# Nicot questions



## kaizen (Mar 20, 2015)

Having failed at grafting last year I went with a nicot set up this year. Curious why there is a pass through from the queen side to the other side? Why would a queen need to go back there?


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## beefarmer (May 2, 2010)

to hide


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

I thought it was perhaps to put some candy in there or something but thought it odd as well.


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## kaizen (Mar 20, 2015)

thanks. Nothing that involves what I have to do is what I was worried about


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## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

Not sure but I think I read about someone using black electrical tape to block off access to the backside on the Nicot cassette.


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## Gumpy (Mar 30, 2016)

FYI. This video was just released in the last few days. BTW, this is a good channel about various bee stuff. UK based, but the information seems generally to be universal. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxTJMhg0eac&t=0s


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## kaizen (Mar 20, 2015)

Gumpy said:


> FYI. This video was just released in the last few days. BTW, this is a good channel about various bee stuff. UK based, but the information seems generally to be universal.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxTJMhg0eac&t=0s


Thanks. I saw his video on mini-nucs the other day and liked it. This one is great as well. 

I didn't give the hive time to clean out the new nicot. Hope its not a problem.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

kaizen said:


> ...I didn't give the hive time to clean out the new nicot. Hope its not a problem.


The most damage that might happen is a day's delay in the queen laying in there. You're OK, Good Luck.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

I thought it was for extra ventilation hole. Then decided that the queen is better confined on
the laying side. So I put a piece of rolled landscape fabric to plug up this hole. Turn out that the
extra ventilation is not needed. And how come eggs are used instead of the newly hatched larvae? My bees
will clean out these egg cups 100% of the time.


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

ur supposed to let them hatch in the nicot first, then put them into the grafting frames.


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## kaizen (Mar 20, 2015)

Is it true the take rate on the little brown cups is 50 percent on the second use? I figured the bees would clean them up perfect?


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

If the cups are dried out, they may not clean them up as well. If they are still moist when you reuse them, then they might do better at cleaning them out. I purchased a bag of a thousand of them, they are cheap, so I no longer try to reuse the ones that have any wax cell walls drawn on them. If they just have an egg or just emerged larva, then I wipe them out with a Qtip and throw in my bag to reuse again later.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

I like to know at what water temperature you can boil out the wax and soften up the
inside bottom of the cup to be reuse again? Maybe the optimum temp. of the water is at 90F?
I'm sure the bees can clean up the inside of the cells too once they're soften up. It will be more work first
to clean them up by the bees and then put them inside the nicot cage again. I follow the 3 R's as much as possible.


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## kaizen (Mar 20, 2015)

In retrospect a bag of 100 is not expensive. Although wasteful it's a lot of work to use again. 
I am not to sure about this round. When I turned the cups upside down larvae just dropped out. When I tried grafting I remember how sticky they were.


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## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

beepro said:


> I like to know at what water temperature you can boil out the wax and soften up the
> inside bottom of the cup to be reuse again? Maybe the optimum temp. of the water is at 90F?
> I'm sure the bees can clean up the inside of the cells too once they're soften up. It will be more work first
> to clean them up by the bees and then put them inside the nicot cage again. I follow the 3 R's as much as possible.


I tried this when my buddy gave me a small bag full of used brown cups. They warped. Total waste of time. Buy new ones.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

What is the temp. of the water you use, still remember? Surely there must be an ideal water temp. that won't wrap the cups. Also, there is a tool going in a circle to clean out the inside of the cup too. That is too time consuming though.
I use 100% RJ from the queen cup all mixed up to prime the cell cups first. Then grafted in the one day old larvae. I only use a metal rod with a small scoop like hook at the end for my graft. Perhaps the tool you use to graft has something to do with the larva falling out of the cup. Maybe too much liquid at first so leave them alone for a few days before doing an inspection. After 24 hrs I will take out the unaccepted larvae cups.


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## kaizen (Mar 20, 2015)

Well my first try was 0 for 10. I definitely took larvae age. Could they have been too young? They weren't older then 3 days. I've got a second round cooking right now. This time I put the nicot in there for a day before I put the queen in.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

It is your bee environment now. During the summer dearth the bees will recycle these larvae. So for a
hive to build QCs they have to be very well fed with plenty of resources. Otherwise they will not make the
QCs for you. If no bees feed the queen inside the cage then she will not lay. Put her inside a crowded hive and 
see what she will do next.


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## kaizen (Mar 20, 2015)

beepro said:


> It is your bee environment now. During the summer dearth the bees will recycle these larvae. So for a
> hive to build QCs they have to be very well fed with plenty of resources. Otherwise they will not make the
> QCs for you. If no bees feed the queen inside the cage then she will not lay. Put her inside a crowded hive and
> see what she will do next.


I will be feeding them this round. The last time they had a lot of uncapped honey so I figured they were all set and didn't want them storing it with the honey. There are plenty of bees. Packed so the frames you put back in do the auto lower trick. I did find three tamed they made a lot of qc which I moved so they are definitely queenless.


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## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

Hope you get it going good. I failed at nicot 101.
It's just easier for me to put a frame of brood or two into a 3-frame section of a queen castle and shake a bunch of bees into it. Add a honey-pollen frame. They only need one good cell. Usually I get two or three. 
It's even easier to make them want to swarm then harvest the frames with cells.


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## kaizen (Mar 20, 2015)

Yea I brought the three frames they made with qc in a nuc to another yard as I knew I had one queenless nuc. Turned out I had two so just put the frames in and made another. Two more days and I will take a look at the nicot


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## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

Just a couple days (3 I think) ago I stuck a frame of brood into a 3-frame that had failed to make a queen. For some reason it wasn't LW yet. If it makes cells I'll take a picture. If not try again in a few days. 
Had really crappy luck with the grafts I did and ended up with 2/6 mated queens. Ended up stacking them on nucs that didn't make one. 
Paper combines. Next year I'm not even going to mess with grafts. I just don't need that many queens and can easily raise twenty from swarm cells and by that time mating is much more successful than trying early. If I treat and get good survival this year (last year I let some go) I'll maybe have a handful of queens to give away or sell. My bees seem to be heading towards being all Italians which is what I like. They're gentle. I hardly ever get stung anymore.


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## kaizen (Mar 20, 2015)

Going out to check in a few hours. I'm looking for larvae in the shape of a comma right? Are those 3 day old larvae? Wondering if its 3 days from egg laying. So if I only see eggs standing up they are only a day old but laying down not in a comma they are 2 days old? trying to understand to time my return if they are not old enough


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## mharrell11 (Mar 18, 2014)

Ok, so I am just starting to try queen rearing. Been a beekeeper for 5 years, but just didn't have time for QR. So, I have decided to start with the NICOT system even though I have been to a class where we actually grafted. Couple of question.

1. Generally, the larva needs to be 3 days old for the workers to use for queens. If you only leave the queen in the NICOT box for a day, what do you do with it for 3 days until larva hatch?
2. 3 or 5 frame cell builder nuc. What's the best way to go?
3. Do you have to put cups on all the holes in the NICOT or can you do 1/2? That's a lot of potential queens even at 50% success.

Thanks for the feedback.


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## kaizen (Mar 20, 2015)

mharrell11 said:


> Ok, so I am just starting to try queen rearing. Been a beekeeper for 5 years, but just didn't have time for QR. So, I have decided to start with the NICOT system even though I have been to a class where we actually grafted. Couple of question.
> 
> 1. Generally, the larva needs to be 3 days old for the workers to use for queens. If you only leave the queen in the NICOT box for a day, what do you do with it for 3 days until larva hatch?
> 2. 3 or 5 frame cell builder nuc. What's the best way to go?
> ...


you leave her in there for the 3 or 4 days. so she bangs out 100 eggs over the course of a day and then just wanders around looking for places to lay. I had several where there were 2 larvae even though she is an experienced queen. 

Even though I've seen internet proof of ten or more being raised by a 5 frame nuc that's modified its better to have a full queenless hive. its hard to create imo. so I took the original queen in my hive builder and put her in the nicot. When I was done with her I put her in a hive of ten deeps with all the frames that had open brood. so like 6 plus a super with honey. So all the bees on the frames went with the brood so they didn't all die. My hive was still 3 full deep boxes so I figured it was enough. And there was still 5 frames of capped brood in the old hive which is now the cell builder. 
My first round I think I took too early. or some other error so out of ten I got zero takes.
So this round I went through the cell builder and found 3 frames with nice queen cells on each. I took them to a different yard with the intention of making a nuc. I had a bad queen in one hive and a queenless hive so I gave each of them a frame with a capped cell and then made a nuc.
So now when I did this round with another queen I know for sure they are hopelessly queenless. I put the nicot with things in it in the hive a day before I put the queen in it. Put her in the next day and then moved the larvae over to a frame. The problem I 'm having I think are they are too young. Like she didn't lay on the first day so they don't look like commas but just straight. With severe weather coming in for a few days I had to do it. Going in a little while to sneak a peak and see if any took. 
You only put 20 on a frame after. They come in packs of 100 so I just fill it up. I don't think you have to but the bees will wax the holes I think making it a mess. 
I tried 2 times last year grafting and had the whole setup. I found it stressful and not fun and got zero takes so i'm trying this method.


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## kaizen (Mar 20, 2015)

ha lol. 1 out of 20 being built. plenty of bees hanging from other cells but no cells being made.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

If you don't want to confined the queen for 2-3 days then take her out of the cage.
Then put a small window screen to cover the cage holes so that the workers cannot get in.
After a few days when they emerged then you can put them on the cell bars. Only do this after
the eggs have hatched into tiny larvae. A small piece of wire #8 window screen can be use to cover the cage holes.


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## madasafish (Aug 24, 2010)

kaizen said:


> Going out to check in a few hours. I'm looking for larvae in the shape of a comma right? Are those 3 day old larvae? Wondering if its 3 days from egg laying. So if I only see eggs standing up they are only a day old but laying down not in a comma they are 2 days old? trying to understand to time my return if they are not old enough


The age is 3 days from egg laid. I always check there is Royal Jelly. If there is no royal jelly - not a drop - then the bees who are going to be raising queens may reject (eat) them as they do with non hive eggs..
Since my eyesight is poor even with a magnifying glass, I don't look for larvae but for RJ - the smallest amount is enough..


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## kaizen (Mar 20, 2015)

madasafish said:


> The age is 3 days from egg laid. I always check there is Royal Jelly. If there is no royal jelly - not a drop - then the bees who are going to be raising queens may reject (eat) them as they do with non hive eggs..
> Since my eyesight is poor even with a magnifying glass, I don't look for larvae but for RJ - the smallest amount is enough..


Thanks. Going to try one more time and leave in nicot for longer. Plenty of nurse bees....well there was. But after three days not much if any jelly.


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## madasafish (Aug 24, 2010)

kaizen said:


> Thanks. Going to try one more time and leave in nicot for longer. Plenty of nurse bees....well there was. But after three days not much if any jelly.


There won't me much jelly. But if you use a magnifier with a light, the jelly shines even if you cannot see teh ;arva.


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## soarwitheagles (May 23, 2015)

We too failed miserably three separate times in our attempt to raise queens in the Nicot system. For us, far too complicated and time sensitive and needed WAY too much baby-sitting. The Nicot system really left a very bad taste in my mouth...especially because I hate to fail so miserably and so repeatedly.

I realize it works for others...it just was not for us and I will not try it again.

We switched back to making nucs and are presently experiencing a 100% success rate. Now I wish I had never attempted the Nicot system...

We did just try our hand for the very first time at grafting. 14 of the 16 grafts are presently being built up and will be sealed within the next day or so. What a difference!

University of Arkansas's tutorial on grafting was incredibly clear and super easy for us.

https://www.uaex.edu/publications/PDF/MP518.pdf

Hope you fare better than us with the Nicot system!

Good luck and please do post your results!


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## kaizen (Mar 20, 2015)

Thanks soar. I just started the third round. Went to transfer the one cell that was capped from round two only to find it was completely torn down. It didn't have time to hatch so doubt there is a queen in the hive. Going to tear it apart and make sure I don't miss a queen they were making. When I made them queenless they made ten queen cells that I made nucs out of so not a total loss I guess. I also hate to fail so not giving up quite yet. I tried grafting last year and also failed which is why I got the nicot. Thought it was foolproof. Lesson learned


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

You have to protect the QC on introduction otherwise they will rejected the cell. The only way to fail is to
give up on trying completely. Because nobody want to be a failure we must use the right method to make
the QCs. Everybody's bee environment is different from one another that is why we should use what works for us locally. There will never be a perfect method of rearing queens. So use what will work for you.


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## kaizen (Mar 20, 2015)

beepro said:


> You have to protect the QC on introduction otherwise they will rejected the cell. The only way to fail is to
> give up on trying completely. Because nobody want to be a failure we must use the right method to make
> the QCs. Everybody's bee environment is different from one another that is why we should use what works for us locally. There will never be a perfect method of rearing queens. So use what will work for you.


protect when putting in the nuc right? I didn't get that far. The same colony building it tore it down.


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## kaizen (Mar 20, 2015)

So with anticipation I go out for my final round of nicot harvesting. I pull the frame with the nicot that I put the queen in. EMPTY. huh? the plug fell out apparently when I put it in and I didn't notice. Man i'm really bad at this. Put her in again and another 4 days to wait.......


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Yes, I also realized that the plug is too loose. So instead of using the same plug I harvest some
wax + propolis (brown color) wax to put in the hole. No issue with the plug falling off again. I saw use the
same wax to plug up a small hole in my feeder.


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## kaizen (Mar 20, 2015)

Well although this nicot seems foolproof i'm feeling like a fool for dumping 100 bucks on it. By now I probably could have been a grafting expert or just taken the queen out and let the colony make their own and i'd be miles ahead. I see beepro might be onto something with the amount of RJ being fed. Interested in those results.
I used two different queens in my tries. I do think they get stressed and I get anxious. The first round after 3 days I still had eggs. The 2nd round I had larva but straight not the comma shape. The 3rd round I waited 4.5 days and had larvae in a comma but dry so no royal jelly. I had hoped the bees would feed them after transfer. 

The problem I have had on the 2nd and 3rd round is when I check the cells after 3 or 4 days they have a few being built but not capped. So when I go back in a few days to take them out and put them in the incubator I find they are torn down. I know this colony is hopelessly queenless and no laying workers. By the 3rd try the nurse bees might have been too old to be ideal but I can't figure out why they would build the cells and tear them down? From what I could see the built cells had RJ in them. 
I put the queen back in the colony and called it quits for this year. I was really hopeful I could make more queens but I might have to stick with just splits. It seems so simple on tv


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## soarwitheagles (May 23, 2015)

Terrence,

I admire your willingness to try something new! And I know many people swear by the Nicot system. After reading your last post, it was like watching a slow motion film of our exact same Nicot experience!

I can only say that once we switched to simple splits, our success rate rose from 10% [Nicot system], to 100% success rate with simply splits/nucs. Today, we would have well over 100 hives if we had simply stuck with walk away splits and nucs. 

The part about splits and nucs that I like the most is this: it is so incredibly simple!

We hope to better our skills on grafting next spring, and we also hope to continue to experience a high rate of success with simple nucs and walk away splits too.

So sorry it did not work out for you! I am beginning to think there is far too much work and artificial manipulation involved in the Nicot system. We have decided to stick with what works best for the bees.

Soar

PS Be happy you only purchased one Nicot system! We purchased 3 Nicot systems [$330] and overall, batted nearly zero...in other words, we lost our bottoms, and wasted large amounts of labor hours...

I chalk it up as a painful and expensive learning lesson on what does not work for us...


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## kaizen (Mar 20, 2015)

soarwitheagles said:


> Terrence,
> 
> I admire your willingness to try something new! And I know many people swear by the Nicot system. After reading your last post, it was like watching a slow motion film on our exact same Nicot experience!
> 
> ...


Agreed. Funny I got 3 frames with like 9 capped cells from this colony when I took the queen out. Hopefully I have a good winter rate so I can just split in the spring. I'll have to keep at this queen rearing so I can expand/replace without buying. Next year I think i'll try a little of both nicot and grafting and see how it goes. Nothing is easy in this hobby.


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## beedeetee (Nov 27, 2004)

In 2007 I purchased a Jenter system which is functionally the same as the Nicot. I used it for about 4 years before I started grafting. I didn't move to grafting because of any deficiency in the Jenter, I just wanted to try my hand at grafting. 

I think that a lot of people under estimate the value of the cell builder in the success rate of queen rearing. I would say it is at least 90% of the reason for success or failure. With the Jenter you have to move the larva at the correct time. A little later is better than too early. If you still have eggs or no royal jelly, it's too early. Put the frame back in the parent hive. The first year I checked the Jenter 24 hours after putting the queen in and just about all of the cells had eggs so I removed the plug in the cover and put the frame back in for her to get out on her own.

After that year I found that I needed to get the queen out in 14-18 hours or she would double lay. I could always seem to find enough cells with only one larva and I never tried to see if they would remove one at some later time. They seemed fine to add royal jelly under double larva though. But I would check in 14-18 hours and see if I had eggs (I always did) and then I would pull the plug. 

My success with the Jenter and grafting was about the same until I started improving the cell builder and then my success rate went up.


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## kaizen (Mar 20, 2015)

Thanks Bruce. I totally agree that the cell builder is important. I sacrificed a three deep hive for this. It was booming and had tons of new bees daily. For my second round after I found queen cells I missed in the first round it was perfect and I still got only one that they tore down. My third round they were probably old but hadn't nursed any bees so should have been fine.


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## beedeetee (Nov 27, 2004)

I feed the cell builder, even when the flow is on. I take a large 20 frame hive that has had an excluder between the boxes for 9 days with the queen below and had all of the open brood above when the excluder was put in. There should only be capped brood above at this point.

Then I take the queen and a couple frames of bees and put them in a nuc. All other frames that were with the queen are shaken into the cell builder and the frames with open brood are given to other hives.

The bees probably won't fit in the 10 frame hive that is left. They will start crawling over the front, top and sides looking for a queen or larva to make one. I've left one frame out in the center to put my grafts in. After 24 hours I add the grafts.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Not only is the cell builder important as you have said, I say it is _the most important part of raising queen cells_. You seem to have made your cell builder up pretty haphazardly as far as I can tell. Listen to Bruce, he's giving very good advice on how to set up a cell builder.


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## beedeetee (Nov 27, 2004)

I can't take credit for coming up with the method. Read the sticky at the top of this forum entitled "My cell builder method" by Michael Palmer. I can say that that it works well.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Terrence...
You know, from reading this thread, you might have a queen in that cell builder, getting ready to start laying soon. It is possible... It is easy to miss a queen cell, especially if it's only a day old, that the bees start themselves on the combs. And a virgin queen can be very hard to notice or find when looking for her. Once a queen is removed, they can make queen cells up to 5 days later, they may even try on the sixth day, perhaps.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

This season, I use almost the same set up to get the queen to lay by confining her to the bottom
deep with the cap broods on top. Next season, I will use a nicot cage half frame cut down cells with a QE for my little experiment. The hive will be crowded with young nurse bees to keep the queen laying into the cage frame.
Already test out the condensed 3 deep into 2 method this season. Works wonderfully! The only difference is using the nicot half frame cage this time. Then the hive will be turn into a cell builder/finisher with further overcrowding into 1 deep box. Other supporting nucs will be supplying these young nurse bees into the finisher hive as well. I will also use all pollen frames to feed these young nurse bees along with honey water + homemade high protein patty subs. The result should be very robust cells. No eggs, open or cap broods only the Q-cells!


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## kaizen (Mar 20, 2015)

RayMarler said:


> Terrence...
> You know, from reading this thread, you might have a queen in that cell builder, getting ready to start laying soon. It is possible... It is easy to miss a queen cell, especially if it's only a day old, that the bees start themselves on the combs. And a virgin queen can be very hard to notice or find when looking for her. Once a queen is removed, they can make queen cells up to 5 days later, they may even try on the sixth day, perhaps.





RayMarler said:


> Not only is the cell builder important as you have said, I say it is _the most important part of raising queen cells_. You seem to have made your cell builder up pretty haphazardly as far as I can tell. Listen to Bruce, he's giving very good advice on how to set up a cell builder.


Thanks Ray. Not haphazard. I just didn't go into detail on it. The hive had 5 boxes. 3 were 10 deep and 2 were supers with only nectar. I went through the 30 frames and took all the open frames I could find along with the queen and put them in a nuc after shaking off most of the bees. There were still about 6 frames with capped brood. A week later I went through it again and found an additional number of frames that they made qc on and moved those to other hives. This is one possible reason my first round did not work. So the hive was now 2 boxes hopelessly queenless with thousands of new emerging bees. When I added my second graft frame it did the auto lowering thing as there are so many bees in the box. So i'm sure its was a good setup. After the 2nd round failure I again went through each frame looking for any qc or brood at all. Had zero at that point. On the 3rd round I went through again to make sure there was not a laying worker and found nothing. Although at that point the bees were not the ideal age they should have had enough in them to make at least a few.


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## kaizen (Mar 20, 2015)

I earlier had a question about the space in the back of the nicot cage. I saw a youtube video from a brit that made more sense then what we came up with. He said you can use it with queen cage candy to introduce a bee to the hive. So you can plug the exit from the space on the back to the front and insert the queen through the plastic plug and they will release her. In his he also uses some plugged cups to act like sealed cells. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZO9u9T8li-Q&t=481s


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Great find Terrence for the use of the queen intro cage part of the Nicot laying cage. 
That makes perfect sense and would be quite useful, not only to introduce queens to a queen-less colony, but also for introducing the queen into the laying cage to get eggs laid in the cups. I think it would be wise to put 5 attendants into the introduction cage with her as well. I think that would be a less drastic change for her than just plopping her into the laying side from the get-go. She would be released by the bees into the laying area from a time of rest and restart from being in the intro cage part with attendants. I just looked at my Nicot here, I'm going to be trying this out next year myself!

Here is a better time mark for describing the queen intro cage area of the laying cage in that video you posted....

https://youtu.be/ZO9u9T8li-Q?t=127


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