# Queen cells



## drupe (May 20, 2009)

I have a question about raising queens. This is my first year at trying to raise queens and I only have a few hives. I have already raised one batch, but i was unsuccessful when it came to the mating. I lost all but two and not sure if they were mated successfully yet. I am using the nicot system instead of grafting. I was wondering if I could build a box with separate chambers,place capped queen cells in each chamber and place it above a queen excluder. Would the bees in the hive allow the queens to emerge, mate and lay? Any suggestion would be helpful.


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## quevernick (Feb 22, 2011)

Thats an interesting idea, you'd have to give each chamber an entrance and I'm not really sure whether it would result in a better success ratio since I believe the biggest problem with virgin queens usually happens outside the hive. I'm in the same situation as you, I started out this year with 3 hives and my first try at queen rearing netted me 7 queen cells that I needed to make up mating nucs. After robbing the existing hives to make up the nucs (One of the hives is still recovering from me pulling that much brood), I only ended up with 3 queens for my effort  You might possibly be able to use queen excluder material to make up the separate chambers.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

What did you try that didn't work? I have much better success with each in their own nuc. I have the best success setting up nucs with existing frames of brood and honey.


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## drupe (May 20, 2009)

I had three frame mini mating nucs. I brushed nurse bees in each, 6 nucs total, and that became a mess. I carried them to the other side of my house, but only two retained any bees. I didn't have enough normal drawn frames to make normal nucs.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I never had luck with mini mating nucs. I set up two frame nucs with a frame of brood and a frame of honey and the adhearing bees and an extra shake of bees. No trouble getting them to stay because of the brood.


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## drupe (May 20, 2009)

Thanks for the advice Michael. I also have learned much about raising bee from reading your web site. It has shaped the way I raise bees.


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