# Using Two Day Old Queen Cells



## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Thanks BWrangler for this thread, it's good information and sounds logical to me from my small experience of raising queens and making up mating nucs.

Ray


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## JBJ (Jan 27, 2005)

How do the queen weights compare to other techniques? I would have guessed that very large robust cell builders would result in larger cells. Very interesting stuff, thanks for sharing.


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## Ross (Apr 30, 2003)

Sounds like an interesting way to setup nucs.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

I do see one problem with using 2 day old cells instead of using 10 day old cells, and that is the 8 days difference, causing decreased broodrearing (because of lost nurse bees) or workforce reduction from making up the nucs 8 days earlier than needed for giving 10 day old queen cells. One of the reasons for queen rearing is to be able to create the maximum number of queens with the least amout of resources used. If a queen lays 1 to 2 thousand or more eggs in a day, and you reduce the number of nurse bees and work force enough to make nucs, then you've lost 8 to 16 or more thousand new bees for using 2 day old cells instead of using 10 day old cells.


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## Ross (Apr 30, 2003)

You haven't really lost any bees doing it that way. You just delayed those bees a couple of weeks. I agree that mature queen cells are quicker, but the ease of this makes it worth a try.


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## Adrian Quiney WI (Sep 14, 2007)

Reviving an old thread. For those of us interested in a brood break as mite control, and dedicating a single hive as a starter this might be a good way to go. I imagine planting the cells in the starter, taking them out 2 days later and putting them in a 5 frame nuc stocked with 2 frames of brood, bees, and stores to finish and mate, then restocking the starter with cells, and so on until you had all the 5 frame nucs you wanted.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

If you are interested in getting the most effective brood break then the two day cell is not what you are looking for as you are reducing your break by around 10 days. This system does have some advantages though, and bwrangler gives us a nice first hand account of his experiences with these. What I have learned is if you have a need to transport cells, optimum times would be at two or three days (after grafting) and again at 10 to 11 days. Avoid the early days of pupation especially days 5-8.


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

This would eliminate tearing down of cells in the finisher and the need for an incubator, but the loss of brood frame production in QR mating nucs would be a pretty big trade off. It might be really good for a club project though.


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## Adrian Quiney WI (Sep 14, 2007)

Jim, good point but I think I can use a Roland Variation. I follow Roland's method of raising sealed brood above an excluder, and making the nuc with brood that has been sealed for a week should offset some of the lost brood break time.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

Adrian Quiney WI said:


> Jim, good point but I think I can use a Roland variation. I follow Roland's method of raising sealed brood above an excluder, and making the nuc with brood that has been sealed for a week should offset some of the lost brood break time.


Agreed. The "Roland Variation" I like that. Note the capitalized V. Perhaps it needs to be part of the Beesource lexicon.


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

What is this Roland Variation of which you speak?


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## Adrian Quiney WI (Sep 14, 2007)

Simply put, by a disciple and not the master: It is a way of keeping the broodnest open and honey in supers by exchanging mostly sealed brood frames from below an excluder with emerged brood frames from above it. The queen resides in a single deep. Roland has said that a single deep is not enough space in WI in the spring, and a double deep is too much space. Instead of rotating boxes you rotate brood frames as they empty. The rest of the deep above the excluder is filled with dedicated clean honey frames. It is intensive management, but it works.


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## Kamon A. Reynolds (Apr 15, 2012)

Sounds like something I wouldn't mine trying myself.


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## marshmasterpat (Jun 26, 2013)

jim lyon said:


> If you are interested in getting the most effective brood break then the two day cell is not what you are looking for as you are reducing your break by around 10 days. This system does have some advantages though, and bwrangler gives us a nice first hand account of his experiences with these. What I have learned is if you have a need to transport cells, optimum times would be at two or three days (after grafting) and again at 10 to 11 days. Avoid the early days of pupation especially days 5-8.


If someone was wanting to do a brood break and do a quick treatment with oxalic acid while the queen was still a pupae, (or just after her emergence) would that be an issue. 

Sounds like this would be easier to try and find out if the installation of a cell is accepted.


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## Adrian Quiney WI (Sep 14, 2007)

Pat, I cannot speak to the risk to the queen, but wouldn't it work just as well to do your acid in the nuc while it was queenless, and then plant the queen cell?


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

marshmasterpat said:


> If someone was wanting to do a brood break and do a quick treatment with oxalic acid while the queen was still a pupae, (or just after her emergence) would that be an issue.
> 
> Sounds like this would be easier to try and find out if the installation of a cell is accepted.


I wouldn't do the OA application until the queen was mated and had been laying a few days but not long enough for their to be capped brood. We remove the old queen and install a 10/11 day old cell two days later. Assuming the queen will begin laying in another 13 days then add another 8 days for the new larvae to be optimum for varroa infestation. 8+13+1 day for the cell to hatch means you ideally want to give the OA (or other) treatment right at the 3 week mark from cell installation for maximum effectiveness. If however you choose to install a 2 day old cell you change the math considerably and increase the treatment window considerably (nor decrease as I stated earlier) with the downside being the growth of your nuc will be delayed considerably. I still wouldn't risk doing any type of phoretic mite treatment until your new queen is "up and running" however. So use the Roland Variation at your own discretion, knowing that any sealed brood you move into your nuc brings with it unhatched varroa. 
The advantages of a two day old cell, then, are primarily that they are easily handled at that stage for transport to another location for whatever your reasons. For my part I will still have the most confidence in a well developed 10\11 day old cell if for no other reason than that there is always a certain risk that any cell won't develop properly, though that number is normally really low, in certain conditions (yellow jasmine or black cell virus) it can get quite high.


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## Velbert (Mar 19, 2006)

There is some things that needs to be done when you let a divide or mating nuc complete a 2 day old cell to finish building them 
#1 you have to be very easy with queen cells if
you bump the sides you will mess them up, so it will take more time placeing them in nucs

#2 you will have to go back in about 7 days and knock off Em queen cell cause they will build them if you place frames of brood in making up nucs

I first started doing it about 5 years ago using about 18 hour larva out of my nicot grid with out placeing them in cell builder got only about 50% turn out very nice large queens about 90% of the time

Using a grafted 2 day cell out of a cell starter/finisher you will get about a 80-95 turn out if you go back through nuc an knock off Em queen cells


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## Velbert (Mar 19, 2006)

2days from Grafting


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## Velbert (Mar 19, 2006)

The way i like doing it best is when i pull the mated and laying queen out of the mating nuc is on the seventh day after removing queen is knock off all emergency queen cells, then place the 2 day old graft into the queenless Mating nuc then this cell is the only one being fed with royal jelly you get a very well fed and built qc.


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