# still experimenting/ research queen raising... status and question for this week!



## CaBees (Nov 9, 2011)

Saga continues.. I have one 'nucleus' with 4 queen cells; minimum age 15 days so I'm not touching them and 

My goal: Use the cloaking method to raise more queen cells from my strong hive and without moving my queen). 

These will be used to either practice Oldtimers 'raising queen cells without grafting' or just graft queen cells into a queen castle and create more 'nucleus'.

I did buy "Increase Essentials" by Lawrence John Connor but just got it last night so am hopping around.. today is my work the hives day. This week was too awful with high winds and cooler temps by the time I got home from work. Hence my 4 queen cells are too old to move.

Make sense? Oh, my question..

When working with hives to raise queens and they already have a medium of honey (I don't want to harvest but let them keep gathering), what do you do with it? Do you put it on top and not feed? 

thanks!


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## tarheit (Mar 26, 2003)

My queenless hives that I use to raise cells don't have honey supers. They are 3 mediums in height. I routinely move brood to the middle box (where the queen cells are), move capped brood to the top box, and remove frames of honey and place them on other hives. However, We typically don't need to feed when we are raising queens in my area. If we did, I might leave a super of honey on, but no more than one. It's just a hassle to move honey to get to the queen cells several times a week.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Hence my 4 queen cells are too old to move.

They will all be dead but one tomorrow... I don't understand "too old to move" They are never too old to move until they emerge. Then all but one are dead and definitely "too old to move"...


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## Bill91143 (Jun 7, 2013)

Ditto on what Mr. Bush said. I am dabbling around with raising some queens (my first year at it), and the other day I moved a queen cell while it was hatching. She had the end cut nearly half way around. I put her in a small 2 frame nuc with a half to three fourths of a frame of bees. She is laying now and doing fine. In fact I have better luck moving older cells than newly capped ones.


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## CaBees (Nov 9, 2011)

ok but I understood after day 15 - 16 there is no jelly cushioning the larvae inside the queen cell so it is easy to damage her and also the 4 were so close together and I am not sure but may be on plastic frame. I don't know how easy to cut them out...

I am also reading that letting an nucleus raise a queen cell is not the best thing nutritionally....
I may check it tomorrow (Sunday) and change my mind... 

Is one queen in the nuc worth 4 possibly damaged by inexperience? maybe.. maybe not...


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## Daniel Y (Sep 12, 2011)

Where are you getting your information? I have never even heard it suggested that jelly "Cushions" a larva. What you are saying is in fact exactly opposite of everything I have heard. From the moment they are capped they are the most fragile. becoming more resilient each day that passes. about the 14th day or 6 days after capping they are fairy bullet proof as far as reasonable handling goes. on the 16th day or 8 days after capping they are a fully developed adult queen that just has to emerge.

So far I do not like to move queen cells until they are in day 14 at least.


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## CaBees (Nov 9, 2011)

Daniel Y said:


> Where are you getting your information? I have never even heard it suggested that jelly "Cushions" a larva. What you are saying is in fact exactly opposite of everything I have heard. From the moment they are capped they are the most fragile. becoming more resilient each day that passes. about the 14th day or 6 days after capping they are fairy bullet proof as far as reasonable handling goes. on the 16th day or 8 days after capping they are a fully developed adult queen that just has to emerge.
> 
> So far I do not like to move queen cells until they are in day 14 at least.


You are confusing me because you say "from the moment they are capped they are the most fragile" and that is what I am also saying. They are hanging versus being cushioned with royal jelly so it is easy to damage them... this from a very well respected beekeeper in my area who I've taken several courses from. But my curiosity is piked and I will go into in the a.m. and see what I may see.. Michael B. makes a good point that 3 will be dead no matter what so why not?

I just can't remember if the frame is plastic or not.. it came from a hive given to me last year from a fellow who uses plastic... 

Thanks all for your perspectives...


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## Bill91143 (Jun 7, 2013)

Take something (a small thin knife blade) and punch a small hole in one of the corners of the comb. If it goes through easily you have real comb foundation, if it doesn't you have plastic. I have not been successful in cutting cells from plastic. No matter how close to the plastic I try to cut I wind up opening a hole in the cell.


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Yes, as MB says, move those QC's! The only point I will add is that they are indeed fragile, so handle them with great care. By now they will be emitting an "eeek, eeek" sound known as pipping. You may feel them "click" in your hand. 

Plant them in the middle of the brood nest, an inch below the top center of the brood patch in the frame for each nucleus or mating colony.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

I have scraped queen cells off of plastic foundation and it worked fine. I just used a hive tool and scraped them off gently. My wax on the plastic was fresh virgin wax tho. If your wax is not too old and tough, I don't see why you can't scrape off the cells and plant in nucs, especially since they are sooooo close to emerging.


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## CaBees (Nov 9, 2011)

Not going to happen.. major robbing going on in my apiary from a hive inspection yesterday; everyone is on lock down with just a bee space sized entrance. It is a nightmare and I'm hoping it will stop soon.


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Completely close them up for the day, then open one up at a time and feed them syrup and a patty, closing each one as you go. Open them up to 1 bee space day after tomorrow (Tuesday), depending on weather. 

If the nectar flow is off - hold off queen rearing operations, even if it means until next year.

And yes,  !!!


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Is one queen in the nuc worth 4 possibly damaged by inexperience? maybe.. maybe not... 

You seem to be confused. I think the queen is always fragile. The cell is the least fragile and the least likely to get damaged on day 14 from the egg (day 10 from the graft) because the cell is much more durable. There is a cocoon, the wax is mature, the whole thing is less fragile. But you always need to be gentle, IMO, despite the fact that I've seen people being pretty rough and still getting away with it... sometimes you damage the queens wings if you bang them around too much. You are afraid of damaging the queens, yet the first queen out will do more than damage them... she will kill them.


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## CaBees (Nov 9, 2011)

Yes Michael, I confuse easily. Yes I understand the first out will kill the others but trying to graft them off a plastic frame and not having many hives right now; on top of major robbing which occured in my yard Sat.. it just was not in the cards. For now I'll hope this nuc requeens itself and save my grafting of queen cells for the future when I can experiment using a cloake board with a planted frame of wax; not plastic. I'd like to combine the cloak board method with Oldtimers 'raising queen cells with out grafting' method but realized I still have a ways to go to bring the strength up in my apiary. Thank you as always for your time and advice.


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Well, have they emerged yet? Did you get more than one? Still got my fingers crossed for you!


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## CaBees (Nov 9, 2011)

kilocharlie said:


> Well, have they emerged yet? Did you get more than one? Still got my fingers crossed for you!


I don't know, last weekend was a disaster with robbing in the yard. The week is full of high winds. I am going to open the box and take a look tonight...thinking of moving them into the queen castle with more stores and a few more brood comb from this weekend that doesn't have enough bees to take care of it. I have to wait until I get home at 5:30.. SF is full of wind right now and my house was the same this morning. So it all depends when I get home.

Thanks for the interest, I didn't think anyone was interested at this point. It is day 16 since I transferred the brood original brood frames so I may or may not have a virgin queen in there. I'm going to try and be very careful....


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Yep, I'd be interested in hearing the outcome too! Good luck to you!


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## Ben Franklin (May 3, 2011)

CaBees said:


> ok but I understood after day 15 - 16 there is no jelly cushioning the larvae inside the queen cell so it is easy to damage y) and change my mind...
> ..


 I have a question, you says there is no Royal Jelly to cushion her. I understand that the jelly is there to fed her, not to cushion her.


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## CaBees (Nov 9, 2011)

Oh my gosh, it is so windy and cold. Is it that way by you Ray? Do you guys ever transfer virgin queens or do you just leave them alone to mate? At this point I'm going to leave it and just do an exam on the weekend and look at the queen cells but not disturb the queen if they hatched.

Ben what I learned was larvae if you look at it is surrounded by a moist substance and supported by the cell as they are growing.. mature queens are hanging down inside the cell ready to separate. I did see pictures of the different stages in a powerpoint presentation during a class and it made sense to me. Perhaps I'm not understanding it right based on people's reactions here but he was saying the safer course of action is to transfer the queen cells before they are capped. Serge is a very well known beekeeper who also teaches and gives talks; he makes a lot of sense and is quite successful. I am just beginning with queen raising and only in my 3rd year with bees. I've never said otherwise and know I have tons and tons to learn and appreciate Beesource for helping. 

I don't know how much more opportunity I'll get this year though but part of the fun of bees is the process. It also takes patience!

I'll give a report this weekend!


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Yes, it's safest before they are capped, but, it's also pretty darned safe at 10 days after graft or making a walk away split. I transfer them at the ten day mark myself, gives less down time in the nuc.


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## Daniel Y (Sep 12, 2011)

As I understand it they spend 3 days as an egg, 5 days as an open cell larva. The cell is then capped during the 8th day and the larva becomes a pupa. There is then about a three to four day period that the pupa is attached to the top of the cell. it is this attachment that is delecate. If it breaks and teh pupa falls it will die. after that few days the pupa is enclosed in a cacoon and is not longer as delicate. cells must still be handled with care and not be crushed or squeezed for example but the danger from shacking it is not nearly as high. Some say to not even open the hive while the cells are in the delicate period.

So moving of the cell is best before or after this three day period. waiting until after is a bit riskier because you are getting very close to emergence. the difference of one day may result in the queen hatching.

I also have never heard anything about the royal jelly serving as a cushion. I have in the past opened queen cells just to see the development for myself. This past week I opened a cell on it's 14th to 15th day removed the pupa for examination. returned it to its cell and somewhat pinched the cell closed again. it was still a purple eyed white pupa. 24 hours later it emerged as a full formed queen. It is amazing how quickly they develop.

I can say this that in the later days say day 12 on they are anything but extremely delicate any more. I was looking for a video I have seen about the production of large numbers of queens. the video shows cells at 14 days or so being cut from the cell bars and then being slid across a table by the fist full. I even made a comment in the thread that the handling did not meat my definition of careful. It was that video that made me reconsider just how touchy a cell is in the last few days.

The main thing I saw in your first post was the thinking that the cell becomes more and more delicate each day after it is capped. and that is not true. it is not good to move it for about three days after it is capped. after that it becomes safer to do so. By day 14 I intentionally shake cells to see the Pupa inside. I can actually see them getting moved around. and have not had a problem with it. they still grow and emerge on day 16 just like they are supposed to.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

A couple of other clarifications.

>My goal: Use the cloaking method to raise more queen cells from my strong hive and without moving my queen).

It is the Cloake method. Using a Cloake board. Named after Harold Cloake of New Zealand.
http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/cloakenote.html

>When working with hives to raise queens and they already have a medium of honey (I don't want to harvest but let them keep gathering), what do you do with it? Do you put it on top and not feed?

I put it on the bottom where it's out of my way but the bees can still get to it to eat it...


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## Bill91143 (Jun 7, 2013)

I still say for a relatively inexperienced beekeeper the easiest way to raise a few queens is make a hive queenless and use their emergency cells to move to some small nucs and raise your queens. In my case I have Russians , and it's normal for them to continually have some (just in case) cells in their hives so when I inspect them I cut out those cells if they are in a good hive and start a nuc with it. I don't buy all this talk about emergency cell queens being inferior. I raised some this year and they are pretty dog gone big, and are laying just fine. If you just work with the bees and not against them, even as a newbee you can do pretty good, in fact as a newbee (which I am) we tend to think we can do a better job than the bees, and we can't. The biggest thing I have learned in two short years of bee keeping Is the more you can let the bees do for themselves the better the results. Maybe I'm not approaching it from the right direction but it seems to be working for me. I have gone from 2 hives to 23 in two years, and I'm trying to let the bees do most of the work. Just my two cents worth, and that is probably a cent more than it is really worth.


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## Daniel Y (Sep 12, 2011)

One of my problems right now is that even queenless colonies are not making emergency cells. It is like no bees in my apiary want to make queens for any reason. I have grafted 96 cups in the past 2 weeks and gotten only 18 cells accepted. Some of them have produced some pretty sorry queens. I have two that have emerged so far today and they are looking somewhat better quality. I am looking for 15 queens worth starting colonies with when it is all said and done. I am still not so sure I will get that many.

I am just hoping I picked the worst possible time to try and graft larva.


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## CaBees (Nov 9, 2011)

Thank you everyone for your comments... very interesting stuff indeed. Daniel, how do you rate a good versus a bad queen visually?

Another horrible, windy week but this weekend should be good. I am temped to look inside my nuc but do not want to disturb a newly hatched queen so probably won't. I am going to try and get some queen cells going using a different hive while I still can before the season is over. Again, I appreciate everyone's comments. I obviously have a lot more research and learning to do but that is what makes it fun!


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Question to Daniel Y - do your starter colonies have pollen? Without pollen, there won't be much QC building.

Also - Let all you queens lay in the mating or nuc box for about 10 to 15 days, and then judge the brood pattern. Some just start a little slower, but prove out very good. If they are not laying by week 3, they will likely be drone layers. Some guys don't give them that long - 2 weeks - but until you have more experience judging brood pattern, just watch and learn.


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## VolunteerK9 (Aug 19, 2011)

Daniel Y said:


> I was looking for a video I have seen about the production of large numbers of queens. the video shows cells at 14 days or so being cut from the cell bars and then being slid across a table by the fist full. I even made a comment in the thread that the handling did not meat my definition of careful. It was that video that made me reconsider just how touchy a cell is in the last few days.
> 
> /QUOTE]
> 
> ...


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## CaBees (Nov 9, 2011)

7/15 update one month later,
Just hived this queen nuc with 4 frames of brood, larvae and resources... gave it another frame of honey from a stronger hive. She seems to be laying ok; couple pictures follow (I hope). Thanks again for everyone's advice! I'm learning tons of lessons this year!


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Well, it looks like you got at least one queen! Way to go! The laying pattern is a little spotty, but not too bad at all for a new queen. It's July, so you will have to feed that nucleus colony for the rest of the year, unless you are still having nectar and pollen flow (almost SQUAT down here - a little buckwheat, clover, and mustard). Borrow a frame of honey from your strongest hive, and give them a pollen substitute.

I'd go ahead and make up a double screen board and an insulating top NOW so you will have it for when the cold comes. Hope they make it over winter! Good luck!

Dr. Susan Cobey has a file about the Cloake Method of Queen Rearing and Queen Banking. I'll report back soon.


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