# Trying OTS..Notched my First Frames



## tpope (Mar 1, 2015)

I too bought the book and have read it twice. I intend to do the same as you. However I am not sure about the weather being settled enough. So I am watching to see how your efforts turn out.


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## dsegrest (May 15, 2014)

tpope said:


> I too bought the book and have read it twice. I intend to do the same as you. However I am not sure about the weather being settled enough. So I am watching to see how your efforts turn out.


I saw my first drones Sunday, so I am ready to do this as well. I have a problem seeing eggs and small larvae, so I am putting a newly drawn comb into the brood nest to get fresh brood. Should this comb be placed at the edge or the brood nest or in the center?


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## Huntingstoneboy (Feb 10, 2013)

Keep us posted. I have done OTS several times, but always pull the queen out of the hive and throw her in a nuc. Curious about your results.


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## wgstarks (Mar 3, 2015)

dsegrest said:


> Should this comb be placed at the edge or the brood nest or in the center?


I usually try to expand the sides of the brood rather than splitting it in the middle. That's just me. Not really sure that it makes a big difference, but I try not to disrupt whatever pattern the queen is workng. Also, a little cheap magnifier glass can really help with the eggs. Just have to be careful with the sunlight. Don't want to burn anything.


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## Thershey (Mar 12, 2014)

You're going to love it. He's a frame of gorgeous cells I pulled this past Monday. Notched 3 hives, ended up with 51 really nice cells. 13 new nucs, requeened the parent colonies plus the 3 original queens are rolling along in new boxes. Depending on mating success, 3 colonies could yield 19 colonies before Easter.


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## Ddawg (Feb 17, 2012)

Thershey said:


> You're going to love it. He's a frame of gorgeous cells I pulled this past Monday. Notched 3 hives, ended up with 51 really nice cells. 13 new nucs, requeened the parent colonies plus the 3 original queens are rolling along in new boxes. Depending on mating success, 3 colonies could yield 19 colonies before Easter.
> View attachment 16704


That looks great. What was your method of removing individual queen cells from the frame? I plan on putting the frame with the best looking queen cell in my nuc and tearing down any remaining. But I had thought about using the extra queen cells instead of tearing them down.


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## Thershey (Mar 12, 2014)

If a frame has just a couple cells, just move it to the Nuc along with another strong frame of brood and one of stores.

If a frame has three or four cells, I don't normally try cutting any off unless I am short on cells. Simply poke my hive tool or a knife in the smaller cells but leave two Good ones.

If a frame has many cells like the one above, I use a thin bladed serrated knife to cut them out in groups of two or three if possible. I don't get fancy and see how close I can cut it, I'd rather sacrifice a bunch of neighboring worker cells and not disturb the queen cell. I probably leave an inch of wiggle room all the way around. Note: I use a frame rack so I have both hands available. One to run the knife, the other to gently hold onto the comb where you are cutting.

If it's on the cool side I set up a small bait cooler with a heating pad and couple wash clothes to set the cutouts aside till I place them. Keeps it at 88 or so, little cool but close for a short period of time.


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## Ddawg (Feb 17, 2012)

With Rain forecasted for all day tomorrow I decided to check my OTS frames on day 6 instead of day 7 to see what was going on. Unfortunately all my notched cells were capped and repaired and the frame was now packed with capped brood and there were 1 to 3 day old larva on some of the adjacent frames.. Which means one of two thinks happend. 1) I somehow didn't notice the queen and she was in the super from the beginning or 2) she got thru the queen excluder. I did see some older brood below the excluder but they could have been freshly laid eggs last Sunday. So I put the full capped frames in the box below, shook the majority of the bees off the frames, and made extra sure the queen wasn't on any frames. I notched cells on two new frames and put them above the excluder. 
I'll update again next Saturday.
DD


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## mgolden (Oct 26, 2011)

The likelihood of bees starting queen cells above an excluder with the queen below is not great.

Need to move the queen to a NUC box or insert a solid board where you are putting the queen excluder to make your top super queenless.

Should be operating with an upper and lower entrance so bees can come and go. Can also reverse the bottom entrance to the back so foragers return to the top and bring resources to grow queens.

Check out Michael Palmer youtube on queen rearing.


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## hilreal (Aug 16, 2005)

USe a cloak board.


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## wgstarks (Mar 3, 2015)

mgolden said:


> The likelihood of bees starting queen cells above an excluder with the queen below is not great.
> 
> Need to move the queen to a NUC box or insert a solid board where you are putting the queen excluder to make your top super queenless.
> 
> ...





hilreal said:


> USe a cloak board.


I've been reading Mel's book. Have to admit I was surprised by this method. He's very specific that an excluder is all that is required. I've been watching this thread to see if it worked. How long would a cloak board need to be left in place?

@Ddawg--Hope it works for you. Please post your results.


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## Ddawg (Feb 17, 2012)

I too have bee reading about the cloak board. But Mel was very specific in his book about only a queen excluder. Mel is very prompt in answering emails, so if this next round doesn't take I'll ask the man himself for help.. I'll keep everyone posted on results. 
In my area I start seeing capped swarm cells around the first week of April. Hopefully this week I can get a few queen cells from this OTS attempt on a queen-rite hive. Around the first or second week-end of April I would also like to use the OTS method on this hive and create an artificial swarm by pulling the queen and putting her in a nuc, then notch 1 frame in the parent hive for a replacement queen. 
Even though this hive is my strongest and best honey producer, my primary goal this season is to preserve its genetics and use them for future production hives.


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

I just made a cloake board the other day, took about an hour. Seems really simple and versatile tool. This season I will use some OTS and grafting and compare the two techniques.


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## mxr618 (Apr 23, 2008)

I'm paying attention to this thread. I bought Mel's book and can't wait to get started. My experience might be a little different as I'm starting over with packages this year. I believe I'll be able to combine two strong packages and remove one of the queens to simulate a strong hive that can be developed until there are eight brood frames as he recommends. 

Please, by all means, post your results.

mxr


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## rwlaw (May 4, 2009)

I've always pulled queens for splits, so I'm a rookie to the "do little" method of putting notched cells above the excluder described in the book. 
The thing that comes to mind is the larvae might have been too old by the time the bees realized there wasn't a queen present so they were passed up for queen cells. Maybe try to notch newer/unhatched cells, then put above the excluder.


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## dsegrest (May 15, 2014)

wgstarks said:


> I usually try to expand the sides of the brood rather than splitting it in the middle. That's just me. Not really sure that it makes a big difference, but I try not to disrupt whatever pattern the queen is workng. Also, a little cheap magnifier glass can really help with the eggs. Just have to be careful with the sunlight. Don't want to burn anything.


I use a magnifying glass, but sometimes I think a reflection is an egg.


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## Colobee (May 15, 2014)

Ddawg said:


> I too have bee reading about the cloak board. But Mel was very specific in his book about only a queen excluder.


I haven't raised a lot of queens, or done it a lot of times, but since I discovered the Cloake Board (back in the 90's) it's been my "go to" for queen rearing. I can't imagine why it wouldn't work with OTS. It's basically just a queen excluder with a removable (horizontal) door. It simplifies any "started-finisher" concern - one hive gives you both. 

That said - it's Mel's system, and if he say's "No Cloake Board", I'd be interested in hearing why.


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## wgstarks (Mar 3, 2015)

Colobee said:


> That said - it's Mel's system, and if he say's "No Cloake Board", I'd be interested in hearing why.


Actually, I don't think he actually says "No Cloake board" for his modified Doolittle method. He just doesn't mention a Cloake board at all. This doesn't mean that his method can't be improved though. I don't think anything like a Cloake board was even in use in Doolittles's day.


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## rwlaw (May 4, 2009)

I'm sure Mel won't disagree with the cloak board. His theroy is if there's no queen presence on the frame itself, there won't be enough pheromones coming thru the excluders to prohibit the bees from making q cells. He was trying the excluder method last year on July splits and to see how many cells could be produced and got six cells out of one hive, so It makes sense to me.


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## Thershey (Mar 12, 2014)

I too had a DoLittle dud early this week, checking on another today. I sent Mel an email explaining that I and a couple others had failures, asked what the secret sauce might be that we missed. Much to my surprise an hour later he called me to discuss, delightful man, we talked bees for an hour and again the next morning. Here's the gist of the conversation... on the "do-little" version.
-He has done it many times with success but rarely does it anymore as he prefers the numbers game via standard OTS. It does not work every time.
- sounds like he's going to run some more tests this year to tighten up the instructions to improve his book. He's very bothered when things don't work as well for his readers and wants to fix it. Being in Michigan it's too early for him to start tests but I agreed to try a couple things to see what happens.
- according to Mel, it's all about tricking the control bees, they have to believe that part of the hive is hopelessly queenless to START the cells. His observations led him to believe that control bees, not the queen, make all decisions in the hive. 
-Feed, lots of honey and pollen right next to the two open brood frames is important. He also scratches the honey next to the notched frames so they have to deal with it. I did not do this but will try in the future.
- At the end of the day I believe time, 12-48 hours off the hive will end up being key but given the nutritional requirements (1500+ feelings) of the queen to be larvae I just don't know. 

As to the standard OTS method, I cannot recommend it highly enough. Swarm control, hive increase, mite control, high quality free queens all in one easy process.


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## Ddawg (Feb 17, 2012)

rwlaw said:


> I'm sure Mel won't disagree with the cloak board. His theroy is if there's no queen presence on the frame itself, there won't be enough pheromones coming thru the excluders to prohibit the bees from making q cells. He was trying the excluder method last year on July splits and to see how many cells could be produced and got six cells out of one hive, so It makes sense to me.


Would you still reverse the Bottom box to where the new entrance is at the back and let the returning field bees find the new upper entrance in the cloak board? or could you just put a board between your supers containing the notched cells to Isolate them? Or would that limit available resources and cause them to raise an inferior queen in just a weeks time?


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## Ddawg (Feb 17, 2012)

I also thought about using a inner cover with an elongated feeder hole above the queen excluder to reduce queen scent, but still give bees some access to the super with notche'd cells.


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## rwlaw (May 4, 2009)

Ddawg, with Mel's method, one would pull two frames of brood and notch cells, install a q excluder and place the notched frames in a upper box along with drawn comb and feed. This allows the nurse bees to get thru the excluder to the notched frames and start rearing larvae. After7 days inspect and (hopefully) pull the q cells and make nucs with them. No need for any addl entrances. 
Disclaimer, although Mel's my mentor. I'm a rookie with the Do Little method lol.


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## wgstarks (Mar 3, 2015)

Ddawg said:


> I also thought about using a inner cover with an elongated feeder hole above the queen excluder to reduce queen scent, but still give bees some access to the super with notche'd cells.


Why not send Mel an email? As others have mentioned, he's very prompt with replies.


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## Ddawg (Feb 17, 2012)

wgstarks said:


> Why not send Mel an email? As others have mentioned, he's very prompt with replies.


Thanks for tips, I have read Mel's book and last Saturday I notched some frames and placed them above a queen excluder per Mel's book (you can read my previous posts in this thread as to my progress).  I will check those frames tomorrow. I'm just looking at alternatives if I am unsuccessful. I have emailed Mel previously with questions and if my OTS attempt failes I will check in with him to see what I did wrong.


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## Ddawg (Feb 17, 2012)

I didn't have any queen cells in my notched frames above the queen excluder. Both frames that I notched were pretty packed with capped brood and I didn't see any young open larvae above the QE. I will Email Mel and see what he says. 
Since this hive seems to be booming and my primary goal is to preserve the genetics, I decided to go ahead and try something till my next OTS attempt on a Queen rite hive.
Above the queen excluder I had two decently full frames of capped brood with a good amount of bees, so I put each frame with accompanying bees in its own 5 frame Nuc, I then took two frames with young larvae from the super below the QE and notched a few places on one side of each frame and put them in a nuc with the capped brood. I added a few frames of uncapped honey and an empty frame. I also shook a few extra bees in, added a feeder and closed them up and moved them to thier new location.


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## MattDavey (Dec 16, 2011)

Put the frames from the Nuc back on the hive after 24 hours. They will have started queen cells by then.

The other option with OTS is to put a sheet of newspaper on the queen excluder with a few holes poked in it. This will help with producing a time delay where there is little queen pheromone getting to the nurse bees on the notched frames.


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## Thershey (Mar 12, 2014)

Fwiw - what you did with the Nuc is not Mels OTS method at all. Mel specifically says NEVER let a start raise Q cells. Too few bees, feed etc to render quality, well fed cells. Why not just pull the queen, two frames of brood along with two shakes of bees and stores into a NUC? The original hive now being queenless will build all the cells you want. 
You were trying the OTS version of Dolittles process but it is not the standard OTS methodology that the book is built around.


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## Huntingstoneboy (Feb 10, 2013)

Thershey said:


> Fwiw - what you did with the Nuc is not Mels OTS method at all. Mel specifically says NEVER let a start raise Q cells. Too few bees, feed etc to render quality, well fed cells. Why not just pull the queen, two frames of brood along with two shakes of bees and stores into a NUC? The original hive now being queenless will build all the cells you want.
> You were trying the OTS version of Dolittles process but it is not the standard OTS methodology that the book is built around.


:thumbsup:

My thought the entire time (pulling the old queen), was curious how this was gonna play out.


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## Ddawg (Feb 17, 2012)

Thershey said:


> Fwiw - what you did with the Nuc is not Mels OTS method at all. Mel specifically says NEVER let a start raise Q cells. Too few bees, feed etc to render quality, well fed cells. Why not just pull the queen, two frames of brood along with two shakes of bees and stores into a NUC? The original hive now being queenless will build all the cells you want.
> You were trying the OTS version of Dolittles process but it is not the standard OTS methodology that the book is built around.


This hive is a large booming hive and packed with bees, I have yet to find the queen.

"*Why not just pull the queen, two frames of brood along with two shakes of bees and stores into a NUC? The original hive now being queenless will build all the cells you want.*"
If I can find the queen I plan on doing this in the next week or so. 

I may try what MattDavey Suggested."*Put the frames from the Nuc back on the hive after 24 hours. They will have started queen cells by then*."
At my experience level I am still struggling with finding the queen, In time Im sure I will get better at it.. But for now I want to do whatever I can to preserve the genetics of this hive.


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## Ddawg (Feb 17, 2012)

Thershey said:


> Fwiw - what you did with the Nuc is not Mels OTS method at all.


Agreed. I never claimed that it was, I was only going to try the split until my next OTS Attempt.


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## Thershey (Mar 12, 2014)

I'm excited to hear how the 24 hour thing plays out, that is one of the experiments I was going to try after discussing with Mel. Was going to try 6 and 24 hour intervals.


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## Ddawg (Feb 17, 2012)

I spoke to Mel and he straighten'd me out on a few things.

I had mentioned to Mel that I usually start seeing swarm cells around the first weekend of April. Here is his response; " _You are using human logical assumptions. The time you said to raise cells is the first part of April. Why are you trying to do it in March? The bees operate on a polarization of the sun, they aren't ready to raise cells yet_."

For some reason I thought I had read to start 10 days prior to swarm season, but lord knows I've read so many different things on queen rearing I have all kinds of stuff floating in my head. It's hard to keep it all straight

Yep, it was a total goof on my part to think I could make starts with notched cells. I remembered reading that after it was mentioned in a response to my post (But I left that part out when I spoke to Mel). I told Mel that I had notched frames and put them into 2 separate nucs and planned on reuniting them into a super and putting them back on the parent hive above an excluder this afternoon after 24 hrs. He said: " _Your plan is good to start them in a two frame nuc but then scratch the cappings of honey to simulate a flow and place them above the excluder to finish them_"

The only thing I'm not sure about is the part about scratching honey to simulate a flow after I put the notched frames back on the hive. I have a fair amount of open honey/nectar frames in the parent hive, it appears to me that the bees are bringing in nectar. So would I be better off adding a feeder on top of the cell builder super? or to pull two honey frames from below, scratch and place on either side of the notched brood frames and leave the remaining frames open drawn foundation(I'm using a 10 frame medium super)? or does it matter?
I posed this question back to Mel.
Even though I still may be early, I am going through with combining the Nucs and I'll keep this thread updated on my findings.


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## BeeAttitudes (Dec 6, 2014)

Ddawg said:


> The only thing I'm not sure about is the part about scratching honey to simulate a flow after I put the notched frames back on the hive. I have a fair amount of open honey/nectar frames in the parent hive, it appears to me that the bees are bringing in nectar. So would I be better off adding a feeder on top of the cell builder super? or to pull two honey frames from below, scratch and place on either side of the notched brood frames and leave the remaining frames open drawn foundation(I'm using a 10 frame medium super)? or does it matter?


See Thershey's 4th point in post #21.


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## Ddawg (Feb 17, 2012)

I got the nucs reunited and back on the hive.. Mel mentioned that when I created the two nucs it would be a little disruptive when I had to assemble them back together into a medim and the bees would have to reorganize. Not necessarily a deal breaker, but not the best way. He suggested (in my case) next time I set up everything in the medium and set it off for 24 hrs, then place the medium back on the hive above an excluder.


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## CajunBee (May 15, 2013)

Can you use a grafting calendar to time cutting out the cells, substituting the graft date with notch date?


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## dsegrest (May 15, 2014)

wgstarks said:


> I've been reading Mel's book. Have to admit I was surprised by this method. He's very specific that an excluder is all that is required. I've been watching this thread to see if it worked. How long would a cloak board need to be left in place?
> 
> @Ddawg--Hope it works for you. Please post your results.


Try an extra super above the excluder and under the box with the notched frame.


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## Ddawg (Feb 17, 2012)

CajunBee said:


> Can you use a grafting calendar to time cutting out the cells, substituting the graft date with notch date?


That would probably work. Like a lot of things, one of the keys to OTS is timing.

**NOTE** I am starting my 4th year of beekeeping and know just about enough to be dangerous.

I'm still pretty new to this, and don't know much about grafting (yet). I'm not sure how the grafting calendar works, basically all I plan to do is; 1) find two frames from the parent hive that has 36 hour or younger larvae and notch cells on one side of each frame. 2) place the notched frames in a new medium super. 3) scratch two honey frames and put one on either side of the two brood frames and fill out the remaining space of the super with either pollen frames and/or empty drawn foundation frames. 4) Shake in extra bees and close up and set aside for 24 hrs. 5) After 24 hrs place the super back on the parent hive above a QE. 6) In 7 days check for queen cells. If queen cells are found, I will place them into nucs with some brood and extra bees.


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## CajunBee (May 15, 2013)

I'm beginning my 3rd year, so we'll be dangerous together! Two wrongs might garner enough attention from the elders to make us right??? 
I'm interested to see how it turns out for you so keep us updated. 

I pulled the old queens and a couple frames brood and couple honey/pollen for the nucs. Left notched frames in the original hive. So far, they are making cells. I'm using this calendar http://www.thebeeyard.org/queen-rearing-calendar/ and using the notch date as the graft date. Hope I'm not too far off on this.


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## Thershey (Mar 12, 2014)

CajunBee said:


> I'm beginning my 3rd year, so we'll be dangerous together! Two wrongs might garner enough attention from the elders to make us right???
> I'm interested to see how it turns out for you so keep us updated.
> 
> I pulled the old queens and a couple frames brood and couple honey/pollen for the nucs. Left notched frames in the original hive. So far, they are making cells. I'm using this calendar http://www.thebeeyard.org/queen-rearing-calendar/ and using the notch date as the graft date. Hope I'm not too far off on this.


:thumbsup: Bingo


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## Thershey (Mar 12, 2014)

Ddawg said:


> That would probably work. Like a lot of things, one of the keys to OTS is timing.
> 
> **NOTE** I am starting my 4th year of beekeeping and know just about enough to be dangerous.
> 
> I'm still pretty new to this, and don't know much about grafting (yet). I'm not sure how the grafting calendar works, basically all I plan to do is; 1) find two frames from the parent hive that has 1 to 3 day old larvae and notch cells on one side of each frame. 2) place the notched frames in a new medium super. 3) scratch two honey frames and put one on either side of the two brood frames and fill out the remaining space of the super with either pollen frames and/or empty drawn foundation frames. 4) Shake in extra bees and close up and set aside for 24 hrs. 5) After 24 hrs place the super back on the parent hive above a QE. 6) In 7 days check for queen cells. If queen cells are found, I will place them into nucs with some brood and extra bees.


I'm sure it's a typo but in your step 1..... 3 day old larvae is too old, you want 36 hour or younger larvae. When in doubt eggs work too, just takes a day or three longer to hatch.


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## wgstarks (Mar 3, 2015)

CajunBee said:


> I pulled the old queens and a couple frames brood and couple honey/pollen for the nucs. Left notched frames in the original hive. So far, they are making cells.


I'm curious if you had any problems with the notching? I notched a couple of frames last week for some new brood that I was putting into a hive that list there queen over winter. I thought it would be fairly simple and straight forward. Was surprised at how hard it was to cut the notches with my hive tool. The comb was very tough from built up cocoons and very sticky. Every time I tried to notch it I mostly just crushed the cells. I'm wondering if newer combs without all the built up cocoons would be better for this, or perhaps I'm doing something else wrong?


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## Ddawg (Feb 17, 2012)

Thershey said:


> I'm sure it's a typo but in your step 1..... 3 day old larvae is too old, you want 36 hour or younger larvae. When in doubt eggs work too, just takes a day or three longer to hatch.


Actually it wasn't a typo , Thanks for pointing that out. I went back and looked in the book to see where I got those numbers and the egg stage is 1-3 days and the Larvae stage is day 4 -8. So 36 hr or younger 'larvae' is from the time the eggs hatch on day 3 or 4.
But I'm not worried about my notched frames because I notched the cells based on the way the larvae looked in the cell. There was clear distinction in the various sized larvae, and the cells I notched were the absolute tinyest larvae.

Thanks for the Help


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## CajunBee (May 15, 2013)

wgstarks said:


> I'm curious if you had any problems with the notching? I notched a couple of frames last week for some new brood that I was putting into a hive that list there queen over winter. I thought it would be fairly simple and straight forward. Was surprised at how hard it was to cut the notches with my hive tool. The comb was very tough from built up cocoons and very sticky. Every time I tried to notch it I mostly just crushed the cells. I'm wondering if newer combs without all the built up cocoons would be better for this, or perhaps I'm doing something else wrong?


Yes indeed, newer comb is much softer. Simply placed the tip of the tool right below the desired cells and rake downward gently.


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## thehackleguy (Jul 29, 2014)

rwlaw said:


> Disclaimer, although Mel's my mentor. I'm a rookie with the Do Little method lol.


Good for you! :thumbsup: I asked Mel if I could do some work for him (so I could learn the ways of the force) He told me he was all booked up, must be nice to have to many helpers 

I will be doing this soon also but I'll be moving the queen and two frames of brood to a new hive and notching the full strength hive.


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## Ddawg (Feb 17, 2012)

I didn't get any confirmed queen cells from my combining nucs experiment, which was no surprise. However on the bottom of one of the notched frames it looked like they had potentially started a queen cell. There was a very large cell with lots of jelly in it, it looked to be too large for a drone cell. I could see what looked like a 4 or 5 day old larvae in it. Based on the time table, if this cell was an egg when I placed it above the excluder, then it would make sense. 
I decided to follow thru with my plan in post #39, but I only notched 1 frame of 36hr or younger larvae from the parent hive. I put the newly notched frame in the medium super with the frame with the potential queen cell and set off the hive for 24 hrs. I have no Idea if this was a good or bad idea, but I figured if the bees were in fact making a queen cell it would be torn down in the queen rite hive. 
Last nite after about 30hrs I set the medium super with the OTS frames back onto the parent hive above a queen excluder.


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## BigBlackBirds (Aug 26, 2011)

thehackleguy said:


> Good for you! :thumbsup: I asked Mel if I could do some work for him (so I could learn the ways of the force) He told me he was all booked up, must be nice to have to many helpers
> 
> I will be doing this soon also but I'll be moving the queen and two frames of brood to a new hive and notching the full strength hive.




Hi thehackleguy

Where you at by Hopkins? That is at about the center of the area where we use to keep bees. I drive thru there on occassion when I visit my parents. Its always pretty country.


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## Ddawg (Feb 17, 2012)

I did manage to get a small queen cell on my last OTS attempt, I didn't think to get a picture. I went ahead and put it in a nuc, we'll see how she goes. 
This week I decided to do one more test. I left my Queenless OTS super of the hive for 24 hrs, then added a frame with notched cells on it. I plan to leave the OTS super with the notched frame off for another 24 hrs then place back on the parent hive above an excluder. Then in 6 days I plan on removing 1 super from the parent hive with the queen and add my new OTS queen cell back to the parent hive.


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## thehackleguy (Jul 29, 2014)

BigBlackBirds said:


> Hi thehackleguy
> 
> Where you at by Hopkins? That is at about the center of the area where we use to keep bees. I drive thru there on occassion when I visit my parents. Its always pretty country.


 I'm about 10 miles west of Wayland, it is a great place out here. :thumbsup:


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