# Nicot system for larger scale production



## Velbert (Mar 19, 2006)

Go to my web page 

I have some info on the Nicot on a read only blog


----------



## MikeTheBeekeeper (May 18, 2011)

Velbert said:


> Go to my web page
> 
> I have some info on the Nicot on a read only blog


I forgot about that. Very informative. Thank you Velbert.


----------



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

Both systems work beautifully when done right on a small or commercial scale. I prefer Doolittle due to less stuff to fool with its cheap and i make my own queen cells. Both are good.


----------



## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I started out doing Jenter. I think it was worthwhile as I learned a lot and got to know what different aged larvae looked like. Now I mostly graft just because it's less time consuming for me. The differnce looks like this:

Jenter (or Nicot etc.):
Monday, catch the queen and confine her in the Jenter box
Tuesday, release the queen
Thurs set up cell builder colony (catch the queen and move her to a nuc)
Fri transfer larvae to cells and put in the cell builder

The same thing grafting:
Thurs set up the cell builder colony (catch the queen and move her to nuc)
Fri find the right aged larvae and graft

That's two trips to the bee yard with grafting vs four with the Jenter/Nicot systems.

I think Hopkins could work as well without having to buy the Jenter box.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beeshopkinsmethod.htm


----------



## MikeTheBeekeeper (May 18, 2011)

Michael Bush said:


> Thurs set up cell builder colony (catch the queen and move her to a nuc)


I'm not understanding this quite well. You catch the queen of a good, strong hive, and move her elsewhere to make that hive queenless and use it as a cell starter/builder? If so, wouldn't they just make queen cells in the frames she already laid in?


----------



## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

It's possible, but they think that the grafted larva in artificial cups pointing down ARE queen cells so they tend to work on them instead. Still some wild cells get started.


----------



## MikeTheBeekeeper (May 18, 2011)

Wouldn't it be better to make up another hive without eggs and larva (just capped brood perhaps) so that they wouldn't waste royal jelly on those cells that you can't capture?

Also, does it matter how many cells you give each starter/builder colony? I would think the less you give them (5-10, as opposed to 50-60) they would produce better quality queens (fed more perhaps). I know it sounds very inefficient but I want to produce the best queens I can.


----------



## marshmasterpat (Jun 26, 2013)

MikeTheBeekeeper - Your scaring me, that was my exact thought.



MikeTheBeekeeper said:


> Also, does it matter how many cells you give each starter/builder colony? I would think the less you give them (5-10, as opposed to 50-60) they would produce better quality queens (fed more perhaps). I know it sounds very inefficient but I want to produce the best queens I can.


That is exactly what I was thinking. If we are small time bee keepers, and only want (or have capacity) for say 2 to 10 new queens, then the inefficiency of the operation doesn't matter. So would trying a maximum of 20 cells allow for the raising of better cells as Mike says.


----------



## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

MikeTheBeekeeper said:


> Wouldn't it be better to make up another hive without eggs and larva (just capped brood perhaps) so that they wouldn't waste royal jelly on those cells that you can't capture?


I've tried starter/finishers both ways - with and without open brood when the cells are being started - and it works both ways. But I definitely get better results (bigger cells) when the hive has had plenty of open brood in it for a few days before adding the cells. It apparently gets the nurse bees primed for feeding larva. My observation has been that I seem to get the best results when I leave a frame of open brood right next to my grafts - even though it is somewhat counter intuitive.



MikeTheBeekeeper said:


> Also, does it matter how many cells you give each starter/builder colony? I would think the less you give them (5-10, as opposed to 50-60) they would produce better quality queens (fed more perhaps). I know it sounds very inefficient but I want to produce the best queens I can.


Of course it does make a difference - although you will want to start enough cells to account for failures and rejects. 

But there's another big factor - how many mating nucs can you put together? If you are planning to rear queens for the first time you should probably keep your numbers manageable and try to run through the cycle as many times as possible during the season rather than trying to produce more queens than you can use all at once.


----------



## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>You catch the queen of a good, strong hive, and move her elsewhere to make that hive queenless and use it as a cell starter/builder?

Yes, that's what I typically do. If I had more time I'd probably do a "swarm box" but I don't have time and this works fine.

> If so, wouldn't they just make queen cells in the frames she already laid in? 

The will work with the queen cells you give them over worker cells they have to tear down, but they may make some, yes, which is why it doesn't work well to use it again unless you do a VERY thorough search for queen cells.

>Wouldn't it be better to make up another hive without eggs and larva (just capped brood perhaps) so that they wouldn't waste royal jelly on those cells that you can't capture?

There are many theories on queen rearing. The "swarm box" method has no open larvae in it except the queen cells and a nuc that is overflowing with nurse bees that were nursing 2 hours ago. That's a good plan, but a strong colony (I compress it at the same time I take the queen, meaning I remove all the empty supers and probably one or two of the full ones) that is overflowing with bees will feed alot of queens really well and I don't have to shake a lot of bees, set up the starter (swarm box), set up a finisher, remove them from the swarm box and put them in the finisher.

>Also, does it matter how many cells you give each starter/builder colony?

Not really.

> I would think the less you give them (5-10, as opposed to 50-60) they would produce better quality queens (fed more perhaps). I know it sounds very inefficient but I want to produce the best queens I can. 

They will only feed the number they think they can manage. They will clean the larvae out of the rest or they will just not feed them at all. They won't just feed them all but feed them less.


----------



## MikeTheBeekeeper (May 18, 2011)

David LaFerney said:


> But I definitely get better results (bigger cells) when the hive has had plenty of open brood in it for a few days before adding the cells. It apparently gets the nurse bees primed for feeding larva.


Makes sense. Thanks for the clarification.



Michael Bush said:


> >Also, does it matter how many cells you give each starter/builder colony?
> 
> *Not really.*
> 
> ...


So, it doesn't matter if they feed them less? Wouldn't that produce lower quality/less developed queens? 

Or did I misunderstand you?


----------



## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>>They won't just feed them all but feed them less.
>So, it doesn't matter if they feed them less? Wouldn't that produce lower quality/less developed queens? 
>Or did I misunderstand you? 

You misunderstood. They WON'T just feed them all but feed them less; they will feed fewer of them if there are too many and feed them plenty. The point is if you give them 100 cells they will only take care of what they think they can take care of and they will destroy the rest.

It matters very much how well they are fed. But what controls that is the density of bees and the availablility of pollen and honey.


----------



## KevinR (Apr 30, 2010)

It doesn't really matter how you do it... You basically make the hive queenless, then control what they have to raise.

You can do this by moving brood/bees/queens, scraping cells, etc.. Then end result is the same...

Depending what I have to work with and my mood... I like to go into a hive, shake down every bee and rearrange the capped brood in the bottom with the queen and a open comb for her to lay in.

Then I move all the open brood above an excluder.. I come back later and move that part of the hive to another stand. They "should" be hopelessly queenless, assuming that I didn't move any eggs. You always need to look for rogue cells, because they are sneaky. I then put my grafts in the hive or come back later and do it. After 24/48 hours.. I check my take on the grafts and scrape any rogue cells.

Once the bees have them started/drawn. I can put them back on the original hive to finish.

Or you can create a dedicated starter where you move the queen out and pack it full of bees/capped brood. Come back in 7-9 ish days and scrap every cell. Now they are ready for your grafts. You just have to keep it fed with fresh frames of capped brood and syrup. I'm not sure how many rounds you could squeeze out of a starter, but I like to them start 2 or so rounds of grafts then I let them keep some. I'm sure I don't push them to their limits, but I'm not to that level of queen rearing.

Depending on how many cells you make that starter can finish them, or you can move the cells to a finisher... 

Which is basically a booming hive with an excluder then a honey super and a box with grafts in it.


----------



## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

I'd recommend grafting...but if you want a Nicot type system for high production, the EZ Queen system which Dadant sells is designed exactly for that purpose:
http://www.dadant.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=30_54&products_id=604

deknow


----------



## KevinR (Apr 30, 2010)

I guess you have to "define" high production... The nicot should be able to produce 110 cells every 4 days or so.. I'd say that is probably high production for some people..

The EZ-I system does 480 at a time.... The new one from Japan that I linked a few weeks back does 900+....

So, it really depends on your definition/expectation... If you are doing 220 cells a week, then you need to be running a ~500 nucs to support the cells being pumped out... ((80% take, 3 weeks in the mating nuc)

**Corrected for bad math**


----------



## MikeTheBeekeeper (May 18, 2011)

Michael Bush said:


> they will feed fewer of them if there are too many and feed them plenty. The point is if you give them 100 cells they will only take care of what they think they can take care of and they will destroy the rest.
> 
> It matters very much how well they are fed. But what controls that is the density of bees and the availablility of pollen and honey.


Thank you Michael for clarifying that.



deknow said:


> the EZ Queen system which Dadant sells is designed exactly for that purpose:
> http://www.dadant.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=30_54&products_id=604
> 
> deknow


Thanks I wasn't aware that Dadant had a similar system. Thanks for the link.




KevinR said:


> I guess you have to "define" high production... The nicot should be able to produce 110 cells every 4 days or so.. I'd say that is probably high production for some people..
> 
> The EZ-I system does 480 at a time.... The new one from Japan that I linked a few weeks back does 900+....
> 
> ...


Hopefully in 2015 I'll be more experienced and will have a larger operation to be able to produce 200-500 queens (that year, not per week). I'll look into that system for the future.

I have used the nicot system and produced 3 queens so I have very little experience but I plan on producing 100 queens this spring mainly for my own use (splits).


----------



## TheBuzz (Feb 8, 2012)

Do you need mating nucs?


----------



## MikeTheBeekeeper (May 18, 2011)

TheBuzz said:


> Do you need mating nucs?


Yes I'll be making some 4 way mating nucs once I take my hives away for almond pollination.


----------



## TheBuzz (Feb 8, 2012)

MikeTheBeekeeper said:


> Yes I'll be making some 4 way mating nucs once I take my hives away for almond pollination.


Actually I was asking if they're needed at all.


----------



## MikeTheBeekeeper (May 18, 2011)

TheBuzz said:


> Actually I was asking if they're needed at all.


If you want just queen cells or virgin queens they're not needed. 

I want to make splits so a laying (mated) queen would be best for them as it wouldn't inhibit their growth.


----------



## TheBuzz (Feb 8, 2012)

why cant u just use a regular nuc?


----------



## MikeTheBeekeeper (May 18, 2011)

TheBuzz said:


> why cant u just use a regular nuc?


I guess because I don't have enough bees at the moment to make 100 regular nucs just for mating. The splits I'm going to make are practically Nucs (5-framers) but I wouldn't like them to have to wait until the queen comes out of her cell and is mated to begin laying. I'd rather make and mate the queens before so that they're ready to go for my splits (I want them to build up as quickly as they can).


----------



## TheBuzz (Feb 8, 2012)

Mind you I'm asking for info not judging.

If you took a 5 frame nuc and used one frame for a feeder then you have 2 to build on. Won't the virign queens come right back after mating with new space? Maybe use drawn empty frames? mating nucs just seem like an added expense?


----------



## MikeTheBeekeeper (May 18, 2011)

TheBuzz said:


> Mind you I'm asking for info not judging.
> 
> If you took a 5 frame nuc and used one frame for a feeder then you have 2 to build on. Won't the virign queens come right back after mating with new space? Maybe use drawn empty frames? mating nucs just seem like an added expense?


My reasoning for the use of a mating nuc was to make sure my splits won't have any delays in growth (and sometimes queens are lost on their mating flights so that would be more of a delay to my splits if it happened to one of them).

Also, I'm wanting to breed only certain hives which I find preferable (that have certain qualities/characteristics that I like and want).

I was planning on setting up a mating yard in an isolated area with hives I wanted to mate with my queens and no others (there's a commercial beekeeper nearby that brings 100s of hives, many that I would not like their drones to mate with my queens).

Maybe I'll do some with some without mating nucs.


----------



## KevinR (Apr 30, 2010)

You can use whatever type of "hive" you want for mating. It could be a mini mating nuc, 2-5 frame nuc, a three deep 10 frame hive. It really comes down to your resources and what your goals are. 

i.e. it doesn't make much sense to use 30 deep frames to mate a queen, but I'm sure there are people doing walk away splits for that exact purpose.

I assume that most people use 5 frame nucs or smaller. Personally, I find that there is a happy number of bees where they will accept the mated queen/cell readily without giving a lot of problems. An overflowing 5 frame nuc doesn't always play nice with the newly mated queen.

I think I had a post out here some where, where you have to do the math and work out your goals. 

i.e. a 5 frame nuc is equal to 10 half frames or roughly 2.5 mating nucs. I could in theory mate 2.5 queens for each of the 1 queens mated in the standard nuc, since they are separate hives.

This is compounded by the ability/requirement of pulling frames to keep the population correct in the small hives. i.e. In 2 weeks, that 2.5 mating nuc will be 3 or more... This exponentially rises over time. 

Not to mention that it's not as upsetting to lose a 4 frame mini mating nuc vs a full 5 frame hive due to the mocking bird eating your queen and them turning into laying workers.


----------



## TheBuzz (Feb 8, 2012)

So I would benefit from using mating nucs then based on resource efficiency?


----------



## KevinR (Apr 30, 2010)

Depending on how many queens you want to make... Possibly...

If your only looking at making 10 extras per year, then it's probably not worth the hassle of making/buying custom equipment.

If your looking raising 10-500 per week... then you'd probably be using mini mating nucs, but you'd also have it all figured out by that point in time. *grins*

My first couple years of raising queens, I used 5 frame hives, that were made up with 2 frames of brood and a cell. I'd tear down/split hives to make new hives.

Again, it all depends on your goals..


----------



## TheBuzz (Feb 8, 2012)

I wanna make 20-30 queens for 20-30 nucs


----------



## MikeTheBeekeeper (May 18, 2011)

TheBuzz said:


> I wanna make 20-30 queens for 20-30 nucs


For yourself? To sell? 

You could just do a walk-away split and save yourself the troubles of grafting, nicot system, dates, mating, etc. Not sure if they'd be able to build up quickly for a honey crop though. And if one of your queens gets eaten that hive will have it pretty rough.

If you want to sell them I would think you would need mini mating nucs otherwise it would be a drag on your apiary if you used regular hives or 5 frame Nucs to mate them.

I think it's the best way using mating Nucs if you're looking to get more than just a few queens.


----------



## TheBuzz (Feb 8, 2012)

These are for pre-sales. Time to get the tools out to build some mating nucs.


----------



## KevinR (Apr 30, 2010)

per week, per year?

If your trying to make 20-30 nucs and the queens are needed for those nucs. then I wouldn't worry about making mating nucs... Unless your specifically making queens and will do so all season.

I'd just pull a frame of honey and 2 frames of brood and drop in a queen cell... Depending on the time of year, you could just use 1 frame of brood and one frame of honey.

Put the feed on them, check for eggs in 21+ days collect your nucs in a few months.. Or if you have more hives/excess brood then you could make them stronger.

It really depends what your trying to accomplish.


----------



## KevinR (Apr 30, 2010)

I'm not a big fan of walk away splits in weak nucs.

I'd rather build my cells under ideal situations and know that they had a good chance vs hoping that I gave the bees the proper resources... 

Also, they'd be 10 days ahead on making the queen vs letting the bees do their own thing.

If you find a hive with swarm cells/supercedure cells... sometimes, I'll make a 1 frame split instead of scraping the cell. 

Again, it just depends on the situation.


----------



## TheBuzz (Feb 8, 2012)

20-30 for the year.


----------



## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

TheBuzz said:


> Mind you I'm asking for info not judging.
> 
> If you took a 5 frame nuc and used one frame for a feeder then you have 2 to build on. Won't the virign queens come right back after mating with new space? Maybe use drawn empty frames? mating nucs just seem like an added expense?


The first time I reared queens I didn't have dedicated mating nucs so I used full size single box hive set ups - one frame of brood + one of food + a cell + frames of foundation to fill it up. It works just fine. Actually it works great for increase because you never have to move the queen - just let her do her thing uninterrupted.

Apparently bees don't know about mating nucs.

Seriously though dedicated mating nucs are way handy if you are rearing queens. Actually they're pretty handy even if you aren't.


----------



## KevinR (Apr 30, 2010)

David LaFerney said:


> full size single box hive set ups - one frame of brood + one of food + a cell + frames of foundation to fill it up. It works just fine.


Just need to be careful to use foundation vs old comb in this situation... If the bees can't defend the entire hive, then it "could" be an invitation for SHB/Wax Moths. Both seem to leave foundation alone, but love unattended comb..


----------



## standman (Mar 14, 2008)

To reply to the original post: Yes, the Nicot/Jenter can work even on a commercial scale. 

A year or two ago I attended a queen rearing class sponsored by our state. The guest speaker was supposed to talk about grafting, but somehow the wires got crossed. The speaker revealed that they did not graft, but used the Jenter system. They produced about 100 queens a week, I think.


----------



## KevinR (Apr 30, 2010)

It depends how many of the laying cages you have. I've seen videos where the guy just moved the queen from cage to cage... She should lay the 110 cells in a few hours... 

If you stayed on top of it, you could in "theory" make as many cells/queens as you had boxes/time...


----------



## wildbranch2007 (Dec 3, 2008)

One of the advantages of the Jenter is when you are starting out you can use the plugs, and many times the queen also lays in the dummy cells, this lets you also graft so you can see the proper size of the lava and you don't waste a complete cycle if you don't get the grafts to take.


----------

