# Storing Queen Cells After Cutting Out



## My-smokepole (Apr 14, 2008)

How about a small nuc box. Two or three frame. Put the cells on a frame of brood as you go. Or hang them from a frame in the nuc. 
David


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## Tenbears (May 15, 2012)

and keep in mind that excessive shaking, or laying the cell on its side can kill the queen.


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

And keeping the cells together, too long, can have one emerge early, who will promptly sting all the others, dead in their cells.


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## Delta Bay (Dec 4, 2009)

You could put the cells into homemade wire cages and keep them in the hive that has produced them until needed. It would be best not to leave any cells uncaged in the hive as that queen would likely go around to each cage and attempt to kill them. You can make up your nucs a day or two before introducing the caged cells or virgin queens. Three days in the cages and after they have emerged will help with acceptance. A little honey in the cage for any of the emerged queens to feed on is a good plan.


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## Grant (Jun 12, 2004)

I think the answer you're looking for is 93 degrees Fahrenheit, the temp of my incubator. But when queen cells are shipped, they are at the mercy of the shipper...so I'm not really sure.

Grant
Jackson, MO


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## Adam Foster Collins (Nov 4, 2009)

Tenbears said:


> ...laying the cell on its side can kill the queen...


Really? I've never heard that before. You mean you can't take cells of the bar and rest them on their side in transit? I swear I've seen this done...

Adam


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## WilliamsHoneyBees (Feb 17, 2010)

Ripe queen cells are a little more hardy then a recently capped cell is. They won't survive for long outside of a warm hive. The best thing to do is cut all the cells and bank them in a queenless nuc or use hair roller cages around the cells until you are able to make use of them. Start splitting quick! hehe


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## JohnCBee (May 22, 2011)

Hey All thanks for your help and ideas. 
I think that I had better forget about backtracking and saving some traveling time between yards and do something with these queens! The caging idea sounds like a plan. Do you suppose I could make some push in cages out of #8 hardware cloth? Would that work for a day or two until I can get the nucs made up? Or should I make up some type of roller cage?

Thank you, John


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

An incubator at 92 degrees F (+/- 1 degree F) (~33 degrees C) and hatching cages are the best answer if you have the setup already built.

If you have a queen bank frame and queen bank cages made up (a good idea to make these BEFORE you raise queens!!!), you can put the cells in the cages and let them hatch in the cages. QC's won't quite fit into Alley-type queen cages, unless you anticipate this and make one BIG hole.

I make 5-hole queen cages for hatching cells (2 holes for the cell, 2 for the queen, and the opposite-end hole has queen candy), and a queen bank frame to hold them.

Baby food jars (or other small jars) with a dab of queen candy will work until you can introduce them. These can be modified with vented lids. Look at www.glenn-apiaries.com in the queen rearing section. Using jars looks much easier than making my 5-hole specials!

In a pinch, pill bottles, fly tying boxes, even Altoids or Sucrets boxes can be used to keep queen cells separate. My first "emergency" queen boxes were salsa tubs from a Mexican restaurant, pill bottles, plastic zip-loc bags, and sections of bamboo, used immediately after a cut-out rendered 20 QC's. It felt like being a new daddy watching my queenies hatch while we drove back to the queen yard!

It is usually best to introduce queen cells to a nuc that has been kept queenless for up to a day. Virgin queens that have hatched, or I.I. queens are best introduced by means of the 5" x 7" (inside dimension) Laidlaw queen introduction cage. See Contemporary Queen Rearing, by the late Dr. Harry H. Laidlaw, available through Dadant & Sons or through www.wicwas.com

Also, there was a recent thread about transferring QC's at 2 days old because they were much less fragile than capped QC's - some New Zealanders have been doing this for generations. I have yet to try it, but I like the idea as it distributes the load of queen cell finishing out over MANY more bees!

BTW, Happy Fathers' Day to those who have 'em!


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## JohnCBee (May 22, 2011)

I ended up making some round cages out of #8 hardware cloth and put the cells in the cages. I then made a queen bank frame and hung the cages in the original hive. I will get them into the nucs tomorrow or the next day.

Sooo... the next question will be what's the best way to introduce virgins into the nucs?

Thanks for your help,
John


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

I've had luck introducing hatched virgin queens by the newspaper combine method with a fistful of her worker sisters from her native hive. She gets accepted with the others and flies out and mates.


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