# Continuing to raise queens through January 2010



## Adrian Quiney WI (Sep 14, 2007)

Joseph, I'm curious as to your use of a styrofoam box. Do you use it for insulation reasons, cost reasons (how much does it cost?), or weight reasons? Thanks for the post it's interesting. Adrian.


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

Initially I was making my 5-frame nucs by cutting parts from 1-1/2" thick sheets of styrofoam insulation from my local Home Depot/Lowe's stores. I was using the thicker foam because once it was cut and glued together they were strong enough to hold up to the weight the full nucs would contain. It was difficult to keep the bees from chewing the styrofoam to bits, literally. I still like using one for the queen cell builder/finisher because of the insulation, I believe it helps them to stay cooler in our very hot summers and to stay warmer on the nights in winter when it gets down around freezing.


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

*Re: Continuing to raise queens from 2009, through January 2010, and beyond*

I realize now that I should have originally titled this, "Continuing to raise queens from 2009, through January 2010, and beyond".

It is now 27 January and I am still raising small batches of queens. I expect to continue doing this, continuously through the 2010 season and beyond.

I had a small setback; I lost my last batch of five cells. They were just sealed when I introduced a nice laying queen to the colony to fill the empty cells with eggs. She did her job and the five cells were reaching maturity (I don't keep precise records of cell ages). Then we had two days of rain where I didn't check on them, then the day after the rain I went out to harvest and place the cells, discovered that one virgin had emerged and destroyed the other cells. Then apparently the virgin did not survive her encounter with the resident reigning queen. I have now caged the reigning queen, and will wait for her brood to mature, then move her out making them queenless just before starting another batch of grafts.


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

Okay, late yesterday morning, about 11:00AM, I grafted a group of eight queen cells using beeswax cell cups and then placed them into my cell-builder colony. The cell builder colony was just refreshed; I harvested two frames of emerging brood from my full-size colonies, four frames of nurse bees, caged the resident queen and moved her and her frames of eggs to other colonies; I then installed two combs of honey, one against each of the inside walls of the nuc; next I placed two combs of emerging brood with some larvae inside the combs of honey, I leave the fifth comb out to make plenty of room for the six frames of nurse bees and the cell bar.

After everything was settled in I carefully lifted the cell bar to observe that there were nurse bees clustered on the cell bar forming a curtain of bees extending nearly to the bottom of the nuc. I then laid a pollen substitute pattie on the top of the cell bar and covered that, first with a 6 mil thick sheet of black polyethylene plastic, then a 1/2" sheet of styrofoam cut to size for its cover. The lid is held in place by a stone.

Tomorrow morning I will carefully remove the cell bar again to see how many of the eight grafted larvae are being cared for and grown into queens. Any cells that have been abandoned by the bees (no royal jelly), I will remove from the bar. If acceptance is too low, I will graft a second bar and place it next to the first.


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## bleta12 (Feb 28, 2007)

Is it too early?

Gilman


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## bleta12 (Feb 28, 2007)

What are the general temperatures and what is your mature drone population? 

Gilman


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

Mid 40'sF at night and high 60'sF in the daytime (sometimes up into 70'sF). Just about every hive and nuc has a few drones, but my long hive (22 deep frames) and a couple other full-size hives have many hundreds of drones, each, and they are continuing to raise more. I expect it's because I've been feeding pollen substitute and small quantities of sugar syrup.

Some Winters there are almost no drones at all, some seasons have a full load of them all through the Winter. This is the first time I've worked at raising small batches of queens almost continuously. So far, so good. Very few queens have been lost from emerging to mated/laying queen. No drone layers, yet. Maybe my queen rearing efforts and feeding are helping to keep more drones around. I'm sure my feeding has some effect on drone availability.


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

Okay, I went out yesterday to see how many grafts had been accepted. I realized I had attached nine beeswax cell cups instead of eight I had planned, but seven grafts had been accepted, so I only had to remove two cups that had been abandoned.


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## bleta12 (Feb 28, 2007)

When is your swarming season?

Gilman


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

I've seen some swarms almost every month of the year (depends mostly on weather), but our main swarming season is May and June.


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

I just finished another batch of queen cells, five, and placed them into individual mating nucs. I was one mating nuc short, so I left one cell in the cell-builder nuc. After she is mated and laying I will probably rework it back into a cell-builder. Meanwhile, I can always put together another cell-builder nuc to start another batch.


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## timgoodin (Mar 10, 2007)

Interesting thread, keep the details coming...On the styrofoam nucs have you ever tried the aluminum sided styrofoam boards? I wondered if the aluminum coating would keep the bees from destroying the boxes.

Tim


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

Tim,
I have not yet tried the aluminum surfaced foam insulation but I certainly have considered it. 

I just set up a fresh batch of bees in the cell-builder nuc, yesterday. Today I grafted a batch of eight cells.


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

I've even yet continued raising small batches of queens. Since my last post in this thread I've produced about three more batches, from five to eight queens in each batch. So far through Autumn, Winter, and now almost nearly Spring I've only had one turn out to be a drone-layer, can't really figure out why that is. All the others have been nice laying machines. Just today I grafted one of my largest groups, yet - fifteen cell cups. I had a nineteen inch long piece of scrap, I cut a 1/8" wide slot about 3/8" deep down the center of the 3/4" wide piece of scrap, then cut bevels on each end so it would sit even with top bars. It is long enough for eighteen cell cups, but fifteen is probably the most I will ever crowd on one bar.

I've brought into my shop, two mating nuc condo's, ten frame supers with two partitions and separate holes for entrances, each of the three compartments thus created, fits three frames. I am cleaning them up and tightening up the joints and straightening the partitions so I can put them back into service. Looks like I will probably need to fix up a couple more so I can accommodate even larger groups of virgin queens that need mating at the same time. I had been using my regular nucs to also be mating nucs, but it is becoming more difficult to produce strong nucs while trying to mate queens in them. The nucs need queens that are steadily laying, not having their laying queen removed every few weeks to be replaced by queen cells.


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## KQ6AR (May 13, 2008)

Even though the fruit trees are starting to bloom here, I still don't have drones flying. Should soon though.


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