Июль 2026

Learn how to build queen cell starters for summer and fall bee splits after the honey flow ends. In this video, I make packed five-frame queenless cell starters using capped brood and nurse bees, explain my queen-grafting setup, and walk through my plan for introducing caged virgin queens into new splits. With our Alabama honey flow nearly over, the colonies still have large populations of bees and plenty of drones. Instead of letting those numbers naturally decline, I’m using the extra bees to make summer splits that can overwinter with established queens and be ready for next spring’s honey flow. In this video, I cover: • Why the end of the honey flow is a good time to make bee splits • How I build five-frame queen cell starters • Why I use frames of capped brood and young nurse bees • Using a combined starter-finisher for queen grafting • Keeping cell starters queenless and heavily populated • Why screen bottoms help during hot weather • Feeding light sugar syrup to stimulate wax and royal jelly production • Preventing burr comb around developing queen cells • Rotating capped brood into the starters each week • Incubating capped queen cells and introducing virgin queens • Making splits above double-screen boards • Using Golden West Queen genetics from Randy Oliver • Preparing colonies for summer, fall and winter This is the first step in my summer queen-rearing process. In the next video, I’ll begin grafting larvae into these starters and show how the queen cells develop. Do you use a dedicated starter and finisher, or do you let one colony start and finish your queen cells? Let me know in the comments. Subscribe for more practical beekeeping, queen-rearing, hive-management and honey-production videos. #QueenRearing #QueenGrafting #Beekeeping