Notching ....... Tips please

[Barbarian]

Last year I tried notching a frame of eggs and larvae. I got Q cells on the frame but not where I had notched the cells.

I wanted to produce spaced Q cells which would be easier to cut out from my (wax foundation) frame of comb and transfer to mating nucs.

Any ideas as to what went wrong ?

[minz]

Wrong age would be my guess. If you are notching eggs they are using fresh hatched.  I try to put a new frame of wax into the hive I want and sometimes the queen will lay in the frame before it is fully drawn.  I want the wax that does not have multiple layers of brood raised in it.  I put a bunch of notches in it where I want them when I move it to a QL nuc.  They then do whatever they like and I adjust.  As long as I can cut them off of the frame I do not have issue with them building where they wanted to as long as I do not have too many touching or front to back on the frame.

[LazyBkpr]

Minz is likely right.  I don't use the flat of my hive tool to notch, I use the corner, and it takes out about three cells so I squish the larvae in the two adjacent cells to make sure I don't get two Q Cells tied together.  This allows me to notch more places spaced apart for easier cutting later.  About two thirds of the way down the cell wall and flatten the cells below the one you notched well.
   Bad eyes, so I use a magnifying glass, look along the eggs until you find where they have just hatched, the new Larvae will actually be smaller than the egg.   You probably know that already, just saying...
   Try punching sometime. You might have better luck. It sort of forces you to slow down and choose carefully.

[minz]

Lazy, please explain. You are actually punching out the egg / larvae with the cup and then putting it on the frame? Sounds freaking brilliant or am I just hearing what I want?

[LazyBkpr]

Yes.. locate the cell with the one day old larvae.. warm up the tool you see above with a lighter or hot water, center it over the cell, and push down on it..  it will slide through the wax,and leave the entire cell unharmed. Form the BASE of the cell into a point, warm the cell with lighter, or dip just the base in melted wax and set it into the JZBZ cup..  the wax will cool and hold it in place.
   Repeat as needed.  My cell bars have 8 cups on them.   Slide into your choice of queenless hive or strong nuc..

   No worries about the bees polishing the cups etc..  Come back in 11 days..   http://outyard.weebly.com/queens.html

   I originally read about cell punch on Dave Cushmans site.  www.dave-cushman.net

   OTS is great too, and Mel is a really good guy. Send him an Email with questions and he will answer you.  http://www.mdasplitter.com/

[tecumseh]

as far as I know LazyBkr the cell punch is a variation on a method described in a book long long ago by Jay Smith.  His approach was to force a queen to lay in barely started foundation, then to cut these eggs into long strips, attach to a cell bar with bees wax and then smash two cells and leave one.

as a variation on this technique without a doubt the cell punch is a nice twist.   

[LazyBkpr]

That is probably right Tec..  I have Jay Smiths book Better Queens.. but set it aside once he started putting down grafting.  I Have watched vids and read articles about cutting the strips, and I see no reason why it wouldn't work equally as well.