2026 Queen Rearing Course

MCBA is happy to announce that we will again be holding a queen rearing class.  This couse will be open for only 12 participants and is intened for beekeepers with a least 3 years of beekeeping experience.

By the end of this course each participant will end this course with a new queen for their apiary.

Cost : $75 including all materials and tools needed to rear a queen.

Course Outline

Classroom and Hands on will be conducted at: 

New Life Ministries – 617 Manley Chapel Road, Fairmont WV

Instructional and Hands-On (classroom) (3 sessions)

1. 3/2/26– 2.5 hrs (6 – 8:30pm)

2. 3/9/26 – 2.5hrs (6 – 8:30pm)

3. 3/16/26 – 2.5hrs (6 – 8:30pm)

This schedule can be shifted slightly but some of these dates are absolute if we want the best queens

1. 5/14/26 – Thursday - 6pm – Equipment assembly and prepare for 5/22/26

2. 5/21/26 - Thursday – 5pm - Setup Starter Colony (1 hour)

3. 5/27/26 – Wednesday – 5pm - Setup Timing Box for breeder queen (1 hour)

4. 5/30/26 – Saturday – 1pm - Prepare Starter Colony to receive grafts (1 hour)

5. 5/31/26 – Sunday – 2pm - Grafting day and insert grafts into Starter Colony (3 hrs)

6. 6/2/26 – Tuesday – Check Grafts - Merge queen back with starter colony – Now a Finisher colony (1 hour)

7. 6/6/26 – 6/10/26 – Queen cells capped and can move to mating nucs.  6/10/26 - will probably be the best day. – (~30 min Students will be responsible for transporting the queen cell(s) and installing them into their own mating nucs)

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Intent of Course – Up to 12 students

Basic understanding of Queen Rearing

Include classroom and field/apiary instruction

Produce at least 20 capped queen cell (1 per student) using different queen rearing methodologies.

Course Content (Classroom and hand-on)

Honeybee biology

Queen Rearing methods/techniques

Stock Selection

Tools and Equipment

Starter and finisher hives

Mating yards

Finding, Catching, Handling, Marking queens

Record Keeping

Queen Cell Transportation

Course Objectives

Better understanding of honey bee biology

Queen rearing manual – 1 per student

Queen Rearing tool – 1 Chinese Grafting tool per student

At least one capped Q-Cell

Course Prerequisite – Beekeeper for at least 3 years

Basic knowledge of honey bee biology

Can identify Honey bees (Drones, Queen, Workers)

Can identify hive components such as: (eggs, Larva, sealed brood (drone, worker, and queen), honey, pollen)