Lesson 79: Raising Your Own Queens

How colonies make queens, and how beekeepers guide the process, from a simple split to grafting

Raising your own queens gives you independence: queens when you need them, from your best colonies, adapted to your area. It's also one of the most fascinating parts of beekeeping. You can start simply, by letting a strong colony do the work, and move on to grafting if you want many queens.

How a queen is made (a quick review)

• Any fertilized egg can become a queen or a worker. The difference is food. All larvae get royal jelly for their first days; worker larvae switch to worker jelly (royal jelly mixed with pollen and nectar) on about day three, while queen larvae get royal jelly the whole time in a large queen cell.
• The youngest larvae make the best queens. Larvae under three days old can still become queens, but larvae less than one day old become larger, better-developed queens, because they get royal jelly longer.
• Royal jelly comes from glands in the heads of young nurse bees (roughly 6–12 days old). A colony needs lots of nurse bees and plenty of pollen and nectar to raise good queens.
• Timeline: a queen takes about 16 days from egg to emergence; her cell is capped about day 9 (lesson 7). The first queen to emerge usually kills her rivals still in their cells.
• After emerging, a virgin queen spends about a week (sources say 5–8 days, or up to 10–14) maturing, then takes mating flights, mating with a dozen or more drones. She starts laying a few days after mating (lesson 13).

When to raise queens

Queens can only be raised when there are plenty of drones flying for mating, and the colonies have plenty of food and young bees, usually during spring build-up and early summer. (Your Seasonal Guide notes the season in your area.) Where Africanized bees are present, open-mated queens may mate with Africanized drones; use purchased European-stock queens instead (lesson 16).

Simple methods (no special equipment)

1. Let a split raise its own queen (lesson 78). A queenless split with eggs and young larvae will build emergency queen cells. Easy, but you don't choose the larvae, and emergency cells built from older larvae can make smaller queens.

2. Use the colony's own swarm or supersedure cells. When a strong colony builds swarm cells, you can move frames with good capped cells into nucs (one or two cells per nuc) and get several new queens from one colony, which also helps prevent the swarm (lesson 48). Only use cells from your best, healthiest colonies.

3. Choose your breeder colony. Whatever the method, raise queens from colonies with the traits you want: gentle, productive, healthy, low mite levels, hygienic (lessons 15, 83).

Grafting (for more queens)

Grafting is how beekeepers raise many queens at once: moving very young larvae from worker cells into artificial queen cell cups, which a strong colony then raises as queens.

What you need: - A cell builder (or starter) colony: a strong colony, crowded with young nurse bees, well fed, and usually queenless (or with the queen kept away from the cells), so it's eager to raise queens. - Cell cups (plastic or wax) fixed to bars in a special frame. - A grafting tool: a fine metal tool (German style), a spring-loaded plastic-tipped one (Chinese style), or a homemade one. - Good light, a warm, draft-free room, and a damp towel to keep larvae from drying.

The steps: 1. From your breeder colony, choose a frame with day-old larvae: tiny, with a slight comma shape (older larvae curl into a full "C"). Frames that also have eggs and older larvae nearby tell you the ages are right. 2. Brush the bees off gently (don't shake; it can dislodge the larvae) and graft quickly. Out of the hive, larvae can chill, dry out or starve. Cover the parts of the frame you aren't using with the damp towel. 3. Many beekeepers prime each cup with a tiny drop of royal jelly mixed with water (or plain water) so the larva doesn't dry. Too much liquid drowns it. 4. Slide the tool under the larva and its pool of jelly, from behind the curve, lift it gently, and set it in the center of the cup, right side up. Damaged, submerged or badly placed larvae won't survive. It takes practice. 5. Cover finished bars with the damp towel, put them in the frame, and place the frame in the middle of the cell builder with the cups facing down. 6. From then on, handle the cells gently and never turn them upside down again. 7. About 10 days after grafting (the cells are capped and ripe), move the cells into mating nucs, one cell per nuc, before the first queens emerge and destroy the rest.

Graft-free systems (for example, the Jenter and Nicot kits) let you avoid grafting: the queen lays directly into removable cell cups in a special box on the comb, and you move the cups, larvae and all, into cell bars. Good for small-scale beekeepers.

Mating nucs and checking results

• Put each ripe cell in a small, queenless nuc with bees, capped brood and food (lesson 78).
• Leave it alone for about two to three weeks; then look for eggs, the sign of a mated, laying queen.
• Mark and record new queens (lessons 41–42), and judge them by their brood pattern and colony temperament over the following weeks.

What to remember

• Queens are made by feeding: royal jelly the whole time, in a big cell, from the youngest larvae (under 1 day best).
• About 16 days egg to queen; cell capped about day 9; first queen out kills the rest.
• Raise queens only when drones are plentiful and colonies are strong and well fed. Where Africanized bees occur, buy European-stock queens.
• Simple: splits and good swarm cells from your best colonies. More queens: grafting into cell cups in a cell builder, or graft-free kits.
• Move ripe cells to mating nucs before emergence; check for eggs in 2–3 weeks.

Quick check

1. What decides whether a female larva becomes a queen or a worker?
2. What age of larva makes the best queen for grafting?
3. Why must ripe queen cells be moved to separate nucs before they emerge?

Adapted from: Penn State Extension, Queen Cell Production: Grafting and Graft-Free Methods (Anton & Grozinger, updated May 2026) and An Introduction to Queen Honey Bee Development; UF/IFAS Extension, Using Nucs in Beekeeping Operations (IN869) and Swarm Control for Managed Beehives (IN970, 2022).

Adapted from university Extension sources. Experienced Georgia beekeepers are reviewing these lessons. See something that doesn't match your experience? Tell us.