# Free Flying, Queenless, Starter-Finisher



## n2dsky (Feb 10, 2004)

Hi Dennis,

I've enjoyed your queen production ideas and I have a few new-bee questions . . .
Is this a 3 deep (or 3 brood chamber) hive to start with?
Two "Breeder hives" duplicating each other?
What is the "restrictor" you describe?
Frame style feeders?
How do you "refresh" a pollen frame?
Any links available for more information on field grafting?
Why scratch a frame of honey?
"Spurious cells" meaning cells on the brood frames instead of the cups? 
Out by day 15 to mating nucs? 
What mating nucs do you set up?

Thanks in advance for your insight!

Steve


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## BWrangler (Aug 14, 2002)

Hi n2,

>Is this a 3 deep (or 3 brood chamber) hive to start with?

I like a three story hive. The extra box allows the support hive to be worked in a way that easily provides a source of young bees and sealed brood frames without any eggs or unsealed larva.

A two story hive can be used but the queen must be found and frames carefully searched for eggs/open larva before transferring any into the starter-finisher.

>Two "Breeder hives" duplicating each other?

For commercial rearing, yes. A breeder queen sometimes delays her laying when restricted to a frame. It's a bad grafting day, if a guy has to hunt up a thousand properly aged larva from the support hives.

>What is the "restrictor" you describe?
A restrictor is a device that confines a breeder queen to a single frame. Some aka Marla Spivak consist of a piece of queen excluder fixed so that it can be pressed onto the face of a comb. Others consist of a queen excluder covered compartment that a frame slides into in the center of a breeder hive. The queen is restricted on a new brood frame every 4 days. That provides an abundant supply of properly aged larva for grafting without having to hunt them up.

>Frame style feeders?
These are just division board feeders.

>How do you "refresh" a pollen frame?
Pollen pellets, trapped from your bees, are sprinked into the cells of a horizontal frame. Then the frame is sprayed with a very light sugar syrup.

>Any links available for more information on field grafting?

Not, yet. I may just post a note on what I do.

>Why scratch a frame of honey?

Honey is the best substance to feed a starter-finisher. The bees don't have to expend any enery or time to 'digest' or convert it. But it's too rich to raise larva on, hence the feeding of a light sugar syrup.

>"Spurious cells" meaning cells on the brood frames instead of the cups?

Yes. The bees will sometimes move a larva out of a queen cup and stick in on the back side of a honey frame. I think they sometimes sense that their queen rearing efforts are failing and try a more out of the way location.

>Out by day 15 to mating nucs?
>What mating nucs do you set up?

Yes, some will start hatching on day 15.

Lots of possibilities exist depending upon ones needs. Most large queen producers use baby nucs. I like a larger nuc. A deep single can be divided into several compartments and a queen mated from each one.

For just a few queens, a split can be made above a swarm board, given a rear facing entrance, and the queen mated from there.

Or hives can be requeened by inserting a queen cell into a honey super.

Regards
Dennis


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