# 12V Queen Cell Incubator for Car



## Dan the bee guy

When I had some swarm cells this summer I was just going to cut them out then I thought why not try to get some queens out of them. They were already laying in the up turned cover so I got a napkin out of the car wrapped them up nice then put them in the cup holder. They had to sit for over 3 hours in the car while I got the nucs ready. The lesson I learned from that is they will take a lot of abuse.


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## Phoebee

I can see capped queen cells surviving a while, expecially in a warm car in June. It really surprised me that freshly grafted eggs, straight out of a grafting class, could make it for some hours. She didn't say, but they must have at least had some royal jelly for them.

But I'm a gadget guy, and I've worked with PID controllers since the 80's, so I can't resist building a gadget to do this. Materials probably won't exceed $100. 

The queen I'm hoping to breed from is something of a prize. The group tried raising queens from one of her sisters and had an incubator accident, and they've been eyeing my queen for another try. Next spring she'll be pushing 2 years old so we may only get the one chance, if that. I raised two daughters from her this summer, but we're hoping for as close to the original genetics as possible.


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## jwcarlson

I admire the tinkering, even if quite unnecessary. 

I pulled honey Sunday afternoon. I missed one comb that had about a dozen capped worker brood in it. Got to it while extracting and just left them capped. Spun the honey.

Went to put those frames back into the hive last night (they sat in my truck in 90* heat for about 3 days). 

And a couple of those bees were chewing their way out of their cells. 
While handling them with recklessness isn't the best course of action. You certainly don't need to go hog wild on it.
I cut about six cells out for a fellow beekeeper, put them into a jam jar and then scraped about 3/4 of a cup of bees into the jar and capped it (with plenty of air holes).
They survived just fine. And it didn't even require 12 volts!


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## JRG13

I'm having one made by a co-worker, will keep you guys updated. I can forward any interest to him, you can choose any suitable unit for the housing, he's just installing the components and controls for the environmental controls.


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## Phoebee

jw,

I could certainly stick some frames in a nuc or queen castle and move them that way, with nurses to keep them warm and fed, but crossing state lines means getting an inspection. The inspector would probably be a little cranky to be called halfway across the state to inspect a few frames, and scheduling is a problem. I think inspection is not so much a problem with just the queen cells. 

Plus I wouldn't get to tinker.

In the days when PID controllers were $500, this would not have been an option. The unit I bought was $36 and has all the features and tune-up capability as the fancy Watlows I used to buy. There are digital thermostats that could also run an incubator going for under $10.


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## AstroBee

Tinker away. Please keep us updated on how it develops. Pictures would be great!


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## pihlpet

I needed that kind of incubator this summer, when I had to move cells from apiary on to mating-island. And between those two places I wanted to spend a night at home. So I needed incubator that I can take along with me everywhere I go.
Like most of us, Im always in a hurry too, so It was a quick build.
I took one of my experimental deep super (it was local national size, made of EPS) and cut it smaller to fit four 3/4 Langstroth frames, I have 30 cells on each frame.
Then I screwed EPS foam under the box(insulation) and on top of that OSB board to make it stronger. 
I made a cover out of sheet-metal and added EPS as insulation. All the caps and joints I filled with PUR foam.

I can not say about electronics as I had the details bought years ago. It has a digital 12V thermostat and 220V and 60W heating element.
So my need was partially covered I can take the incubator with me where ever I go, as long as there is 220V socet on the wall

Well shorter distances with 1hour drive was no problems, just 2 degrees (celsius) cooling in one hour.
Cells could easily manage that. 

To explain my ideas little more, in the beginning, I was thinking about using 12V for everything as I had 12V thermostat already. As for heating element I was planning to use car seat warming pad. Also, if anyone is starting from zero, one hint is to buy car fridge that can warm up too It has 12V heating elements built in and needs only thermostat.
But I was in a hurry and I had components on the table, so I made what I could and for car I planned to buy 12v to 220v converter. 
I have not done it, I should then there is less messing around with the incubator, it could stay in car or in the house for night. I managed without the converter as from apiary to my home is 1 hour, to ferry its 1,5hours and there is a wall socket on the ferry, then another 1 hour in car and then another ferry with wall socket. And then cells into mini-mating-nucs. Yes it would be easier with the converter and for the next season I plan to buy it. It would be good also for the cells, as the heating element remains warm even after the temp. is gained. So for the heating up it heats up a little more for the first time after one hour, when it is constantly on it holds nicely on 34,5C.

I did not want to capture the thread, just talking about my experiences.
Some pics too:






















Also very important thing, It has the possibility to put 2 1,5ltr bottles with warm water in it

So have fun experimenting!

Regards,
Peter


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## Phoebee

Let's see if my drawing for cutting the foam is legible.

The nominal foam thicknesses are 1 and 2 inches, but the actual thicknesses were a bit off from that, so that's why a couple of the dimensions are a bit odd.


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## Phoebee

Pihlpet,

I wondered about 220 V and then noticed you are in Estonia.

I don't know the details of your 12V digital thermostat, but if it needs a solid state relay, the one I listed above would probably switch 12 V DC, and they can be had on e-bay for, $12-16, or around that in euros. The motorcycle handgrip heaters run $5 a set, and would provide 20 watts per set. One set would run on about 2A, which the thermostat might run on its internal relay, or you could run several sets on an SSR. All this stuff comes from China, so I'm sure you can get it as easily as we do.

An inverter for 60 W is not hard to come by, though.


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## DrJeseuss

I've been mulling over this idea also... nowhere to take my cells... yet! Still, I'm also a tinkerer. I'm using a pi (overkill but cheap... $20 for the model A+ these days). For heat, I considered a SSR to drive a dash heater (resistive element). I've since diverted to the idea of peltier plates as they can be driven easily and waste less power than resistive, though not by much margin. I've been considering dumbing the idea down to 12v bulbs for heat. With the pi, I can use an 18B20 to get VERY accurate sensing of temps in the range needed, and from there it's all a matter of programming to get the right hysterisis, certainly far more accurate than necessary, but again.... I also tinker.  As example, at home I have a pi monitoring a series of 18B20s placed in different rooms, as well as inside the ducts. Then there are K-type thermocouples inside the wood furnace, flue etc so I can fully monitor temps all over (unnecessarily). I get an alert to my thermostat if I have AC set and it's cooler outside than in telling me to open the windows... and upon doing so, it automatically shuts off the AC for me until all windows are closed again... and on and on, all overkill. You either love this stuff, or don't. Did I mention I work in IT/Automation. Tinker on!


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## Phoebee

I have a dozen or so of those 2" Peltier heater/coolers within an arm's length of my computer. I've got them calibrated for use as heat flow sensors. I'll probably use one to measure heat loss from my incubator, just for fun. They are 100x cheaper than Omega thermopiles and also 100x more sensitive ... might be fun for you to measure wall heat loss or other heat flow questions.

I have a hive scale/instrumentation project on the back burner. I was going to do it with Arduino hardware, but my friend designing the boards is a Forth fan and will have none of it. I bought a Seeeduino Mega and a strain measurement board, but won't make that mistake again. The strain board had been changed from their on-line description, and is junk. The computer is sold with no documentation, and the recommendation just to use Arduino literature. I have not had the patience to get the thing running. Raspberry Pi probably would have been a better bet.

But durn, for standalone temperature control a fully functional PID controller is just so slick for about $30-ish.


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## RayMarler

For those of us who would rather not tinker, I did find this one...

http://www.reptipro.com/reptipro-6000-incubator.html

It is the newer model I believe, than what Lauri posted about here...
http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?290830-Incubators!&p=1018963#post1018963


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## Phoebee

RayMarler said:


> For those of us who would rather not tinker, I did find this one...


Spoilsport!

I did kind of want one that was sized for a deep frame. That way if I found a frame full of swarm cells I could just take the whole thing without butchery. The egg incubators are never quite the right shape.


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## BeeBop

Phoebee said:


> So far I have a 12V powered PID controller bought on e-bay, two motorcycle hand grip warmer kits (each kit contains a pair of cheap 10W 12V flexible heaters), and I have a solid state relay on order which controls DC (most SSRs are for AC and will not turn off if run on DC).
> SSR: ESSR-40DDC


Sounds like an entertaining project.

Why a fancy SSR to control the heaters? A generic $.50 logic level MOSFET used as a low side switch is all you need.


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## jim lyon

I took the guts out of a cheap styrofoam incubator, mounted it on a drip pan under this insulated hive body and power it with a basic power inverter. It works great as long as you properly calibrate it before using.


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## Phoebee

Bee-Bop, I was thinking that as I ordered the SSR. I had to do a project once with about 36 relays controlled from some TTL-level IO. I did it with power MOSFETs that had an ON resistance about like a piece of copper wire. I needed maybe 0.25A, but these things could handle 5A. I added small heat sinks (did not believe a transistor could really come on that cleanly) but they were not necessary. I had to add level shifters to get the drive high enough to turn the MOSFETs on completely. That took 7-8V, but the spec on the SSR control outputs I think is 8V.

But what the heck, the SSR is a very neat package, and I didn't feel like wasting any time looking up power MOSFETs. And if I want to switch 40 amps, it'll handle it. They're cheap enough on e-bay.


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## Phoebee

I just tried out our OAV vaporizer, a Brushy Mountain Varrocleaner, for the first time. That thing is a current hog, rated to run on 12 V and produce 140 W. A quick test of it with a charge of beeswax (safer than OA for an open air test) shows that it runs way hotter than it needs to, heating to over 200 F in under two minutes. The instructions say to run it for 2.5 minutes, and don't run it longer as the aluminum may melt.

That's nutty over-powered, enough to decompose OA instead of just vaporizing it. For my first use of it, I ran just 2 minutes, not 2.5, and that was more than long enough.

All I need to do to make a regulated OA vaporizer out of it is to stick in a thermocouple and then plug it in to the controller I've built for the 12 V queen cell incubator. So the 40A solid state relay just justified itself ... it can easily handle the 12 amps or so the vaporizer requires. A quick couple of runs to allow the controller to autotune should produce a reasonably precise unit that holds at OA sublimation temperature without overheating into the decomposition range.


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## RayMarler

Phoebee said:


> Spoilsport!
> 
> I did kind of want one that was sized for a deep frame. That way if I found a frame full of swarm cells I could just take the whole thing without butchery. The egg incubators are never quite the right shape.


Yes I agree, it would be nice to convert a 4 or 5 frame nuc into an incubator, one that would run on 12v or 110v either one. That would be sweetness for sure. That is one of the main reasons why I've not purchased the repti-pro incubator. The other reason is for use at home, I can just use a cell starter/finisher colony to incubate the cells!


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## Lauri

http://www.amazon.com/HotHands-Hand...UTF8&qid=1452615245&sr=1-1&keywords=hot+hands

I use these small hand warmers in a small insulated lunch box to carry cells and virgin queens around with me all day when spring temps are cool. I can remove a mated queen from a mating nuc and immediately replace her with a cell or virgin.

My customers use them for cell transport especially if they are coming from out of state.





































http://www.exo-terra.com/en/products/incubator.php

http://www.amazon.com/Exo-Terra-PT2...452617608&sr=8-1&keywords=exo+terra+incubator

Comes with Car Adaptor (12V) included

Reviews for the older model are horrible, but mine has worked perfectly for 4 seasons and runs *non stop* from April-September each year.

The link I posted is the _new and improved model_.

Bottom of the incubator is about 2 degrees cooler than the top shelf. That is my biggest complaint, but it's not a big deal as long as you are aware.


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## Phoebee

Lauri, nice incubator! 

We're hoping to get to your level one day.


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## Phoebee

I finally got some other projects out of the way, and put the power supply and regulator system together for this system. However, its purpose has now changed.

I went overboard, as usual, because I can't resist. The main purpose of the unit is now to power a 12V OAV Vaporizer. I'm using it with one of those Brushy Mountain Varrocleaner units, which comes totally unregulated. The instructions warn that if you leave it powered too long you can melt it. I used it once back in January, and it totally vaporized the OA in about a minute, but they tell you to leave it on for 2 minutes. After a few temperature measurements I concluded this is a bad idea.

This vaporizer easily and quickly exceeds OA decomposition temperature. Hopefully, before it does the OA is completely gone, but the unit is clearly overpowered. Since I already had the parts to make the 12V queen cell incubator, and the solid state relay was rated for 40 amps (what the heck, it was cheap), I tweaked the design to allow either application.

The project is built in a modern plastic "ammo can" from MPJA. This particular orange box is large enough for the old dual gel cell I salvaged from a junked rechargeable lawn mower. I fabbed an aluminum partition between the battery and the electronics bay, and the SSR mounts on that for some heat sink capability. The relay does not even get warm at the 9-10 A load of the vaporizer at full power.

I drilled a small hole between the heating element and cavity on the vaporizer pan. I prepared an Omega TT-K-30 thermocouple to go in this hole. The thermocouple tip is pre-coated with JB Weld epoxy to insulate it, and then was glued in place with more of the same. The thermocouple insulation is rated for 500 F and JB Weld can take 550 F.

I used the autotune function of the temperature controller on a cold start with the setpoint at 340 F to set the PID parameters. This can be fine tuned manually. Overshoot was rather large but the maximum temperature was in no danger of melting the unit.

Looking up the properties of OA, sublimation "starts" at about 214 F (I expect this is the hydrate breaking down) and ends at 315 F. Decomposition is at 373 F. At the moment, the target temperature of the controller is set at 340 F. The autotune parameters as presently set allowed an overshoot to 380 F, so the set point can be adjusted down a little. A test just now with paraffin wax instead of OA in the pan reached the start of sublimation in under 40 seconds.

0 sec, 72 F
20 sec, 146 F
40 sec, 228 F
60 sec, 302 F
80 sec, 360 F
100 sec, 377 F
120 sec, 380 F

Other features of this unit are a volts-amps-power-watthour meter from MPJA, because I'm a nut. I also used an MPJA battery disconnect switch as the power switch. The power connector for the load is a 220V 20-amp type NEMA 6-20 receptacle and plug. This pattern is frequently used for 12 V applications, but to be Kosher, nothing else in your operation should use this size connector.


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## Phoebee

Months ago somebody asked for pictures ...

This is the modification to the Varrocleaner business end, the thermocouple epoxied into a small hole near the heater. The white material with the wick is part of a votive candle used as the dummy charge, because OAV in the garage is just evil.









The interior of the control/battery box.









Control and meter side of the control/battery box.









Switch and receptacle side of the control/battery box. The small yellow connector is a K thermocouple jack from Newark Electronics.


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## wildbranch2007

nice looking unit, have fun with it.


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