# General beekeeping > Queen raising >  Ben Harden Queen Right system of queen rearing

## Alvearium

Has anyone tried this method? Any experiences to relate or advice to give?
This features in the Beekeeping in a Nutshell series no. 59.
You use 2 wide dummy boards to narrow down the space above the brood chamber and bring up 3 frames of pollen, open brood and then add a grafted frame.
Alvearium

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## Jon

Hi.
This is the main system I use for rearing queens although I keep the supers between the two boxes.

The Ben Harden Method is based on this paper by Wilkinson and Brown.

Dave Cushman’s site also elaborates.

The beauty of it is that any strong colony can be set up quickly to rear queens.
I have a colony and a nuc at the bottom of my garden.
The colony swarmed on Friday afternoon and the clipped queen made her way back in. I did an artificial swarm moving all the brood bar one frame to a second brood box and placed this above the supers on the top of the stack. ** The queen was confined to the bottom box with an excluder.
I grafted larvae from the nuc into it a couple of hours later and on checking yesterday morning 10 cells had been started.

The beauty of this is that it also helps with swarm control as it is like doing a Demaree where the brood is constantly taken away from the queen and drawn comb returned.

That swarm I had in the garden is my first this year from a dozen or so colonies.

If there is enough brood and pollen frames I use more than the 4 or 5 frames recommended by Ben Harden. If you have ten or eleven brood frames well covered with bees, it’s all the better. Ben’s logic is that a lot of AMM colonies have a smaller brood nest and not enough bees to fill a complete second box.

Some things to take into account are:

-You must be able to find your queen so that she can be confined to the bottom box. You could I suppose shake all the bees through an excluder but better to just learn how to find her.

-I find that after a week of bad weather the bees are in no mood to start cells and you might find they only start 2 or 3 grafts from 20 offered. It is better to offer the frame of grafts after a few days of good weather.

-If there is no nectar flow, feed a pint of 1:1 syrup per day in a feeder above the top box. Some people always feed irrespective of weather but little and often is the key to avoid getting syrup in the supers. Feeding is especially important for the 4 days immediately after grafting when the cells are open.

-Cage the cells with rollers 2 days before hatch date as an early hatcher will pull down all the other cells and be very hard to find in a brood box and a couple of supers packed with bees.

-If you are doing continuous grafting, the colony has to be rearranged every time a new frame of grafts is introduced - to put the brood up above with the larvae. Ideally there is a frame of open brood either side of the graft frame as this is like a magnet for nurse bees which will then start queen cells from the larvae in the cell cups. I find this takes about 40 minutes each time but is worth it to produce 10-20 queen cells per week from your best colony, or someone else’s.

-If you use an incubator you can transfer the cells as soon as they are sealed by day 5 after grafting.

**EDIT Actually just remembered I put the brood on its own floor in this case but the cells would have been started anyway a la Ben Harden due to the separation from the queen. I was goint to introduce a queen but changed my mind and gave it a frame of grafts instead. The queen can go in next week when I remove the queen cells.

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## fatshark

I used the Ben Harden method (exactly as described by Dave Cushman, with no supers between the queen/brood and the cells) very successfully this year.  It was very straightforward and I had mated queens by mid-May (in Kielers) and got a couple of supers of OSR honey from the same hive.  I didn't feed them but agree with Jon it would be necessary with no flow on.  The cells were drawn out very quickly and the only issue I had was brace comb being built between the cells.

The only possible drawback I'm aware of with the method was pointed out to me by an advocate of queen rearing in double brood box with a Cloake board - these can be broken up into several two or three frame nucs for mating the queens, whereas with the Ben Harden system you use the cells in mini-nucs or nucs prepared from other hives, so tying up more hives for rearing rather than honey production.  However, I was very happy with the results and will use it again with confidence.

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## Jon

> The only possible drawback I'm aware of with the method was pointed out to me by an advocate of queen rearing in double brood box with a Cloake board - these can be broken up into several two or three frame nucs for mating the queens, whereas with the Ben Harden system you use the cells in mini-nucs or nucs prepared from other hives, so tying up more hives for rearing rather than honey production.


But that is only a problem if you want to sell nucs. If you just want to rear queens someone else can make up the nucs and use the queens. You could easily keep 50 apideas going from a single colony you graft into and get 2 or 3 mated queens out of each over the summer. Breaking up one decent colony would fill about 80 apideas at 500 bees per apidea.
I leave my queens in the apideas for almost three weeks and then remove the queen and split the brood to populate a second apidea just as it is starting to hatch. a new queen cell goes in right away.
Filling about 30 apideas on a rainy day at the start of the season is one of the worst jobs in beekeeping

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## fatshark

> But that is only a problem if you want to sell nucs.


Agreed ... or making increase.



> Filling about 30 apideas on a rainy day at the start of the season is one of the worst jobs in beekeeping


I can imagine ... but at least once the mini-nucs are populated you can keep them going by uniting and/or splitting as you describe to keep usable numbers throughout the season.

Another of the worst jobs is explaining to the wife why the garage is full of bees after my first attempt at queen cell introduction ... I now do it in the dark using a red head torch - much easier  :Big Grin:

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## Jon

> Another of the worst jobs is explaining to the wife why the garage is full of bees after my first attempt at queen cell introduction ... I now do it in the dark using a red head torch - much easier


Just got an image of Derek and Clive there. I fill my apideas at the allotment to avoid any home based strife.

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## gavin

Here's hoping that the bees don't have a similar homing ability to the lobsters.

D, if you used Apideas with the neat perspex cover and hole for the Q cell, and had a water mister by your side, no bees at all would be lost during the operation.

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## Dan

I agree that this is an excellent method. I've used it for five years and keep multiple queen-right queen raisers on the go through the season. Good acceptance rates, repeated grafting cycles, with minimal numbers of queen raising colonies. It's the method I teach on queen raising courses too.

I find a third brood box above the supers is very useful for removing stores-clogged frames from the 'working' brood boxes. 

As Jon says you have to consider that the re-arrangement is an integral part of the process if you're doing successive grafts. I think of it as a progressive cycling of brood and space between top and bottom box; get the picture clear in your mind and rearranging becomes instinctive.

I think Jon needs a kick up the arse though - I rearranged two such colonies and did 36 grafts between them, including finding suitable grafting material in each and caging the queens for safety, in about 40 minutes _total_ this afternoon!  :Stick Out Tongue:

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## gavin

Removing stores-clogged frames?!!!!  Oh, you're in DEVON!  That explains it.  Haven't see a stores-clogged frame in a long time!   :Wink:

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## Jon

> I
> I think Jon needs a kick up the arse though - I rearranged two such colonies and did 36 grafts between them, including finding suitable grafting material in each and caging the queens for safety, in about 40 minutes _total_ this afternoon!


That is good going Dan but gimmie a break! I did this for the first time last year! Both the grafting and the rearranging. I am still getting the hang of it and I am sure we can go head to head in a couple of years re. the speed trials. This is my hobby rather than the day job!
I have 30 hatching Friday and another 10 next Wednesday.

Nice cells I reckon. What do you make of those?

two good cells.jpg

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## Dan

> That is good going Dan but gimmie a break!


Just teasing  :Smile: 




> Nice cells I reckon. What do you make of those?


Lovely. Work out the postage for four dozen for me, would you please?  :Stick Out Tongue: 

Seriously, they're good 'uns. Be proud of them  :Big Grin: 

Tangent: Dad gave me one of these for my birthday this year and it's become my tool of choice. Replaced the 30 year old remodelled dental pick that my he handed down to me, which is saying something.

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## Jon

I use a fine paintbrush. Could never master the Chinese grafting tool which is what most people seem to use.

larva on brush.jpg

haven't really tried the type of tool you use.

I put the cells in apideas this evening as we have a severe weather warning out for tomorrow and I can't be arsed getting wet. Two days before hatching is usually ok, although I prefer to cage the cells with rollers and leave it to the last possible moment.

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## gavin

Must try alternative tools next time.  We were looking for grass stalks to bite the end but all we could find was some _Poa trivialis_ which comes pre-flattened and didn't seem suitable.

The Chinese tools have rather broad flexible tips.  Good for scooping and lifting but not so good for sliding off at the other end, particularly if you pushed it quite far on.  A bit of practice will surely make perfect though, whatever your chosen implement.

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## Dan

> A bit of practice will surely make perfect though, whatever your chosen implement.


I set up a trial about four years ago, using one queen raiser through the season to compare tools. Commercial 16x10 cell bar frames are deep enough for three rows of queen cells. One row grafted with paintbrush, one with Chinese tool, one with dental pick, all at the same time. Once I'd got the hang of each tool, results were identical. It comes down to personal preference, choice of material, and care in movement.

The trick that most people fail to understand with Chinese tool is that you don't use the plunger to push the larva off. Instead you use the plunger to hold the larva steady whilst you withdraw the tongue from under it. Sort of like removing a tablecloth without upsetting the teacups (in slow-motion!), and quite an unnatural hand motion until you've practised.

The paint brush is by far the most elegant tool, but until I can find a cranked paintbrush I'll carry on with the Swiss tool. I don't enjoy squinting around my hand and the grafting tool!

Didn't Doolittle work with chewed/whittled matchsticks?

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## Dark Bee

The cranked tool shown in Dan's photo is excellent (my view). The chinese tool, although the favourite weapon of the GBBG, was impossible to manipulate and I acknowledge the fault was more likely to be mine. There is an inexpensive tool on ebay - has anyone fired one in anger? I may get one , it would be something else to blame if things went awry.

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## Black Comb

I prefer the paintbrush but have a problem in getting the larva off the brush into the base of the graft cell.
Some books suggest priming the base with dilute royal jelly.
Anyone do this?

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## Jon

The trick to getting it off is how you pick it up. The larva needs to be on the very tip of the brush. I always graft into dry cups.

larva on brush.jpg

The brush is rotated as it is withdrawn from the cup and that leaves the larva behind.

larva in cell cup.jpg

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## Black Comb

Thanks.
Do you pick p the larva from the back of the C or or from the concave front?

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## Dark Bee

> Thanks.
> Do you pick p the larva from the back of the C or or from the concave front?


Think "banana" rather than "C" and yes attack from the back - doing it that way ensures you don't get bitten. :Embarrassment:

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## Dark Bee

On reading the above again, a little elaboration might not go amiss, in case someone thinks I am an agent for the Western Islands Banana Growers Association.
When grafting larvae the object is to graft the youngest larvae possible. These are straighter than a "C" shape, the curve is more"banana" shaped than "C" shaped. Larvae with wrinkles are also too long in the tooth.

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## Black Comb

Yes DB, I "got it" OK.
It's a fair point you make as to a clumsy fingered starter like me the C's are easier to pick up.

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## Jon

Any larva under 24 hours old will produce a decent queen.

I would guess those pictured in post 17 to be around 18 hours.

It is very difficult to pick up larvae 2-4 hours old as there is next to no jelly with them.

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## Calum

whatever you are using, if it is a dark frame its easier to see. If its a light frame use a carpet knife to cut the depth of the cells back, makes everything much easier!
UV exposure can damage the larvae, but not much chance of that happening so far this year...

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## Little_John

The link re: the Wilkinson & Brown paper given at the beginning of this thread is currently returning a 404.

But - a copy of this paper can be downloaded from:
https://secure.fera.defra.gov.uk/bee...ment.cfm?id=36

Regards,
LJ

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## Jon

Thanks. Old thread revived. I'll edit the link above.

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## Dark Bee

> ..................................................  ..........................
> 
> It is very difficult to pick up larvae 2-4 hours old as there is next to no jelly with them.


Many do not realise that larvae of this age are smaller than the egg from which they hatched!

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## Black Comb

Had a quick look today to see how the taken cells are going.
One, which was a nice looking cell on Tuesday is now covered in brace comb. All over the cell and a thick rope down from the base. Is it worth tring to save it, assuming a queen in there?

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## Jon

They do that all the time and the queen inside is usually ok.
Sometimes the row of cells on the bar gets completely incorporated in comb which they draw to fill the space.
Just trim off the excess when you go to use the cell in an apidea or a nuc.

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## Black Comb

Thank you.
I owe you a Jamesons if we ever meet.

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