Worldwide Beekeeping
Beekeeping => Raising Queens => Topic started by: Yankee11 on April 02, 2014, 05:53:42 pm
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Almost capped.
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Now a question. This box is crammed packed with bees. What are the chances of this hive finishing these cells wanting to swarm.
It is really crowded. I have the queen trapped in the bottom deep since last Saturday. Debating weather or not to leave the capped qcells in this hive or move them to my incubator. Could capping these queen cells make them want to swarm.
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Well this is out of my league but great pics! Love Them
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You can leave them after they are capped. Just not past day 14. they may emerge one day early on day 15, and the first one out will destroy the others.
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Thanks,
Should I look in bottom box and make sure I don't see anything going on down there as far as swarm cell? I am really concerned with the crowding in this double deep.
It wouldnt hurt to look in bottom box would it? if full and nowhere for queen to lay I could pull some brood and give her some empty comb.
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You could also have wild cells in the upper box if you had open brood there when you grafted. I would check every frame in the hive.
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:photos:
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lol, yea, I had some eggs on one of the frames I put in the cell starter and now there is about 6 qcells on that frame. Ooop's.
I am gonna stick that frame in the queen castle and let one hatch and get mated. Plastic foundation so i cant harvest cells. I will
remove this frame before they start hatching.
I will say this. there is a big difference between the cells they pulled on that frame(emergency cells) and these queen cells from the grafts.
Looks to me like the graft cells will produce a much larger queen.
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What Iddee said!! glad you checked!!
theres a little calander of sorts on my queens page if that helps. Day 13 you can move the cells, not before. Day thirteen from when the egg was laid, not when you grafted it. If your not CERTAIN you got one day old larvae, best be moving cells on day 13 or 14 instead of day 15.
According to David Tarpy's research at NCSU the larger queens are the best queens! larger queens mate with more drones, and the queens that mated with the most drones gave off the strongest pheromone and were treated with more respect/care by the bees... Larger queens have more storage ability in their spermatheca, etc etc... Interesting research if you get a chance to read it!
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I would move the frame with wild cells as soon as the first one is capped. You never know what age larva they started with.
PS. The first thread above, a sticky, is a queen calendar, too.
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I'll put it the queen castle this weekend.
Lazy, I'll check it out. I'm hooked on this now. I am gonna start another frame of grafts this weekend. See if I can get better than 50%.
This sure will make making nucs so much easier, and cheaper. I have 8 queens on order. 200 bucks. And now 8 queens basically for free.
I was not sure I could raise my own and I have some nucs sold. So now I have plenty of queens. :) Who knows, if I get good at it, maybe I can sell some queens of my own. I sure seem to have to really good strong bees.
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Indeed! I wish I had the steadiness to graft.. I usually squish them instead.. :'( Fortunately I can cell punch despite having hands older than dirt.
Exciting isnt it!!!
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as iddee at least suggest you do need to check back for wild cells and most especially any in the top part of the box with the queen cells < I am GUESSING HERE that you are using some variation of a Cloake board to start cells... generally in such a system the starter and the finishing hive are one and the same. Given this set up you do need to be constantly vigilant in regards to wild cells that will also get generated in the process.
size of queen cells can be somewhat confounding. I typically cull grafted cells that are either too small or too long. As far as I know there is no relationship between the size of the cell itself and the eventual queen that that will evolve from that cell. after mating and properly laying for a short period of time there is a distinct and positive relationship between a queen's weight in grams and her maximum egg laying capacity.... this relationship is not so easy to establish to the size of queen cell from which she emerged.
ps... you can make queen cells much larger than the one's in the picture by simply priming the cells with royal jelly before you graft. once again there seem to be not relationship between this larger queen cell and the success of the queen that will issue from that cell.
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I used a cell starter nuc, then moved them to the finisher colony.
I have roller cages to put around the cells. Could I not put the roller cages on the cells around day 14 and let them hatch out inside the hive. Then remove them and place in the nucs? This way I wouldn't be startinh nucs and have the queens not hatch. Wouldn't the bees keep the new queens fed until I removed and put in nucs.
I did not prime the cups. I will this next batch. How do you prime the cups with royal jelly.
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You could introduce Virgin queens to your colonies most assuredly..
However, as I understand it, giving them the capped cell is a LOT easier as far as acceptance is concerned
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how you count days can also lead to some confusion. I count from the time of graft and the maximum for this is 10 days. A cool thing to watch is about a day prior to the cells hatching the worker will peel off the wax on the very tip of the queen cell. If I had cages I would put this on about day 9 or 10 (again counting from day of graft).
ps... I mention this confusion in that the good Doctor at the bee lab counts from the day the egg is laid and this has produced some confusion in my own minds as to what needs to happens a certain number of days in the future.
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Ok, the queen cells are all capped. I checked all frames and the only other q cells are on that frame that I put in cell starter by accident It has 4 capped cells on it.
But this is crazy. There are so many bees in this double deep I really think I may be triggering them to swarm with these queen cells in there. I added a super yesterday and even the super is full of bees. They are crowding the entrance and landing board. Its the only hive doing this. Now that the queen cells are capped I'm afraid they are gonna leave. I checked the bottom deep and saw the queen but no queen cups in bottom deep.
I think I need to pull her tomorrow with some brood and a bunch of bees. Then I can leave one of the grafts to hatch out to replace her.
Could finishing these cells in a crowded hive trigger them to swarm?
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If you left more than one cell in with them it would certainly be a trigger to swarm, provided the first to emerge didnt kill the other before she could emerge etc...
You already have the right idea though. Pull a couple nuc's, give them some room, leave them one cell.
I use a strong nuc to make a few queens. A lot of bees in that little nuc. Leaving them one cell they have yet to swarm, but I also make sure to have a second nuc box ready to put on top when the new queen is ready to start laying just to give them room. If your bees are related to Jen's bees they may decide to swarm anyhow.......
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What about this.
Since the queen is trapped in the bottom deep and the 8 grafts are in the top deep. What If I just removed the bottom deep and sit it on a new bottom board and sit a empty deep on top of her.
Then set the top deep with the 8 grafts on a bottom board. Leave the 8 grafts in there until day 14 and remove 7 and leave them 1.
This would make 2 really strong hives.
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That IS basically a strong split. Just remember the foragers will return to the original location. FEED the other hive. M.Bush, Dee Lusby and others recomend facing the entrances of those two "new" hives toward each other forcing the foragers to choose. Then reversing the locations if one of them appears to be stronger than the other after a week or two. I haven't done the entrance facing each other thing, but hope to give it a try this summer.
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I have to start a new bee yard tomorrow.
What if I do the strong split today. Then move the hive with the queen to the new bee yard in the morning. Leave the deep with the 8 capped grafts, and 1 frame with the 3 queen cells, here at my house bee yard.
Then next week pull the 8 qcells and make nucs.
Leave this deep the frame with the 3 qcells on it and they will be requeened and strong.
I would leave the hive with the queen in the original spot today so she gets all the foragers to take with her to new bee yard.
Man, this makes my brain hurt...
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Yankee, you have pushed me over the edge to try grafting. Going to order up some stuff this week and try to rig up the rest. Supposed to have a few mated queens coming this week. So I will pick the unlucky victim hive when I get them made up.
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Good deal Dunkel,
I'll tell ya, I tried once last summer and failed awful, zero takes. This time 8 out of 16. Still not good but, far better than 0. I'm telling
you this so you won't get discouraged. Hope you do better than I did.
I am hooked now. Good luck..
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Any idea what you did differently this time?
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Yea, several things different this time.
1st time I used wax cups I had made. This time I bought cell cups.
1st time I did not put cups in cell starter 24hrs before grafting into them. (need to be polished by the bees before grafting)
I used a regular queenless hive instead of a cell starter. (queenless hive had been queenless a while and probably didn't have a lot of nurse bees)
I don't remember grafting such small larva last year. The ones I grafted this time were not much bigger than the eggs and I picked larva that were right next an egg. I also didn't know about not letting them flip over. You have to keep the larva the same orientation as it is laying in the comb.
Now, one thing I want to do different this next time is prime the cells with royal jelly before grafting into them.
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thanks for the report and update Yankee. as you can see such reports by 'first timers' like yourself can inspire folks to give queen rearing a try.
at the end of the day just giving this a try will MAKE YOU A BETTER BEEKEEPER!
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I appreciate this thread. It's been a good one to read from beginning to current. I must have missed it before. The concept of grafting and such is on my list of skills to accomplish.
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You and me both Dave!
Just got 100 push in cups and a couple of different grafting tools.
Cell bar frames with cups are in the hive being polished out now.
Just waiting for the rain to stop :sad:
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Capped and in the incubator.
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dang that is so cool! I have an incubator, but I think my wife will have a litter of kittens if I modify it for queen cells.....
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Good thread Yankee,I'm looking forward to seeing some hatches.
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Good advice on the QC going to the hive to be polished. Your ‘lessons learned’ from last time made the entire forum worthwhile for me. I had purchased the equipment to graft at least a year ago, if not 2 and never opened the bag.
Guy here at work went out and spent real money on some hygienic queens last year. I doubt he would let me have full frame of brood but would not think twice about 10 cells to a graft bar.
How to I transport from his place to mine (only about 2 miles apart) or maybe I just take a couple of my nucs up to his place and get some good genetics?
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Maybe ask your buddy if he wants to raise a few queens and both of you work on it.
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I did my first ever grafts yesterday and put them in a queen less cell starter, will have to see what happens. I am using a queen right cell finisher.
Hardest part for me was getting the larva off of the grafting tool. Not too difficult to scoop up once I played around for a bit and took some sandpaper to the stainless tool. Could not get the hang of the chinese tool, might take a little modifying also.
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How to I transport from his place to mine (only about 2 miles apart) or maybe I just take a couple of my nucs up to his place and get some good genetics?
I don't need to transport, but in watching vids I see a lot of those who have to go very far at all use a cooler and a hot wet towel in the cooler for both warmth and humidity. I just wrap my frame in a towel and walk to where I will be punching the cells.
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Had my computer out of commission getting Windows 7 installed.
Latest update.
All 8 capped cells hatched. I put four cells in nucs and let the other 4 hatch on incubator and then added the virgin queens to nucs.
Pictures in a few, Dinner time right now :-)
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Had my computer out of commission getting Windows 7 installed.
Latest update.
All 8 capped cells hatched. I put four cells in nucs and let the other 4 hatch on incubator and then added the virgin queens to nucs.
Pictures in a few, Dinner time right now :-)
Well done! :goodjob:
PS - let me know how you like that Windows 7, may have to do the same thing soon.
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Pictures
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Looking good!!
I think I got 13 out of 34, not too bad for the very first time. We will see what this freezing weather is going to do to them tonight.
Did you have a thread on your incubator? if so I must have missed it.
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No thread on incubator.
I made it to hatch chicken eggs at 98 degrees. So 93 is easy. It really comes in handy.
I just found a hive that was thinking of swarming. I cut out
about 8 swarm cells. I put them in incubator and the first one hatched tonight.
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So now these queens will go into queen castles to get mated.
It was 35 here last night, but 93 in the bator :)
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Very cool pictures Yankee.Keep on taking pics.
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I have a question regarding grafting.
1. How do the larva keep from falling out of the cups when you turn them upside down?
2. If your raising queens to sell they need to be mated. So if I have 20 queens hatch, do I need 20 nucs made up to take those queens in so that they will be mated & have place to live until sold? If so, that's a lot of nucs.
Ok, so that was two questions. :)
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static friction / royal jelly hold them in place, they are so tiny it doesnt take much.
Yep, if your going to sell mated queens you have to have at least a couple frames of bees for the new queen to call home and start laying in.
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check out yannkee11 thread on the 10 bay queen castle he just built. That will let you raise 10 queens on two frames each.
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Threadkilla,
They make queens castles and they also make small queen mating nucs. They are about half the size of a regular nucs.
I am trying queen castles, this way I can just move regular size deep frames around as needed. And, it only takes 2 frames
to get her mated. Don't have to fill a 5 frame nuc until you know she makes it back.
There is also plans on the forum for making 4 complete nucs, including tops, out of one sheet of 4x8 plywood. makes them really economical.
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I think I"ll try this probably next year. I hope I can get some stock off of my best hive because this little gal just loves to show out. 8) She has a deep & a shallow full of wall to wall brood right now. The bees are pretty gentle, & they produce large amounts of honey. I didn't get them set up until May of last year, & they gave me 6-1/2 gallons of honey with plenty left over to winter through. I just love this little gal! :)
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Good job! Enjoyed the pics!
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I took the advice of the forum and put some qc in a 4 way bush kill mating box (pictured above). 2 capped qc max per frame, two frames of qc per hive. I will update my demaree thread.
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I layed eyes on 7 of the grafted queens yesterday. They hatched out 9 days ago and we have had great weather.
I saw fat queens walking around on frames poking their heads in cells. I am thinking they are mated watching the way they were acting.
Gonna be time to graft some more and give the ole 10 bay queen castle a test run :)
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Sounds like you did a good job!
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Thats awesome Yankee.. Glad to hear it!!
Hoping to vid everything when I start making queens, but it will be another month and a half for me... sigh...