The first batch of queens is emerging in the incubator this morning.
If you ordered early, ie before March, I would hope to be able to start posting queens by the middle of June.
If you ordered more recently it is likely to be end June or early July.
As always exact timing depends upon the weather as I don’t know at this point if queens will mate within a week or take three weeks or more.
Jonathan Getty
About Jonathan Getty
Jonathan Getty is a former chair of Belfast & District branch of the Ulster Beekeepers Association which has over 250 members and is a current committee member. He is at least a fourth generation beekeeper in the Getty family. His main beekeeping interest is queen rearing based on our native bee Apis mellifera mellifera. He started up the Belfast Minnowburn queenrearing group in 2012 and is currently involved with a new queenrearing group in Co. Tyrone which started up in 2020. He manages over 100 colonies of his own spread over about a dozen apiary sites in NI. He also rears between 400-500 queens per season using 200 Apideas. Jonathan holds a BSc Hons in Psychology from Queens University Belfast and gained a postgraduate teaching qualification at Stranmillis Training College. He is a fluent Spanish speaker.
Fantastic news, I can’t wait 🙂