# Cell builder question



## windfall (Dec 8, 2010)

I have seen a number of outlines for a cell builder, where brood is seperated with capped and queen below excluder and open above. Later the queen right bottom is moved away and many of its nurse bees stripped away for the cell builder which was left in place...Michael Palmer outlines this system at the begging of his cell builder thread.

When doing it this way is there ever a concern about chilled or underfed brood for the queen right section that loses the field force and so many nurse bees?


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Yes, there is always a concern about the chilled broods.
That is why you make sure that there are enough bees left after
you removed any hive body. There are a few tricks that we use to
maintain the queen right hive to be productive and functioning again.


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

That can be a devastating mistake for someone with very few hives. Attempting to make many queens like that costs all of the bee resources. Starting too early in the Spring and chilling the brood causes one to lose too many bees, and there are none left to populate the nuc' boxes. If the Spring nectar flow is a short one as in the recent dry years, one can entirely miss queen rearing season.

One should evaluate the entire apiary and decide on a reasonable number of queens to make, how many support colonies they will require, how many nuc' boxes one can set up, and make sure the days are available on the calendar.

On the other hand, if one has a good grip on the numbers, makes a conservative batch of queens, gets some fair to decent returns from the mating yard, and is happy with a few good increaser colonies, his apiary expands. As the apiary gets larger, the queen rearing operation gets larger.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Agreed with, KC here.
The secret is in the "control" of things.
That is why it is so important for new beekeepers to understand
the bee cycles going along with the 4 seasons through out the entire year.
From this you can time your apiary expansion or contraction more precisely.
And it is all local too.


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## windfall (Dec 8, 2010)

I have plenty of resources and don't mind sacrificing the hive to it. It's not a stellar hive, but nor am I trying to raise 40 cells.
I've tried doing increases a couple different ways and this was what I wanted to try this season, basically using old timers cut cell technique with the cell builder as described.

But I do have concerns about leaving the queen right body underpopulated. I was considering adding a couple of the shaken open brood frames back into other hives. "Park" them on one of the hives I'm planning to break down into nucs for the cells.


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

To make 48 cells, I typically choose a very strong colony - 2 boxes minimum, and newspaper combine another colony or 2 such that I have a colony 4 boxes tall. They need a week to get things sorted out and "happy".

Then I import 8 to 10 frames of capped brood and start the calendar at Day-10. Day Zero will be grafting day. On day 5, I do the final check for rogue queen cells and take 1 box away. This crowds them together and gets them into swarm impulse.

Being that you are not trying for 48 cells, go ahead and make up the ventilated 6-frame nuc that Oldtimer shows, and populate it with the bees from a 10-framer, a feeder frame, 5 frames of capped brood at first (you'll remove the one that is most hatched-out 5 days before grafting, and replace it with open brood). This rig works nicely for 16 cells in the prime of the season, during a flow.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

I just grafted 23 cells.
My strategy is to condensed the 10 frames into 4 using the
most attached bees frames. They don't have any open brood to
feed other than the grafted cells I gave them. After a day I will 
removed any cell that do not take. Then use Lauri's fly back method
to increased the hive foragers into the 4 frames hive. On a flow with
resources coming in along with the patty subs and honey water (honey + water) they
should be growing some big cells. What do you think?


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## rniles (Oct 10, 2012)

I've used 8 frame mediums for grafting this year. 4 emerging brood frames with covering bees, 1 empty frame, 2 frames of pollen and nectar. Shake a few more bees in or just wait for the brood to emerge. Now you got a nice bit of young bees ...when it's time to graft, switch places with an active hive. Now you get those foragers and a very very populated queen rearing box. During a flow, tons of pollen and nectar and I add pollen sub and honey to boot. I like the Queenless Starter/Finisher so I can use this box for a while if I add brood from time to time.








48 hour queen cells. Nice full cups and a nice draw.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

rniles, those cells look great! How much longer do they get before they cap them? And how much jelly is left when they're done?


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## rniles (Oct 10, 2012)

They're to be capped on Friday. I grafted last Sunday (6/5) and took this picture on Tuesday (6/7). If the weather cooperates on Saturday or Sunday, I'll go snap another picture so we can see how much of that RJ is left


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## rniles (Oct 10, 2012)

jwcarlson said:


> rniles, those cells look great! How much longer do they get before they cap them? And how much jelly is left when they're done?


OK, ...took another pic today ...most the the RJ has been eaten but there's some left.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

How can you tell when will the RJ be eaten inside the cell?
Mine are so brown that I cannot see through the cell inside.
Only after emerging that I see the 1/4" of RJ at the bottom of the cell.


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## asd (Jun 10, 2015)

He uses plastic translucent cells.


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

windfall said:


> I have seen a number of outlines for a cell builder, where brood is seperated with capped and queen below excluder and open above. Later the queen right bottom is moved away and many of its nurse bees stripped away for the cell builder which was left in place...Michael Palmer outlines this system at the begging of his cell builder thread.
> 
> When doing it this way is there ever a concern about chilled or underfed brood for the queen right section that loses the field force and so many nurse bees?


As long as the bees are free to distribute themselves between the two lots of frames, enough will remain on the capped brood with the queen; By the time you are doing cell building the weather will not be cold.


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## rniles (Oct 10, 2012)

From what I've read, and this is what I do ... I keep brood of various ages next to the queen cells above the excluder .. without them, if it does get cold the bees have left the queen cells (learn that the hard way).


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## rniles (Oct 10, 2012)

beepro said:


> How can you tell when will the RJ be eaten inside the cell?
> Mine are so brown that I cannot see through the cell inside.
> Only after emerging that I see the 1/4" of RJ at the bottom of the cell.


Mine are translucent. ...when do they eat the RJ? I think right away and up til the point in which they cocoon. Anyone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Windfall - 

I should address your original question more directly. The queenright section that is swung behind and facing away from the Cell Builder section in Michael Palmer / Brother Adams' method is re-united after 5 days, and she knows that her workforce has been reduced. Smart queens will lay up less eggs during that 5 days. Italians will probably continue laying too many eggs. 

It really does not set your colony back too much if they get chilled on that queenright section. She gets re-united after the cells are capped, and there are enough bees to keep the brood warm from then on. It's usually done in the warm of mid- to late-Spring anyways, so chilled brood is less likely.

The tragedy I described above is attempting to make too many queen cells for the apiary with insufficient resources. That really zaps a small apiary for the year.


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