a frame of food If you do this in your apiary, the field bees will fly back to the parent hive That is what you want to happen, so that you have mostly nurse bees in the split — The nurse bees will accept the cell easier

Introducing your Queen Cells Handle the cell by the plastic cup at the base Press the cup into the face of the comb, part way down the face of the frame so the cell hangs naturally Place the other frames around it so the bees will keep it warm Do not disturb the nuc for 2 weeks, after that you can check for eggs to see if the queen successfully mated Depending on weather, it can take 3 weeks for her to mate If not, you can place the frames or just shake the bees back in the parent colony If successful, you have a new colony to grow and get ready for winter

What if you cannot make it to the East Central Beekeepers Picnic and Auction (See Below)? Contact Tim Caldwell at ‭(317) 223-4709‬