Download or read book Splitting Hives & Rearing Queens written by Joseph E. Hébert, Ph.D. and published by Hébert's Honey Bees. This book was released on 2024-03-12 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From splitting a hive to rearing your own queens from your own beestock, Dr. Hébert teaches you all you need to know to grow and manage the population of your small apiary. Of course, having the knowledge is one thing, but having the physical skill is quite another. So you will also learn how to develop the physical skill needed to put your new found knowledge into practice. With color close up photographs you will learn how to tell which larvae are suitable for making queens and which ones aren't. Then you will learn how to develop the physical skill to graft them. Believe it or not, grafting larvae is not only the simplest and most efficient means of rearing multiple queens anyone has come up with to date, it is also a surprisingly simple skill to learn. If you can write with a pen and paper, you're practically already there. And in the appendices you will be given the details of how to make the equipment and tools necessary to the task (should you opt to do so over buying them). In short, if you're a backyard/hobbyist beekeeper and you want to grow and manage the population of your apiary, "Splitting Hives & Rearing Queens" is all you need to get started. And if you ever decide to grow your apiary even larger, you'll have a solid foundation of knowledge on which to build. Finally, in this 3rd edition you will also find added value in a collection of additional appendices that discuss such topics as things you should learn in your (next) first year of beekeeping, how to avoid being stung, how to collect feral swarms, how to increase your honey production by using fewer frames, and how to winter your hives to help them be more productive in the new year.