# All queen cells capped, roller cages on, queens ready to hatch any day, now what?



## soarwitheagles (May 23, 2015)

Title says it all...

Using the Nicot system. We were able to obtain 19 sealed queen cells.

All queen cells capped, roller cages on, queens ready to hatch any day, now what?

Should I immediately make some nucs, and transfer the roller cages with the yet to hatch queens into the newly formed nucs?

Or,

Should I wait until the queens hatch, then put candy in one end of the roller cage, and install the queens in the nuc?

Please help me out here.


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## sakhoney (Apr 3, 2016)

do not wait - get them in nucs before they hatch - but if the hatch before - I have had good luck installing virgin queens less than 24 hours old by dipping my hive tool into some honey from the nuc and flooding her - buy the time they get her cleaned up - 100% accepted
Seams the nucs just don't have the heart to kill a baby IMO


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Sak got the right idea.
The baby bee does not smell like the other older bees yet when she emerged.
They leave her alone since there is no threat to them. Wait after 3 days to release her
in a mating hive and see what will happen. Older bees don't like the foreign bee's scent.
Mine will emerge by next Wed. give or take. Does your cap cells look like a big peanut and the larvae very well fed?
I still see a 1/4" to 1/2" of the RJ remaining inside the green plastic cup once the grub stop feeding. Anxious to see what
the queens will look like.


Mine just ate almost all their RJ:


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

Transfer them to nucs BEFORE they emerge. I like to transfer on day 14.


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## soarwitheagles (May 23, 2015)

Queens galore!

Sharing photos of them now as well as the nuc set up with the anti robber screens.

Enjoy!


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Nice! 
Let us know how it goes... I absolutely love checking for freshly laying queens. Each one's like a little Christmas present!


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## soarwitheagles (May 23, 2015)

jwcarlson said:


> Nice!
> Let us know how it goes... I absolutely love checking for freshly laying queens. Each one's like a little Christmas present!


JW, I totally agree! Sure is exciting!

Here's some more pics of some of the other queens...

Most appear yellow with a black tip on the rear end....


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

You are doing just great Dirk, it's going quite nice for a first try queen rearing by the seat of your pants. :applause:


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## soarwitheagles (May 23, 2015)

RayMarler said:


> You are doing just great Dirk, it's going quite nice for a first try queen rearing by the seat of your pants. :applause:


Well, thank you Ray! And most of all, thanks for sharing all the excellent advice and suggestions!

Ok, here's a few more pics...


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

soarwitheagles said:


> JW, I totally agree! Sure is exciting!
> 
> Here's some more pics of some of the other queens...
> 
> Most appear yellow with a black tip on the rear end....


Looking good, they seem to get darker the second year (not that color matters). I've got some the range from bright-ish orange to completely black... all from the same queen mother. Oddly enough some of her daughters are throwing what look like 'Cordovan' baby bees. While others are much darker. It's interesting to see the results.

I'm impressed with your "improvement" compared to when you first started posting here, soar. Always good to see someone willing to learn and take good advice when given. :thumbsup:


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## bevy's honeybees (Apr 21, 2011)

soarwitheagles said:


> Queens galore!
> 
> Sharing photos of them now as well as the nuc set up with the anti robber screens.
> 
> ...


Nice job! I found out the hard way how important those robber screens are for the nucs. A few weeks ago I did my first "grafting" (cell punch) and had 4 beautiful cells out of 11. I set up my 2 frame, 4 sectioned queen castle with each getting one frame food, one frame brood and bees, and next day put in queen cells. The day after that the robbing started. I tried to stop it and did for a day or two. After that, 3 days when I could not attend to them and by the end it was all robbed out and a total failure. Painful lesson. I'm going to try again in September with our strong Brazilian Pepper flow, build/attach much stronger robber screens, and make sure they are loaded with bees. 
The only successful queen rearing I have done so far are walk away splits. Those are fine, and fun, but I want to start something new.


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## sakhoney (Apr 3, 2016)

Hey soar - let us know how many mate and get back in - Would like to know if those virgins make it through the robber screens and back.


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## m0dem (May 14, 2016)

Is it just me, or do newly mated queens sputter with there laying pattern at first?


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## sakhoney (Apr 3, 2016)

define sputter MOdem - I have seen them double shoot a cell with 2 eggs


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## soarwitheagles (May 23, 2015)

RayMarler said:


> You are doing just great Dirk, it's going quite nice for a first try queen rearing by the seat of your pants. :applause:


Yes, I kinda stepped out to walk on the water before reading all the directions! For me, this is like a miracle! Thanks again for sharing so much with me via chat and phone Ray. Without people like you and JRG, I would still be at one hive or less!



jwcarlson said:


> Looking good, they seem to get darker the second year (not that color matters). I've got some the range from bright-ish orange to completely black... all from the same queen mother. Oddly enough some of her daughters are throwing what look like 'Cordovan' baby bees. While others are much darker. It's interesting to see the results.
> 
> I'm impressed with your "improvement" compared to when you first started posting here, soar. Always good to see someone willing to learn and take good advice when given. :thumbsup:


JW, Thanks again for your words of encouragement. Joining a community of beeks here at Beesource has been such a blessing. I believe I can learn more here at this forum in one week than perhaps an entire year on my own. So, I see this place as a treasure. Improvement? I laugh now when I remember my first post, asking if people liked my beehive stand [which was two pipes slammed into a Eucalyptus stump]! This is a wonderful place to obtain a bee education! Ignorance can be utterly deadly [as we found out with our very first hive]. 



bevy's honeybees said:


> Nice job! I found out the hard way how important those robber screens are for the nucs. A few weeks ago I did my first "grafting" (cell punch) and had 4 beautiful cells out of 11. I set up my 2 frame, 4 sectioned queen castle with each getting one frame food, one frame brood and bees, and next day put in queen cells. The day after that the robbing started. I tried to stop it and did for a day or two. After that, 3 days when I could not attend to them and by the end it was all robbed out and a total failure. Painful lesson. I'm going to try again in September with our strong Brazilian Pepper flow, build/attach much stronger robber screens, and make sure they are loaded with bees.
> The only successful queen rearing I have done so far are walk away splits. Those are fine, and fun, but I want to start something new.


Bev, so sorry to hear about the robbing disaster! Ouch! For us, we have to say the exact same thing as you...we too have only experienced success with the walk away splits. So now, we hope to have success with this Nicot system. The challenge is, we are not yet in the success mode until those queens fly out, mate, and return home. Know what we are doing today? We will tape various shapes of brightly colored poster paper on each hive. Hopefully, that will assist the queen in finding her way home...



sakhoney said:


> Hey soar - let us know how many mate and get back in - Would like to know if those virgins make it through the robber screens and back.


Will do Sak!

I do have some questions and please help me understand more:

*1. When observing the queens for the first time yesterday, we notice in every hive, nearly 75% of the bees eating honey yet we did not use a smoker. Why is this occurring?
2. Some hives were terribly short on brood. Is it ok to remove a frame of brood from other hives and place inside the nucs?
3. Is it ok to begin the sugar syrup now?
4. I temporarily placed the extra queens in the cages inside two different hives where we could not find the new queens. Will they survive and what are my options now?*

Ok, that's all for now. Thanks again everyone for your help!


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## m0dem (May 14, 2016)

soarwitheagles said:


> *1. When observing the queens for the first time yesterday, we notice in every hive, nearly 75% of the bees eating honey yet we did not use a smoker. Why is this occurring?*


They do that with me too. It's probably if there is any type of hazard to them, they fill up on honey. Ready to move to a new location.


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## m0dem (May 14, 2016)

sakhoney said:


> define sputter MOdem - I have seen them double shoot a cell with 2 eggs


By sputtering, I mean laying a not so great brood pattern, but still in amazing quantity.
I have seen that double shooting.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

A newly mated queen will go back to refill these missed cells if she
is a good laying queen. I have queens that are newly mated and will not
miss a single cell. Those are the ones that I will keep.
I have 2 strong queens mated and should be laying anytime next week. It is time to 
do a follow up graft too.


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## m0dem (May 14, 2016)

Yes, they refill the empty cells after the surrounding cells are capped.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

That means there are too much space for the new queen to roam.
In a 5 frames nuc with one pollen frame there should be sufficient space
for her to not to this. Over time she will learn to fill out all the empty cells.
A newly mated queen is very eager to lay.


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## soarwitheagles (May 23, 2015)

Came home to a strange surprise today.

I had cut two, 2” holes in the top of each of the nucs. One hole, I stapled #8 screen for a vent, the other hole, using to feed with a 16oz mason jar.

I had left open all the coroplast boards on each hive for ventilation purposes [we have been and will continue to be at 102-107F for the next few days.

When I attempted to close the coroplast board on one hive, it would not budge. I couldn’t figure it out. I pushed much harder, and suddenly I hear ker-plunk, and then a loud buzzing noise…

What the heck is going on? I look under the hive and there is a large ball of bees on the ground. I crawl on my tummy, and look up under the hive…what an amazing sight. A large clump of bees, much larger than any number of bees we placed in any of the nucs! 

Now what? I had no clue what to do…

Then I remembered watching a video. So I grabbed a hive box that had frames with drawn comb. I placed that box in front of the nuc. I picked up a large ball of bees and dropped them in the box after removing two frames. Next, I picked up the nuc, carried it until it was directly over the box, then gently dropped it from about 1 inch up. Massive numbers of bee hit the top of the frames.

Then, to my amazement, like a slow motion train, the large number of bees under the beehive stand, begin to march to the old box on the ground. By sunset, only 12 bees of the thousands of bees are left on the ground.

Picked up the box, placed it on a hive stand, and went merrily on my way.

What an adventure!

Hope I did the right thing.

But why would there suddenly appear such a massive number of bees out of nowhere and they clump under one of the new nucs? That’s the question I have now…

Can anyone here help me understand what just happened?

Puzzled

PS Posted pics of it...


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

That is only bearding!
It is absolutely normal hanging under the hive when a hive is too hot inside that the
bees have to cool themselves by staying outside. I don't pick them
up anymore because the next day they will do the same thing. Leave them bee!
You can also make the landing board longer say 3" so that they will beard upward the hive instead
of under.


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## soarwitheagles (May 23, 2015)

beepro said:


> That is only bearding!
> It is absolutely normal hanging under the hive when a hive is too hot inside that the
> bees have to cool themselves by staying outside. I don't pick them
> up anymore because the next day they will do the same thing. Leave them bee!
> ...


Beepro,

Thanks for the reply. I am a total newbie compared to most people here at Beesource. You may have misread my post describing the incident yesterday. Also, my pictures may not have done justice to the swarm [I only captured about 25% of the swarm of bees in the pics]. Most of the bees are not visible in pic #1 because _*the largest majority of the bees were located under the hive, out of sight!*_

I am totally convinced it is not bearding. I see bearding all the time on other hives. This was not bearding. Wanna know why I am convinced?

Here is why:

*1. 99% of the bees from the nuc were still inside the nuc when this incident occurred.
2. The number of bees under the nuc were triple or quadruple the number of bees that were initially placed in the nuc.
3. 99% of the bees are presently still inside the nuc today, while 3-4 times more than that nuc number of bees are now in the hive box they entered into yesterday.
4. The demeanor of the bees was very different than a beard of bees on the outside of the hive.*

So sorry, I will have to respectfully disagree with you on this one! That was not a beard of bees at all. It was a swarm but I have no clue where they came from. The good news is, they sure are kind, gentle, and friendly!

Soar


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## m0dem (May 14, 2016)

Nice.


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## soarwitheagles (May 23, 2015)

UPDATE: Came home today and same exact story. Man, I am trying to figure out what is going on.

Any ideas?

Posting new pics.

Sure looks like a swarm to me...

And it looked as if the bees I placed in the large bee box are gone....

Yo, what's up with that?


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

I don't know how you made these nucs up. But when I make up a yard of 16 with cells. If there's one that happens to have been an "extra" from the week previous and it's queen is already out. That nuc is swamped with bees as they drift around. Which can become a bit problematic. If you're confidant that the queens haven't emerged yet you can swap locations. But that might be a little risky.

Never dealt with usurpation swarms, so I can't help you if that's an issue.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Jw, your observation is the same as mine about the return mated or newly emerged virgin queen.
The bees facing the same entrance can clearly smell the new queen scent and drifted toward her.
A side-by-side queen comparison of the 2 nucs facing the same entrance direction will show this bee drifting
event everyday. This is good since the bees will choose the queen with the most strongest bee scent. Betcha she's
going to be the stronger well fed queen too. Moving the nuc at this critical mating moment has no benefit to the returning
virgin on her mating flights. As long as they still have enough bees inside the nuc cover the new eggs and 
cap broods I'm fine with it. Now you know out of the many queens this nuc has the strongest one.


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## sakhoney (Apr 3, 2016)

Soar - remember when you were advised about facing the nucs in different directions? Well??


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Soar, also check on the unsuccessful mating nuc that the queen is MIA now.
Those the workers will gravitate toward the mated queen right nucs too.
I usually do my night or before the sundown mating nuc inspection to minimize
the chance of the queen flying away. The virgins will not fly that much using a
LED light to check on them. I have yet one virgin that disappear on the night inspection.
Also fully suit up on every inspection either day or night. Our summer dearth will make them
behaved spontaneously.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Yea maybe the robbing screens are interfering with queens returning from orientation or mating flights. And have you gotten the colors different on the fronts of the nucs yet?


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## soarwitheagles (May 23, 2015)

Gentlemen,

Thank you for sharing your advice, wisdom, and experience.

The same exact phenomena is growing. I am seeing another nuc exhibiting the same exact signs....appears as if an entire hive is outside the box...and they just keep growing, and for now, I have no clue at all what to do.

Sakhoney, yes, I do remember several people advising me to not locate the nucs all in a line. Problem is, I ran out of time, and just made due with what i could. Placing the nucs on the ground or off the ground without special ant proof stands is like signing their death warrant here at this location due to the severity of the ant problem.

I could have [and probably should have] placed the nucs on two ant proof hive stands that were set up in a "L" design. I simply ran out of time.

Beepro, I no longer work our bees at night unless I am doing a simply OA vapor treatment from outside the hive. I have been advised by many, many beekeepers that working bees at night is not a good idea. I realize you work your bees at night and I am glad it is working for you. But I won't. I noticed my gentle and kind bees change temperament if I attempt to work them at night, so it is not gonna happen.

JW, we know all the queens emerged [my wife and I opened every nuc and clearly saw every queen cell opened]. We also were able to find most of the virgin queens, so that is very good news.

Today, I finally cut out colorful patterns and images to place on the hive entrance to hopefully assist the queens to find their home after their mating flights. I hope to place the bright various colored neon patterns on tomorrow morning.

Here's some really good news in this queen adventure: All nucs finished their quart of sugar syrup and no robbing took place at all. Really happy about that!

Will add the refilled quart jars tomorrow morning again. We also gave every nuc its very own ML Ultra Bee Pollen Substitute patty. Some are taking it, some are not.

I have obviously gotten in above my head here. My other challenge is, I started back to work this week, full time. So now, my bee time is severely diminished!

Not sure what else to do, so here's the plan:

1. Add sugar syrup tomorrow.
2. Attach bright colored patterns on each hive entrance.
3. Leave the bees alone for one more week.
4. Perhaps, next week or in two weeks, check for eggs and larvae.

MAYBE: if some of the nucs did not produce a nice queen, then maybe I could simply combine there? Gosh, I have no clue where to go from here now...

If you have any better ideas, I am all ears.

Thanks again for you help.

Soar


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## sakhoney (Apr 3, 2016)

Soar - even just turning these 180 would help if all are on the same stand - one facing 1 way - next one facing 180 the other - Just a though and good luck


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## soarwitheagles (May 23, 2015)

I did not feel comfortable turning hives 180 degrees because I have been taught since day one to not walk in front of the hive. So turning the hives 180 degrees would have made it impossible to approach all hives from the back.

I added the colored poster paper with various shapes.

Also added the second quart of sugar syrup. No robbing at all! Yeah!

BTW, I hope the queens have human preschool levels of cognition with color images...butterflies, houses, ghosts, stars, snowman, bus, Christmas tree, etc.

Finally, still getting the large clumps of bees in various hives...but now, it is mostly at night time...

To be continued....


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Since they all have their own feeding jar, the robber screen is there to
prevent the queen from coming home. This will minimize your queen success on her return mating flights.
I do not think there are enough bees to rob out the others. You can remove the stronger hive screen for a
little experimental test. 
The weaker hives you can stand in front without any issue. It is the production hive that you are worry about
getting in their way. Anyways, a few minutes in front of the hive will not cause any harm to you or the bees.
I find it unnecessary to rotate the hive entrance on the opposite end because some queens will be lost on their
mating flights. But I would worry about the robber screen because they all look the same to the queen on her way home.
You can partition between the 2 hive right in the middle. I use a foam piece to do that.


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