# Introducing cells or virgins



## ShrekVa (Jan 13, 2011)

Good info Ray, I look forward to hearing about how it works out.


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## Nordak (Jun 17, 2016)

Thanks Ray. Sounds very promising.


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## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

Ray
Are you doing all this by big hives or in a seperate place. I had thought once you said you were happy with about eight hives (or did I dream this?). You are going to town.
Cheers
gww


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## Bob Anderson (Jun 13, 2014)

How are you putting the attendants into the roller cages? It would seem to me that due to the size of the opening in the roller cages that the attendants would be inclined to nail your thumb that's covering the hole...

I have been running virgins that are less than 24 hr old directly into Mann Lake mini-mating nucs or into standard size 2 frame mating nucs with good success. I also did the sugar spray, mostly to stop the virgin from flying, but no attendants or anything, just direct release them. Probably I'm 5 for 6 over the last month or so with the lost one possibly failure from mating and not necessarily due to non-acceptance.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

Interesting, with all the talk of how carefully you have to handle cells It never occurred to me you could ship them.


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

RayMarler said:


> OH, I almost forgot to say, I received 10 cells and 5 emerged successfully and were introduced into the nucs as stated above.


Interesting.
What happend to the rest?

When me and my partener once tried mailing cells we found that the timing is a bit tricky, the cells should not be that long out of hive (quite cool summers sometimes here), and when a post letter is on its way 2 days or more, there can be problems. How long took the delivery? What are the temps there?


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

gww said:


> Ray
> Are you doing all this by big hives or in a seperate place. I had thought once you said you were happy with about eight hives (or did I dream this?). You are going to town.
> Cheers
> gww


Yea, 8 hives were much easier than 14 are going to be, but hey, can't pass up an opportunity when it arises eh? Besides, some of these may fail to get good mated queens, then I can combine and condense some.

OH, yes, this was all done within just my one bee yard, as I do not have any remote yards. I Only used 6 hives to pull 40 frames from, and only two of those were strong two box hives, so the six were all pretty much reduce to single box with only four or five drawn actively used frames when I set up the two virgin queen banks. I then used the resources from those two banks to make up nucs as the virgins emerged. Since I only ended up needing 5 nucs, I then moved good frames back into the hives I had originally pulled them from, so to help them build back up easier. That was another reason for not making up all the nucs at first, using banks instead, was because I did not expect all of the cells to emerge from the git-go.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Bob Anderson said:


> How are you putting the attendants into the roller cages? It would seem to me that due to the size of the opening in the roller cages that the attendants would be inclined to nail your thumb that's covering the hole...
> 
> I have been running virgins that are less than 24 hr old directly into Mann Lake mini-mating nucs or into standard size 2 frame mating nucs with good success. I also did the sugar spray, mostly to stop the virgin from flying, but no attendants or anything, just direct release them. Probably I'm 5 for 6 over the last month or so with the lost one possibly failure from mating and not necessarily due to non-acceptance.


The candy went into the large capped end of the roller cage. the queen cell cups were the ZBZ cups that have a wide flat base, that base I had glued into the small opening end of the roller cages with some bits of wax. When queens emerged, I removed the cell cup and tore off the cell shell, and put in workers. Then I put the cup back in place to seal the cage. No stings for me, maybe I've got calmer bees.

I've not had good success in the past introducing virgins like that so I did it this way this time to see if it would work out any better. Especially since making up the nucs as needed on the fly so to speak. If I'd have a weeks notice I would have had known desperately queenless nucs made up for the cells and would have just intro'd them. But with the lack of advanced notice on the cell arrivals, I figured this way I did it might be best. Something new for me to try at any rate.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

msl said:


> Interesting, with all the talk of how carefully you have to handle cells It never occurred to me you could ship them.


Yes, but Miksa ships them out of Florida with a fairly good success rate I've heard. These cells were given to me by someone else who'd made the order.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Juhani Lunden said:


> Interesting.
> What happend to the rest?
> 
> When me and my partener once tried mailing cells we found that the timing is a bit tricky, the cells should not be that long out of hive (quite cool summers sometimes here), and when a post letter is on its way 2 days or more, there can be problems. How long took the delivery? What are the temps there?


Yes on the timing. I did not make the order so don't know if it was one or two days in shipping. These came from Florida and I'm in California, quite a distance to ship, and the weather on my end was hot and dry, starting a string of 100F+ days.

Four failed cells had buffed tips and the queens inside were fully developed but dead. I suspect too much shaking and bumping around when they packaged to ship or during shipping. One of the failures was not developed at all, an obvious failure soon after being capped. The other cells were emerging the day of arrival here.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

This was a new way to try to introduce virgins since I've not done many virgins in the past and even those I tried didn't usually turn out. 

One thing I wish I'd have done differently is to mix in some pollen substitute powder in the candy mix. I worry that the queens didn't get adequate protein nourishment upon emerging for two days. 

The other thing I wish is that I had released the queens after just one day instead of waiting for two, so that she could get to better food and activity sooner on. I waited the two days to help insure the nucs were stable and happy in their new housing arrangements, and to help insure the acceptance of the virgin queens. 

They may all work out great, they may all fail to mate well, they may have under developed ovary numbers... who knows. Time will tell how they turn out, it was an experimental way of doing things by the seat of my pants so to speak, and maybe a little bit of change in the way I did it would have been better.

Thanks everyone so far for your comments, it's a learning experience for me and hopefully for some of you also. Please continue to comment what you might think or wonder about for what I'm doing here.


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## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

Ray
Thanks for all the extra explinations.
Cheers
gww


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

been diging on the subject with an eye for an easy way for small scale TF keepers to share/import genetics beyond there local area...
Gleanings in Bee Culture, Volume 37 Jan 1 1909 


> SENDING VIRGIN QUEENS BY MAIL HOW TO INTRODUCE THEM SUCCESSFULLY
> Some years ago virgin queens were sent through the mails but owing to the difficulty of introducing them to strong colonies the practice to have been all but given up but in these years we have learned that a virgin queen than two days old should be introduced not to strong colony or one of medium strength but a very weak nucleus of not more than two three hundred bees She will usually be accepted by such aggregations and when once she may thereafter be introduced to any colony To make up these little two or three hundred bee nuclei take a couple of unfinished containing honey make or produce a small box just large enough to receive them This should have a cover and an entrance not than a quarter inch hole Go to any hive when the bees are flying the heaviest and dump in about a cupful of bees In about 12 hours one may introduce a virgin with perfect safety because the old flying bees will have gone back to the parent colony from which they were taken The young bees will of course accept any thing They will afford their young princess a safe home until she is mated after which she may be readily introduced anywhere
> Another way to introduce virgins is to put them on hatching brood The young bees will of couise receive them kindly
> It is true that five and six day old virgin queens may be introduced at times to strong colonies but three times out of five they will receive either rough treatment or be killed outright Very often these old virgins if they escape being killed will have torn wings or missing legs Such treatment incapacitates them from doing full duty afterward


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## billabell (Apr 19, 2010)

Ray, 
This is very interesting. I hope it works out for you and we can all learn from your experience. Thanks for sharing. Could you not put attendents into the cage/ It seems like you put the cage right into the brood nest wouldn't the other bees in the brood area have fed the virgins. I understand the necessity of attendents when shipping mated queens although I prefer not to have attendents in the cage, is there something about virgins that makes attendents necessary? Lack of queen pheremones perhaps? Thanks.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Virgins don't get fed and taken care of so much, only after they get mated and laying to bees care for them. I was undecided about putting in attendants, but it seemed to work out OK this time.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Yes MSL, I"m thinking mine will do OK, they are 2days or less old when I released them, the nucs had been in place to lose foragers, it's all looking good so far. Thanks for that post, good reading.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

on the attendant subject 







_Comparing Alternative Methods for Holding Virgin Honey Bee Queens for One Week in Mailing Cages before Mating_
Gianluigi Bigio , Christoph Grüter, Francis L. W. Ratnieks
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0050150


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Thanks msl, this gives me more hope that I did OK in this process. 
Queens held 2 days or less in plastic roller cages with sweet candy and 3-5 attendants, in the nucs that were made up to hold them and then released into. I'll be checking in on them in a couple weeks or a little less.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

"Another way to introduce virgins is to put them on hatching brood The young bees will of couise receive them kindly"

I have success on introducing newly emerged virgin into a nuc hive without the many older bees. Newly emerged virgin
up to 3 day will smell like a newly emerged bee easily accepted by a fairly strong nuc hive.


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## FlowerPlanter (Aug 3, 2011)

Interesting, thanks for posting.

Had some similar results a few weeks ago;

Found a bunch of virgins that had just emerged from a nuc I made with cells, two virgins were chasing each other. Two were being balled by workers inside and outside the nuc. A few others had not emerged yet still chewing their way out. One virgins seemed like the bees had accepted her, so I left that one in the hive. 

I put the others all in cages, used them on hives/nucs that had not made a queen after 30+ days. That day and the next day, I set the cage on the top bar to see how they reacted before introducing them. One hive wanted to kill any virgins I tried so I just left the cage in over night and released her the next day, they seemed to be fine with her then. 

Could not have come at a better time, having several hives and nucs that needed queens. Had just enough virgins to take care of them. 

One nuc was very small I would have shut it down except I had an extra virgin with no place to put her. A week later after seeing less traffic I went into that hive to dismantle it before it got beetled, surprised to find the new queen over a small patch of brood. There was less than a frame of bees in this hive. But it now has a mated queen. Will screen combine them with the next queenless hive I find.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

OK, minor update here.
Minor because I've not looked inside any of them yet...

This process started 2 weeks ago today and tomorrow, the virgins had emerged.
And a couple days later I had released all virgins into the nucs.
For a week, bees just hanging around not doing much.
The last couple days there's been foraging activity.
I just was watching today, and pollen is coming in on all 5 nucs.
That's a good sign, but I won't be checking inside for visual confirmation until later this weekend, but I'm betting all 5 got mated and are now laying... fingers crossed. 

It took over twenty years for me to learn patience and not disturb them once I have a situation set up. I know the timing, and figured they might be mated and laying by Friday or this weekend, and today saw good news that they are probably mated now. If so, then I think I've found me a good system for introducing virgins.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

The hopes and fears of any investment...
It looks like my fears have been realized...
Today I checked visually, and only 1 of the introduced virgins were accepted and is laying. She is a Cordovan Italian queen and has a good pattern of open larva. Of the other four, 1 has a small black and orange striped virgin, and the other 3 have small black virgins. At least they had resources to make virgins of their own, but that's probably why the introduced virgins were not accepted.

I'm thinking the one that was accepted was because it was hopelessly queenless. The other 4 had resources to make queens of their own, so that's what they did. I did not have advanced notice of the cells arriving to make up hopelessly queenless nucs to introduce them into, and the cells received were emerging as they got here, so that is why I did it this way. No matter, I have a total of 6 hives/nucs with virgins to be mated now, they should be good by the end of this month. Then begins treating and feeding to get everyone in shape for winter.


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## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

I've been adding the cell cup from the virgins I let emerge in the incubator and have had good success in situations where the direct released virgin normally would have been balled. I think it's the missing link for acceptance. The only time this failed for me was when the colony had a virgin residing already that I missed or she was out of the hive.
I set cells most of the time, but when I have a few cells I can't place I keep the virgins tn case I need to fill in before the next batch of cells are ready.
I direct release about 50 virgins a season.

I can explain in more detail if you are interested.
Here are some photos and videos:

Cell cup in under the bees and queen
















Here is a short video of a DR virgin immediately getting balled upon release for those that have never done this before. This was with NO cell cup. I removed her and added the cell cup on a different part of the same frame, placed the virgin directly on the cup and the difference in behavior of the bees was shocking:

https://youtu.be/zsiXqo97kF8

Now a virgin Direct released on top or with her cell cup with residual royal jelly:

https://youtu.be/aJkKdrt0K-U

Another one:

https://youtu.be/xWPBsoFLDLY

These intros were with no queenless period. I removed the established overwintered queen, broke up the colony into nucs or splits and immediately introduced the virgins.
Of course anything you can do to make introduction seamless is best. If you can have a queenless period it helps, hopelessly queenless is good but as these videos show, perhaps not necessary and a time saver if you can release at the same time you split or remove old queen.

One more-Direct released virgin queen piping to gain acceptance. Notice how the other bees freeze in place when the virgin pipes, then go back to their busy activity when she stops. :

https://youtu.be/j6YBs5Oe_Uo

I took several of these video this season, but they were basally all identical in behavior. Newly emerged virgins or banked for up to 6 days, no difference except the older virgins are much more confident and not so submissive.

Hope this helps


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Thanks Lauri,

That's an interesting idea, glad you thought of it and documented the differences in introductions. 

I don't usually have to fool with introducing virgins, but this I will try the next time I need to do so. I could very easily have given the cell cups with the virgins, but did not. I never thought of doing that. Thanks very much!


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## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

What puzzled me was I can place an emerging cell in a hive and the bees full accept the virgin about 15 seconds later as she come out, but if I places a newly emerged virgin in a hive they would ball her unless the receiving hive was prepared just right. 

What was the missing piece of the puzzle? The cell cup and residual jelly.
She doesn't need to emerge _out_ of the cell in the hive, the presence and scent of the cell itself is what's needed.


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## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

Ray
bummer.
gww


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## Bob Anderson (Jun 13, 2014)

Lauri said:


> What was the missing piece of the puzzle? The cell cup and residual jelly. She doesn't need to emerge _out_ of the cell in the hive, the presence and scent of the cell itself is what's needed.


Interesting! When I let virgins emerge in cages in the incubator I usually remove and toss the cell so the queens don't get trapped back in the cell and die. I wonder if it matters which cell goes with which virgin when you put the cell and virgin in the nuc? Just make a collection of cells and use one of them?


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## yotebuster1200 (Jul 28, 2013)

Lauri said:


> What puzzled me was I can place an emerging cell in a hive and the bees full accept the virgin about 15 seconds later as she come out, but if I places a newly emerged virgin in a hive they would ball her unless the receiving hive was prepared just right.
> 
> What was the missing piece of the puzzle? The cell cup and residual jelly.
> She doesn't need to emerge _out_ of the cell in the hive, the presence and scent of the cell itself is what's needed.
> ...


Lauri, 

I have been following your method of direct releasing virgin queens and decided to try it out. I placed 11 virgins by introducing the queen cell about 30 seconds before placing the virgin next to it. 16 day later I checked and I had 11 mated Queens running around. All of these were introduced into mini mating nucs (about 1/4th the size of a medium) except for one virgin which was introduced into a double nuc. 

I just thought I would let you know... And say thanks for all the info you share.


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## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

yotebuster1200 said:


> Lauri,
> 
> I have been following your method of direct releasing virgin queens and decided to try it out. I placed 11 virgins by introducing the queen cell about 30 seconds before placing the virgin next to it. 16 day later I checked and I had 11 mated Queens running around. All of these were introduced into mini mating nucs (about 1/4th the size of a medium) except for one virgin which was introduced into a double nuc.
> 
> I just thought I would let you know... And say thanks for all the info you share.


Awesome!


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

Lauri said:


> I took several of these video this season, but they were basally all identical in behavior. Newly emerged virgins or banked for up to 6 days, no difference except the older virgins are much more confident and not so submissive.


Have I understood correctly what you are saying:
virgins can be banked up to 6 days and after that released to a hive with good results (near 100%) if the queen cell with royal jelly is given simultaneously into the hive. Is that correct?


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## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

Juhani Lunden said:


> Have I understood correctly what you are saying:
> virgins can be banked up to 6 days and after that released to a hive with good results (near 100%) if the queen cell with royal jelly is given simultaneously into the hive. Is that correct?


That is what I've been doing this year. I have been direct releasing virgins for a few years now in colonies of various sizes with good results, but this addition of the cell cup and residual royal jelly is something I have added to my method in order to try to increase acceptance & cut the receiving colonies prep. so I make less trips, handle them less, etc. 

I have my usual mated return rate which very good, but isn't perfect with cells and virgins, but _acceptance _of the virgin is much higher and more calm when cell cup is used along with intro. In addition I have been able to bypass much of the queenless period usually needed for DR acceptance.

Here is a video of an intro where after a minute you see a bee suddenly pulling on her legs, buzzing and getting aggressive. Pretty classic of one trouble maker that gets the others going against the virgin. I pick up the virgin and place her back on the cell cup and everything stays calm. You can see her wanting to be fed by the other bees and being largely ignored. If the colony had been prepared by a queenless period, they would have been more nurturing, but acceptance was successful just the same.

In the previous videos of this cell cup method, while the bees are not aggressive, they are more pushy towards the virgin than a queenless well prepped colony would be. Still they accept her even though it is a sudden idea thrust upon them, not a gradual consensus they should be more receptive .

https://youtu.be/2OkGKp4GTeU


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

Lauri said:


> _acceptance _of the virgin is much higher and more calm when cell cup is used along with intro.


very cool lauri, many thanks for that.


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## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

squarepeg said:


> very cool lauri, many thanks for that.


Sorry I didn't post this info earlier in the season when you could have used it. (I posted it last month on my AG facebook page) I've been taking photos and videos all season and planned to write a few things this winter when I had the time. I don't get on Beesource much during the summer months


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Thanks very much again Lauri...
I may let some virgins emerge into roller cages next spring and try this out. From what you've said and others here, I think it's worth me trying as well. I'd like to get a good way for introducing virgins under my belt.


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## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

I'll get a few more videos before the season is over I hope. I'd like to show the different behavior I've seen depending on circumstances. What I like to see is calm, slightly excited bees feeding and grooming her when introduced. No pushy, rude behavior as you see in some of these videos. They're not aggressive, but not nurturing ether.


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

Lauri said:


> but _acceptance _of the virgin is much higher and more calm when cell cup is used along with intro.


How high?

I have never heard of such method. This is truly new, if it really works say over 70%. 


I have read an article where already born virgins are put back to queencells (queencell is cut half and reunited after putting the virgin in again and a thin layer of foundation wax is put on the tip of the queencell) and the acceptance was as good as born virgins, if I remember correctly. Your method has a lot of common with this study. Very cool!


Your last video link did not work? Some queens in the videos looked a bit hairless in the thorax, which is not a good sign, they have been chased.

(Buckfast beekeepers of cource try to do as their teacher said: "Every queen must be born in paradice(=in the hive with lots of bees around, not in a cage)" )


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## Hunajavelho (Oct 11, 2015)

I have used this method that Lauri describes this summer with 100% acceptance. I Learned it from Lauri's FB-group. Only did about 10 queens, though...


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

Hunajavelho said:


> I have used this method that Lauri describes this summer with 100% acceptance. I Learned it from Lauri's FB-group. Only did about 10 queens, though...


How old were those virgins? 

Previously it has been said, and confirmed in practise, that virgins older than 24 h become so fast and restless, that they are not accepted.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

> We compared the acceptance of 4-day old virgin queens introduced into mating nucleus hives using natural and artificial queen cells
> versus a wooden 3-hole mailing cage, a standard introduction method. The queen cell methods gave high acceptance (95% and 93%
> for natural and artificial, respectively) even though the queen was released from the queen cell approximately 10 minutes after being
> introduced into the mating hive. By contrast, success using mailing cages was significantly lower (47% and 73%) when the queen was
> ...


https://www.sussex.ac.uk/webteam/ga...ee-queen-introduction-techniques.pdf&site=398


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Thanks, Lauri.
:thumbsup:


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

msl said:


> https://www.sussex.ac.uk/webteam/ga...ee-queen-introduction-techniques.pdf&site=398


Very nice article, thanks very much msl for the link.


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## max2 (Dec 24, 2009)

msl said:


> Interesting, with all the talk of how carefully you have to handle cells It never occurred to me you could ship them.


I'm not aware of anybody in Australia shipping cells - only pick-up


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## Hunajavelho (Oct 11, 2015)

Juhani Lunden said:


> How old were those virgins?
> 
> Previously it has been said, and confirmed in practise, that virgins older than 24 h become so fast and restless, that they are not accepted.


Okey, they were something like 18-24 h. They were placed in mating nucs immediately a few mintues after the old queen was removed.


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## billabell (Apr 19, 2010)

Laurie, (or anyone that knows) How can I join your facebook group? I would like to learn as much as possible about queen cell raising and handling. Thanks.


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## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

billabell said:


> Laurie, (or anyone that knows) How can I join your facebook group? I would like to learn as much as possible about queen cell raising and handling. Thanks.


This one is for general beekeeping, local management tips, etc.

https://www.facebook.com/Miller-Compound-HoneyBees-and-Agriculture-256954971040510/

This one is a sideliners educational group:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1096320300380337/


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## Stephenpbird (May 22, 2011)

Nicot produces a plastic queen cell, used for releasing virgin queens. Bernhard has a video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4XGq5IEYuA

You seal the opening with bees wax, make a very small hole in it so the bees can feed the virgin. Run the virgin into the plastic cell and pop the cap on the end. You are then ready to place it in a hive where the virgin will be released in an hour or two. This worked 12 out of 12 for me.


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## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

Juhani Lunden said:


> Your last video link did not work? Some queens in the videos looked a bit hairless in the thorax, which is not a good sign, they have been chased.


The videos are taken upon release out of the incubator and roller cages. Sometimes they are a little sticky coming out of the roller cage which make them look hairless I guess. It's hard to mark them when they are sticky, but enough paint remains I can always tell the mated queen that I find later is what I introduced, not a self made queen. Much of the paint will be cleaned off the virgin by the time she is mated and I find her again. It's hard to get the paint to make contact with her thorax with the hair and residual honey.









I've introduced virgins with several methods as well, not just this one. My acceptance with other methods is good too. My typical caged introductions have been _very_ poor. But when I introduce a caged virgin _and_ a capped queen cell at the same time, the marked virgin queen is always the winner. The candy in my cages are a very small amount. I want her out in less than one day. I commonly do this intro on my out yards where I can't get back in a timely manor to check for release and acceptance. I go to these yards in spring armed with mated queens, virgins and capped cells about 24-36 hours before expected emergence. Some of the older colonies need a brood break so I remove the old queen, install a cell and virgin with no queenless period and come back in a couple weeks.

One of my favorites is to remove the old queen from a large hive and let them go about 5 days, make all the queen cells they want. Then add a capped cell and a direct released mature confident virgin queen. She'll strut through the entire hive and tear down all those queen cells for you. With this method, the marked virgin queen always came out the winner and my success rate has been 100% in the limited number of times I have done this. I had thought it was apparent adding the capped cell (as a back up) was just a waste of a good cell,but now I'm not so sure. It may be part of why the hive is so accepting of the virgin (although that hive has had it's queenless prep period and the self made queen cells may cover that end of it)

There are a wide rang of situations I choose to place a capped cell or a virgin queen. It depends on the colonies situation and what I have to work with that is on hand. 
Sometimes I have left over cells that have emerged, the virgin's look great and I try my best to place them. Sometimes I have dink cells I just can not bear to place as a cell, that churn out monster virgins..that still amazes me. Sometimes I've used a new breeder queen and want to take a look at the virgins before allowing them to take up space in the mating nucs. 

Of course having virgin queen on hand is perfect for a failed return in mating nucs to get them back on schedule faster. You get at least a few days jump over placing a capped cell. With a 6-7 day old virgin queen you gain about a week. 
I graft twice a week during the season so I have cells, virgins and mated queen available at all times. I have plenty to experiment around with and that's allowed me to try a few methods, on a large enough scale to become pretty confident with them.

I want to make the method work (not just acceptance but achieve what I want for hive health & vigor), perfect the details so it is _easy, fast & reliable _on a larger scale as in a commercial application.


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

Stephenpbird said:


> Nicot produces a plastic queen cell, used for releasing virgin queens. Bernhard has a video.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4XGq5IEYuA
> 
> You seal the opening with bees wax, make a very small hole in it so the bees can feed the virgin. Run the virgin into the plastic cell and pop the cap on the end. You are then ready to place it in a hive where the virgin will be released in an hour or two. This worked 12 out of 12 for me.


Nice video, is there a link to maybe purchase somewhere, if not, no problem, a 2 ml micro centrifuge tube would probably work as well, just have to cut the tip off.


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## billabell (Apr 19, 2010)

Lauri said:


> This one is for general beekeeping, local management tips, etc.
> 
> https://www.facebook.com/Miller-Compound-HoneyBees-and-Agriculture-256954971040510/
> 
> ...


Laurie, thank you very much.


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## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

JRG13 said:


> Nice video, is there a link to maybe purchase somewhere, if not, no problem, a 2 ml micro centrifuge tube would probably work as well, just have to cut the tip off.


Neat! Where do you get those cell cups? Now top that with the old cell cup with residual royal jelly and you may have a winner.

The JZBZ old cell cup would fit on an orange cell protector. Cover the tip of the protector with wax and you could modify this method a bit to work quickly and without much prep or fussing.


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## Stephenpbird (May 22, 2011)

JRG13 said:


> Nice video, is there a link to maybe purchase somewhere, if not, no problem, a 2 ml micro centrifuge tube would probably work as well, just have to cut the tip off.


I only know where in Germany. 
http://bienenzuchtbedarf-geller.de/...fzelle-kunststoff-fuer-nicot-zuchtsystem.html
I would be surprised if they are not available in the USA.


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## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

I just checked the incubator and have a few virgins I'll introduce in the next day or so. Will try the orange cell protector with used cell cup with residual jelly and the remainder of the cell itself to cap the end of the protector. Takes only a few seconds to configure and might be suitable for a larger scale intro method. This would work for virgins right out of the incubator, but more mature banked virgins that are ready to fly and caged in queenless colonies would be difficult to handle out in the field for this application.
I don't think she needs to emerge out of the cell to be accepted, but it would protect her for a few minutes and allow the installer to place the 'cell' and walk away so you don't have to stand there and watch to see if she's accepted or not. 

My question is, will the virgin turn her self around in the protector during the time she is confined? That could cause an issue. I suppose if she can turn around once, she can turn around again. 

























Peeled off the excess:


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## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

I let that virgin wander around on the bench while I fiddled with the cell protector. Look where she made a beeline to. All the competition.


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## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

I tried this method, but after sitting in the hive overnight they had not even touched the thin wax plug, even though it was fairly loose on the edges.. 









I installed a few more of the virgins in the cell protectors (other hives) with the used cell cup and residual royal jelly (Now pretty dried up) with a small amount of very soft honey/powdered sugar candy for the delayed release plug. Packed it snugly in the tip with the back of my pen. Just installed today so I'll check tomorrow to see if they have released her. The virgin had a good amount of room in the protector cell and has no issues with getting stuck (as she might in her own cell if she went back in).

This was in a hive I removed an old breeder queen that was slowing down-no queenless period. Installed the new virgin immediately after killing the old queen, placed the cell protector & virgin on the same brood frame I took the old queen from.


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## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

I could easily prep a good number of these in the lab with virgins right out of the incubator and carry them around with me for quick placement in the field. Remember, the difference between this and the standard JZBZ transport cage release is the addition of the used cell cup and residual royal jelly to promote better acceptance.

View attachment 35148


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## Stephenpbird (May 22, 2011)

Lauri said:


> I tried this method, but after sitting in the hive overnight they had not even touched the thin wax plug, even though it was fairly loose on the edges..


I've never had that problem (with only 12 tries) I wonder if it has to do with the ventilation holes in your cell protectors. May be try blocking those and see what happens.


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## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

I'm putting it to the test. Placed about 12 of these today, a couple yesterday.

These are in mating nucs where I collected the 18-20 day old mated queens and immediately installed the virgin queen set up. No aggression noted.

















Video of virgin when installed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EulGHmqEtSU&feature=youtu.be









Assembled in the lab, carried around in my insulated lunch box for a few hours while I collected queens and distributed virgins. As easy as setting a capped cell.
I set them in the roller cages just to keep them tidy, cell protector end is plugged with the candy

I will let you know how it goes in a couple weeks.


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## billabell (Apr 19, 2010)

Hi Laurie, did you have any success with the virgins and cells?


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## Flyer Jim (Apr 22, 2004)

billabell said:


> Hi Laurie, did you have any success with the virgins and cells?


 I too would like to know if this works, would be a good way to fill in behind cells that didn't make it.

Thanks Jim


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Yes me too, I'm all ears waiting to hear...


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

And me too!


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## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

Well, the emerged virgin in the cell protector with the cell cup install was a failure for me. To be fair, it was very late in the season and was the last batch of cells I had which were a little less in appearance quality than normal.
I did 10 -12 with the cell protector and 10 direct release as I am accustomed to doing. 8 direct released were successfully accepted, with a return of 5. 100% failure for acceptance with the cell protector method. Upon recheck, 2 -3 days later all virgins with cell protectors were gone and the colony had made queen cells. The candy plug I used was very soft and should have been chewed out in just a couple hours.

I am wondering if the off-gases from the plastic protector may have played a part, just to grasp at straws here. It was so bad it was almost bazaar.

Most of them were done with mating nuc sized colonies. All were the same, I removed the existing queen and immediately placed the virgin or cell protector/virgin combo without queenless period.

It can probably work with a slight tweak in procedure, but direct release is so easy with no fiddling, I'll just stick with that.

I checked one of my other yards I had 2 double deeps I had placed a marked virgin in a standard transport cage with a less than half full candy tube + a capped cell due to emerge the next day. A few weeks later, I checked and the marked virgin, now mated and laying was heading the hives. While I have poor success with caged virgin install, I have excellent success when it is installed along with a capped queen cell. The marked virgin always comes out the winnner. Seems a waste of a good cell, but it also seems to be part of the successful intro formula.


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## Flyer Jim (Apr 22, 2004)

Thanks Lauri, always appreciate new ideas.
Sorry it didn't work out, just more to think about.:scratch:


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## billabell (Apr 19, 2010)

That is unfortunate, but as you said if direct release is working no point in reinveting the wheel. Sounds like it must have something to do with pheromones.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Yes, thanks for the update Lauri. Using a cell protector or a cage is one more step anyway. It seems it would be easier to just introduce her with her queen cell anyway.

A lot of information for me in this thread, Thank you everyone who has responded so far.


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## jcase (Jul 30, 2016)

This year I allowed 100% of my grafted cells to emerge in my incubator, with the exception of putting two in a mating nuc that already had queens (sigh, my fault) I had a 100% success introducing them. I was allowing them to emerge in the incubator, as I wanted to visually select the ones I wanted to inseminate.

I put them all in california queen cages, and put them in the nuc for 3 days, then released. No issues at all.


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## billabell (Apr 19, 2010)

There is an article in the Nov. 2017 issue of Bee Culture that you may want to look at, it is Queen Pheromone by Clarence Collison. I am wondering if it might be helpful to introduce cells with a tube of TMP. I think Mann Lake and Better Bee (and maybe others) carry it. The extra mandibular pheromone might be of help.


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

jcase said:


> I had a 100% success introducing them.
> 
> I put them all in california queen cages, and put them in the nuc for 3 days, then released. No issues at all.


Please share the details of how you achieved 100% success. It's been my experience that the little details matter in these introductions. 



jcase said:


> I was allowing them to emerge in the incubator, as I wanted to visually select the ones I wanted to inseminate.


I do it differently. I allow them to emerge in a queen bank with plenty of nurse bees. This way the virgins are immediately cared for the moment they emerge. I emerge up to 15 per queen bank (all emerge in CA mini cages). Further, I find this advantageous because the bees will often "pick" their favorite virgins. I've found that all virgins are not created equal, because the bees definitely have preferences. I take the ones they prefer and inseminate these. I don't select for color or other traits at this stage - just let the bees pick the winners. Not easy to simulate this in a sterile incubator. After insemination, the queens go back into the bank and then get placed in colonies the following day. That next morning is when you really see the differences in the attractiveness of the queens.


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

double post


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## jcase (Jul 30, 2016)

AstroBee said:


> Please share the details of how you achieved 100% success. It's been my experience that the little details matter in these introductions.


Not much details really. Probably mostly luck, but 

1 frame capped brood, 1 frame of stores, shake a couple frames in. Left locked up with feed for 24ish hours until queen ready. Place virgin queens in cage in nuc, day 3 release. 4 way queen castle, each side painted in different bright colors, with the pattern of my daughter's choice.




AstroBee said:


> I do it differently. I allow them to emerge in a queen bank with plenty of nurse bees. This way the virgins are immediately cared for the moment they emerge. I emerge up to 15 per queen bank (all emerge in CA mini cages). Further, I find this advantageous because the bees will often "pick" their favorite virgins. I've found that all virgins are not created equal, because the bees definitely have preferences. I take the ones they prefer and inseminate these. I don't select for color or other traits at this stage - just let the bees pick the winners. Not easy to simulate this in a sterile incubator. After insemination, the queens go back into the bank and then get placed in colonies the following day. That next morning is when you really see the differences in the attractiveness of the queens.


I did some in a bank this year as well, I noticed no difference. My daughter likes watching them emerge, I've got a camera in the incubator and it is in my office, so I'm able to call her in as soon as they start poking out.

I introduce my II queens as:

1 frame feed, 2 frames emerging brood (mediums), who have been hopelessly queenless for 24hour minimum and a push in cage. Add a couple more frames as needed, once I'm happy with them they go to larger colonies.


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