What is the essential process used in beekeeping to produce new queens?

The essential process used in beekeeping to produce new queens is queen rearing. This process involves several key steps where beekeepers intentionally rear young queens for the purpose of replacing old queens or increasing the number of colonies.

In queen rearing, beekeepers manipulate the colony conditions to encourage the development of queen cells, which are specially constructed by worker bees to nurture the growth of new queens. The queens are typically reared from eggs or young larvae that are chosen for specific traits, such as productivity or resistance to pests. Once the new queens emerge, they can either be used to strengthen existing colonies or be introduced into new colonies.

While hive splitting and swarm catching are related to managing bee populations, they don't specifically focus on the controlled production of new queens. Hive splitting can create a new colony that may lead to queen production, but it is not a deliberate process of creating queens. Similarly, swarm catching involves capturing swarms that already contain a queen, rather than producing new ones. Comb building refers to the bees constructing their honeycomb structures and is not directly related to queen production. Thus, queen rearing is the precise method used to ensure the availability of new queens within beekeeping practices.