# The quality of queens raised from emergency cells?



## JohnBruceLeonard (Jul 7, 2015)

I have read numerous assertions to the effect that emergency queen cells, of the three possible queen cells a hive can produce, are the worst. I take this to mean that when the bees are forced to choose queens from cells that were intended for workers, the resultant queen will be inferior to a queen raised from a queen cup.

I can see the logic behind this idea - but alas, the bees are so often resistant to what seems logical at first consideration. What is the forum's opinion on this matter? Put more precisely - will a queen raised directly from a queen cup be of much greater quality, than a queen raised from a worker cell (provided of course that the bees are able to choose the larva in question at an early stage of its development)?

John


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

I've made some great splits doing walk aways. I think mating plays more of a role in queen quality and I don't really judge my queens on their size. I don't how it effects performance though, you'd have to measure pheromone levels etc.. and brood production over the course of the year. Longevity seems to be a crapshoot these days but I'm betting properly raised queens edge out emergency queens in this area.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

The argument against emergency cells is that the bees get too anxious and use too old of a larvae. Here's what some of the great beekeepers of the past said:

Jay Smith
"It has been stated by a number of beekeepers who should know better (including myself) that the bees are in such a hurry to rear a queen that they choose larvae too old for best results. later observation has shown the fallacy of this statement and has convinced me that bees do the very best that can be done under existing circumstances.
"The inferior queens caused by using the emergency method is because the bees cannot tear down the tough cells in the old combs lined with cocoons. The result is that the bees fill the worker cells with bee milk floating the larvae out the opening of the cells, then they build a little queen cell pointing downward. The larvae cannot eat the bee milk back in the bottom of the cells with the result that they are not well fed. However, if the colony is strong in bees, are well fed and have new combs, they can rear the best of queens. And please note-- they will never make such a blunder as choosing larvae too old."--Jay Smith

Quinby seems to agree:
"I want new comb for brood, as cells can be worked over out of that, better than from old and tough. New comb must be carefully handled. If none but old comb is to be had, cut the cells down to one fourth inch in depth. The knife must be sharp to leave it smooth and not tear it."--Moses Quinby

C.C. Miller's view of emergency queens
"If it were true, as formerly believed, that queenless bees are in such haste to rear a queen that they will select a larva too old for the purpose, then it would hardly do to wait even nine days. A queen is matured in fifteen days from the time the egg is laid, and is fed throughout her larval lifetime on the same food that is given to a worker-larva during the first three days of its larval existence. So a worker-larva more than three days old, or more than six days from the laying of the egg would be too old for a good queen. If, now, the bees should select a larva more than three days old, the queen would emerge in less than nine days. I think no one has ever known this to occur. Bees do not prefer too old larvae. As a matter of fact bees do not use such poor judgment as to select larvae too old when larvae sufficiently young are present, as I have proven by direct experiment and many observations."--Fifty Years Among the Bees, C.C. Miller

http://taoofbeekeeping.com/beesafewgoodqueens.htm#emergency

OTS queen rearing (Mel Disselkoen) is intended to solve both issues, right age larvae and ability to tear down the cells, by tearing down the cells of the right age larvae. I side with Miller on this and I think they don't pick the wrong age larvae and they often pick a place they can tear down, and even if they can't they do ok. I think the problem with emergency queens is more often related to the circumstances at the time you do it. If you do a walk-away split at a time of abundance, then the queen is well fed and there are plenty of drones for her to mate with. If you do it in a dearth it seldom turns out well.


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## ruthiesbees (Aug 27, 2013)

I run topbar hives, and all of my queens are raised from planned "emergency queen cells", which is to say, I purposely removed the queen to a nuc so the big hive would make queen cells. This hive has a booming population with plenty of food and young workers. They also have very soft, new comb to rework the queen cells. With all those positive pieces in place, the queens that I get from "emergency cells" are just as nice or better than queens that I have purchased from bee breeders.

Now if you have a nuc that is just doing so-so, with an ok amount of stores, and you pull that queen, you should not expect the same great results that I spoke about in the first paragraph. One of the side benefits of being foundationless is that I can carve out the almost ready to hatch queen cells and place them in queenless hives. When I do this process in my "best hive" I will typically get 10-15 queen cells total on various bars.


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

I make it a habit to check splits around the 4-5 day mark. Any capped queencells I find, I tear them down as long as there are open ones still being made. My theory is these were older larva, but sometimes the larva in the cells is still quite small and perhaps the bees are just hasty in capping cells.


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## JohnBruceLeonard (Jul 7, 2015)

Thanks, all, for the _very_ prompt replies!

JRG13, I suspect there is promise in the walk away split, more than is sometimes conceded to it, and it is very interesting to hear a bit about your procedure. I am curious about your habit of eliminating the first wave of queen cells; what were your reasons for starting that? Did you find that the first cells the bees put up tended to produce lower quality queens?

Mr. Bush, that is a wealth of quotations. I recently came across the very words of C.C. Miller cited in your response above (on your website, no less; my sincere thanks for the resources you have published there), and found them persuasive. It is indeed partially due to his take on the matter that I decided to start this thread. My thought was similar to yours, that perhaps emergency cells have gotten their ill reputation from the unfavorable circumstances in which they commonly occur - namely, in hastily-made nucleus colonies that suffer from few nurse bees, and few genuine options for the bees.

Ms. Meredith, I very much like the maneuver of exporting the queen to the nuc, rather than forcing a queenless nuc to try to make new cells from limited and improvised resources. Yours seems like a very good way of ensuring quality cells, and not just for top bar hives. It says much that your bees are able to produce such high quality queens. Thank you for sharing the idea, very kind of you.

John


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## AR Beekeeper (Sep 25, 2008)

According to Wolkie's controlled studies in Poland, you have a 2 out of 3 chance of getting good queens using emergency cells raised by removing the queen and taking what comes. Tweeking the process by egg/larvae control, proper feeding and other ways described by previous posters will give queens as good as, or better than you will buy.


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## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

The dislike I have with a walk away split is if the queen fails to return, after all that time without new brood, the colony is on it's last legs and will develop laying workers quickly. 

If she is successfully mated and returned, they are slower to build up compared to one with an installed queen cell. But they get a better brood break and it is less effort or needs less skill than producing cells separately. 

Letting them make their own queen leaves more to chance. But they are very easy to do. My first nucs were all walkaways. I had good success except they were made far too late in the season and yellow jackets cleaned some of them out just as they started to take off.

This is an old photo of those nucs. Gaping entrances and lots of syrup, although it wasn't honey bees that gave them the problems.










Closely following directions I made sure they had frames with emergency cells made from soft new comb with lots of eggs and young larva to choose from.










In spring, (Before I have a starter colony set up)I still sometimes make a couple walk aways if I have a very large hive I think is a swarming threat and I want to keep the genetics from the hive in tact.


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

If you separate a portion of active hive, like by pulling brood up above an excluder and several honey supers, the bees are induced to raise cells perhaps because of less queen pheremone. It is not as abrupt as taking out the queen or having her accidently killed. Would the queens raised as a result of this scenario be more like a supercedure rather than an emergency queen? This is what results when I requeen or start a split with the double screen division board which I have been doing for several years.

I think that a sickly, hungry, or underpopulated colony may short change the cells on food as well as possibly be able to maintain only a marginal brood temperature. Temperature does affect emergence time. Maybe some of these things are behind the bad name that some splits have earned.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

The problem with emergency raised cells can be poor nutrition, this happens in some but not all emergency raised cells.

If you have a look at an emergency raised cell raised from the middle of black comb, you will see the bees have put royal jelly in the cell, but the larva has to reach up, and then around the corner into the worker cell, to get the royal jelly. Queens raised like this are often smaller than they should be.

The photo Lauri has posted above, of the emergency cell raised on white comb is an example of a well shaped emergency cell. The bees have been easily able to re shape the base of the cell so the entire queen cell is vertical with the royal jelly directly above the larva where it can reach the food easily.

So the trick with emergency raised cells is to set the bees up with brood in comb that allows them to work the queen cell into the right shape.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Should add to that, bees in nature and pre varroa, rarely have to raise an emergency queen, queen raising is planned and happens in cells pre built, and in the right shape.

Emergency queen cell raising something bees are capable of, but is mostly a function of beekeeper choice and is not the bees preference.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

I do emergency cells just as good as I do grafting cells. But I don't just take away the queen and leave the rest to chance. I go back in a week and remove any cells that seem smaller, leaving only a couple or three that are looking great. The same thing happens at times with grafting, some cells look better than others, and I'll choose the best looking ones to place in mating nucs, and destroy the smaller ones or use them for collecting royal jelly.

Another thing is, the colony or nuc you do this with, needs to have good stores of pollen and honey and have good population of young bees, as well as the field bees, as I normally move the queen away in a nuc to make the split. After a week, the cells are capped and I switch the queen hive/nuc back and move the split with cells to a new stand, to reduce it's population of field bees. That way, when cell or cells do emerge, no swarming happens, as the field bees have all gone back to mother queen hive.


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

JohnBruce,

I did not observe any queen issues, but looking at the timeline for raising a queen, I hate seeing capped cells after 3-4 days. Once I remove those, they have no choice but to use freshly hatched larva that were eggs done at the split which makes me more comfortable with the situation. I just assumed being capped so early meant they were older larva that hit capping stage that much quicker.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

It makes no difference as long as the cells are well fed when the 
bees have selected a right age larva. If they pick the older larva then
the queen is no good. Sometimes they will do a 2nd supersedure after the
new queen is laying. So the bees know what to do better than what I can pick
for them.


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## JohnBruceLeonard (Jul 7, 2015)

Thanks to everyone for the excellent information.

beepro - your last words are an echo of my reasons for considering this question. I did some grafting this summer, had a bit of success, and more than anything, enjoyed it. In the coming year I intend to continue work with grafting, but I would also like to try other ways of raising queens. I have the standing order with myself that, until I have very clear reasons for doing an intervention of any kind in my colonies, it is in general best to let the bees manage their own affairs within the borders of their kingdom. Hence my interest in emergency cells.

JRG13 - perfectly clear; I was neglecting the calendar. Of course a cell capped at so early a date would likely be from an over-mature larva.

Lauri - that is very true about the colony's extreme difficulty when the queen fails to return from her virgin flight. I made several walk away splits this summer, and lost a number of them for this reason. A question about your other observation, that a nucleus colony with an installed cell will build up faster than one that has made emergency cells. Is this only because an installed cell will be near to birth, so that you cut off about a week of incubation time? Or do you mean to say that the queen _after her birth_ will build up the nuc faster?

crofter - what is a double screen division board? Is it similar to a Snelgrove board? Your point about temperature is well taken; I had not been considering that.

Oldtimer - your point is also well taken, that raising emergency cells is not precisely a "natural" process. I think this is indicated as well by the fact that beepro has seen his bees raise supercedure cells _after _emergency cells. The only part of it is that is perhaps more natural, is that the bees are permitted to choose the larvae they would make queens of. Though it would seem they do not always do a capital job of it in an emergency situation.

RayMarler - I have seen it stated before, as you suggest, that if the field bees remain with the nucleus colony, there is the danger of swarming. Any ideas as to why that would be? It seems counterintuitive...

I take from the comments you all have been kind enough to leave, that the following are of the essence in the successful cultivation of emergency cells:

1. proper nutrition (which means, high levels of nurse bees, foragers, pollen, and stores)
2. appropriately aged larvae
3. soft comb
4. internal temperature of hive around cells (linked strongly to hive population)

Anything anyone would add?

Many thanks again,

John


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

http://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/bitstream/1/2026539/1/TNAU 33372.pdf

This link should give you a better system as natural as can be. I finally understand
this concept in details that the other links did not give the example with pictures.
There are many advantages when you get the author's idea. The issue
of heat is also addressed there. I like making multiple mating nucs with the
division boards at the top box A as I have some foam division boards 
ready to use this coming queen rearing season. Some beekeepers here have use it 
successfully. And it is not always necessary that the soft comb be
used. Many times my bees will create the queen cells using the older 
comb depending on what is available and how they manage to float the larva
out of the cell. And every time I have big healthy well fed cells because I know how to 
manipulate the hive set up either on a swarm or emergency cell makes no difference.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

JohnBruceLeonard said:


> RayMarler - I have seen it stated before, as you suggest, that if the field bees remain with the nucleus colony, there is the danger of swarming. Any ideas as to why that would be? It seems counterintuitive...


If the queen is moved away in a nuc, the majority of the hive is left in place. It will have most of the young bees, all of the field force bees, brood emerging, open larva being fed and queen cells being created. It is now a very populous hive, in a flow or with heavy feeding of pollen and syrup, what is it that we now have? A queenless hive in swarm condition. Some people do this at the start of a flow, calling it a cut down split. Now, I've heard the reasoning that since the bees are so busy bringing in nectar at the start of a flow that they won't swarm, and many times they don't, but many times they do swarm also. There have been reports of it working fine, and also reports of them swarming, here on this forum. I prefer to stack the deck in my favour against them swarming by moving the created cell builder away to a new stand after a week, perhaps even facing a different direction than before moving it, to lose all the field force so that they swarming impulse is now negated as they don't have any field force aged bees to swarm with. It seems to work well for me when I do this.

I have also done the cut down split as a flow starts without the bees swarming, and it does cause a good amount of honey to be stored as the amount of brood being fed gradually reduces to the point of broodlessness before the new virgin is mated and starts laying. It can and does work a lot of times, but sometimes they swarm instead, and I prefer to increase the odds of them not swarming.


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## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

JohnBruceLeonard;
Lauri - that is very true about the colony's extreme difficulty when the queen fails to return from her virgin flight. I made several walk away splits this summer said:


> after her birth[/I] will build up the nuc faster?


Because she is close to emerging and there is still plenty of brood & young bees in the colony. You are never totally broodless, they with just generally have a _short_ period with no_ capped_ brood. You'll have the last bit of old capped brood along with eggs and small larva from the new queen. That old capped brood will emerge just before the new larva are capped.

With a walk away you're looking at about 2 weeks longer without a laying queen. They are _fully_ broodless by the time she is mated and laying. There's no capped brood, no new larva, usually no eggs quite yet. If you think about it, really not a lot different than a package with the same difficulties of attempting growth without the balance brood adds to the unit. If the queen fails to return, laying workers are already primed to take over. Your window for saving the colony and making it queen right is very small.

If you're making the nucs up with bees and brood from an overwintered hive, cutting out drone comb at the critical point when only capped drone brood is left would be a great way to help get rid of a lot of mites too. You window for that is smaller with the installed queen cell. But it can be done if you mark down your dates and have installed a frame that will accommodate drone comb removal.

Also consider the difference, when you make a nuc or hive queenless, they usually remove or cannibalize all eggs, accelerating and prolonging the soon to be broodless state. I assume they do this because they are probably trying to consume high quality protein in preparation for rearing a new queen. (Royal jelly production)

When you add a soon to emerge queen cell, they usually _do not_ remove the eggs. I add a capped queen cell immediately when making up a nuc or replacing a collected queen, without a queenless waiting period. They will remove eggs pretty quickly, over night when they are queenless or don't have a capped cell.

I also add a virgin queen immediately to a nuc just made queenless to avoid those same problems and keep them from starting their own cells. I just put her in a JZBZ transport cage with a soft, one day release candy. I have no acceptance issues, eggs are maintained and no queens cells are started.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

That's all true Lauri and a good suggestion on the drone brood removal. It's important to note, though, from a mite control perspective that varroa won't invade larvae until shortly before its capped so there is a treatment window when virtually all mites are phoretic albeit a pretty short one.


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## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

When breaking up a _large _over wintered hive, I always leave the established queen & one frame of open brood in the original location with new undrawn frames and a generous feeder with 1:1. Foragers fly back and rebuild at an astonishing rate. Younger foragers easily revert back to nurse bees and the entire colony is rebooted and back on fresh clean comb. Swarming is the last thing on their minds at this point. Some may call this a simulated swarm, I call it a 'Fly Back' swarm. You just have to be careful you have a good balance of foragers and young nurse bees in the hive so the removed frames of brood are not left to chill or be neglected.

I move all the rest of the frames of bees, brood and stores to nucs and give them a capped ready to emerge queen cell & a feeder with 1:1. They fare better without foragers for a short time because they will soon have only capped brood and no open brood to feed. By the time the new queen is mated and laying, they have had a hatch, will have matured and are back on track for a balanced work force.

Here are a few photos of a Fly Back swarm. this was a colony over wintered in 4 deeps shown here after a little excitement:










Below-All this was done 3-4-14. 

1/2 hour after separation. Remember there is only one drawn frame in the center which holds open brood, adhering nurse bees and the queen in the ORIGINAL location:










After 1 hour:










after 3 hours..










After they had started drawing out most of the frames I give them another deep to accommodate the volume of bees.










After 3 days. With an established laying queen, no place for her to lay & virtually no brood to feed, they absolutely *grab a gear* with comb building. If you give them drawn frames to fly back to you will NOT get this same result:










After 9 days










A fly back will typically go crazy for about 30 days, then have an inactive period when all the older foragers have worked themselves to death and the hive consists of almost all young bees. If you can time it to be at this stage when you are between flows (Maple and Blackberry in my area) you are perfectly set up for large healthy population for the main flow.
You can do a fly back at any time of the season (within reason), but your feeding responsibilities will differ somewhat, depending on if they were well suited for natural feed collection at the right time.

I did make one walk away nuc out of that hive. Here's a perfect frame for that.

Comb on the top on a half sheet of black rite cell is all open larva and some eggs. Drone brood has no use in a nuc and cutting it out now removed mites as well and gave the bees a good place to draw queen cells.



















After a couple days:




























Here's a larger view of that last photo. You can see capped brood, but no larva here, because when I made them queenless in the walk away nuc, they _removed_ all the eggs. That queen cell isn't capped yet so it was no more than 6 days queenless. If the eggs hadn't been removed there would still be open brood.


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## JohnBruceLeonard (Jul 7, 2015)

AR Beekeeper - I've been thinking about your response back in #7, and I had some (belated) questions about the study you cited. Do you have any idea how judiciously the splits in the study were effected? In other words - did they just open a hive up and divide the contents in half, just so? Or did they make the splits more as a beekeeper would - rightly apportioning stores, pollen, and brood? How many frames did they take, and how many did they leave? I tried to hunt down some information on those studies online, but to no avail...

beepro - I was considering tracking down that very document just the day before yesterday. Kind thanks for sending it my way. I'll look forward to delving into it. I'm curious - the hive manipulations that you speak of, in order to ensure that a queen cell in dark comb grows to a healthy size - is this just a matter of keeping the cell near the center of the nest, and pollen near to the cell? Or is there more to it?

RayMarler - that was a very clear explanation, thank you. I've read that a large percentage of the bees in a swarm are in fact foragers; and so, if I've understood rightly, the problem with these cut down splits is that the population of bees taken does not represent what it would have been, had the bees swarmed on their own watch. Your method would help adjust for this proportioning. Thank you for the clarification.

Lauri - I will neither be the first nor the last to praise your _excellent _photographs. Your visual documentation of your experiments and your work in beekeeping is of enormous value to us all. And the response you gave to my question was extremely useful, thanks. I'm very curious about this Fly Back Split, and I had a few questions. I take it you are leaving the resultant nucleus colonies in the same apiary as the original split? How many frames do you generally take out, and how many do you leave for the queenright part?

My thanks once more to all,

John


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## AR Beekeeper (Sep 25, 2008)

I don't remember the information you want. You may be able to find the study on Adidologe or Plos One websites.


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## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

JohnBruceLeonard said:


> Lauri - I will neither be the first nor the last to praise your _excellent _photographs. Your visual documentation of your experiments and your work in beekeeping is of enormous value to us all. And the response you gave to my question was extremely useful, thanks. I'm very curious about this Fly Back Split, and I had a few questions. I take it you are leaving the resultant nucleus colonies in the same apiary as the original split? How many frames do you generally take out, and how many do you leave for the queenright part?



Yes, I work mostly in one location. I've learned how to not just allow for fly back, but use it to my advantage in a situation like this. Instead of trying to confine the bees, change their behavior and fight them, I _encourage_ them to fly back. There's no stress associated with confinement and no dead bees.

I take out _*ALL frames*_ except *one *for the queenright part.
The fly back original location+ established queen+ one frame of open brood with adhering nurse bees+ all foragers that have been oriented to that location. + new undrawn frames and a feeder+ Protein

All other frames with brood, young bees and honey/pollen are divided up into nucs. 

I do this with very large hives in early spring if I think they are going to be a swarming threat, or I just want to 'Freshen' the colony as I say it. Gets older queens back on clean fresh comb without any laying interruptions due to irregular available cells. Gives an established queen's colony a brood break without confining the queen. If a colony had a mite load that needed treatment, that broodless period at the beginning of the 'fly back' would be the time to do it for the best result with the least exposures. I've not had to do that, but if I did, I would maybe confine the queen in a shipping cage for a day (right next to the center brood frame) just to avoid her direct exposure to a OA trickle or Apivar strip. When all mites are phoretic, I've found Apivar appears be totally effective in as short as a 24 hour period.

Here's a frame from a 3 year old queen after a FlyBack. 

Got her off older frames that were a bit spotty due to a couple years of occasional back filling and VSH behavior, etc. Giving those frames to a cell or virgin queen will give them the brood break they need to expose any mites & get the cells cleaned up and polished for the next queen.

This older queens patterns here seems kind of odd, but if you realize the frame was newly drawn and the foundation-less areas were apparently drawn first, her lay up will make more sense.
Notice the generous amount of open space ( frame/hive accessibility) at the bottom of the foundationless brood comb areas. That's why I cut out my bottom corners when I use solid sheets of foundation.



















In _single deep_, when a frame like this is drawn, they usually will draw & fill the back area with worker cells and honey, the front foundationless area near the entrances with drones. Not sure if it is a temperature thing or a protective thing. Once the brood has hatched and they start filling with just honey, there will usually be more honey stored in the back of the hive, away from entrances. When in doubles or higher and honey storage is available above the brood nest, they will draw and fill the frames evenly.


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

I like to do the opposite. I move the bulk of the hive with the queen. I leave 1 frame (with bees) of mixed food, brood, eggs, pollen and comb in the old location.

The large foraging force makes the small house population feel abundantly fed, they can store surplus in the empty combs while a queen is being raised, and you end up with a nice strong colony with a new queen.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

JohnBruceLeonard said:


> ....
> beepro - I was considering tracking down that very document just the day before yesterday. Kind thanks for sending it my way. I'll look forward to delving into it. I'm curious - the hive manipulations that you speak of, in order to ensure that a queen cell in dark comb grows to a healthy size - is this just a matter of keeping the cell near the center of the nest, and pollen near to the cell? Or is there more to it?....
> 
> My thanks once more to all,
> John


"The fly back original location+ established queen+ one frame of open brood with adhering nurse bees+ all foragers that have been oriented to that location. + new undrawn frames and a feeder+ Protein"

The comb at the center will keep the cells warm because the heat will rise to the top from the bottom generated by the bees.
Now subsitute this one frame of brood with the grafted or cell 
frame right in the center. I use the fly back method all these time not even knowing what it was called, by removing the 2 side hives and the center hive on the same hive stand to put a small nuc in its location. All the 3 hives' foragers will cram inside this small nuc creating a super bomb cell builder/finisher. No wonder all my queens are big and very well fed. Thanks, Lauri for giving it a name. Now I know.
Now John knows that the larva will be flow out because so many bees are taking care of these cells. Do this just before the main flow to get these cells well fed. The new queens should be laying on the main flow to take advantage of the resources going in to build up
the hive population. Give her plenty of room though.
I'm glad that we are all on the same page doing these little bee experiments and publish them here. Way to go, Lauri!


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## JohnBruceLeonard (Jul 7, 2015)

Lauri - once again, _many_ thanks. Your work with foundation has fascinated me for some time now, and it is intriguing to see what the bees do with some of the frames you give them... As for the Fly Back Nuc - the idea of leaving only a single frame for the extant queen makes sense on many different levels. Very interesting information, Lauri.



Lauri said:


> All other frames with brood, young bees and honey/pollen are divided up into nucs.


I had a question about this step. How many nucs (on average, of course) do you find you can make from a single deep, following your strategy of leaving only a single frame with the original colony? Or put otherwise - how many frames do you generally like to give to a new nucleus colony?

deknow - it seems to me that your method would help guarantee (as much as this as possible) a single, really strong new queen. It is probably ideal for a 1 - 2 split. However, I have need of rapid expansion in the coming year, so it might behoove me to follow Lauri's method, as it permits the formation of multiple nucleus colonies from a single hive. What do you think? Another question - following your method, do you find any residual desire to swarm on the part of the nucleus colony? Or does it suffice to separate it from its queen and divest it of most of its forager population, to rid it of this urge?

beepro - what do you do with the hives that you move from the hive stand? I suppose it would be possible even to leave them within the same apiary, as Lauri does... The nuc that you put in their place must really end up with a _superabundance _of foragers. I can believe your queens are well fed... Really intriguing idea for a cell starter/finisher colony. Many thanks for sharing!

John


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Basically all reared queens are developed in exactly the same conditions as emergency cells, except the cells are pointing straight downward. Nutritionally they are treated exactly the same, and the bees will choose larvae as close to perfect as possible. Most of the time the bees will chew the cell walls down to create a cell as straight down from the cell base as possible to avoid exactly the problem Oldtimer mentioned with in ability to feed on royal jelly, but in cases where emergency cells were built on tough old comb, I've seen the bees fill that cell brimming full and over into the extension.


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## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

JohnBruceLeonard said:


> Lauri - once again, _many_ thanks. Your work with foundation has fascinated me for some time now, and it is intriguing to see what the bees do with some of the frames you give them... As for the Fly Back Nuc - the idea of leaving only a single frame for the extant queen makes sense on many different levels. Very interesting information, Lauri.
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How many nucs (on average, of course) do you find you can make from a single deep, following your strategy of leaving only a single frame with the original colony? Or put otherwise - how many frames do you generally like to give to a new nucleus colony?_

I wouldn't do this 'Fly Back' swarm with a single deep, not enough bees. I do it with over wintered, well established triples or larger.

In May,between the Maple and Blackberry flows, I can make killer nucs out of just three frames and a feeder. I generally will give them a gallon of light 1:1 twice, then they take off until the flow runs out.










Earlier in spring or later after the flow, I give them at least 5 full frames and feeder.

Yes Beepro, I kind of do this for my early cell builder hives. 

Early spring, I'll reduce a triple, well populated over wintered hive down to 2 deeps, remove much of the over wintered honey and give them a feeder with 1:1 and protein. 
This will dense up the population immediately.
(I'll have previously confined the queen with an excluder so I have several frames of brood that is now all capped.)


When I am ready to start cells, I remove the entire deep the queen is confined to and set it on my cart near the remaing deep that contains only capped brood. I let all the foragers fly back to that single deep, making sure the queenright deep that has been set aside has plenty of bees to cover brood , especially if temps are cool.

With an older queen, that has over wintered a couple times, I can go do my grafts then immediately place grafts in the now queenless deep. (That is now packed with bees due to additional fly back) If the established queen is young, they are less likely to want to replace her quite so fast and I usually leave the queenless deep over night to prime it for starting cells.

I don't need a ton of nurse bees at this point, I need *density *just to get a 24 hour draw.

Once the cells have been started, usually just over night, I will reunite the 2 deeps again. But here's what I do different than most.
I switch out the started cells and the queen.

The frame of started queen cells comes out of the bottom deep. I remove the queen from the set aside deep and drop her into the bottom deep that has all capped brood.

Top with the excluder.

The frame of cells goes into the top deep that had been queen right for at least 10 days and is full of young brood and nurse bees. I put the cell frame right in the center and place this deep on top the excluder, on top the queenright bottom deep.

This rotational way I never again have to wait for frames of capped brood, because when the queen cells are ripe and ready to be removed, all those worker cells are now capped. The cell builder is queenright all the time except for one day and I never have to look for 'self' started cells because the _open brood has never been queenless. _ 

The open brood had the queen, then the queen was switched to the other box and immediatly combined with an excluder between. The open brood frames have not only been queenright the whole time, much of the time, they have also had a full frame of queen cells. No reason to ever start any wild cells.

I'll keep it well fed _ some_ honey, incoming natural feed and with my own recipes. It works best with an older, but still productive queen. Removing much of the capped honey removes much of the swarming inspiration. I've never had one swarm from doing this. 

When I remove the ripe queen cells, I repeat the whole rotation. The bottom deep with the queen gets removed and set aside on my cart and the top deep, now all capped, gets placed on the bottom board to accept new grafts.

Some say not to allow open brood near grafts because there will be to much competition for royal jelly. I've found that not to be true, as long as they are HEALTHY and well fed. And well _primed_ with high protein and consuming well _before_ grafts are introduced.

Here's about a 48 hour draw with a hive configured this way:



















Cells recently capped:










And a resulting ripe cell:










I also use queenless starters once the weather is warmer and I am doing a _lot_ more batches. But this is good for early queen rearing when I don't want to commit to a queenless colony quite yet. It's not practical to assemble one if it's not going to be used efficiently because they can get out of their prime fast and need to be freshened regularly.

A queenright cell builder stays productive, but is _slightly_ suppressed by the regular invasion and changes. Suppressed _just enough_ to keep it from swarming I believe. And you never have to look for wild cells or risk laying worker issues.

I don't care at all for the typical cloake board method. Although this is similar in some ways, This method controls the density of starter populations better and puts basically ALL the nurse bees in _direct _contact with grafts.

With a queenless cell builder, I have to add frames of brood and shake in young bees and check for cells regularly.(Even if all brood is capped and the cell builder is freshened regularly,if queenless for too long you will eventually get a _few_ laying workers that will lay and draw that unfertilized larva into a queen cell. That cell will never hatch, but will ruin your grafts with a failed draws. Even though it may have been freshned, that cell builder is toast. That's when I give them a virgin queen and make a new starter.

With a queen right cell builder on a rotational system, you avoid all that. But with a queenless cell builder I can get perfect results during my peak grafting period. It just takes different management and supporting colonies.


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## JohnBruceLeonard (Jul 7, 2015)

Ian - very interesting observations about the bees filling dark comb cells to overflowing. You state that "the bees will choose larvae as close to perfect as possible." Does this mean you haven't seen bees in the throes of an emergency situation choosing older larvae?

Lauri, you've given me a _lot _to try out in the coming season. Thanks very much. Your Fly Back Nucs and your rotational system of queen rearing are of great interest. Many thanks for your generosity with your ideas, and for the time you take to share them.

Lauri's post reminded me of a related question that I wanted to ask the forum regarding nuc building in general. Respect to swarm period, when do you usually make up spring nucs?

John


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

JohnBruceLeonard said:


> Ian - very interesting observations about the bees filling dark comb cells to overflowing. You state that "the bees will choose larvae as close to perfect as possible." Does this mean you haven't seen bees in the throes of an emergency situation choosing older larvae?
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> John


Oh ya, they will make little nubs from time to time just to piss you off...


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

A good time to make nucs is when you find hives going into swarm prep....


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

LOL JRG, what a comedian. But yes, either that or get a ladder and a bucket...


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## JohnBruceLeonard (Jul 7, 2015)

Ian - the bees _have _to remind us who's boss every now and then, don't they?



JRG13 said:


> A good time to make nucs is when you find hives going into swarm prep....


A just reply, JRG13, a just reply. I hope I can remember at _least _that much for the coming year. My memory is less than reliable these days, however, so I'll be sure to prepare the ladder and bucket in any case...

Let me specify what I was trying to ask. From local practices here, and from what I have read, I am of the understanding it is best to make up nucs _before _the bees begin to prepare swarm cells. I was wondering why this is preferable to letting the bees make their swarm cells, and then making up nucs using these frames. (Understanding, of course, that timing would be of the essence in such a case.) Is the problem that, permitting the swarm urge to develop to such a point, it might continue to manifest in the resultant nucleus colonies?

John


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## Knisely (Oct 26, 2013)

Great thread, with a lot of useful information and excellent photographic documentation.

Lauri: I understand (I believe) how you'll carry out the operations you describe for a Fly Back Swarm. Can you please put a timeline together for this thread that incorporates the steps necessary for getting the ripe queen cells that you'll use to give to the nucs you make from the hive that is being broken up. I'm not worried about breaking things down, but getting those queen cells ready for the right time of year (still relatively early...before the main flow) is a point that I would like to be able to refer to a chart that will indicate what to do when...


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## JohnBruceLeonard (Jul 7, 2015)

Knisely said:


> Lauri: Can you please put a timeline together for this thread that incorporates the steps necessary for getting the ripe queen cells that you'll use to give to the nucs you make from the hive that is being broken up.


I, too, would be very curious to see such a timeline...


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## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

Not sure I am following you. Timing queen cell development is easy. When your cells are ripe and ready to place, just do the break up.
I over winter quite a few late summer mated queens in mating nucs in divided deeps, so if done earlier than I can have cells ready, I just give the nucs a mated queen. As long as the original hive doesn't enough mites to need treatment. If it did, I'd treat the big hive before breaking up unless I have virgin queens available. Visual inspection, good growth, an alcohol wash and drone uncapping is my usual method for that determination.

Early March drones, looking good


















But what I _can_ tell you is the timing of the 'Fly Back Swarm' during different times of the season is, it has different advantages and some different results. Needs of the colony will be different depending on if they were able to take advantage of flows & incoming natural feed. If done after the flow, it will make an otherwise 'resting' or non productive foragers work them selves to death and very productive. They are going to die anyway, I make them perform until they do. 
You can't feed a large production hive to keep it growing during dearth periods when there's honey ripening in the hive. It will just make them swarm and ruin your honeys quality. But you can feed that same colony when made into a fly back swarm double your drawn and filled frames with new comb and young bees with excellent results. 

If done late it will clean up hives with a pretty good mite load. You can always re combine the separated splits with the parent hive after you've run a virgin queen through them to clean them up. But you'll have about twice the number of frames by then. Lots of details, including what to do( temporarily) with any uncapped honey from the original hive, but I have to go to work. I'll write later.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Maybe looking at the pitfalls is useful. Let's look at how to make the _worst_ queen.

If you are doing emergency queens you have no real control over the larvae they pick since you aren't grafting them. If you are grafting, then picking a large larvae will result in an intercaste queen.

If you set things up so the cell builder (or the queenless half of a split) ends up with a low density of bees (a small nuc set in a new place so all the field bees leave or a hive that is weak to start with) then the queen will likely be poorly fed. Also if you do this in a dearth and don't feed she will be poorly fed.

If you do this at a time when there are few to no drones (too early, in a dearth when the bees have killed off the drones etc.) then she will be poorly bred.

If you put the cells in mating nucs and catch them as soon as they lay an egg, you will interrupt the development of their ovarioles and get a poor queen.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

pro - what do you do with the hives that you move from the hive stand? 
Respect to swarm period, when do you usually make up spring nucs?
http://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/bitstream/1/2026539/1/TNAU 33372.pdf <<== See bee chart, too!
I like the requeening part without losing any honey harvest.

The hives that I removed from the hive stand are rather strong hives.
I just leave them at an adjacent location so that the hives will rebuild
the foragers within 2 weeks. Eventually they will send out more foragers as
time went by. It was the foragers that I want to give the cell builder/finisher hive a boost. 
Rather than using a frame feeder I gave them 1:1 syrup jar on a 5
frame nuc set up. ie 2 pollen/2 capped broods and an open brood frame that later will be replaced by the graft frame.
Without the frame feeder inside then the hive density will increase more as this is what I'm after to make the big healthy cells.
This is all possible because the foragers will out number the nurse bees by at least 4:1.

The real answer to your question is location, location and location. Because beekeeping is all local, you have to time your year to year blooming period. This will allow you to gauge the time that you can make a new Spring nuc. That will go with the hive population at the Spring build up too. It would not make any sense to split up a small weak nuc hive. As of now my hive is already teaming with new bees. At every
21 days cycle there will be a new batch of big fat winter bees all the way to the Spring build up. Each hatch cycle I will test out my oav gadget to knock down more mites. By the Spring time when the hive population is at its peak I will make
an early split. My ideal day temperature as time progress is around 75-85F in the early Spring time. Usually it is around the time that the almonds run is over. Do you know how to time your bee population on the flow from year to year, locally? Also, this year I have ordered many bee seeds, plants and tubers. This will enable me to make queens all year long without the concern of the yearly summer dearth here.
If you are not going to the canola fields then how will you feed your bees to produce these big cells all year long? My set up is not complete yet because there are more room to make improvement on. Consistent result is what I am after. 
What can you improve on your bee set up to make it better each and every time? 


Some good result so far:


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