# Tricks and tips for queen rearing



## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

I used two unique manipulations today that I've read about but never tried. I had 6 nice queen cells in a colony that were due to emerge tomorrow. I did not have time to make up nucs this evening and I very much want these virgins to emerge and mate. This called for some unusual steps. I have plenty of plastic queen cages which snap together near one end. The cavity in these cages is plenty big enough for a queen cell if it is carefully trimmed of excess wax. So I spent 15 minutes cutting out the queen cells and fitting them one at a time into queen cages placing a plug in the open candy hole. I then pushed the cages into the bottom of a slightly damaged frame where the bees can cluster over them. They are oriented so the queen cells point down as they should. With a bit of luck, I'll go back in 2 days and have cages with emerged queens.

The other trick I used is something I've seen in videos but never tried. I carefully sliced around a queen cell until I could pull the bottom end off and see the virgin queen inside. She was at the purple eye stage which is normal for about 36 to 48 hours prior to emerging. I then pushed the tip of the cell back onto the base so the wax adhered and put the cell into a queen cage. She should be fine after the quick maturity check.


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

Dar, I did the same with some virgins last year when I had grafted and forgot about an out of town trip when they should have been placed in the nucs. I had no splits made up and made a frame with thin slats on each side to hold the cages. All the virgins hatched while I was out of town. They were about 3 days old when I introduced them. That did not go well. I have read about coating them in honey and should have done that, but I have also read if they are introduced soon after emergence that they will be accepted.

If you were only a 30 minute drive away I would try to talk you out of a couple of those ripe cells. I could use them.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

it was more by accident than design but i have had to introduce virgins on 5 different occasions, and so far i'm 5 for 5 on them getting accepted. 

all five were introduced within a few hours or less after emerging. what i did was pull a frame of open feed and shake most of the bees off. i laid that frame flat and let the virgins crawl out of their cages onto the frame. all of them immediately started consuming the open feed. 

the few workers that were left on the frames eventually came over and checked the virgins out. in a couple of instances the virgin cowered down in submission for a moment and then everyone went back about their business. in one instance the workers groomed the virgin for a minute or two.

anyway i allowed the virgins to eat for say 5 to 10 minutes, and then put the frame in all the way to one side with the virgin on outside. i guess the concern with trying to introduce after more than few hours post emerge might be that the virgin could fly off.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

The first 24 hours post emergence is golden, a virgin will be accepted in just about any queenless colony. After 24 hours, treat the virgin like any queen and do a 3 day intro.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Did you put any type of candy in those virgin queen cages Darrel?


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

No candy, but I did deliberately include a bit of honey on the side of each queen cell. I've heard that newly emerged queens are HUNGRY.


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## asd (Jun 10, 2015)

I've also put extra QC's in plastic queen cages, horizontally above the frames. Queen emerged, no problem. It was just an experiment to see what kind of queens will emerge from small cells . I've also made a small incision to see the pupae and the amount of RJ inside, cover it back and the queen emerged fine.

However if you guys would want to talk about QC's *feeding in cell starters write after grafting*. I think it might be an interesting discussion.

I'm a bit disappointed. I've been raising my own queens from 3 years now and I kept my eyes open on how I do it. I use powerful starters and finishers and still have noticed that the larvae are not properly fed. Out from curiosity I check the cells one hour after grafting, then after another hour and I still cannot see the pool of royal jelly that one would normally see.

Do you guys check this? I think many would be disappointed if done so. It's easy to make queens but it's very tricky to do good queens as Jay Smith said.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

Read Jay Smith's Better Queens. A copy is on Michael Bush's site. It will go a long way toward explaining why your queens are less than expected. Then read Beekeeping at Buckfast Abbey and find out how Brother Adam produced queens. He has a few tips worth the read.


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## asd (Jun 10, 2015)

I've read Better Queens and understood why that method is better then grafting, especially after checking the larvae in the starter from time to time.


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## asd (Jun 10, 2015)

Anyway I get good queens despite the fact that larvae are miss fed during the early stages but I'm sure that I can do better.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

asd said:


> ..However if you guys would want to talk about QC's *feeding in cell starters write after grafting*. I think it might be an interesting discussion.
> 
> I'm a bit disappointed. I've been raising my own queens from 3 years now and I kept my eyes open on how I do it. I use powerful starters and finishers and still have noticed that the larvae are not properly fed. Out from curiosity I check the cells one hour after grafting, then after another hour and I still cannot see the pool of royal jelly that one would normally see...


I make cell starters up hopelessly queenless, but give them a frame with eggs/youngest larva 3 days before grafting. This gets the bees 'Primed for royal jelly production". I remove that frame when adding the grafts, and always get nice large well fed queen cells. I first heard of this from reading Doolittle's old writings, and it has worked well for me.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

This from Joseph Clemens in a different thread...

I call it "priming" when, a day or two before I graft, I give the queen cell builder one or more frames of hatching eggs/less than 3 day old larva and the attending nurse bees. Then I graft and replace these priming frames with the bars/frames of grafts, shaking the nurse bees so they remain with the cell builder. Usually this is a fairly certain way of getting the largest finished cells with the most extra royal jelly. 

http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...hey-produce-larger-queens&p=904685#post904685


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

asd said:


> I've also put extra QC's in plastic queen cages, horizontally above the frames. Queen emerged, no problem. It was just an experiment to see what kind of queens will emerge from small cells . I've also made a small incision to see the pupae and the amount of RJ inside, cover it back and the queen emerged fine.
> 
> However if you guys would want to talk about QC's *feeding in cell starters write after grafting*. I think it might be an interesting discussion.
> 
> ...


This season I have been checking cells at 24, 48, and 72 hours (and beyond).

I've even been bringing 48 hour (and older) cells to markets (I have some customers for them, and I want something to answer the 'do you have royal jelly' with). I press 2 or 3 cell cup nipple into 1/8" screen, screen is cut as the centet of a 2 part jelly jar lid, and a put a small cute of nurse bees. No more than 30 attendants per jar.

If I feed them all day at market, there is more RJ than when the day started (I have no way to measure quality).

I'm not convinced that it's necessary to push the inputs so far that you have almost the whole cup full in 48 hours.

It seems to me that when the larva is small, it is sitting in a pool of food and just eating...but it isn't eating very much until it gets much bigger. The food consumption at 24 hours isn't very much (when referenced to a plastic cup 1/8 full of rj.

I'm sure there is some point at which the rj quality suffers....but I think we see less cells tended to rather than a general lack of RJ quality.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

I believe, although not proven, that a cap cell
has pressure to equalize the pressure from the outside so that
the larva can develop safely inside.
And at the same time maintains the proper humidity and temperature
inside. By cutting the bottom off exposing the larva I think 
the bees might reject her if something goes wrong with this process.
Depending on the hive temperature some cells will emerge later than
scheduled. Anyways, this is an interesting little bee experiment.
Also, by turning this hive into a queen castle with divided partition
boards, you can have them all emerged without having to make up some
mating nucs soon. But don't get pass the 2 days schedule to get a better
accepted virgin however you make up the mating nucs for them. Nuc timing is everything on a tight schedule!


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

deknow said:


> This season I have been checking cells at 24, 48, and 72 hours (and beyond).
> 
> I've even been bringing 48 hour (and older) cells to markets (I have some customers for them, and I want something to answer the 'do you have royal jelly' with). I press 2 or 3 cell cup nipple into 1/8" screen, screen is cut as the centet of a 2 part jelly jar lid, and a put a small cute of nurse bees. No more than 30 attendants per jar.
> 
> ...


I would agree with your observation about 24 hour cells. We typically check our cells at 24 hours for acceptance and rj levels. If any appear underfed we used to cull them but in recent years we started moving them into some strong hives we hold in reserve specifically for this purpose. I know from experience that these underfed cells typically develop into pretty wimpy looking cells if left with the original builder but put into a strong, rested builder they develop into large well fed cells.


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

Instead of a strong well fed builder, putting them directly (at 24 or 48 hours post graft) into a split. Any decent split has enough resources to finish 1 or 2 cells well.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

deknow said:


> Instead of a strong well fed builder, putting them directly (at 24 or 48 hours post graft) into a split. Any decent split has enough resources to finish 1 or 2 cells well.


Well yes, of course, if you have splits ready with no mature cells they will certainly finish the cells nicely. We prefer using mature cells in our splits and letting our designated builders do the job we have selected them to do. One strong excluded double hive will finish 50+ cells very nicely. My point is that cells poorly fed in the first 24 hours need not be destined to develop into underfed runts.


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## asd (Jun 10, 2015)

I have a curiosity that I haven't put to test so far: 

does the mated queen destroy started queen cells?

I have a feeling that it doesn't. I ask this because sometimes I don't have the time to find the queen in the finisher hive and place her beneath the excluder in order to put the graft frame in the box above. Last time I put the upper story on another hive stand and judge by the bee stress where the queen was.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

The answer is a big "NO!" I already test this one before.
But the workers will in a strong queen right hive when they
don't want to swarm or supersede its queen.
Sometimes I wonder do the bees favor the strong queen over
the handicap queen? Will it make a difference whether or not I
put the handicap queen's entire hive on top or the bottom of the
strong queen's hive? Something I wanted to test but too scare
that they might kill the strong queen too. Now I might have either a handicap queen or a dead
strong queen in the hive.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

asd said:


> I have a curiosity that I haven't put to test so far:
> 
> does the mated queen destroy started queen cells?


If she can get to them she will. My first round of cells ever....I forgot to use an excluder when I placed the just sealed cells above the queen-right broodnest. I realized my mistake within an hour, and returned to fix it. The queen was already on the cells.


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

That'l learn ya


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## Sunday Farmer (Nov 13, 2013)

jim lyon said:


> Well yes, of course, if you have splits ready with no mature cells they will certainly finish the cells nicely. We prefer using mature cells in our splits and letting our designated builders do the job we have selected them to do. One strong excluded double hive will finish 50+ cells very nicely. My point is that cells poorly fed in the first 24 hours need not be destined to develop into underfed runts.


Yes. I agree Jim. 

I think Deknow is quoting something Sam Comfort posted online a few years ago about being safe/able to move 48 hour cells.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

Michael Palmer said:


> If she can get to them she will. My first round of cells ever....I forgot to use an excluder when I placed the just sealed cells above the queen-right broodnest. I realized my mistake within an hour, and returned to fix it. The queen was already on the cells.


I agree, if you get by with it you were lucky and probably had a builder on the verge of swarming in which the queen had already begun to shut down. 
Here is a phenomena I, unfortunately, have had the opportunity to observe pretty much every year. If a virgin emerges in a hive with both newly capped and mature cells they won't pay any attention to the younger cells but rarely miss destroying a more mature cell.


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## asd (Jun 10, 2015)

OK. I tried all sorts of methods on queen rearing but this time I wanted to try a really simple one: remove the queen on a powerful hive and let them draw the cells.
I've picked the breeder hive which happen to be a powerful 3 story colony. I reduced it to 2 stories. After 24 hours they just don't care. They act as if they have a queen but they don't. This hive has a green queen and I think is preparing to swarm. There are a lots of drones and very few eggs.

Could it be that they don't have the resources(larvae of right age) to make a new queen? I'm thinking on giving them grafted larvae today if still no cells found after 48 hours.


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## asd (Jun 10, 2015)

I found sm. on Dave's site:

http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/emergencycells.html


> It is my experience and observation that bees start building emergency cells over a period of around 3-4 days, not all at one time as is thought by many.


It's so silly that I have no experience in this. Using a swarm box induce an anxiety to bees and they start the cells much sooner then a normal hive. However this hive simply don't care. They are very busy gathering nectar.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

The method that you are using is good for the grafted queen cells.
In a standard established hive with fewer eggs, they just do their normal
everyday bee thing. Why would they want to swarm at gathering time? Their
first priority is to get the hive all filled up with resources first before the summer
dearth is on. Would you considering have more babies when barely able to feed your family
at the present? Human thinking and bee thinking is not the same thing I would say.
I know exactly what to do next on this hive situation. Do you?


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## asd (Jun 10, 2015)

beepro said:


> I know exactly what to do next on this hive situation. Do you?


I don't know right now. I have to see what happens next. What would you do?


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## asd (Jun 10, 2015)

After 48 h the queenless roar at last and 2 queen cells. I've given them 2 frames with eggs and larvae from their own queen that's been isolated.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

What would I do?

It depends on how many queens you want this season.
This will give you an idea of which queen rearing method to use.
I once grafted 19 cups to give me enough queens for my expansion.
From these queens I can make more daughters from for growing my apiary further.
So what is your goal in beekeeping and making queens in general? You have to have a 
plan in order to see what you want to do next. I know what I want each year and expectation
from my bees. Do you know?


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## asd (Jun 10, 2015)

Lucky you. I only have about 50% mating success and I always need more qc's. I also removed some small sized black queens. So far I only have 11 mated queens, most of them fat like pigs.


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

I have a couple of questions. 

I have been raising some cells with snelgrove boards. The cells produced seem to be distributed on different frames, so I have been just putting frames with a cell or 2 in a mating nuc. Now some of these cells are on the edges of frames, and I believe I have seen torn down rather than emerged. Each nuc would have 2 frames of bees/brood that have been queenless for about 2 hrs, and one frame of bees brood from the snelgrove hive with the queen cell. 

Would you let the mating nuc go queenless for longer before introducing the queen cell?

Would you cut them out and place them where they have the best chance of staying warm?

Would you maybe forgo mixing the bees and just introduce the queencell?

Any other issues with this setup?


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Would you let the mating nuc go queenless for longer before introducing the queen cell?
Yes, with only 2 hours they may not be that acceptable to these introduced cells doesn't matter 
at location they are on the frames. You can try to protect these cells so that the bees cannot tear them down. Also, if they have eggs/larvae to make their own queen cells then your cells will
not be accepted too.

Would you cut them out and place them where they have the best chance of staying warm?
Yes, always increase the bee numbers so that they will all covered the frames no matter
where the cells are on the frames. So no need to cut them out just putting more bees
in because over time some bees will die too.
Would you maybe forgo mixing the bees and just introduce the queencell?
Cell introduction just like queen introduction requires the proper introduction
method. Do it in the wrong way then they will not keep these cells. It doesn't has
to do with mixing the bees or not. It as more to do fo how you put the cells in.
Any other issues with this setup? 
Yes, the foragers will fly back to the original hive thereby
lessen the amount of bees in the nuc hive to keep the cells and
broods warm. My recommendation is for 3 frames of bees attached.
Then check them before the sunset to see if additional bees are needed
in the nuc hive.
Doing this for 4 years this season I've seen it all and made various improvement
to get these cells accepted better. Still have a long way to learn and improved on!


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## Sunday Farmer (Nov 13, 2013)

Beepro- 
I don't want to seem antagonistic since you said this if what you have been going for 4 years and this is your experience, but mine are quite different. Namely queen introduction and cell introduction are not the same. I know he's not grafting but I just leave my cup wedged in the cell bars. I haven't needed to make sure the frames are completely covered to also cover the cell. Just the opposite, really strong nucs I've experienced will make their own. I also stopped using cages since I haven't had a tear down problem. I had a 97 percent queen take this spring in NC off the one round I could get off down there. (91 total nucs)


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

Usually the number bees available to start the nucs is the limiting factor not the problem of cells being torn down. I think Sunday Farmer is correct about the weeker hive being less likely to insist upon raising their own cells. With weather like we have been having (40F. last night) the more central cells on a frame should be better bets. I think the longer you leave them queenless (unless you wait a week) the more likely they are to start their own cells and reject yours.
Probably normal for bees to cull cells that may appear to the bees to have been started with older larvae, so that may not be all bad.

If you have frames deliberately for cutting cells from that would be ok but does not work easily with plastic foundation. I might not like deliberately cutting a hole in a nice wax foundation frame only to have it filled in after with a big clump of sticky out drone cells. I am getting entirely too much comb like that without doing it deliberately. If someone is going foundationless, drone here and there comes with the territory though.


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

I don't think I have seen any of these nucs try to make their own queen now that I think of it. At least some of them, should have had opportunity to do so. I suspect the queen cell must be dying at some point, not being rejected. 

I have mostly foundationless so its easy enough to cut cells with lots extra to wedge between frames, though I am still a little nervous about damaging the queen. I am putting the mating nucs together a couple days after queen cell capping. Another no no?

My last bunch I have made with 3 frames of bees/brood and the cells have been located in the middle of the brood. They should be OK as far as placement is concerned and should be laying in a week. They were overflowing the box yesterday with the heat (35 C the last 3 days), so I gave them another box and some open brood. A flow is on, so they had completely filled their empty frame with comb and filled it with honey. Now they have some work to do while waiting for the queen to lay. Don't want them to abscond as soon as the queen is mated with this heat. Did catch a glimpse of one big fat queen in the process. Didn't examine in detail as the queens could still be flying.


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## asd (Jun 10, 2015)

About mating nucs: yesterday I culled a queen and made 7 mating nucs out of a weak hive. I used two by four boxes that I've placed one above the other, on the original spot the hive was. Most of them are on one frame of brood and a foundationless frame.

My only concern is mating flights. Do you thing the entrances are too close, vertically speaking? I see Michael Bush uses this system and it's really saving space.


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## asd (Jun 10, 2015)

Can I add another batch of 20 cells in a 10 frame cell builder(like in "Queens for Pennies")? They have already built 20 and they are almost capped.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

asd said:


> Can I add another batch of 20 cells in a 10 frame cell builder(like in "Queens for Pennies")? They have already built 20 and they are almost capped.


Can you? Yes, they would probably build another 20 if they are strong enough. Should you? Probably not. I prefer to give them a day or 2 of rest between grafts and give them at least a full day after capping before asking them to start on another batch.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

So the answer is a yes. Why then go do a little bee
experiment for yourself to learn from. Put another batch of cells
in there to see what they can give you.


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## asd (Jun 10, 2015)

Good point.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

beepro said:


> So the answer is a yes. Why then go do a little bee
> experiment for yourself to learn from. Put another batch of cells
> in there to see what they can give you.


I have pushed the limits on occasion and there is no single answer. Its dependent on the quality of the builder, how rich it is in resources and seasonal triggers. The builder will let you know when you are asking too much as acceptance drops along with rj production. The important thing is to get the cells started, at 24 hours you can always move them to a strong queen right finisher if you aren't satisfied with the amount of rj in the cups.


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

Jim, thank you for taking the time to be so specific. Most of discussion around queen rearing seems to dictate that if everything isn't perfect from start to finish that the results will be substandard.
Personally I find the whole process interesting, and I learn a lot more by 'pushing limits'.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

deknow said:


> Jim, thank you for taking the time to be so specific. Most of discussion around queen rearing seems to dictate that if everything isn't perfect from start to finish that the results will be substandard.
> Personally I find the whole process interesting, and I learn a lot more by 'pushing limits'.


We had an exceptionally strong starter/finisher that went queenless on us this spring. I decided to test its limits and put 70+ grafts in and every one not only "took" but were well fed. We moved them into finishers and repeated our success the next 2 days. On the fourth day it finally said "no mas" and only gave us about 15 to 20.


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## asd (Jun 10, 2015)

OK. I grafted and 0.
I reunited the colony and gave them a break. Jay Smith dissolves the starters right after taking out the grafts. This is the first time when I put a second batch in the same starter. I removed the capped cells and added the grafts. I guess this is how you do it... or maybe I should have waited a couple of hours. ???

By the way: this season proved to be a disaster in terms of nectar gathering with tons of rain and low temperatures. The bees are starving.


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## asd (Jun 10, 2015)

I've united 3 compartments in a queen castle and the mated queen got balled. After all this she got herself with a crippled hind leg. She is still agile though. Would you keep it?


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Would you keep it?

I have one like that in an observation hive right now. The colony she headed was not doing that well, but she's about the right speed for an observation hive.


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## asd (Jun 10, 2015)

Man, an early hatched(11 day) virgin queen destroyed 2 cells from the set of grafts she was hatching from and the all cells from another batch that were put inside the second story of the hive. I felt sorry for them as they were so well fed. She didn't kill the first batch as it was removed a day earlier. I saw the capped cell with the round hole but I left the second batch in order to be sure I have a virgin inside the upper story. 
I left the queen excluder on and set up the upper entrance to face backwards. I wouldn't even dare to try and find her and instead go for a mated queen in the upper story. I hope they wont swarm .


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