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  "description": "Colonies are highly selective when choosing larvae to rear queen. Standard (grafting-based) queen rearing methods are not. In this post I briefly discuss the science of larval selection, and then present two easy practical methods that take advantage of our current understanding of the process.",
  "path": "/bigger-queens-better-queens-and-easier-queens/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-03-20T17:00:31.000Z",
  "site": "https://theapiarist.org",
  "tags": [
    "A.G. Schirach",
    "François Huber",
    "Grafting",
    "G.M. Doolittle",
    "queen retinue pheromone",
    "grafting",
    "view the entire post on the website",
    "Subscribe now"
  ],
  "textContent": "About 250 years ago A.G. Schirach, a pastor in Kleinbautzen, Eastern Germany, showed it was possible to rear new queens from larvae laid in worker cells.\n\nFrançois Huber described Shirach's _“conversion of a common worm into a royal one”_ when he repeated the experiments a few years later.\n\nIn 1794, Huber published his studies. The addition of eggs and young larvae to a queenless colony resulted in them provisioning the _“worms with a thick bed of jelly”_. Huber then removed the initial 'worms' (larvae) and replaced them with two day old worker larvae, which were subsequently reared into queens.\n\nMany beekeepers will recognise the two key features in that paragraph that characterise many current queen rearing strategies:\n\n  * Use of a _queenless_ colony to rear new queen cells; the cells are being reared under the _emergency response_.\n  * Grafting — the manual transfer of beekeeper-selected larvae — from a donor colony into cells in a queenless cell-raising colony {{1}}.\n\n\n\nSince then, for ~230 years, _nothing_ has really changed.\n\nIn the latter half of the 19th Century G.M. Doolittle popularised queen rearing by grafting directly into wax cups. He initially used natural 'play cups', and later described the creation of cups from warmed wax moulded around shaped dowels.\n\nThis use of wax cups wasn't Doolittle's invention, but it became known — and still is — as the Doolittle method {{2}}.\n\nLaidlaw & Eckert discuss the history of queen rearing in the introduction to their, appropriately titled, book _Queen Rearing_ (1962).\n\nLaidlaw & Eckert, 1962\n\nThe 'state of the art' methods they go on to describe — remember, from ~60 years ago — are essentially _identical_ to those currently used to rear the vast majority of queens {{3}}:\n\n  * Manual selection and grafting of day-old larvae into artificial queen cups (often now plastic, rather than wax).\n  * Presentation of the grafted larvae to a queenless cell-raising colony where they are reared under the emergency response.\n  * Use of nucs or mini-nucs for queen mating.\n\n\n\nBut, although the methods haven't changed in 60+ years, we've learnt a lot in the intervening period about how the colony _naturally_ rears new queens.\n\nIt's quite an interesting story … but it's ignored by most beekeepers when rearing queens 😞.\n\n### Science, and the _'art of the possible'_\n\nHoney bees are fascinating insects. They are studied by scientists interested in the evolution of eusocial behaviour, or waggle-dance communication, or pheromones.\n\nOr, for that matter, how larvae are selected by the colony when rearing new queens.\n\nThis is arguably the _most important_ decision the colony makes.\n\nIf they get it wrong, the swarmed colony will perish … or, simply prolonging the inevitable, not thrive, and fail to reproduce (swarm) the following year.\n\nScientists can _only_ meaningfully study events that are reproducible. This allows experiments to be repeated to provide statistical rigour to the conclusions.\n\nQueens are reared in response to three different conditions:\n\n  * Queenlessness — the **emergency** response\n  * A failing, ageing, or substandard queen — the **supersedure** response\n  * Overcrowding, or a reduction in the queen retinue pheromone — the **swarming** response\n\n\n\nWhilst you _can_ induce overcrowding, or use geriatric queens, scientists cannot _reproducibly_ create conditions for swarming or supersedure.\n\nDoing so is all a bit hit-and-miss.\n\nTherefore, in studies of queen rearing, scientists rely upon the induction of the emergency response.\n\nThe great thing about the emergency response is that it works … _every time_.\n\nAnd, in studies of queens reared under the emergency response, we now know that the colony is **extremely selective** in the larvae they choose to rear new queens from.\n\nTheir future depends upon it, so it's not surprising that they're picky.\n\nUnfortunately, beekeepers _manually_ selecting larvae for grafting are unable to discriminate using _any_ of the criteria used by the bees.\n\nInevitably this means that some larvae beekeepers choose would have been overlooked or rejected by a colony rearing a new queen.\n\nBut, all is not lost …\n\nMost queens are reared by beekeepers under the emergency response. Since that is also how scientists have also studied how queens are reared, the scientific results are _very relevant_ to practical beekeeping.\n\nKnowing what the bees do should allow beekeepers to rear better queens.\n\n💡\n\nThis is an unusually long and detailed post. Covering both __why?__ and __how?__ these methods produce good queens took me longer than expected. If your email client has truncated the newsletter, you should view the entire post on the website.\n\n## Trust the bees\n\nIn this post, I'm going to briefly outline the current understanding of the science relevant to queen rearing, and then describe two practical approaches to exploit this to rear queens.\n\nConveniently — and importantly — one of these approaches is suitable for those with no previous queen rearing experience, and requires no additional equipment.\n\nIt is therefore appropriate for relatively inexperienced beekeepers who are interested in rearing a few queens for their own use, or to share with friends.\n\nAccess to this post requires a paid subscription to __The Apiarist.__ The post is 6,000+ words long, and took several hours to write and illustrate. None of it is AI-generated 'slop'. Paying subscribers (sponsors) keep the lights on here, they keep the servers backed up, and they pay for the coffee I drink when writing.\n\nA paid subscription costs about the same as a large cappuccino a month, or less annually, and gives you access to an archive of ~700 posts, a new article every Friday, and irregular __Beemusings__ posts.\n\nBecome a paid subscriber\n\nThe second method is really a logical extension of the first, requiring a little specialised equipment, and involving some slightly more advanced hive manipulations. Nevertheless, it should be well within the capabilities of beekeepers with 2–3 years of practical experience.\n\n### This post is for subscribers only\n\nBecome a member to get access to all content\n\nSubscribe now",
  "title": "Bigger queens, better queens … and easier queens",
  "updatedAt": "2026-04-07T19:00:34.759Z"
}