# Sticky  My Cell Building Methods



## Michael Palmer

So I thought I'd talk about the way I raise cells. 

For years I have used a method that Kirk Webster showed me. It's a great way to raise a batch (45-48) of very good, quality cells. The cells are large, well built, and still provisioned with jelly when they go into nucs a day or 2 before emerging.

Kirk's method is a take off on Brother Adam's cell building plan. I've done both and now prefer Adam's way. But, the beginning...

Choose a very strong production colony. One with 9-10 frames of brood and a prolific queen. A queen who is a laying machine and who fills every open space with brood. Best results are when on a flow so supers are in order.

On day 1, separate the broodnest with an excluder. Sealed brood and queen go in bottom brood box, while unsealed and extra frames of pollen and honey go above the excluder in top brood box. Supers go back on top. No queens allowed above excluder. If you have to shake all the bees out of the supers and brood box to be sure, then so be it. There should be 5-6 frames of sealed brood below and 4-5 unsealed above.

9 days later, the entire colony has to be checked for queen cells. The colony may start swarm cells below the excluder, or emergency cells above. All must be removed...no exceptions. Begin feeding 1:1 syrup at this time...no matter the flow conditions. Continue feeding until cells are capped 5 days after graft.

The next day is grafting day. In the morning, the cell builder has to be made ready for the graft. The colony is taken apart...supers removed and top brood box removed. Bottom of hive with queen is removed from stand, and turned around to face the other way. Note: My broodnest is 2 deeps and a medium, so the queen actually has a deep and a medium. The top deep was raised above the excluder.

A new bottom is placed on the stand facing in the original direction. One of the partially filled supers is placed on the bottom board and the top brood box is placed on that. The outside two frames (frames without brood) are removed. A space is made inthe middle and a good fresh pollen frame is placed in the space...the graft will go next to the pollen frame later in the day. The rest of the supers are placed on top. This new setup I'll call the Cell Builder...CB

Now, the core of the queen's broodnest is shaken into the cell builder. This core is comprised of unsealed brood and contains the nurse bees of the colony. Remember that you place the sealed brood below the excluder 10 days before grafting. That all emerged and the queen re-layed it, so now it's all open brood. When shaking these 5 or 6 frames of bees into the CB, take no queens! I shake them through an excluder shaker box, to be sure. After shaking, close both the queen's hive and the CB. Go find something else to do until later in the day.

What have you created? A hopelessly queenless colony with only sealed and emerging bees. This colony is stocked to overflowing with young bees. It has all the field bees for added nutritional resources. The freak! Fly around the yard. Crawl all over the hive and out onto the ground. Listen hard...you'll almost hear them cry. And that's what you want.

In the afternoon, add your graft next to the pollen frame, and fill the feeder again.

5 days later, the old queen and her colony can be re-united with the CB. Remove the CB from the stand. Don't bump and crash the CB as it has tender cells in it. Swing the queen's colony back up and onto the stand. Remove the cover and add an excluder. Place the CB on the excluder, and the supers on top. On day 10 after grafting, the cells are ready to use.

That's basically Kirk's method. But in reading Beekeeping at Buckfast Abbey, I see Bro Adam did it just a bit differently. I've switched to his setup. On day 1, instead of separating the brood above and below an excluder, he brings in brood from other colonies. So, place an excluder on top of the broodnest of your strong colony and the box of brood (7 frames of brood and 2 feed frames on the outsides). Supers back on top...no queens!

See, Bro Adam believed that the best cells were raised under either swarming or supercedure. Supercedure is difficult to control and usually not many cells result. Swarming on the other hand is easy to set up. Just try adding 7 frames of brood to a strong colony. I call these boxes of brood Bee Bombs...see my article in Bee Culture.

So, you set up a colony to get to swarming strength, and take away the queen. You control when they start their cells. They have all the resources and more...exactly what is needed to create quality queen cells.

One plus with Bro Adams approach...you can re-use the cell builder in a couple weeks after taking the cells. You never separated the queen's broodnest or restricted her from laying. Rather that using up the young nurse bee resource inthe CB, you are adding to it. 

This is the best cell building method I have come across.


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## BeeCurious

Nice info.

I printed this out to save in a folder with another classic on Wintering Nucs.

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?p=37964


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## RayMarler

Michael Palmer said:


> So I thought I'd talk about the way I raise cells.


That was a nice thought, thanks Michael!


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## Broke-T

That seems very close to the cloake board method. With it you dont have to move the Q right box to another stand you just insert metal divider into Cloake board and have upper Q less cell builder then remove divider and you have Q right cell finisher.

Johnny


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## Andrew Dewey

Thanks for the posting Mike. I plan to do my first graft of the season this week using one of the nucs I got from you this spring as the CB and another as the source of the grafted cells.

Do you think it important to have the bees "polish" the cups before grafting?


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## muskratcreekhoney

Michael, could you discuss potential problems and symptems of cell production screw ups. ie What happens if you get a side comb virgin? Do all the cells get destroyed or just some? If you didn't feed and your nectar flow dries up what would your cells look like? Thanks, just trying to learn from my mistakes?


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## JensLarsen

Thx for sharing, good write-up.

Why do you leave the CB for five days before re-uniting? 
Did br Adam really do that? I gotta re-read his book on this. _(Edit: yes he did, he did not separate starter and finisher, however cells where removed when sealed to holding colonies, 200 cells in each. The CB was then dismantled and bees spread to needing colonies, the original colony with queen returned to the spot, no re-uniting). (Edit: Br Adam is not very detailed in the paragraph "our own method", I guess he used lots of variations to the overall principle)_

I re-unite after 24 h and let them finish in a queenright state, then move to incubator on day five when removing the excluder. Robber screen and excluder on entrance might be a good idea for open queenless starters. I used to have a support colony but ended up depleting it to the degree that it superseeded. Now I simply run two colonies in parallel and let them rest a week between grafts. Spreading out the rearing is good for minimize risks of bad mating weather.


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## Michael Palmer

muskratcreekhoney said:


> Michael, could you discuss potential problems and symptems of cell production screw ups. ie What happens if you get a side comb virgin? Do all the cells get destroyed or just some? If you didn't feed and your nectar flow dries up what would your cells look like? Thanks, just trying to learn from my mistakes?


The biggest problen is with rogue queen cells and virging. If there is a cell in your cell builder when you set it up, then it will fail. If There's one in the cell builder on grafting day, then it will fail. If a wild virgin finds the queenless cell builder she will enter and destroy the cells. 

I've had virgins enter my cell builders 3 times this year. Twice only one or two cells were destroyed, while the third time about half were. If you get to them in time only a few will be killed. 

If you try to raise cells under dearth conditions, a few things will happen. The bees won't bother raising any of the cells, or only a very few. The cells raised will be short and the pupae will be small.


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## Michael Palmer

JensLarsen said:


> Why do you leave the CB for five days before re-uniting?
> 
> (Edit: Br Adam is not very detailed in the paragraph "our own method", I guess he used lots of variations to the overall principle)
> 
> I re-unite after 24 h and let them finish in a queenright state, then move to incubator on day five when removing the excluder. Robber screen and excluder on entrance might be a good idea for open queenless starters. I used to have a support colony but ended up depleting it to the degree that it superseeded. Now I simply run two colonies in parallel and let them rest a week between grafts. Spreading out the rearing is good for minimize risks of bad mating weather.


I agree that Bro Adam really doesn't go into enough detail. Heck, he only touches on wintering nucleus colonies.

I leave my cell builder queenless until the cells are sealed. I've arranged them so they have the maximum amount of nerse bees to feed the cells. If I unite them back with the queenright section, wouldn't a large number of the nurse bees go back to feeding worker larvae in the queenright section?

I used support colonies too, and harvested nurse bees by placing open brood above an excluder overnight. I find that by adding sealed brood 10 days before grafting that I'm doing the same thing...maybe with better results.


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## winevines

Michael Palmer said:


> If you try to raise cells under dearth conditions, a few things will happen. The bees won't bother raising any of the cells, or only a very few. The cells raised will be short and the pupae will be small.


will the queens be inferior?


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## BerkeyDavid

Michael Palmer said:


> I've had virgins enter my cell builders 3 times this year. Twice only one or two cells were destroyed, while the third time about half were. If you get to them in time only a few will be killed.


When you find only one of your cells has been destroyed (ripped open from side) and none of the grafted cells have hatched yet, can you assume there was either a wild virgin who entered or somehow hatched from elsewhere in the hive?

I did not consider the possibility of a "wild virgin" entering the hive from elsewhere but this must have been what happened... since none of my grafted cells had hatched and I could find no other hatched cells in the colony anywhere. 
Michael thanks for sharing this.


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## muskratcreekhoney

My last batch had about 4 or 5 sealed cells that had a perfect round circle cut in the bottom of the cell(day 10-11). Is this the nurse bees removing defective larvae? P.S. Thank you Michael Palmer for sharing your time and expertise it is greatly appreciated.:applause:


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## Michael Palmer

winevines said:


> will the queens be inferior?


Yes, or non-existant.


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## Michael Palmer

BerkeyDavid said:


> When you find only one of your cells has been destroyed (ripped open from side) and none of the grafted cells have hatched yet, can you assume there was either a wild virgin who entered or somehow hatched from elsewhere in the hive?
> 
> I did not consider the possibility of a "wild virgin" entering the hive from elsewhere but this must have been what happened... since none of my grafted cells had hatched and I could find no other hatched cells in the colony anywhere.
> Michael thanks for sharing this.


Yes, that's what it looks like. It could also be a queen from below the excluder who slipped through. But, if no cell has hatched and the queen is still below laying happily along....


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## Michael Palmer

muskratcreekhoney said:


> My last batch had about 4 or 5 sealed cells that had a perfect round circle cut in the bottom of the cell(day 10-11). Is this the nurse bees removing defective larvae? P.S. Thank you Michael Palmer for sharing your time and expertise it is greatly appreciated.:applause:


Day 10-11 after grafting? A perfectly round hole in the tip of the cell? Do you think they emerged?


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## muskratcreekhoney

no, day 10-11 total age, just after sealing. I need to start taking pictures.


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## Michael Palmer

muskratcreekhoney said:


> no, day 10-11 total age, just after sealing. I need to start taking pictures.


Cells are sealed on day 8. I wouldn't think the nurse bees had anything to do with it. A virgin or queen got in there from somewhere. Any idea how?


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## muskratcreekhoney

Apparently there was a queen cell that I missed. When I saw the cells opened from the bottom instead of from the side I immediately assumed it was a bad queen cell. I will be more careful next time I set up my cell finisher.:doh:


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## BerkeyDavid

Michael thanks again for this. Just got 54 out of 56 grafts to take, real nice cells. Put the queen box back on after 5 days like you said. Grafts come out Thursday, just hope for no more rogue virgins! I found a black virgin in one of my nucs, all the rest of the mating nucs have laying black butt queens. No eggs or larva from the black virgin, she must have flown in there from parts unknown. I resisted urge to pinch her gonna wait a few weeks and see if she starts laying.


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## Jackobeeo

Michael Palmer said:


> So I thought I'd talk about the way I raise cells. .....
> 
> Kirk's method is a take off on Brother Adam's cell building plan. I've done both and now prefer Adam's way. But, the beginning...
> 
> Choose a very strong production colony. One with 9-10 frames of brood and a prolific queen. A queen who is a laying machine and who fills every open space with brood. Best results are when on a flow so supers are in order.


Hi Michael -

I'm new at rearing queens, but am ready to try. 
But I pause.
How late is too late to begin your method?
I will use 5-frame nuc, good supply of brood & feed frames, strong Carniolan queen.

Located in N. Willamette Valley Oregon, blackberrys fading now but usually August has OK forage, just not super. 
September normally very nice with sometimes 80+ days.

Would overwintering be advisable or no, IYO?

Thanks,
Jack VanNess


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## Michael Palmer

My last graft of the year is tomorrow, with last cells going out to mating nucs 10 days later. Our Goldenrod flow is usually August 15-early September. Nucs made by first week of August usually winter well, although maybe with somewhat smaller clusters.

If you're going to raise some cells, you better get to it. If you start a cell builder tomorrow using the method I use, your graft will be on July 29, and cells ready on August 8. Queens won't be mated and laying until about the 24th of August. Then if you're going to winter nucs with them, that seems kind of late for me here in Vermont.


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## brac

MP, So you don't raise any later queens to sale? I would think there would be alot of folks looking for queens in the fall to requeen, or to fix a problem hive before winter..


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## Michael Palmer

I have about 450 mating nucs. They're 4 way, with main divider going across the box the short way. That created 2 chambers. Then each chamber is divided again with a division board feeder creating 4 in total. 

My last cells go into group 4 of 4 groups on July 30. At that point all mating nucs are 4 way. I'll pull one queen on each side of that first divider, move the feeder to a side wall, and give the remaining queen all 8 combs instead of only 4. I winter them with 8. So, while I'm not actually grafting and dealing with queen cells after July 30, I can still catch queens until about August 15.

Anybody want them?


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## BeeCurious

I'd take a few if shipping wouldn't be an issue (heat).


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## Michael Palmer

No problem with the heat...especially not in New England. I sent queens to SC and VA in the 90+ degree heat this summer. All arrived ok.

Can't advertise on this forum. I'll start thread in "For Sale."


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## JensLarsen

Michael Palmer said:


> I agree that Bro Adam really doesn't go into enough detail. Heck, he only touches on wintering nucleus colonies.
> 
> I leave my cell builder queenless until the cells are sealed. I've arranged them so they have the maximum amount of nerse bees to feed the cells. If I unite them back with the queenright section, wouldn't a large number of the nurse bees go back to feeding worker larvae in the queenright section?
> 
> I used support colonies too, and harvested nurse bees by placing open brood above an excluder overnight. I find that by adding sealed brood 10 days before grafting that I'm doing the same thing...maybe with better results.


I spent some time in the hammock re-reading the classics, that includes Br Adams work (1). Yes, he is short in detail but he is summing up a lifetime and I think he always ran experiment in parallel to established methods. 

I like to point out that there is a picture of a incubator (1) on page 59. "Interior of the queen-rearing house. On the right, the heating cabinet for the queen-cups, grafting table and a hive on scales; on the left, _a electrically-heated incubator with a capacity of 1000 queen cells_".

So Br Adam used a incubator as well, at least at times.

A interesting connection to mating nuc management is the image on page 61 with the mating hives. It shows is a four way half-size dadant where the Masonite divider is visible on one side but not on the other, this indicates him running 4x4 frames summertime and 2x8 frames wintertime, or at least have the option to switch between 4x4 and 2x8 configuration easily. 

The image in the center has the text: "The mating hive first used. This also accommodate four nuclei, but on three half-sized BS (British Standard) format". This hive is seen together with the half-size dadant in several pictures, recognized by its longer shape. This hive is described in ROB Manley (1946) "Honey Faming" in detail (page 96). Manipulations such as wintering in two chambers and expanding to four during mating is described, brood removal to maintain size as well including how this affects cell acceptance. Manley used full-sized BS frames in 4x4 and 2x8 configuration (page 113).

I like to recommend "Honey By the Ton", Oliver Field (3) as well for a description on the importance of locally breed queens (quality and supply).

(1) Beek in Buckfast 4 ed, May 1987, ISBN 0-907908-37-3
(2) Honey Farming, ROB Manley 1946, ISBN 0-907908-45-4
(3) Honey by the Ton, Oliver Field, 1989, ISBN 0-907908-46-2


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## Tara

Michael,

I see how adding 7 frames of brood would eventually lead to swarm behavior once they emerged, but do the bees of the CB hive 'see' all the brood and start planning on swarming the day the brood is added?? Do they start building the queen cells at that point, or a couple weeks later once the brood emerges? 

Thanks for posting!


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## Bud Dingler

i do something similar to Mike and winter over 4 frame nucs. i can mate them into Aug though because I have access to an unheated, vented bee basement that can hold a large number of hives or nucs. we feed them heavy like Mike does and move them indoors around Thanksgiving. 

just did our last graft today from a VSH/carni and also a russian breeder.


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## Michael Palmer

JensLarsen said:


> (2) Honey Farming, ROB Manley 1946, ISBN 0-907908-45-4


I can recommend this one. I read it recently and thoroughly enjoyed it. Read it twice. I was surprised at how much Manley and I are alike in our beekeeping beliefs and practices.

Funny man him. Never liked honey.


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## Michael Palmer

Tara said:


> Michael,
> 
> I see how adding 7 frames of brood would eventually lead to swarm behavior once they emerged, but do the bees of the CB hive 'see' all the brood and start planning on swarming the day the brood is added?? Do they start building the queen cells at that point, or a couple weeks later once the brood emerges?
> 
> Thanks for posting!


Bees don't think like that Tara. They don't plan. They react to stimulae. 

The bees will start swarming preps only when conditions are right. Brood, emerging brood, or big populations don't automatically start the process. There has to be a flow. They have to run out of room to store nectar.

These CBs are huge colonies. 3 boxes in the broodnest and several supers above. Ading a box of brood increases the population, but as the brood emerges it creates instant nectar storage space. Read about the Demaree plan of swarm control.

Some CB colonies will start swarm cells below the excluder, but that's why you check the colony before you set up the unit on grafting day. If there aren't any cells in the hive on the day you graft, then yours will be the oldest and even if they start some in thier broodnest, yours will be removed from the CB before any of the colony's cells emerge.


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## Tara

Mike,

Thanks!

When I read your opening post, I was a little confused.

_"Just try adding 7 frames of brood to a strong colony. I call these boxes of brood Bee Bombs...see my article in Bee Culture.
So, you set up a colony to get to swarming strength, and take away the queen. You control when they start their cells. "_

That part about controlling when they start their cells is what prompted my question--I thought you meant adding the frames of brood made them start swarm preps that day! I didn't THINK bees thought that way!


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## Darius

Michael,

I want to make sure I understand correctly:

10 before grafting you leave the queen in the 2-3 brood boxes, then excluder on top, then box of brood from another hive, then supers.
On grafting day: do you remove queen with one box (or nuc) for 5 days or keep her at the bottom all the time?

Wouldn't it make sense to put another excluder on the entrance of CB to keep the rogue virgins out?

Thanks


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## lakebilly

your gonna love this!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7tinVIuBJ8


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nznzpiWEI8A


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## Michael Palmer

Darius said:


> Michael,
> 
> I want to make sure I understand correctly:
> 
> 10 before grafting you leave the queen in the 2-3 brood boxes, then excluder on top, then box of brood from another hive, then supers.
> On grafting day: do you remove queen with one box (or nuc) for 5 days or keep her at the bottom all the time?
> 
> Wouldn't it make sense to put another excluder on the entrance of CB to keep the rogue virgins out?
> 
> Thanks


Remove her. It would make sense to exclude the entrance, but I don't. There's a german queen rearing video out there where they do just that...to keep out rogue virgins.


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## Darius

Thanks. What is the purpose of an excluder for the first 10 days?
Do you also raise drones in secluded mating area as Kirk does? 
Or do you take virgins on the boat to an island like those Germans in the video?


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## Michael Palmer

The box above the excluder will be the cell builder. At 10 days, there will be no larvae that the bees will feed or raise queen cells from.

I don't have an isolated mating yard.


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## philip.devos

Darius said:


> Michael,
> 
> I want to make sure I understand correctly:
> 
> 10 before grafting you leave the queen in the 2-3 brood boxes, then excluder on top, then box of brood from another hive, then supers.
> On grafting day: do you remove queen with one box (or nuc) for 5 days or keep her at the bottom all the time?
> 
> Wouldn't it make sense to put another excluder on the entrance of CB to keep the rogue virgins out?
> 
> Thanks


Darius, Thanks for finding this thread (the previous reply to this thread was in 2010), and making it visible again.

Phil


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## Stephenpbird

lakebilly said:


> your gonna love this!


I did thank you lakebilly, I think others will too. How about starting a new thread, just to bring it to other peoples attention.

And of course a Big thanks to MP.


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## Darius

Michael,
how important in your opinion drone genes? Do you keep colonies that have more drones in the mating areas? If yes, do you select those with particular genes like you do when picking breeding queen? Or is it just mating nucs in the yard?
Thanks for all the information you sharing. The video of your talk in England is very informative. As well as you detailed threads out here on overwintering nucs and queens on mini frames. Those 3 would be an instant bestseller if you put it in a book!
Stephenpbird, this is an old thread but it didn't get old a bit.


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## grozzie2

I really enjoyed both of the videos, it really re-inforces the information in this thread well. But Mr Palmer, I must take exception to one comment in your presentations in England. You directly state 'this does not scale well to the back yard'. Reference our back yard, I think the concept scales quite well to the back yard setup, at least it's worked well for us.



As you can see, with 6 full size colonies, and 4 nucleus colonies, this concept scales very well. Our climate is a little warmer than yours, so, stand alone 5 frame boxes have seemed to work well so far. All of them made it thru last winter, and, everybody was doing cleansing flights when we had a sunny day last week, so far so good for this winter.

But, I do have a question now on the queen rearing concepts, and scaling that whole procedure down Our goals are not so lofty as 1500 queens in a year, but, I would like to do a dozen. If I follow all of the concepts presented here in this thread, and so well explained in the video, I am wondering about scaling it down just a bit, for doing only one bar of cells with a dozen cups.

If I use your concept of splitting the boxes with an excluder, then add in an extra box of brood, for a single bar of cells, would one expect a reasonable result using the 5 frame stack as the builder rather than a full 10 frame stack ? Your photos in the videos show 3 bars of 16, for a total of 48 cells at a time into the builder. I'd be looking at using the exact same concepts, ie take away the bottom box with queen, leaving a 2 high stack of 5 frame boxes, bursting with bees after harvesting brood from the other nucs. It wont be nearly as big as your CB hive, but they wont have nearly as many cells to tend either. Done with 5 frame gear, the process will start with a 3 high stack, and when I remove the queen box, I'll have a 2 high stack as the builder, essentially in the same conditions as you describe, just half the size, and 1/4 the number of cells to tend.

It seems to me it should work out well, but I may have missed something here.


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## Michael Palmer

Seems like it would work. Try it.


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## TalonRedding

Michael,
What is your opinion for a person who only has a handful of hives, wants to make their own queens, and build up their apiary with those queens and bees by altering what you are saying at the day 9 mark? Could one, in the right (very subjective here) circumstances let the bees at that point make the supersedure or swarm cells, and instead of tearing them down, make 3 or 4 frame splits with those cells? If done during the main flow and along with SOME supplemental feeding of syrup, they should double in size or more by the end of a lengthy flow and be ready for making nucleuses at that point for overwintering? Basically, you are making a simple split here, but it is what I would call an "induced split" if you will, by taking advantage of the bees ' natural tendencies, like you say, and expounding on that. Then again, maybe I'm just crazy.


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## Michael Palmer

Of course you could raise the queens for the initial nuclei by building a powerful colony and when they start swarm cells use the cells and split the colony up into nucs. You want to then nuc the nucs? Hmmm...

You're in TN. When do you think there would be brood ready to boost your parent colony. April? And when would they have cells ready so you can make the first round of nucs. Two or three weeks later? And when would there be a laying queen in those nucs. Middle of May? Then it's probably at least a month before those nucs are ready to split up so that's June sometime. 

When does your flow end? If you make walk away splits after the middle of June, will they have enough flow left to raise their new queens and build up for winter?

I can't tell you it would work or not. I don't know TN flows. Certainly the first round would. If my flow ended in June, I don't think I would do the second round. Rather I would make as many as I could on the first round and keep it at that.


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## KevinR

I usually put supers on around Tax day (April 15th)... My main flow is May/June with some random items bloom earlier.

I usually get a heavy dearth in Late July/Aug with some stuff starting to bloom in Aug/Sept.... But the weather's been pretty whacky the last 3-4 years...

Someone else from TN can chime in their experiences...

I'm hoping to try getting a earlier start this year with supplemental feeding/brood box management..


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## TalonRedding

Michael Palmer said:


> Of course you could raise the queens for the initial nuclei by building a powerful colony and when they start swarm cells use the cells and split the colony up into nucs. You want to then nuc the nucs? Hmmm...
> 
> You're in TN. When do you think there would be brood ready to boost your parent colony. April? And when would they have cells ready so you can make the first round of nucs. Two or three weeks later? And when would there be a laying queen in those nucs. Middle of May? Then it's probably at least a month before those nucs are ready to split up so that's June sometime.
> 
> When does your flow end? If you make walk away splits after the middle of June, will they have enough flow left to raise their new queens and build up for winter?
> 
> I can't tell you it would work or not. I don't know TN flows. Certainly the first round would. If my flow ended in June, I don't think I would do the second round. Rather I would make as many as I could on the first round and keep it at that.


According to my records, my neighbor beekeeper and I had queen cells capped as early as the first week of April this year. Queens were hatched and laying by mid-late April, and definitely by first of May. This year the flow for the most part tapered off at the end of June. I had one of my hives fill a deep completely during the last half of August. Basically, the flow peaks here around last half of May and into June, tapers off for July, picks back up mid to late August and peaks for the fall flow in the first half of September. Two of my hives, first years by the way, made above 90 lbs of honey each (one 8 frame brood chambers). I think I could pull it off, but weather is definitely the factor.


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## Michael Palmer

Well, all you can do is try and adjust your timing to fit. Give it a few years and you'll know.


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## TalonRedding

Michael Palmer said:


> Well, all you can do is try and adjust your timing to fit. Give it a few years and you'll know.


That's the nature of it isn't it? We'll see what happens with time being the judge. Thanks for the input and the thread.


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## cristianNiculae

Code:


------------------------------------------------------------
day -9  sealed brood and queen go in bottom brood box
        unsealed and extra frames of pollen and honey go above the excluder in top brood box
        there should be 5-6 frames of sealed brood below and 4-5 unsealed above
------------------------------------------------------------
day -2  checked for queen cells
        start feeding 1:1
        feed until cells are capped 5 days after graft.
------------------------------------------------------------
day 1   morning : prepare CB
                bottom box with queen is removed from stand, and turned around to face the other way

                The CB:
                upper box put in the place of the bottom box
                fresh pollen frame in the center where the graft will go later in the day
                gap for the QC frame
                the core of the queen's broodnest is shaken into the cell builder
                after shaking, close both the queen's hive and the CB

        afternoon : graft and put the graft into the CB
------------------------------------------------------------
day 5   put the bottom box with the queen back to it's former place bellow an excluder and add the CB on top
------------------------------------------------------------
day 8   feed the bees that will form the mating nucs
------------------------------------------------------------
day 9   prepare the mating nucs(feed, robber antrances)
------------------------------------------------------------
day 10  add QC to the mating nucs
------------------------------------------------------------



I've made this for myself but I thought to share it to others also. It helps more on visualising all the steps.
After reading about all kind of methods I find this one suitfull to me. It's a variation on cloacke method just that it's more straight forward.

Still have one question:



> after shaking, close both the queen's hive and the CB


I guess this means putting the lids on not closing the entrances.

Regards,
Cristian


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## Michael Palmer

cristianNiculae said:


> I guess this means putting the lids on not closing the entrances.


Yep


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## cristianNiculae

About the mating nucs:

Could anyone use standard 10 framers? Does it harm to have more space then necesary? Should I bother in making division boards to isolate the unused space or just add frames of foundation? My problem is time. I'm not a full time beekeeper.


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## SRatcliff

cristianNiculae said:


> About the mating nucs:
> 
> Could anyone use standard 10 framers? Does it harm to have more space then necesary? Should I bother in making division boards to isolate the unused space or just add frames of foundation? My problem is time. I'm not a full time beekeeper.


How much brood or bees are you going to add to the 10 framer to get it started when you put your cells in? If your just adding a couple frames of bees I would probably reduce the space somehow.


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## cristianNiculae

Actually I did some dividers yesterday... no big deal; also did some 2x2 nucs and a robber screen.

Does robber screens interfere with the virgin queen ability to find the entrance back into the hive? I see this as a problem if I install the robber screens before the mating flight.


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## Daniel Y

I have been intending to rear queens for two years. I made my first attempts mid season last year. From over 200 grafts I ended up with 10 queens to build nucs with. I will just sum up those results with this comment. I tend to have a sense of knowing when I know enough and more importantly knowing when I don't. Up to that point I simply never felt right about rearing queens. This past winter we spent a lot of time effort and money being prepared for many things I see we where not ready for last year. In that process it began to accoured to me that a side effect of this preparation also resembled what we might need to rear queens. A boat load of nucs to hedge against lost queens due to swarming. a pile of empty equipment just begging to have bees added to it. a bunch of queen castles with no queens to put in them (they where there to move swarm cells to). And an early spring with colonies building up by leaps and bounds. All I needed was queen cells. Why wait?

I Then saw Micheal's video on sustainable queen rearing. Still I did not have that feeling that all was ready. So I contacted Micheal privately and he replied with specific direction for me. Of course it was probably the same thing he has always said but it was enough to kick me out of the ditch and get me moving. He did give me his advice on what queens to rear from and in what percentages. He also shared his reservation concerning weather. Well all you ever have to do is tell me not to, to get me elbow deep into something. So of course i took my strongest hive which I think had 14 frames of brood at that time and added 10 more to it. Counted out 10 days and started adding notes to my calendar. At that moment the warm springlike weather we have had since January broke and we had 2 weeks of cold temperatures and even snow. The good news is it now has proven that Micheal's method is flexible. The bad news is it made me completely prevented me form doing the queen cells check. By the time we could open the hive and search we found 11 queen cells all destroyed or emerged and 3 dead virgin queens on the queen excluder. one still living but she has since also died. We added 3 additional fraems of capped brood and 45 grafts. Now keep in mind these grafts came from larva in colonies that had just come out of a cold snap. Not the best grafting material. In all we have 32 very nice uniform and large queen cells as of today. In addition we have 21 additional cells that where built on the brood frames we had added. this makes a total of 53 queen cells built by this cell builder over the past week. And this was just the first round of cells so the cell builder is not even up to full strength.
we will be adding another 10 frames of brood to it today and starting the process over. this time we will remove queen cells and there is no forecast of another cold snap. I am looking forward to what this cell builder will due with the grafts when they are not tending to additional cells. In all the additional cells run from fair to poor. But that is a whole lot of cells for any colony to build all at one time. If numbers are correct that I have seen it would require 21,200 nurse bees to do it properly. Overall I believe they came very close.

I have started to call these cell builders Super Colonies. I am starting to see the bearding outside the entrance as Micheal has shown they will do. I a thinking it is time to start removing some of the excess bees. That is one of the best things I like about this method. nothing is wasted. hives that donated brood will get the bees back as they complete their service to queen rearing. The impact to the donor hive is minimal. Maybe some reduced brood production for a period of time. But I cannot be certain about that since the cold snap reduced brood rearing in every colony. I see it may simply give strong colonies a couple of empty frames to keep more bees busy doing something constructive.

I am thrilled with the results and my personal thanks to Micheal. You have made a tremendous difference in more ways than I can say.


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## cristianNiculae

Stupid question:

What's the average rate of succes starting from accepted graft to the final product - the mated queen? I mean how many cells should I preapare, in order to get a given number of cells - in my case 10 for the first batch?

I'll use 2 deep frames for each nuc.


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## Specialkayme

That's a very loaded question. It varies widely based on the operation, the time of year, the operator (and his skills at grafting), the population of the builder, and the population of the mating nucs. 

Most grafters can get 95-98% take on their grafts. I'm not that good. I get 85-90% on average. But, here's what you should probably be looking at, at least in my opinion:

20% loss of grafts that don't take (insert your own percentage here based on your skills at grafting)
10% loss of capped cells not emerging (it happens significantly less than that, but it's a good buffer to add in there)
25% loss of mated queens not returning to nucs (can vary between 10% and 40%)
10% loss of mated queens failing to mate, or mating poorly

So, if you want to end with 10, graft no less than 22 (lose 3 to poor grafting, lose 2 to poor emergence, lose 5 to non-returning queens, and lose 2 to poorly mated queens, resulting in 10 left)


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## cristianNiculae

Thanks.

I should probably bank the cells in case I have a good percentage of acceptance in order to have a backup for later failure.


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## Specialkayme

Doesn't really work that way.

You can put unused cells in an incubator or in california cages if you want. That way you can see if some cells didn't emerge or hatch correctly. If that happens, you can introduce the virgins that emerged in your incubator or cali cages. But virgins need to mate within 2 weeks of hatching or they won't mate at all. So you can't bank cells and hold onto them to see if a queen doesn't mate properly. You'll just have a drone layer.


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## Michael Palmer

I usually average 46 cells from 48 grafts. The number of mated queens varies widely depending on who knows what. Last year the lowest take was 80/128, while the best was 118/128. 90 something is usual take.

I need 3 cell builders of 48 grafts to stock my 128 mating nucs, but always set up 4 in case one fails…which does happen.


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## Daniel Y

cristianNiculae said:


> Stupid question:
> 
> What's the average rate of succes starting from accepted graft to the final product - the mated queen? I mean how many cells should I preapare, in order to get a given number of cells - in my case 10 for the first batch?
> 
> I'll use 2 deep frames for each nuc.


Overall I have no idea. 71% is not meeting my goal though. I am looking for 90% at least. The good news is i still clearly see improvements that can be made. It has not gotten to the hard tiny refinements yet.


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## JSL

Daniel,

Mike gave you some really good numbers to work with. From my experience, a 75% success rate each step of the way is a reasonable working/planning percentage. 75% of your cells will be started and finished, provided you have proficient skills. 75% of your cells placed in nucs will result in viable mated queens. Keep in mind these are long term averages, some days are better, some are worse. Cells are relatively easy to produce, so always have more cells than nucs ready to go.


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## Daniel Y

JSL said:


> always have more cells than nucs ready to go.


So far no issue with that happening. Keeping up with equipment is my number one challenge. I got 93 new boxes this past winter for 23 hives. and already do not have nearly enough deeps. I may not have enough mediums at the rate they are going through them. Nucs so far I am good on but don't know how long that will last.

The cell builder was reunited and 10 more frames of brood added last Monday. Round two is under way.


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## Michael Palmer

JSL said:


> Cells are relatively easy to produce, so always have more cells than nucs ready to go.


Isn't that the truth. Every so often something really stupid happens…like a virgin from somewhere else in the apiary enters your cell builder.


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## Goran

Michael Palmer said:


> Isn't that the truth. Every so often something really stupid happens…like a virgin from somewhere else in the apiary enters your cell builder.


Last year one beek bought a queen from selection ( marked) and add to a colony. After check he finds it accepted in that colony and freely moving on the frames. Next to it was the hive with qcells above the excluder ( cloake board). When he come for check of a cells, he found them destroyed and queen from that neighbouring hive ( that bought from selection) in that upper box.. He said that he pay attention to accidentally don't transfer somehow queen.. But can't explain for sure what happened..


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## Michael Palmer

Pheromones are a powerful thing. Think of the pheromones exiting a queenless cell builder…the bees pleading for a queen. Quite an attractant.


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## Lauri

Michael Palmer said:


> Isn't that the truth. Every so often something really stupid happens…like a virgin from somewhere else in the apiary enters your cell builder.


Yeah, that's why I'm making at least six cell builders this year instead of just one or two. 
This stoped my production dead in the water twice last year. Won't be putting all my eggs in one basket again.










I use a 10 frame cell builder from start to finish though. I like a queenless builder better than queen right. No burr comb on the queen cells for one thing. Easier for me to control population, etc. I like the quality of the resulting cells.

And they are actually neat colonies. When they are through making me cells and I give them a queen to keep in late summer, they are VERY happy indeed. They build up fast and always overwinter perfectly.


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## kilocharlie

Just curious, Michael, exactly when and where you add the 7 frames of capped brood to the 5 or 6 capped already in the bottom box of the CB colony?

Also, how many days before you repeat the cycle?

I'm preparing for an Instrumentally Inseminated queen rearing operation, so my calendar involves drone rearing, drone banking, semen collection (very time consuming), queen rearing, queen banking, insemination, nucleus building, queen introduction, and brood judging . It is somewhat intense, so any suggestions you have for queen rearing calendar is appreciated. It seems that I need to leave a day for myself in there somewhere...

Very happy to see this post resurrected, and many thanks for your generous support to all of us here on beesource!

Talon - splitting twice only seems to happen with your earliest split on an incredible year with your best queen, but it does indeed happen sometimes. I have gotten 6 out of a colony that did not split the year before.
Grozzie - that is how Oldtimer does it, except with one 5-frame nuc that has ventilation screen for a cell starter.
Lauri - A sad photo of destroyed cells. I know that feeling.


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## Michael Palmer

kilocharlie said:


> Just curious, Michael, exactly when and where you add the 7 frames of capped brood to the 5 or 6 capped already in the bottom box of the CB colony?
> 
> Also, how many days before you repeat the cycle?


First, the queen-right colony has at least 8 frames of brood. The box of brood goes on top of the supers…above an excluder. 

It takes 20 days from setup to ripe cells. I pull the cells in the morning and re-charge the cell builder later in the day. So, I repeat every 20 days.


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## kilocharlie

Thank you for the response. I saw the video of you lecturing in GB to which lakebilly provided the link after I posted the question, very helpful lecture, BTW. Bravo!, and thank you lakebilly!

So, Michael, you are adding the 7 extra frames of capped brood to those original 8+? By your original post, the paragraph that begins, "So that's basically Kirk's method...I see Bro Adam did it just a bit differently", Day 1 should see the queenright colony stripped to the broodnest, ridden of queencells, an excluder added, THEN A DEEP WITH 7 CAPPED BROOD FROM O.W.N.'S plus 2 honey?

One other question: Using your modification of Brother Adam's method, if I am isolating a queen in and excluder partition, that would be Day 8, for switching to queenless & grafting on Day 11?


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## cristianNiculae

I have a finishing colony that's overflowing with bees in 2 boxes. I gave them 16 accepted cells from the starter colony together with the bees from the starter. On Saturday(tomorow) the cells will be capped. The colony is and will remain queenless until I will give them one of the cells bellow the excluder in box one.

The flow is intense right now on black locust.

Can I give them another bar of 20 cups at the moment the cells are capped? ...and without making another starter... just using this hive as it is.

If not what would be an acceptable number?

I guess I already found the answer:

www.dave-cushman.net/bee/queenlesscellbuilder.html


> In my experience a queenless colony won't raise many Q/Cs if given a second batch, so when the first is finished, leave one Q/C and leave the colony alone until you expect the new queen to be laying.


I might as well delete the whole post.


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## kilocharlie

Cristian - here's a neat trick...use 2 Cloake boards in a 3 box tall colony and you can raise 2 phases of queen cells on the same colony. 

Bottom box - queen and open brood.
Cloake board
middle box - 2nd set of queen cell grafts
Cloake board
top box - first set of queen cells (capped).

A 4th box placed in between the middle box and the top box could have 7 extra imported capped brood and a 2-gallon feeder frame 10 days before the second graft. This won't hurt anything, but as always, make ****ed certain that there are no other queen cells already in there.


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## aley1511

Michael Palmer said:


> Bro Adam did it just a bit differently. I've switched to his setup. On day 1, instead of separating the brood above and below an excluder, he brings in brood from other colonies. So, place an excluder on top of the broodnest of your strong colony and the box of brood (7 frames of brood and 2 feed frames on the outsides). Supers back on top...no queens!


Could anybody please clarify Brother Adams method? I'm having a hard time visualizing the order. So you have your 2 deep colony with excluder on top then supers and then a box of brood from another colony at very top? 

Would you then proceed to follow all the remaining steps as described by Michael?

How would this be modified for a 3 deep colony. All my hives are 3 deeps. Would it be wise to split it up to use the resources more efficiently or just use 3 deeps?

Thank You


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## kilocharlie

aley1511 - 
Brother Adam's books include Beekeeping at Buckfast Abbey, In Search of the Best Strains of Bees, both available through Wicwas Press, LLC www.wicwas.com 1620 Miller Road, Kalamazoo, MI 49001, USA. His one other title, Breeding the Honeybee (all of his titles, actually) are also available through Buckfast Abbey's Bookshop, www.buckfast.org.uk

As they mention, he fails to go into lots of detail about his some of his methods. He lived to a ripe old age, and tried a lot of variations in methods over the years, including incubators and instrumental insemination, all in an environment that demanded the best of practices. His great advantage was that his mating yard was completely isolated from other bees, giving a good degree of control over open-mating. However, it is best to read from the source itself. Get the books and read them, and try to get into his head. His method involved a 3-year cycle to make those Buckfast Bees, not easily accomplished.

Michael Palmer's variation on Brother Adam's method involves a step toward sustainability - importing frames of brood from over-wintered nucleus colonies instead of honey production colonies. His queen yard made something like 4400 lbs. of honey (correct me, Michael!). Quite impressive, even if I'm off a lot!


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## Michael Palmer

kilocharlie said:


> Michael Palmer's variation on Brother Adam's method involves a step toward sustainability - importing frames of brood from over-wintered nucleus colonies instead of honey production colonies. His queen yard made something like 4400 lbs. of honey (correct me, Michael!). Quite impressive, even if I'm off a lot!


2012 was a good honey year and the cell building yard did make that much honey……

A photo taken by Michael Young of Northern Ireland. No, I don't live in Maine.


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## Michael Palmer

kilocharlie said:


> His great advantage was that his mating yard was completely isolated from other bees, giving a good degree of control over open-mating.


The mating station is still there, and is still used for for that purpose.


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## kilocharlie

We are so humbled and blessed to have you teaching us, Michael. 4,400 THANK YOU's!!!

That first pic is a sight to behold! The second one, of Brother Adam's mating yard, makes me feel like removing my shoes for I am standing upon grounds that are Holy...


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## Daznz

What a ripper of a thread ya gota love Mike Palmer :thumbsup:


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## Cristian

Some questions about the brood that is taked from the nucs . The frames that are taked have just the brood or they have brood and the bees from that frame ? . The second one : when reuniting the queenright hive and cellbuilder is putted a paper between the hives ar just simpli one on top other ? and the last one : the cell frame is introduced in morning when preparing the CB so they could familiarize with the cell and laterin afternoon graft in those cells and then putt it back in the CB ? .


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## Margot1d

Forgive me if this was asked.
What modifications, if any, would you make for an all medium set-up? Would a set-up with a three medium brood nest below an excluder, two honey supers and a brood box for the graft still work? Also just curious why do you turn the brood box 180 when you put it above the supers/graft/excluder cell builder? Many hours between setting up the cell builder and placing in the graft?


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## Michael Palmer

Cristian said:


> Some questions about the brood that is taked from the nucs . The frames that are taked have just the brood or they have brood and the bees from that frame ? .


Just emerging brood if the nucs are in the cell building yard. With bees if you have to transport the brood from another yard.




Cristian said:


> The second one : when reuniting the queenright hive and cellbuilder is putted a paper between the hives ar just simpli one on top other ?


No paper, just on top of a queen excluder.




Cristian said:


> the last one : the cell frame is introduced in morning when preparing the CB so they could familiarize with the cell and laterin afternoon graft in those cells and then putt it back in the CB ? .



No, I don't bother. Just graft into the cups and give to the bees.


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## Michael Palmer

Margot1d said:


> Forgive me if this was asked.
> What modifications, if any, would you make for an all medium set-up? Would a set-up with a three medium brood nest below an excluder, two honey supers and a brood box for the graft still work?



I guess you could make it work if the queen-right part was strong enough.




Margot1d said:


> just curious why do you turn the brood box 180 when you put it above the supers/graft/excluder cell builder?


I don't understand your question. 



Margot1d said:


> hours between setting up the cell builder and placing in the graft?


3 or 4


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## BWrangler

Hi Guys

Michael's methodology is a great way to setup a free flying starter finisher. It's my favorite and most consistently successful way to raise queens. Many others, Laidlaw, Taber, etc use the basic principles as well.

Also, using free flying starter finishers is a very flexible and scalable way to produce queens.


extended use can be maintained by sorting brood and rotating the queenright and queenless hives. 
for limited production through a extended timeframe, a single deep can be divided and run the same way by rotating brood and moving the queen each cycle. 
several breeder queen can be incorporated into the process providing redundancy.
trash the incubator and use a queenright hive instead. 

The rest is up to your needs, equipment, schedule and imagination.

-dm


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## Brad Bee

Michael, you said not to raise queens under dearth conditions. For me, that will mean no queen rearing after Mid to late May each year. Is it possible to raise quality queens during a dearth period if the colony is fed syrup for long enough?


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## Michael Palmer

Probably, but only if the dearth doesn't eliminate the drones.


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## Brad Bee

Okay, thanks. I still have capped drone brood hatching nearly every day. I know the colonies could start kicking them out at any time, but I can at least give it a whirl. I used swarm cells to make most of my increases last year, but I did raise a few queens last year up until the end of June, but I was only concerned about numbers, not quality. After seeing how poorly my "so-so" queens wintered, (every hive died that had them) I won't go through that again. It was cut and dried, not question about it. I wrote notes on top of every nuc when the queen started laying, including what the queen looked like. The ones that said, "small queen" all died out this winter. 

Maybe it was coincidence, but I'm not wasting my time or my resources making dinky queens.


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## Faith Apiaries

Mr. Palmer, you have inspired me to raise queens. I am new to beekeeping and I want to grow my colonies fast. After listening to your presentation on Youtube, it's clear to me that queen rearing is the key to success in what I want to do. I probably won't be raising any queens this season but I will start next season. For now, I will be building some equipment to get ready for the process. I just started today and this is what I came up with.

Shown with my custom designed insulated outer cover









I'm not yet certain what to do with the small inner covers...I assume I'll need feeding holes in them, would that be correct?

























NUC entrance on each side of the bottom board


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## Michael Palmer

Faith Apiaries said:


> I'm not yet certain what to do with the small inner covers...I assume I'll need feeding holes in them, would that be correct


Yes


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## Lauri

Nice wood working job Brad!

Those feeding holes are handy, but even better is to screen them with # 8 hardware cloth. You can use them for light ventilation if needed without the threat of robbing issues and changing the inverted mason jar is quick and easy with no cling on's or veil needed. They'll propolize it a bit at times, but it's easy to scrape off.

Also, with your thin divider you have a little too much room for 4 frames, too tight for 5. You can ether trim off the side bars slightly or use an additional follower board until your frames are drawn, filled and the main flow/supplimental feeding is over.

Here you can see one of those screened feeding holes in a divided mini nuc. ALso makes for excellent ventilation when they are first assembled and confininment may be necessary.










Here's the burr comb you'll get on that center divider with four frames.










Be sure to poke your holes in your mason jar lid, then flip it so they can reach the holes through the screen. 










Fully screened inner covers work great for a quick non invasive view ( in almost any temps or weather) and for inverted mason jar feeding, but you have to be aware of the heat loss with a very small colony in cool weather if you have a big empty void over the screen to accomodate the jar. Just cover the screen and jar with a burlap sack to keep the bees from chilling on cool nights. It's an extra step that can be a pain of you have a lot of them, but I like the fully screened inner covers enough to put up with it.
I use a full 3/4" shim around the rim partly because I get that wood free and partly because it gives me plenty of room for protein patties and to let the bees congregate in winter on top the bars if I over winter them in singles. Usually around a sugar block.
I get some comb built on top during flow periods, but unless I am very neglectful, it isn't an issue.


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## Faith Apiaries

Lauri said:


> Nice wood working job Brad!


Thanks Lauri! Those are some great ideas. I'm going to implement those and I'll rework that divider board to either close up the space for four or allow for five frames...I was thinking that didn't look quite right...thanks for all the tips!


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## Lauri

A divider that was offset to allow 5 frames on one side and four on the other would be a better fit, but that would create a can of worms with anything you try to match to it, such as supers. Better to stay centered unless you are disciplined enough to only use them as mating nucs and never allow them to grow into something larger. That's great in theory, until life throws a monkey wrench into your schedule. Then, as I was this year, pretty much dealing with some drippy messes.


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## Faith Apiaries

Lauri said:


> A divider that was offset to allow 5 frames on one side and four on the other would be a better fit, but that would create a can of worms with anything you try to match to it, such as supers.


Agreed. That might have sounded like what I meant but it wasn't. The divider has to be centered for oh so many reasons.


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## Faith Apiaries

Lauri said:


> Also, with your thin divider you have a little too much room for 4 frames, too tight for 5. You can ether trim off the side bars slightly or use an additional follower board until your frames are drawn, filled and the main flow/supplimental feeding is over.


I trimmed down the divider board cleat to 1/2". Five frames now fit each side with a very small amount of room to spare.


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## Lauri

5 frames is fine when they are new and just getting drawn, but they will be too tight once they start getting filled. You'll want them to store a decent band of honey on the top and sides for your dearth periods. They need a bit of room for that and you need a bit of maneuvering room for frame removal and inspection. Don't want to roll that new queen ya know. 5 Tight fat frames are a bummer to get out down the road


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## Faith Apiaries

Lauri said:


> 5 frames is fine when they are new and just getting drawn, but they will be too tight once they start getting filled.


Of course, you're right, it seemed pretty tight to me. I can go with four and add a follower if there's too much space.

I just made three more sets so I now have a total of eight 4 over 4 nuc boxes. I still have to build three dividers and bottom boards...I ran out of plywood.









I truly appreciate the help everyone has offered on this forum...in particular a special thanks to Michael Palmer for sharing his years of beekeeping experience. Armed with this information, I feel well poised to begin building my colonies in earnest as soon as I have some practical experience with queen rearing.


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## Eduardo Gomes

Michael Palmer said:


> That's basically Kirk's method. But in reading Beekeeping at Buckfast Abbey, I see Bro Adam did it just a bit differently. I've switched to his setup. On day 1, instead of separating the brood above and below an excluder, he brings in brood from other colonies. So, place an excluder on top of the broodnest of your strong colony and the box of brood (7 frames of brood and 2 feed frames on the outsides). Supers back on top...no queens!
> 
> See, Bro Adam believed that the best cells were raised under either swarming or supercedure. Supercedure is difficult to control and usually not many cells result. Swarming on the other hand is easy to set up. Just try adding 7 frames of brood to a strong colony. I call these boxes of brood Bee Bombs...see my article in Bee Culture.
> 
> So, you set up a colony to get to swarming strength, and take away the queen. You control when they start their cells. They have all the resources and more...exactly what is needed to create quality queen cells.
> 
> One plus with Bro Adams approach...you can re-use the cell builder in a couple weeks after taking the cells. You never separated the queen's broodnest or restricted her from laying. Rather that using up the young nurse bee resource inthe CB, you are adding to it.
> 
> This is the best cell building method I have come across.


Tank you Michael. A great help sharing with us your knowledge .

Michael if understood well the CB is queenless while creating the queen cells. The queen is put it in a nuc. Am I correct? Then back to join the queen to its original family, under a excluder, after the queen cells are capped? Any special care for the acceptance of their mother which was absent about 5 to 6 days?


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## Darius

How long can one spend grafting one frame? I saw videos of you with 30 cups on one frame. I limited to 15 cups per frame when I grafted last year because worried it would take me too long.


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## Mosherd1

I would just like to say that about 3 weeks ago I grafted some queens using the methods described by Larry Connor and only had 4 cells get drawn out. Granted I may not be the best grafter but I checked yesterday after using Mike's method and had 14 cells drawn out. I doubt that I got 4 times better at grafting over a 3 week period with no other practice. I am using this method from now on and am never looking back. Thank you Mike for your videos, posts, speeches and in person conversations. 
-Dave


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## Peter Montague

Eduardo Gomes said:


> Tank you Michael. A great help sharing with us your knowledge .
> 
> Michael if understood well the CB is queenless while creating the queen cells. The queen is put it in a nuc. Am I correct? Then back to join the queen to its original family, under a excluder, after the queen cells are capped? Any special care for the acceptance of their mother which was absent about 5 to 6 days?


Skipping the beginning and jumping into where the queen goes and why, remove the bottom brood nest dropping the upper boxes down onto the bottom board, this is now the cell builder. The brood nest with the queen is put on a seperate bottom board facing the oposite direction next to its origonal location. After preparing the space for the grafts in the CB the brood nest is shaken through an excluder into the CB creating a overflowing queenless CB.

The bottom board on the brood nest is facing the opposite direction to keep the two colonies separate and prevent the foraging bees from returning to the brood nest keeping the CB overflowing with as many bees as possible. This leaves the queen still in her origonal hive with some nurse bees and plenty of room to lay, mostly undisturbed. 

After, the broodnest with the queen is inserted between what was the CB and its bottom board reuniting everything back into its origonal configuration. 

If I got any of this wrong mike please let me know and thanks for taking the time to share what you have spent so much time learning.


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## rookie2531

Darius said:


> How long can one spend grafting one frame? I saw videos of you with 30 cups on one frame. I limited to 15 cups per frame when I grafted last year because worried it would take me too long.


I have used hot wet towels. Cover the grafted cells and the brood frame when they need not be exposed. But that's if I plan on doing alot, in my kitchen. When doing a few, I do it in a vehicle pass seat. My hives are on a steep hillside, so I place brood frame in cardboard box with hot towel to transport wherever I decide to graft.


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## Richard Cryberg

Darius said:


> How long can one spend grafting one frame? I saw videos of you with 30 cups on one frame. I limited to 15 cups per frame when I grafted last year because worried it would take me too long.


Larva will live and be viable for at least 24 hours at 70 deg F more or less as long as they are not allowed to dry out. I even know of a case where freshly grafted cells were shipped by UPS overnite wrapped in a wet towel and some made it just fine.


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## beenerds

Mike saw you in Kamloops this past March really enjoyed you talks and plan to implement some of your methods into my operation. I bought 8 kona queens this spring and had 2 failures...... I'm even more sold on the wintering nucs now with my own locally raised queens. 

1 questions when reversing the queen right hive is there any worry that the brood in this hive will be compromised once we shake nurse bees into the CB?


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## Michael Palmer

beenerds said:


> Mike saw you in Kamloops this past March really enjoyed you talks and plan to implement some of your methods into my operation. I bought 8 kona queens this spring and had 2 failures...... I'm even more sold on the wintering nucs now with my own locally raised queens.
> 
> 1 questions when reversing the queen right hive is there any worry that the brood in this hive will be compromised once we shake nurse bees into the CB?


Reversing the queen right hive? It's not. The original colony is reversed early in the season, and supered. When the colony is setup for cell building, step one is adding a box of emerging brood above an excluder. 10 days later is grafting day. At that point, the box with added brood is removed and the queen right hive is placed on the ground behind original location and CB goes on original stand. The queen right hive is taken apart and the core of its broodnest is shaken through an excluder, and into the CB. The queen right hive is put back together, but not reversed. Enough bees remain in queen right hive to care for the brood.


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## kilocharlie

Darius said:


> How long can one spend grafting one frame? I saw videos of you with 30 cups on one frame. I limited to 15 cups per frame when I grafted last year because worried it would take me too long.


In dry climate, try to get one bar done in less than 5 minutes, then go put them in the CB. Of course, you have a spray bottle with warm water and a warm, damp towel to cover them as you go, and you will probably have to adjust the number of cell cups per bar until you get quick at grafting.

My success came up when I got below 5 minutes per bar and immediately reached out the tent and inserted them into the cell frame and carefully placed them in the CB.

I have the feeling that priming the cell cups helps in dry weather, and it probably hurts in damp weather, so if you do it, keep it minimal.


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## Grounded

Michael Palmer said:


> A space is made inthe middle and a good fresh pollen frame is placed in the space....


Michael:
If I don't have available pollen for the frame of pollen to place next to the grafted frame, where can I get a good quality supply of pollen?


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## Michael Palmer

I trap pollen, and freeze it. Then fill a comb with thawed pollen...working it into the cells with my fingers.


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## Grounded

Michael;
What are you using for a pollen trap?


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## Michael Palmer

Sundance bottom trap


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## Grounded

Michael:

When building queens and gathering 12 hour old larvae, help me better understand the timeline.

I start at day one preparing the cell builder then on day 10 grafting.

Ok, my question. 

Would I place the empty comb in the breeder box the morning of day 6 or day 7 to have the 12 hour old larvae for grafting the afternoon of day 10?

Thanks,
Grounded


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## Arbol

Michael Palmer said:


> Sundance bottom trap


side or back style?


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## Michael Palmer

Grounded said:


> Would I place the empty comb in the breeder box the morning of day 6 or day 7 to have the 12 hour old larvae for grafting the afternoon of day 10?


Just saw this. I add comb to breeder on day 6. Used to do day 7, but too often only eggs on grafting day.


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## Michael Palmer

Arbol said:


> side or back style?



Back


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## dudelt

Michael, I was just watching your queen rearing video again and had one question. About 39 minutes in you are smearing pollen all over an empty comb. But what if you don't have any pollen to use? Would you recommend using a high quality pollen sub powder, or a sub patty on top?


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## Michael Palmer

If I had no pollen, or if I couldn't find a suitable pollen comb in a colony, I would use sub. This summer, I tried a comb of pollen on one side of the graft, and a comb of pollen/Ultrabee mix on the other. The pollen was half gone as is usual. The mix was gone. Not sure if they used the mix or threw it out the door.


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## dudelt

Thank you so much for all the great advice you have give to all of us. If there is one thing my bees have taught me about pollen sub it is that they will only eat it if there is none of the real thing available. My bet is that they threw it away!


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## fbeefarm

Ha Ha! I didn't look at who posted this before I started reading. As I read it I was saying to myself that this guy does it the same way Micheal Palmer does it. Mike I follow you as much as I can because I find you to be a very good teacher. We also Live in the same type of climate which is not the easiest to keep bees in. Not bad this time of year but when it hits -40 on both sides of the boarder it makes you worry a little more.


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