# Question about using Hair Roller Cages



## psm1212 (Feb 9, 2016)

Trying to make my plan for rearing a few queens with the Cloake Board method and I have a gap in information that I hope the group can fill. Once my queen cells are capped, I want to put hair roller cages on them (JZBZ) and allow the new queens to hatch in place. How long will the virgin queens "keep" in these cages if they are not moved? Will the nurse bees feed them all through the cages? Wanting to figure out how many days I can buy if I install hair roller cages on the capped cells. I realize most would likely move queen cells to mating nucs after being capped, but I am trying to figure out what would happen if you did not do that immediately. Thanks for any info.


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## RBRamsey (Mar 1, 2015)

They may not feed all of the virgins. I move mine to the incubator if I am going to let them emerge, but remember that virgins need to be mated before they are 2 weeks old. They will need 3 days more or less to be introduced to the mating nuc. 

When I keep them in the incubator I feed them a couple drops of honey and water each day. They eat fine. 

I had a round of queen cells ready to emerge this week, but I decided to keep them in the incubator until this cold front passed through. I will be putting them in the mating nucs tomorrow. Most emerged Yesterday and the day before.


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## psm1212 (Feb 9, 2016)

Any guess as to how long they would likely remain alive and healthy (viable) if they are not removed? Obviously not more than 2 weeks. Allow for 3 days acceptance and another three days for mating, so we are down to a maximum of maybe a week? Will they keep them fed for a week? What does an incubator provide that the Cloake Board hive does not? I thought the incubator was so you could start the grafting procedure over more quickly.

Sorry for all the questions. This will be my first attempt.


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## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

The incubator makes it so you can open the door smear some honey and water on the cages and feed them yourself. 
In the hive...the bees won't recognize the virgins as queens because lack of pheromones. 
From my observations virgins feed themselves until mated.
Banking them in a hive as virgins is risky.


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## RBRamsey (Mar 1, 2015)

I agree with Aunt Betty, caged virgins are not well taken of in the hive. With my limited experience, most of them will die caged. They will probably last 2-3 days. I would at least open the hive and feed and water the virgins by hand daily if you can. Not too much, but a couple of drops of 1:1 honey and water. Mix a small amount of honey-water, feed the bees ,and discard the rest. This will go bad quickly.

The incubator is used after the grafts and after the cells are sealed. You pull the capped cells from the finisher and put them in the incubator generally because you don't have mating nucs read at the moment.

In this case, because the weather turned cold, and I couldn't make the all mating nucs up in time. Also, I wasn't sure of the viability of all of the queen cells. I had about 30 cells in the incubator since last Sunday, and most all emerged Tuesday and Wednesday (25 out of 30). I placed 12 in mating nucs, that were made up Sunday, today as the temperature rose to 50 degrees and no wind. I plugged the top of the roller cage with wax (the queen cell squished up), and put them between the frames. I will manually let them loose tomorrow. I could probably let them loose as I introduced them, because the bees didn't seem to notice them. 

I will make more splits this evening, put the rest of the virgins will be put into mating nucs tomorrow.


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## psm1212 (Feb 9, 2016)

Thank you both. I think that answers my question. I was hoping for a little timing flexibility with the hair rollers, but it sounds like they are designed just so the first to emerge does not kill the remainder -- and they don't have much more utility. I am sure I will be back with more questions. But that helps me for now. Thanks.


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