# Some misc Nicot chat ...



## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

As we're about to start yet another q/rearing season, thought I'd post a few words about the Nicot system. BTW - Nicot is a product of the French company Nicotplas, and 'Nicot' is pronounced "Nick-o" and not Ny-koT or Nick-oT.

Ok - first-off, laying-cage problems ...
A couple of weeks back I stumbled across a university discussion where a researcher was complaining about the constant problem of eggs being removed or eaten. That has been my problem too for as long as I can remember. The consensus reached there was that this may be caused by either not enough pollen, or a reaction to excessive disturbance. Both of those suggestions make sense, and I'd add to these that the bees may also simply want those cells for another purpose - such as storing nectar, should there be a flow on. So - all of these can be avoided or reduced somewhat, should egg-'theft' ever become a problem. (*Note to self ...*)

Next - Chinese 'Nicot' knock-offs. These are good value for money, but do have a few drawbacks - the first being that with the singular exception of the brown cell-cups, nothing is interchangeable with any part of the authentic Nicot kit.

Secondly, some of the cell holders do not hold the cell cups securely, likewise some of the roller cages. I've had both cups and cages fall off the cell-cup holders in the past. Very annoying. A simple fix is to either cut some kitchen towel into 5mm strips and insert some each time to 'take up the slack' - or - simply put a lick of molten wax onto the offending parts.

Thirdly, and this is something I've only recently discovered ...

This is how most people are used to seeing the Nicot roller cage setup:



But - when used in an incubator, an alternative setup is to have the roller cage lid placed onto the cell block, thusly:



However - you can't do this with the Chinese clones, as this is one detail they appear to have missed (i.e. the lid recess doesn't fit the cell block base). But, to be fair, it *is* a somewhat unusual (and perhaps unnecessary) way to arrange the roller cage assembly.


Ok - I have some good-ish news for those who prefer raising natural queen cells. In order to equip such q/cells with Nicot roller cages, it has been necessary in the past to employ one of these Nicot 'specials':



Now these may not be any more expensive than other bits of Nicot kit, but outside of France they're as rare as rocking-horse poo, and ordering them is uber-expensive - but now there's a much cheaper solution ...



I've just taken receipt of 30 of the above, and they fit perfectly into a Chinese 'Nicot' Roller cage (albeit a very sloppy fit into the genuine article).
So - these can be used either for queen-introduction onto a comb, or emergence into a roller cage.

I paid the equivalent of $2.50 (post free) for 30 - but I've seen some chancers asking $1 each for them on Ebay - so *do *shop around ...
LJ


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## snapper1d (Apr 8, 2011)

I have tried the nicot system with very poor results and have tried every trick in the book to no avail but I really like grafting into them.I get good takes with them and can use the roller cages to let queens emerge in them whether in the incubator or in hive.Or I can pull from the cell bar and put a cell between frames to hatch.Brown cell cups are cheap also and the rest is reusable.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I never had any problems with the eggs being removed in my Jenter system. I suspect the problem with the Nicot is that there is only one of four cells open to lay in and the rest have plastic cappings (and no brood). Bees don't like scattered brood.


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## dudelt (Mar 18, 2013)

A friend and I both started queen rearing last year. He chose to try Nicot and I chose grafting. I had better results that he did. I will admit that the Nicot concept is really great and we had fun with it but there are a couple of major drawbacks that we found and have read about. The biggest issue is getting the queen to lay in it. I have read but not found that some queens just will not lay eggs in the cassette. We did find that every queen we tried did eventually lay in the cassette, but you never knew when she would start. If we put her in the cage today, she might start laying today, or tomorrow, or 3 days from now. That just plays heck on any scheduling you are trying to keep. It also possibly means that you may have to open up the hive and check for eggs and larvae for 3 or 4 days in a row before you are successful. Having to open up the hives several times really disturbs the hives progress. It also screws up your scheduling in making the cell builder. The other major issue to me is that the whole process takes much longer than grafting. You first have to put the cassette into the hive to get it "warmed up" and cleaned by the bees for several days before putting the queen in it. Again, this is another 2 times you are disrupting the hive (putting it in and taking it out to put the queen in it). You are sequestering the queen in a small cage with 144 (?) cells in it and giving up on her laying 1,000 eggs per day for 3 or more days in the regular comb. That is a pretty poor exchange. 

Like Snapper1d above, I also tried grafting into the Nicot cell cups and found them to be easy to use and just as reliable as the JZ BZ cell cups. Attaching the roller cages is a breeze and is nice insurance. All in all, I found grafting to be a whole lot easier, faster and reliable. My friend and I both agrees that we will be trying the Nicot kit again this year because it is a great learning tool but will not be relying on it to be our main source for queens.


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## beemantn (Jan 4, 2019)

If you are looking for a new Nicot system, PM me. I have a new one that I'm not going to use. 

Hope this is not a violation of the rules. If it is just delete it.


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## dudelt (Mar 18, 2013)

beemantn said:


> If you are looking for a new Nicot system, PM me. I have a new one that I'm not going to use.


Gee, I hope I didn't t talk you out of using it! I actually do recommend that anyone who really wants to understand every aspect of beekeeping and queen rearing give the Nicot/Jenter system a try. Sure, it has its drawbacks but every aspect of beekeeping has its good points and its bad. My hope is that someday I will be teaching a beekeeper how to use the system because grafting is not an option for them.


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## madasafish (Aug 24, 2010)

I use Nicot. The trick to getting the queen to lay in the cells is introduce the cells 24 hours before inserting the queen. AND place a small amount of honey in each cell before you place in the hive. Encourages the bees to clean out the cells...


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

madasafish said:


> I use Nicot. The trick to getting the queen to lay in the cells is introduce the cells 24 hours before inserting the queen. AND place a small amount of honey in each cell before you place in the hive. Encourages the bees to clean out the cells...


What's the trick to get them to leave the eggs alone, so they get to hatch ... ? 
LJ


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## beemantn (Jan 4, 2019)

dudelt said:


> Gee, I hope I didn't t talk you out of using it! I actually do recommend that anyone who really wants to understand every aspect of beekeeping and queen rearing give the Nicot/Jenter system a try. Sure, it has its drawbacks but every aspect of beekeeping has its good points and its bad. My hope is that someday I will be teaching a beekeeper how to use the system because grafting is not an option for them.


O no. I use a different method for rearing my queens. Just clearing out some stuff I don't need. System is good for learning, that's for sure. Let me know if interested. 

[email protected]


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## madasafish (Aug 24, 2010)

little_john said:


> What's the trick to get them to leave the eggs alone, so they get to hatch ... ?
> LJ


I always feed the hive for at least a day before using the Nicot cage -or ensure there is a decent flow on. Perhaps the bees are short of food?

(Feeble I know but all I could think of)


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## BernhardHeuvel (Mar 13, 2013)

I use the original French Nicot system exclusively to produce a couple of thousands queens a year. I use it, because it works best for me. 

Haven't had any egg removal problems, because I graft and do not use the queen cage (what for anyway? Too complicated and not practical at all...) I used it once and returned to grafting quickly. The cage now is somewhere in the pile of cool beekeeping equipment you need to have in my personal junk yard. If you read the instructions coming with the cage it says you need to let it sit inside the hive for a couple of days, just as madasafish says. Rtfm as we used to say back in the old computer days.


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

Read the manual ? Tried that, and then some ...

Apart from 'seasoning' the Laying Cage (and even coating the face of it with wax), amongst the variations I've tried have been:
# New cell cups, old cell cups - with honey, sugar water, or dry - no difference.
# Leave Queen in the cage for 3+ days - only eggs resulted, suggesting that eggs are being removed, and duly replaced by the Queen.
# Leave QX on after Queen is removed.
# Remove QX after Queen is removed.
# Place Laying Cage in centre of brood-nest.
# Place Laying Cage towards one side of brood-nest. 
# Fitted 'access denial' shield over the eggs for 2 days (as per US Patent #4392262, 1983) - but eggs are removed (or eaten ?) immediately the shield is removed.

On the hunch that Queen proximity (i.e. pheromone concentration) might be a factor, I made some replica laying Cages (with QX's) using plastic foundation. The queen was placed in one of these replicas when removed from the Nicot cage, with the replica cage placed hard up against the Nicot cage. No difference. But - the queen laid-up the comb on the plastic foundation without problems - these then hatched into larvae and were used for grafting. This supports MB's idea that the '1 cell in 4' layout might be responsible - there's also Nicot's choice of cell diameter, which is midway between worker and drone - but if either of these are indeed responsible - then how is it other people are reporting successes with the system ?? 

It's driving me nuts. I take some consolation that numerous other people have experienced exactly the same problem - time and time again I hear reports from people who favour using the Nicot system ... that is, except for Nicot's Laying Cage.

I don't mind failure too much, providing I know *why* I'm failing. For the last 7 or 8 years, as soon as I've generated my quota of queens for the season I dust off the Nicot Laying Cage and try again - but have never succeeded in raising even one single larva from it. But, I intend to keep on trying ... 
LJ


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## psm1212 (Feb 9, 2016)

little_john said:


> BTW - Nicot is a product of the French company Nicotplas, and 'Nicot' is pronounced "Nick-o" and not Ny-koT or Nick-oT.


Thanks. I have been butchering that for many years now. Normally with "Knee-cot" or "Knee-co" (just depending on how French I felt that day), but never "Nick-o"


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

Another example of this being "a bientot" (sorry - can't easily do the appropriate accents over the letters), meaning "see you later ...". Likewise, that's pronounced bee-en-toe - again, the last 't' isn't pronounced.

Curious language - even inanimate objects having a male or female gender. Still, they probably think English is a bit weird in places ... 
LJ


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## BernhardHeuvel (Mar 13, 2013)

little_john said:


> Read the manual ? Tried that, and then some ...
> ...But, I intend to keep on trying ...
> LJ


Huh, not a single larva? That's interesting. The time I tried it, I harvested about 60 larvae from 100 or 110 cells I provided. I need to search my old photos to illustrate my trials. Didn't do much than spraying it with sugar water, let it sit in the hives for a day or so, and putting the queen into the cage. Once there were larvae I removed the cells from the cage and took them into a starter.


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## madasafish (Aug 24, 2010)

BernhardHeuvel said:


> Huh, not a single larva? That's interesting. The time I tried it, I harvested about 60 larvae from 100 or 110 cells I provided. I need to search my old photos to illustrate my trials. Didn't do much than spraying it with sugar water, let it sit in the hives for a day or so, and putting the queen into the cage. Once there were larvae I removed the cells from the cage and took them into a starter.


My problem is that I usually only want about 20 larvae - small scale queen production and limited mini nucs- so a lot go to waste!


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## BernhardHeuvel (Mar 13, 2013)

I guess simply grafting is the way to go. That's why everyone does it.


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## soarwitheagles (May 23, 2015)

I tried the Nicot system for two entire years with absolutely horrific results. And I followed the instructions a number of times to the "T."

I have 4-5 used Nicot systems laying around and about 7-8 brand new systems, never even opened up.

I will never use them ever again!

Moved on to grafting and experienced wonderful results and it was like a million times easier than it first appeared.

Also did a lot of walk away splits before learning to graft and we often experienced 100% success rate.

We experienced 0%-3% success with the Nicot system. For us, it was a complete and total waste of time and money.

Grafting using the Cloakeboard method and grafting using the professional method [20-30 frames of sealed brood, then wait 10 days, then add grafts]. Having tremendous success with these two methods.

Nicot leaves a sour taste in my mouth...

I sincerely wish I had never tried it!

Yuk!


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

This is a shot of one of the false laying cages I made to test my 'queen pheromone proximity' theory, and - although the experiment itself didn't work - brood *was* reared successfully in the false cage, which would indicate that some kind of fault lies either within the Nicot cage itself, or perhaps in the manner of it's installation ... ?

 

Now most people (as I understand it) install their laying cages within an existing brood comb. What I've done is to surround the Nicot cage with battens to prevent comb being drawn around the cage. This itself is not a novel idea - Dave Cushman has used this kind of method, and I note that Roger Patterson has added his two penn'orth to: http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/cellplugbox.html indicating that he would do exactly as I have done:



But - I'm mindful of MB's comment about the wider '1-in-4' cell spacing within the cage - and - without brood comb surrounding the cage, then a little over 100 of these wider-spaced brood cells are hanging there, surrounded by so much fresh air. Is this brood cell 'isolation' freaking-out the bees in some way ? The queen lays in the cage because she has no other option - but the nurse bees *do* have an option: because if they're not happy, then those eggs *will* be removed.

Anyway - that's the theory I'm working with this Spring, and I'll be fitting a second genuine Nicot Laying cage within an existing brood comb - and see what happens ...

LJ


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## BernhardHeuvel (Mar 13, 2013)

Erm, as far as I understood, you cut a section out of drawn comb and insert the cage into the comb.


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## BernhardHeuvel (Mar 13, 2013)

The best way to use it, is to use a drawn comb and cut a section out of it, insert the cage. In my trials I, too, let them build the comb themselves. But that is not a good idea. Better insert it into an existing comb. Preferably from the same hive.










In my second trial I even harvested more cells with larvae than I remembered.










Became some nice cells.




























And nice queens out of the Nicot cage. 











Still grafting is much easier, less complicated and you can do more queens in less time and with less effort.
#


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

My Jenter is always in the middle of drawn comb and I often put it in the middle of the brood nest and get that somewhat laid up before I confine the queen in the box. I put it between frames of open brood. If I do all of that, I don't have issues with them removing larvae. The Jenter, of course has all the cells available for the queen to lay, in the box. I just has plugs in one in four.


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

In the original Patent, the author comments that bees will draw comb around the laying cage, but there's no suggestion I can see there that it's considered by him to be of any importance.

Likewise in a German video "Koniging in Nicot-Kafig" (assumed to be successful - although ... ?), this initial comb-drawing can also be observed.



But - like you guys - installing in an existing comb is exactly what I'm going to try this year - hopefully this will cure my long run of failures.

I agree about grafting being more straightforward - one of the problems with using laying cages is the logistics of timing vs. unpredictable weather - Sod's Law says that on the day you're due to pull those 24hr old larvae, it'll be bucketing down ...
LJ


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## Jadeguppy (Jul 19, 2017)

I'm wondering if the queen will lay in the cups without being caged up. Has anyone tried it? Wax or something similar would need used to help hold in the cells.


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

Jadeguppy said:


> I'm wondering if the queen will lay in the cups without being caged up. Has anyone tried it? Wax or something similar would need used to help hold in the cells.


The problem there would be that the Nicot cell-cups themselves are of a larger diameter than the 'tubes' onto which they fit - so the queen would almost certainly lay unfertilised (drone) eggs in them. Otherwise - not a bad idea. A kind of variation on cell-punching - but without actually punching. 
LJ


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## madasafish (Aug 24, 2010)

Extra hygienic bees may not like eggs in plastic cells: may not "smell" right - which I believe is how the hygiene factor works.. But WDIK


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## aran (May 20, 2015)

i was really hoping this NICOT system would work since my grafting skills are not all that. Having said that i thought i had butchered the graft this past thursday but have over 75% acceptance which im shocked by. Im sure as one's grafting technique improves its a reliable and fast way to generate queen cells. I would say it took me about 45 mins start to finish including pulling the eggs/larvae frame, grafting 40 odd larvae and reinserting grafting frame back into the cell builder and as i said my skills are fairly shaky at best.


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## soarwitheagles (May 23, 2015)

As mentioned before, after trying Nicot system for two years in a row with horrific results, we switched to grafting. We went from a less than 10% success rate [Nicot] to 95% success rate [grafting].

Example: In early March we experimented with a super early graft and experienced 19/20 successes [mated, machine gunner laying queens]. Later March grafting was again a high 95% success rate.

We are now grafting 96-140 queen cells at a time with a high 95+% success rate. We hope to move to 200-300 queen cells per graft soon.

Other factors to consider:

1. We have super strong and super healthy drone congregation areas [DCA's].
2. We are grafting ONLY from one absolutely incredible queen [this queen is far better than any queen we have ever had in years].
3. We are feeding all nucs with both syrup and pollen sub AND have a good nectar/pollen flow.
4. Temps in March were quite low with lots of rain, temps now are ideal.
5. Grafting has become incredibly easy after grafting hundreds upon hundreds of larvae.
6. Use both Cloakeboard method as well as the super queen raising method, but leaning now to ONLY the super queen raising method.
7. We pray before each graft, asking God for His super natural help.

In one bee yard, in 12 weeks, we went from 23 healthy colonies to 175 healthy colonies and by mid June, at this rate, we should be over 300 colonies in this yard.

Nicot in my mind equates to NEVER AGAIN! 

Learn to graft, and you will never go back to NICOT ever again!


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## dudelt (Mar 18, 2013)

I am going to give the Nicot system one more try in about two weeks. This time, I am going to use it in one of my top bar hives instead of one of the Langstroth hive. I will document the entire process and post the results here when done.


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

little_john said:


> But - like you guys - installing in an existing comb is exactly what I'm going to try this year - hopefully this will cure my long run of failures.


An update ...

I installed a new Nicot Laying Cage into a frame which had an old black comb, but after so many years of persistent failures I didn't have too much confidence in doing this, and so placed the cage into the brood nest of a 'Grade II' colony as a test. Although the cage had been 'pre-conditioned' for some time beforehand, it still took 4 days before the queen finally consented to lay eggs - and was then duly released.

Much to my surprise, 3 days later there were larvae present ! This was the very first time that the Nicot system has ever produced the goods for me. But - because of my lack of confidence I hadn't prepared a suitable starter colony, and so the cell-bars were simply placed over a Cloake Board in the nearest spare colony without any preparation, as I'm not planning to keep any of the queens which might result this time - but nevertheless a handful of q/cells have indeed been started.

Of course raising queens wasn't the objective here, just the obtaining of larvae. So I'll be repeating this procedure in the next day or two - but with a 'Grade I' queen this time, and see if it works ok again or whether that was just a lucky fluke, as what I'm looking for is a reliable system. But - so far, so good. 
LJ


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## ruthiesbees (Aug 27, 2013)

I've used it in my topbar hives, but it is not my preferred way to get queen cells. I do like grafting into the brown cups and having the ability to put the roller cages over the ready to emerge virgins


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## dudelt (Mar 18, 2013)

dudelt said:


> I am going to give the Nicot system one more try in about two weeks. This time, I am going to use it in one of my top bar hives instead of one of the Langstroth hive. I will document the entire process and post the results here when done.


I started my attempt on Friday. I put the cage into the top bar hive (without the queen excluder face) and let it "cure" for 3 days. When I pulled it out today, it was covered with bees so hopefully, they warmed it up really well. Today at 3:00pm I captured the queen and placed her into the cage. I could not get her to walk out of the queen catcher and through the hole in the queen excluder face so I pulled the face off and placed her on the unit and put the face back on. That took only 15 seconds compared to the 10 minutes I tried to get her through the hole. There were lots of bees on the unit with her when I closed her in. I will check it on Friday and see If I have any eggs or larvae. 

Wish me luck.


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

dudelt said:


> Wish me luck.


Certainly do 

My second 'run' with the genuine Nicot L/Cage installed in comb produced 8 larvae - hardly the basis for celebration, but shows that eggs are now being left to hatch - with the egg-removal problem being replaced by an obstinate reluctance to lay eggs in the first place. So - I've painted wax onto the face-plate, dripped honey into the cells and pre-conditioned that L/Cage yet again (*). Started the third run yesterday.

FWIW, I've never used the introduction hole, but have always placed the queen directly onto the open matrix, and then swiftly attached the QX cover. If the queen is a youngster (not the best age to use), then I've misted a little plain water over her wings to prevent the making of a dash for freedom.

So - good luck to us both ... 
LJ

(*) The 'official' advice is:


> "Put it *several months* in the middle of the brood without queen excluder (if you don't use it, keep it in the brood, the smell of the queen will make more easily the next egg laying)."


Several months ? Does anyone actually do this ? And as for keeping it in the brood nest - this will most likely cause brace comb to be drawn, and implies that there should be one Laying Cage per chosen breeder queen. That doesn't sound too realistic to me.


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## kaizen (Mar 20, 2015)

I'm playing with the nicot as well as grafting. One question on the nicot that all videos do not make clear. How long do you leave the cups in the nicot? For example, If you check the next day and there are all eggs in the cups and you release the queen. Do you let them sit until they are the appropriate grafting age and look like a comma? Or do you move them over as eggs and wait to see if the bees will accept them?


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Do you let them sit until they are the appropriate grafting age and look like a comma? Or do you move them over as eggs and wait to see if the bees will accept them?

Go ahead and try them both. My experience is they will just remove all the eggs.


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

kaizen said:


> If you check the next day and there are all eggs in the cups and you release the queen. Do you let them sit until they are the appropriate grafting age and look like a comma? Or do you move them over as eggs and wait to see if the bees will accept them?


The problem with moving eggs is that they have the smell of the laying queen on them - so if you were using the same colony for drawing the q/cells it might be ok - but if you're using a separate starter, then as MB says, they'll most likely remove the eggs as being foreign to them. Once an egg hatches, it's outer membrane dissolves and is (presumably) incorporated into the RJ, so any remaining trace of pheromone becomes so diluted it effectively disappears.

So - as I understand it - best practice is to release the queen as soon as eggs are identified, and the Laying Cage returned to the same position for 3 days. I've been removing the QX during that period to make life easier for the nurses.

Quick update - I pulled between 6 and 8 sample cell-cups (wasn't counting) this morning, and each of them had an egg in - so it looks like painting wax on the face-plate did the trick (presumably by disguising any plastic smell) - so I'll leave Her Majesty in place until the end of play today (another 4 hours or so) - and then release her.

I've got two powerful Cloake Board set-ups waiting for these larvae, and a small Joseph Clemens Queenless Starter-Finisher which is a bit thin on nurse bees right now as I only set it up yesterday. With two full frames of emerging brood, and more to come - it should be ready to use in a week or so, but I'll give it some of these larvae (touch wood) and see how they get on. 
LJ


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## kaizen (Mar 20, 2015)

Michael Bush said:


> >Do you let them sit until they are the appropriate grafting age and look like a comma? Or do you move them over as eggs and wait to see if the bees will accept them?
> 
> Go ahead and try them both. My experience is they will just remove all the eggs.


Does this apply to normal grafting as well? I pulled a frame the other night and practiced grafting but they were still eggs that had laid down......so maybe a day short of larvae. Probably the reason it was so hard!! Will the queenless colony just remove those?


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## kaizen (Mar 20, 2015)

little_john said:


> The problem with moving eggs is that they have the smell of the laying queen on them - so if you were using the same colony for drawing the q/cells it might be ok - but if you're using a separate starter, then as MB says, they'll most likely remove the eggs as being foreign to them. Once an egg hatches, it's outer membrane dissolves and is (presumably) incorporated into the RJ, so any remaining trace of pheromone becomes so diluted it effectively disappears.
> 
> So - as I understand it - best practice is to release the queen as soon as eggs are identified, and the Laying Cage returned to the same position for 3 days. I've been removing the QX during that period to make life easier for the nurses.
> 
> ...


got it. Makes sense.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Does this apply to normal grafting as well? I pulled a frame the other night and practiced grafting but they were still eggs that had laid down......so maybe a day short of larvae. Probably the reason it was so hard!! Will the queenless colony just remove those?

In my experience, yes.


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## dudelt (Mar 18, 2013)

An update on my Nicot attempt. As stated earlier, I put the kit in the hive last Friday to "warm up". I placed the queen in the cage on Monday. Today, I have numerous eggs in the cups but no larvae yet. I will check again tomorrow. 

The last time I tried this method, once I saw eggs in the cups on day 4, I pulled the plug on the face and let the queen out. The next day, all the eggs were gone. I will not be doing that again.


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## kaizen (Mar 20, 2015)

also playing with some testing. I added the nicot three days ago. 2 days ago added the queen but forgot to plug the hole. duh. So put her in two days ago. Checked yesterday and couldn't see much. Checked today and saw what i thought was laying down larvae. I released the queen and took off the cover. Will check tomorrow and put in frame if they are not removed.
interesting thing in this test is i used half chinese cheap cell cups and half previously used cell cups. wondering if the space available to them has any bearing on why they remove eggs/larvae. This 5 frame nuc has at least two frames wall to wall capped brood. I have to remove a frame tomorrow to keep them from swarming.


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## mtrettig (Jun 8, 2019)

hi, 
I am new here, and a relatively new bee keeper. I bought a Chinese Nicot set online. I was having no luck at all with it. After a week of secluding the queen in Nicot cassette I had no cells with royal jelly and few nurse bees in the nicot box. After verifying there were eggs in the cells, I pulled the excluder off and three days later I had royal jelly. I began to question why there were few bees inside with the queen and measured the openings of the queen excluder. I found that they were only .150 wide. Standard queen excluders are .163 wide. This is not a lot but may be enough to discourage bees from entering the Nicot. I opened them up slightly with a small flat file and plan on retrying. Anyone who has noticed similar problems may want to measure their queen excluder openings.


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

dudelt said:


> The last time I tried this method, once I saw eggs in the cups on day 4, I pulled the plug on the face and let the queen out. The next day, *all the eggs were gone*. I will not be doing that again.


Wish I could fathom out *why* they do this ...

I had planned on posting an update yesterday - but I spent the day 'spitting feathers' as I was so annoyed. By painting wax on the face-plate I've now got the queen to lay-up within 24-36 hrs. But - just as with yourself - 3 days later and the cupboard is completely bare. Not a single larva or remaining egg. And the weather isn't helping any - rain on most days, with only brief weather-windows for access. Hardly ideal for working to a rigid timetable. 

As I've got starter hives straining at the leash, I'll put grafts into those on the next halfway decent day, and meanwhile try the Nicot L/Cage one last time ...
What I plan on doing is - just as soon as the eggs are laid, and before removing the queen - to shake-off *all* the brood combs, and 'bed-and-breakfast' those in a stash hive for 3 days - so that the laying cage holds the only eggs in town. That way, the colony has no choice but to feed and rear them. My only uncertainty is where to stash the queen (in a mailing cage) during this period - in or out of the subject hive ? Dunno - will have to think about that.
Shouldn't need to have to do this, of course, but I'm fast running out of ideas.
LJ


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

mtrettig said:


> hi,
> I am new here, and a relatively new bee keeper. I bought a Chinese Nicot set online. I was having no luck at all with it ...


Just to say "Welcome Aboard", and that what you've posted is an interesting and useful observation. I also purchased a Chinese kit (have 3 Laying Cages now - 2 genuine, and one Chinese) and I also noticed that the Chinese QX plate looked a little 'tight', so the slots were checked by inserting a pair of coins I use for this purpose - and they appear just right for my natural-sized bees, which supports your observation that they may well be too tight for bees raised on conventional foundation.

In general, I find the Chinese kit to be good value for money. Their cell-cups can be 'hit and miss' though - the ones which came with the kit were very poor: dark brown and almost impossible to see through, and many of the cell-cup lips were rough and badly 'flashed'.
But the cell-cups of a separate purchase were fine - nicely translucent and of much better quality, although not as good as the genuine Nicot cups.
LJ


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## dudelt (Mar 18, 2013)

I finally got to the good part. I moved the larvae with the cups from the cassette to the queen rearing frame. When I looked at it earlier today I saw 10 or so that had larvae and was hoping for more 9 hours later. Almost every cup had an egg but only 12 had larvae in them. I should have waited a day but to be honest, I am a bit tired of waiting. The queen has been sequestered for 6 days and that is a net loss of bees for the hive of about 10-15%. I tried to take a picture of the larvae but it is way too blurry to post. 

Regardless of how many actually take, I doubt I will use this system again. To compare with grafting, there are some similarities. You still need a queenless starter hive, a finishing hive and mating nucs. My issues with this process are as follows: 
1. The queen is stopped from laying for a minimum of 4 days
2. Grant Gillard's book "NICOT Queen Rearing" clearly states that after using the cassette, the queen if frequently superceded. If you have an excellent queen, do not use her unless you really don't care is she is superceded. Thus, you will hesitate to use your best stock. 
3. The timing is all based on when the queen decides to start laying in the cassette. You might be checking for larvae and eggs every day for a week. 
4. Every time you have to check the hive, it is a major disruption. 

The good things, 
1. The cups, the holders and the hair roller cages are excellent! I use these for grafting and they work great. 
2. Transferring the cups to the cup holders on the queen rearing frame is super easy
3. If you have a horrible fear of grafting or shaky hands or very bad eyesight, this could be a good option
4. I was really glad the larvae was not ready yesterday. The weather was horrible. If the timing forced yesterday on me, I would have been screwed


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## kaizen (Mar 20, 2015)

So 2 days ago i released the queen and took off the cover. Figured today would be day 4 and perfect time to move them. when i released the queen there were all eggs laid. some were not as i reused some cups. But they all should have been day 4 or 5 today. Went and pulled them and found some at day 1 or 2!! wtf. intent on transferring them today i did so and put hair roller cages on the cups. Going to go back in a day or 2 and take those off so they can make some queens. figured if i put in just eggs they would just remove them. hoping this way they hatch and i take off the cage and they make them. The new Chinese cups from amazon had more eggs then the used and polished cups. i find this really strange. One thing i noticed was the Chinese ones are just a hair taller so the eggs were not centered. They were more towards the side of the cup.


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

dudelt said:


> .


What you've written was - overall - a really good assessment. So many points with which I agree wholeheartedly, but I'd just like to expand upon a couple of them:

You say that "The queen is stopped from laying for a minimum of 4 days" - well, that's not necessarily true. In *theory*, she only needs to be confined for 24 hrs, providing she begins to lay immediately. But in practice - yes - it can be much longer than this. Can be a week, and with daily disruptions ...

I haven't read Grant Gillard's book, and although supersedure may be his experience, I've yet to witness this. It's easy to understand 'why' though, as the queen is confined behind a QX, thus there will presumably be the same level of reduction in footprint pheromone as seen when a queen is placed behind a QX separating a stack of two vertical boxes. And the longer the queen is confined, the more likely supersedure is to take place. But - it's very strange that I've never seen this, despite lengthy confinements.

Finally - the weather. Oh yes - I can *fully *endorse your comment about 'being screwed' when needing to adhere to a fixed timetable (as opposed to grafting, when a person can be 'in and out' during one visit whenever there's a brief favourable weather-window).
LJ


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## dudelt (Mar 18, 2013)

With grafting, the weather can still screw you. The day you do the grafting may be perfect but the day you move the queen cells to the mating nucs may have pouring rain. At least with grafting, you know which day to move the cells based on the day you do the grafting. With the nicot kit, that day is in limbo until the day the larvae hatch and you have no control which day that will be. The queen gets to decide it.


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## dudelt (Mar 18, 2013)

This is my final report on my Nicot queen rearing for 2019. I moved 9 beautiful queen cells from the starter/finisher to mating nucs today. The cells were huge and I cannot say I have ever seen better from one of my queen rearing attempts. All things considered, using the Nicot kit was a lot of fun. Yes, it has its drawbacks but every type of queen rearing does. Will I do it again? Surprisingly, I will. I am done with queen rearing for the year and our last big flow of the year is happening now. It will be time to start getting ready for winter soon and I will have plenty of nice young queens to tough it out. .


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

Excellent news - well done.  (very envious)

Rather than continuing to play with the Nicot L/Cage I needed to actually generate a bunch of queens for nucs, and so have reverted to grafting for the time being. My preference is to graft from white comb, and so placed some 'white comb starters' into a target brood nest which the bees quickly jumped on and drew out. But - on the day when it was time to harvest those larvae - the heavens opened-up ! My thoughts strayed back to your previous post: _"With grafting, the weather can still screw you." _ So very true.

Luckily, the next day presented a very short weather-window and I was able to graft a few dozen larvae during that brief time slot. These were distributed equally amongst two Cloake Board stacks and a Joseph Clemens Q-ve Starter-Finisher. I didn't bother to reverse the Cloake Board rigs due to the weather: there was no flying that day and hence no foraging, so there'd have been no returning foragers to divert up into the box holding the grafts ...

On checking for 'take' - the JC hive had started nearly all I gave them, and one Cloake rig the same. The second of the Cloake board rigs removed all the larvae - so I don't know what the problem is there. I've given them the white comb which I'd grafted from, as by this time it contained the full range - from eggs through to 3 day old larvae - to test whether a virgin has sneaked in there, or whatever. So - might have a crop of natural q/cells as well ... or maybe not.

Once I've generated this year's quota of queens, it'll be back to playing with the Nicot L/Cage - I ain't gonna give up !
LJ


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