# New incubator set up. Modified slightly, looks good, cheap.



## djastram

https://customer.honeywell.com/en-US/Pages/Product.aspx?cat=HonECC Catalog&pid=T775B2016/U&category=T775 2000 Series&catpath=1.1.5.3.3

I use one of these controllers for my honey warmer, and it would work well for your incubator.

I'd be happy to provide tech support if you're interested.


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## Ian

oh the ideas that has brought to me! thanks for sharing Lauri! 
Expect questions in the coming months...

one thing i like about this idea is that its neat and tidy and compact, as opposed to many others I have seen


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## JSL

Lauri,

That is a nice cabinet at a good price, but have you ever looked at the GQF incubators? They are nice little units. Their hatcher, the one without a turner works well for queen cells and is big enough to get full frames of brood in too. A little more costly, but a nice setup.

https://www.gqfmfg.com/store/comersus_viewItem.asp?idProduct=74


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## WBVC

I have that unit for drying sugar blocks...works well. Unfortunately no basement bargains on units shipped to Canada.

It would make sense to use it as an incubator in the spring/summer. Why can't the unit be set to 95 or whatever folks use for raising Queens? If you put a bowl of water in it the humidity should keep up.

I also have a ranco temp controller and heat pad that came in a water bath incubator we rarely use at work. I guess that could be used to heat the inside. For a smaller fan could one use a fish tank fan as I have some extras of those...just don't know how to hook them up if not in a wired tank canopy.

Suggestions or set up instructions would be welcome. Must at this point would be happy with 50 queens


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## beepro

Has anyone ever try putting sealed brood frames into an incubator for them to hatch?
Lots of potential here if it works. Then again this is my thinking but have never try before.
Is the sealed brood incubation temperature the same as the queens inside an incubator?

Lauri, how do you get the digital temp. to display without turning on the big incubator?


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## Lauri

Yes Janne, you probably could just use this dehydrator as an incubator, I have in fact, finished some turkey eggs in one before.

But a long term incubation I've not tried. Heres the trouble I see with that.
First of all, the unit takes 1200 watts to run, 1500 for the 160 liter unit. I wouldn't wat to pay that electric bill after a month of use. Also the units shut off the fan and heating element after 24 hours automatically. If you forget to reset it just once on time..your hatchlings are toast.

The force of the fan would probably not hurt anything, but yes, you would have to keep a pan of water in there. It IS a dehydrator after all
I had originally thought about taking off the back of the unit to see if I could disable the fan & automatic shut off, then just install a small circ fan, but my husband gave me the evil eye when I mentioned it so I never tried. I was just going to detach & cap off a couple wires..not disable it with a hammer ya know :no: But without the fan, the unit _could_ well overheat. I just dont know anything about wiring so I left it alone.

If you just want a few queens, just use the chicken incubator..they actually work great. That's what I used my first year.










This is my old set up in the kitchen, but I moved it all out to the barn in a new room set up just for my queen rearing stuff.










New room (at the beginning of last season.) Not much in it here but it is filling up with more supplies, equipment and shiping stuff.:











Heres the Exo-Terra in use. For about $125-$140 it is a good upgrade from the Little Giant without breaking the bank.( In comparison to other incubator prices) It has very poor reviews on Amazon.com, but that is the old model. Mine is an upgrade and They have a newer model over this one now. I ran this one for 2 seasons, from May-August each year without turning it off. After 8 months of continual use, It still works perfectly. 

This unit has a 2 degree difference btween the top and bottom shelves you see here. It also did not have quite the right spacing for the roller cages so I only used two shelves. If you modify it to hold three shelves, you can get more in, but with the temp difference I just ran it like this. It could be 4 degrees between the very top and bottom. I think this is due to the units fan shutting off when the heating element shuts off. With a continual circ fan, there would probably be no interior temp difference.
The neat thing about this unit is it also has a _cooling_ unit and comes with an AC adaptator. Those that have to transport cells or queens longer distances to other yards when temps are unfavorable would appreciate that feature.










If I didn't use the roller cages, I could get a lot more cells in for sure. 










And yes Beepro, you can put a full sized deep frame in it with a little room to spare. But why would you want to hatch out workers?

The only thing I could come up with is you could transport a full frame of brood to swarm collection sites and get them into your swarm box at the time of collection. That would be nice.


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## Rader Sidetrack

If you read the owners manual for Lauri's dehydrator, it notes that the temperature range for the internal controller is up to a 10 degree variance.



> The Dehydrator’s “SET TEMP.” is only the highest temperature that will be reached during a heating cycle. It is the temperature at which the Heater turns off. The Fan will continue to operate. Heating resumes when the temperature falls 5 to 10 degrees below the “SET TEMP.”
> 
> http://www.cabelas.com/assets/product_files/pdf/515819_cabelas_80_liter_dehydrator.pdf


While that won't make a difference for a dehydrator, it certainly could as a queen cell incubator.

[HR][/HR]

While a 1200 watt heating element sounds like a lot of power, in reality the 1200 watt heater consumes the _same _amount of power as the two small heaters that _Lauri _added. The large element runs series of short cycles, the small elements will run much longer cycles. The total power consumed is a function of the dehydrator insulation (and external temperature), not the size of the heating element. However, one possible drawback of a large heater is that the manual recommends that the dehydrator be the _only _appliance on that circuit.

.


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## Lauri

beepro said:


> Lauri, how do you get the digital temp. to display without turning on the big incubator?


When you turn on the power, the only thing that comes on is the temp sensor and the lights.

To get the fan and heat turned on, you need to also set time and temp settings.


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## Lauri

Rader Sidetrack said:


> [HR][/HR]
> 
> While a 1600 watt heating element sounds like a lot of power, in reality the 1600 watt heater consumes the _same _amount of power as the two small heaters that _Lauri _added.


Not sure where you got your information. Here is what I considered to be correct.

"The Little Giant uses a 42 watt "rope" heater connected to a solid state temperature control. The temperature control is of the "proportional" type. This means that it can use a fraction of, or all of, the heating unit's wattage, as required."
+ The fan kit includes an 8 watt, motor-driven fan.

http://quackershomepage.tripod.com/~QuackersHomePage/incubator/batortest.html


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## Rader Sidetrack

I should have been more careful to say 1200 watts, not 1600 watts. The Cabelas manual doesn't specify watts or amps, but Lauri mentioned 1200 watts earlier.



> First of all, the unit takes 1200 watts to run, 1500 for the 160 liter unit. I wouldn't wat to pay that electric bill after a month of use. Also the units shut off the fan and heating element after 24 hours automatically.


Regardless of whether the built-in heater is 1200 watts or 1600 watts, the electrical consumption over time (day/week/month) is a function of the machine's insulation and the temperature outside the dehydrator, not the size of the element. Assuming the Little Giant elements are indeed 30 watts, they just run longer to ultimately use the same amount of power as the 1200 watt heater built-in. 

The cost of electricity is a function of watts *times* hours (kilowatt hours) through the meter. It doesn't matter if that is two Little Giant heaters at 30 watts per hour for 20 hours = 600 watts*2 heaters =1200 watthours*, or the Cabela dehydrator's 1200 watts per hour for 1 hour = 1200 watthours*. (Note that Cabela's 1200 watts for 60 minutes total will likely be a series of shorter cycles spaced out over a full day.)


* Meters typically record _Kilowatt _hours, which are units of 1000 watt-hours.

[hr][/hr]
Here is the same scenario as above, but using the 42 watt (revision Lauri made) Little Giant heater:
42 watts *times* 2 units *times* 14.3 hours per day = 1200 watt-hours.
.


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## Lauri

Makes sense, but as you said, the unit wouldn't be suitable for incubation..to wide a variation in temp and it has far too much power for practical use. When a small system will work, the large heating and fan system is just overkill. 

But the housing itself, with the clear door and lights is perfect for what I was looking for. I don't have to open it all the time and can tell a lot at a just a glance.

If you've ever run appliances on a smaller generator, you know what even a coffee pot will do when the element comes on. I did some checking on kilowatt hours a couple years ago. It was cheaper to turn off my coffee pot as soon as it had brewed and heat my coffee throughout the day in the mcrowave than to leave the pot on all day. 

And while your coffee is re- heating, You can do 25 squats or some pushups during that minute too if you are fitness minded. But people will think you are crazy. 
5 cups of coffee= 5 sets of what ever.


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## grozzie2

The only part I'm not clear on, what is the reason for putting cells into the incubator rather than just leaving them in a hive till they are ready to go into the mating nucs ? I must be missing some important detail here.


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## WBVC

Great thread...sadly north of the border things are not so reasonably priced that little exo terra incubator runs $175 plus tax

I am interested in reading responses to Grozzies post. Any advantage other than large numbers?

Also if you produce more Queens than hives to put them in how do folks hold those Queens? Do you have to mate them first or do you also hold virgins for a bit?
Last year I came across emerging virgins in a hive. I put them in roller cages with a dab of honey above frames in another hive and they all were dead the next morning!


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## JRG13

Too many useless questions... the only question is, can you make jerky and hatch queens out at the same time!


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## fieldsofnaturalhoney

JRG13 said:


> Too many useless questions... the only question is, can you make jerky and hatch queens out at the same time!


:lpf: Thanks for getting down to the REAL questions..


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## Riskybizz

Laurie

I do not use an incubator for my cells but you have given me some food for thought down the road. Good luck.


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## Lauri

grozzie2 said:


> The only part I'm not clear on, what is the reason for putting cells into the incubator rather than just leaving them in a hive till they are ready to go into the mating nucs ? I must be missing some important detail here.


There's too many great things to mention about using incubators.

It's like getting a farm tractor for the first time. It isn't long before you wonder how on earth you lived without it.


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## Lauri

JRG13 said:


> Too many useless questions... the only question is, can you make jerky and hatch queens out at the same time!


Don't give me any ideas! 
Chef's hat with a veil..I can see it now.


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## jim lyon

JSL said:


> Lauri,
> 
> That is a nice cabinet at a good price, but have you ever looked at the GQF incubators? They are nice little units. Their hatcher, the one without a turner works well for queen cells and is big enough to get full frames of brood in too. A little more costly, but a nice setup.
> 
> https://www.gqfmfg.com/store/comersus_viewItem.asp?idProduct=74


I like it Joe. Seems like a pretty good "bang for the buck" considering the value of what you are storing. Hey, this is a side issue but isnt it possible to get a homemade incubator too tight? There must be a point at which unhatched cells begin to respirate. Surely these professional incubators pull in fresh air as baby chicks would require it....right?


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## Rader Sidetrack

Jim, the instruction manual for the GGF incubator that _JSL _linked refers to adjusting the 'humidity control vents', with a warning not to completely block all vents, in order to maintain the required fresh air exchange.

https://www.gqfmfg.com/pdf/Cabinet Model Instructions.pdf

It also discusses that it may be appropriate to lower the thermostat setting toward the end of certain bird species egg incubation cycle as the heat generated by the developed embryo itself can raise the overall temperature. Clearly the appropriate temperature regulation in such an incubator is held to tighter tolerances than those needed for a dehydrator.


Presumably a dehydrator has been designed to have consistent air exchange so that as the heated air picks up moisture from the food being dried, it can be exhausted and replaced with fresh, drier air.


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## WBVC

With exoterra I see cages upright and on their sides. Could you stack them on their sides with a layer of empty cages or wavy wire mesh to prevent rollers from being in direct contact. Or if you simply stacked them would that work or would newly emerged Queens be able to sting each other? Doubt I would need more than would fit in upright but curious if stacking like logs would work.



Lauri said:


> Yes Janne, you probably could just use this dehydrator as an incubator, I have in fact, finished some turkey eggs in one before.
> 
> But a long term incubation I've not tried. Heres the trouble I see with that.
> First of all, the unit takes 1200 watts to run, 1500 for the 160 liter unit. I wouldn't wat to pay that electric bill after a month of use. Also the units shut off the fan and heating element after 24 hours automatically. If you forget to reset it just once on time..your hatchlings are toast.
> 
> The force of the fan would probably not hurt anything, but yes, you would have to keep a pan of water in there. It IS a dehydrator after all
> I had originally thought about taking off the back of the unit to see if I could disable the fan & automatic shut off, then just install a small circ fan, but my husband gave me the evil eye when I mentioned it so I never tried. I was just going to detach & cap off a couple wires..not disable it with a hammer ya know :no: But without the fan, the unit _could_ well overheat. I just dont know anything about wiring so I left it alone.
> 
> If you just want a few queens, just use the chicken incubator..they actually work great. That's what I used my first year.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This is my old set up in the kitchen, but I moved it all out to the barn in a new room set up just for my queen rearing stuff.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> New room (at the beginning of last season.) Not much in it here but it is filling up with more supplies, equipment and shiping stuff.:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Heres the Exo-Terra in use. For about $125-$140 it is a good upgrade from the Little Giant without breaking the bank.( In comparison to other incubator prices) It has very poor reviews on Amazon.com, but that is the old model. Mine is an upgrade and They have a newer model over this one now. I ran this one for 2 seasons, from May-August each year without turning it off. After 8 months of continual use, It still works perfectly.
> 
> This unit has a 2 degree difference btween the top and bottom shelves you see here. It also did not have quite the right spacing for the roller cages so I only used two shelves. If you modify it to hold three shelves, you can get more in, but with the temp difference I just ran it like this. It could be 4 degrees between the very top and bottom. I think this is due to the units fan shutting off when the heating element shuts off. With a continual circ fan, there would probably be no interior temp difference.
> The neat thing about this unit is it also has a _cooling_ unit and comes with an AC adaptator. Those that have to transport cells or queens longer distances to other yards when temps are unfavorable would appreciate that feature.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If I didn't use the roller cages, I could get a lot more cells in for sure.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And yes Beepro, you can put a full sized deep frame in it with a little room to spare. But why would you want to hatch out workers?
> 
> The only thing I could come up with is you could transport a full frame of brood to swarm collection sites and get them into your swarm box at the time of collection. That would be nice.


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## beepro

"And yes Beepro, you can put a full sized deep frame in it with a little room to spare. But why would you want to hatch out workers?"

JR knows about this one right in the middle of a dead winter some years ago. Just think of all the reasons to have a few frames of fresh newly hatched young bees to
take advantage of the few extra winter months. Mite control is not an issue also. Of course, we don't have snows here so beekeeping is consider an all year long
activity. There are so many ways to improve your apiary with 4-5 months of extra worker bees before the Spring build up. Now I need to know what is the
incubation temperature for the worker bees. Is it the same as the queen temperature setting?

And yes, there are so many advantages to keep your queen cells in an incubator. If you are a queen bee breeder then you will know. One of which is to
buy you a bit more time. Let's say you cannot put your about to hatch cell into a nuc or your nuc is not yet prepared then it will hold your virgins for
a while. Also, having the virgins separated will prevent them from killing all of your unhatched queen cells that a normal finisher hive have to be modified.
There are so many more situations when you think about it. 

Lauri, do you know if the summer heat will affect the queen cells when it gets too hot? The exo has a way to cool the unit but not sure of your
cooling until for this bigger dehydrator. Perhaps put one in there just in case? And do you know if there is a need for a solar backup battery bank or a
generator in case of a power outage?


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## Lauri

WBVC said:


> With exoterra I see cages upright and on their sides. Could you stack them on their sides with a layer of empty cages or wavy wire mesh to prevent rollers from being in direct contact. Or if you simply stacked them would that work or would newly emerged Queens be able to sting each other? Doubt I would need more than would fit in upright but curious if stacking like logs would work.


Look closer.
The cages you see on their sides have recently hatched virgins in them. All the cells are upright. 

You can see I used (Without thinking too much) a full 3/4 piece of wood to staple my brown cell fixtures onto. They don't need to be that thick. That would save a bit of room.

One thing to watch if you are using that chicken incubator. 
The top of the cells in a roller cage are quite close to the element. Be sure you don't take you temp reading on the bottom of the foam. Although it worked fine, if I was going to continue to use that Little Giant foam incubator, I would make a simple 1 or 2 inch spacer between the top and bottom, in order to hold the element a little farther away from the top of the cell. Because it is so hard to get a thermometer that is reliably accurate, I usually go by my gestation length, but use a thermometer to get close to the correct temp.. I want them to hatch about the same time of day they were grafted. That puts me at 92 degrees in the exo-Terra._ If that Exo-Terra digital temp reading is accurate_ Another reading from a different unit could say 92 degrees, but be a few degrees different in actuality.










What I ended up doing with this unit was usually hatching the cells on the top shelf and holding the virgins on the bottom, since the bottom was a little cooler. And now that I have the larger unit, I will likley use the Exo-Terra to just hold virgins. I like to get them gradually down to about 85 degrees by the time they are 2 days old to harden them up a bit if they stay in there that long.


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## kilocharlie

Dr. Latshaw - Thank you for the link! THAT'S a nice unit!

Grozzie - If you're doing I.I., an incubator saves so much time, you wouldn't be able to do very many without one. Mine hatch in little 50 ml alcoholic drink jars that the drunks leave along the bike trail near where I live. I clean them, drill tiny vent holes in the sides, and melt a hole into the bottom with a heated steel tube. My Hippy friend thought they were really little bongs, so I call them "queen bongs" 

I attach my wax queen cell cups to golf tees with molten wax. These go into holes drilled in the cell bars of the QC frames, and are pegged with tiny brads. I number them so they go back into the same holes easily, and the brad holes line up.

When the queen cells are capped, I pull the brad, remove the golf tee from the bar, and stick it into a cork, which fits into the hole I melted in the bottom of the plastic bottle. The queens hatch inside the bottles where they can't kill each other, and I can label and date each one. The incubator keeps them at 92 to 94 degrees F. This also frees up the cell builder colony just after they go back to queenright (5 or 6 days after grafting).

As Beepro mentions, it doubles as a queen bank if you set it up so that the queens hatch in individual cages where they cannot fight or sting other cells, buying you time, like if a bear (or some homies) breaks in to your freshly-made, queenless nuc's right before queen cell planting...

Beepro - incubate worker bees 91 degrees F, queens 93 degrees F, in a perfect world...

Anyone trying out wiring, electrically challenged - consider running an isolation transformer. If you do get shocked, you don't get full wall current (115 VAC or 230 VAC). It's not the Volts that get you, its the Amps. Stepping it down with an isolation transformer is my first step, a fuse receptacle, a variable AC transformer ("VariAc") is a good choice, maybe on a modified Wheatstone bridge circuit so it puts out constant temperature, and a lighted rocker switch all make sense. Both heating and cooling circuits also make a lot of sense. Good insulation makes a lot of sense, as does a unit that is big enough for your operation. Commercial operations convert old refrigerators for queen rearing. Larger units also facilitate housing virgin queens with hatching bees and attendants (acceptance rates go up). It helps large operations to have more than one so batches can be kept separate - free-roaming hatched virgins in the incubator can be costly.

Good luck, Lauri! Thanks again for another great thread :applause:


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## David LaFerney

Rader Sidetrack said:


> However, one possible drawback of a large heater is that the manual recommends that the dehydrator be the _only _appliance on that circuit.
> 
> .


There is another big difference between using small and large heating elements in an application like this. As Laurie mentioned the big element brought the thermometer up to 95 in a matter of seconds while the small ones take much longer times. The big element produces relatively large amts of radiant energy which can overheat nearby surfaces while it is on and leave most of the thermal mass cold. Smaller elements are less likely to do that. It's the same difference as broiling a steak versus a long, low, slow roast. The steak is cooked on the outside and still rare in the middle - imagine cooking bisquits under a broiler. Burnt on top - raw inside.

The ideal setup would be a relatively cool element which would maintain the temp by being on most of the time - not one that is so hot it broils the temp up in a few seconds.


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## beepro

Thanks, all.
It is exactly the ecducation like this that I come back to BeeS everyday. 
KC, thanks for the informed education. I still cannot
visualize how you put the qcs into the holes to keep them
from killing each others. A pic would be nice of your
set up. Yes, the queen acceptance rate surely would go up with
a few shake of the newly hatched brood frames coming from the hatchery. Imagine having 5
old converted fridge all full of capped broods. Can you say an accelerated brood growth? 
I think Mike will like this nurse 'bomb.' Not to mention the short recovery time after a pesticide poisoning. 
I'm sure the migratory bkeepers will be a happy camper. So is this the future of beekeeping--artificially brooding?
Humm, the slow cook method sure works versus the fast burning
one. That's why my sugar bricks got brown on top. Will adjust for that the next round.


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## JackChing

Just got my incubator setup. It should hold at least 250 cells.


















This is the heater/fan/thermostat unit.
http://incubatorwarehouse.com/48-watt-incukit-dc.html


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## jim lyon

JSL said:


> Lauri,
> 
> That is a nice cabinet at a good price, but have you ever looked at the GQF incubators? They are nice little units. Their hatcher, the one without a turner works well for queen cells and is big enough to get full frames of brood in too. A little more costly, but a nice setup.
> 
> https://www.gqfmfg.com/store/comersus_viewItem.asp?idProduct=74


Took the plunge and bought one of these on Joe's recommendation and I love it. It will hold 16 full sized frames. We used it continuously for about 6 weeks and it worked flawlessly. Love the ability to adjust the temp down to 1/10th of a degree.


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## beepro

So you just drill a hole on the side of the incubator box to wire it? Where are you going
to put the water tray at?
Where do you go to buy the incubator box? Is it all metal cover on the inside?


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## Ian

What kind of a temperature range is okay with these incubators without harming the developing queens? 93 degrees F being optimum, how much room lee way do we have?


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## beepro

I have read + and -- to one degree from 93F.


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## jim lyon

Ian said:


> What kind of a temperature range is okay with these incubators without harming the developing queens? 93 degrees F being optimum, how much room lee way do we have?


Depends on the maturity of the cells. I wouldn't stray far from that 93 degree figure until the last 24 hours before hatching when we like to back them off to just under 90. Seemed to give them a little more "shelf life" and the virgins still seemed quite active when they emerged.


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## Ian

What day after the graft do the cells go in Jim? I did not realize you hatched them also. What's the main reason behind hatching them?


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## jim lyon

Sorry, didn't mean to leave the impression that I hatched them out first. We are often putting them in as "hot" cells, meaning they are due to hatch within hours so it isn't unusual to see a few emerging virgins later in the day. If we are short on cells we may use a few of them (they are usually well accepted) but I prefer to have them hatch after they are in and the hive isn't being disturbed.
"Hatching day" in my mind is day 11 (264 hours after grafting) though some may not pop for another 24 hours


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## Ian

So... You have to understand I'm doing this small scale, and inexperienced...
I have cells scheduled to go in Wednesday, hatch is on Friday. But the weather turned on a dime here and Cold Wet weather will be with us for the next few days. I transferred the cells this evening, being Tuesday, into my mini mating nucs.
So, these cells were put in early into mini nucs which contain a small amount of bees in cold weather... What's the chances these cells do not get chilled? 

I have extra cells which I am going to experiment a bit with my incubator. I'm going to hatch them out and, .. Not sure what I'll do with them


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## beepro

I have read but cannot confirm that the weather should be consistent at 60F day time for the queen to go out to mate. If you keep the mating nucs well cover with bees then they will keep the cell warm during the cold weather. If not enough bees then the cell will get chilled for sure. So how much bees in the nucs to cover the cell is up to you to control. If you can get the incubator at the right temperature then they will hatch for sure. Then be ready to make up more mating nucs for them within 24 hours after they have hatched. Lauri did a direct release of her virgins into the nucs.


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## jim lyon

Ian said:


> So... You have to understand I'm doing this small scale, and inexperienced...
> I have cells scheduled to go in Wednesday, hatch is on Friday. But the weather turned on a dime here and Cold Wet weather will be with us for the next few days. I transferred the cells this evening, being Tuesday, into my mini mating nucs.
> So, these cells were put in early into mini nucs which contain a small amount of bees in cold weather... What's the chances these cells do not get chilled?
> 
> I have extra cells which I am going to experiment a bit with my incubator. I'm going to hatch them out and, .. Not sure what I'll do with them


As long as your cells were placed in the middle of good bee cover they shouldn't get chilled your prospects should be reasonably good particularly if there was some brood to place them on. Temps aren't too critical the first week after placement as she wouldn't be mature enough to fly but the next week she we'll need good afternoon flying conditions. 60 degrees would be a minimum I would think. We had quite a few this spring that had no flying weather at all the first week after cell placement that mated at a pretty high rate when the weather warmed the second week.


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