# Nicot System Question.



## snapper1d (Apr 8, 2011)

I have tried with no luck also.I have read and done everything.Took all the advice from others that have had good luck with it but still nothing.There are lot better ways to make queens.I still use all the stuff that comes with mine though so not a total loss.


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## DirtyLittleSecret (Sep 10, 2014)

Did you place the Nicot cage in the hive ahead of time to get their pheromone? I've heard that to be important.


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## drlonzo (Apr 15, 2014)

I tried using mine this year as well with the same results as you. I waited a solid week with only one egg being lain in the cup. I believe it has to do with pheromones and needing to be in the hive for a week or so first.. I'm going to ask a lady I talk to that uses one with no problems to make sure..


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## jaked007 (Apr 16, 2014)

Are you guys leaving the front off the case a day before installing the queen so the the nurse bees can clean the cups and prepare them them to be used. I'm reading a book by Grant Gillard and he says that is a very important step to get the queen to lay.


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## ChrisBex (Jul 24, 2014)

Check today and 95% of the gird was laid in. Eggs were still standing on end about 1/4 of them starting to sag down and lay into cells.

I put feeder on last night and in 24 hours she laid majority of the grid up.

I put the Nicot frame in one day before caging the queen in it and sprayed it with sugar water with 4 drops of HBH to encourage bees to clean it up. I actually left the grid on it when i put it in the hive, so having the grid off probably won't make a difference.

I'll will be transferring the eggs into a cell builder in 3 days which will be Sunday and will make a video. I've been feeding my cell builder sugar water and pollen sub in liquid form since yesterday.

I'll update to show my results.


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## ChrisBex (Jul 24, 2014)

Just a little update. All 52 cells was rejected in my cell starter. I removed 2 frames and added 2 more frames of capped brood today and grafted larva into new cell cups. I'll check back Friday and see if they start feeding these queen cups.

I didn't have a grafting tool and it was my first time grafting. I used a paper clip to graft with and it was surprisingly easy to do. My only problem was pulling the larva out of the cells. 20 years of video games and 8 years of a drill motor/grinder has its effect on my, use to be, steady hands. At least I have good eyes and being 27 and stubborn makes getting it right a must. I think my make shift paper clip didn't have the right angles to pull the larva out cleanly, but still I got it done after a ton of bad scoops.

I think I'm leaning towards grafting. Its faster, easier, and honestly more fun.

If these grafts take, I'll post some pictures.


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## Dominic (Jul 12, 2013)

I had no problems using mine, though I just graft nowadays so that I don't have to constantly manipulate my breeder queens and have them confined so much.


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## Little-John (Jun 18, 2015)

The Nicot laying cage has cells which are 5.6mm diameter - a diameter which lies in-between the normal worker and drone cell size ranges. Queens - especially those raised on natural comb - are often reluctant to lay in such sized cells, and if they do then the eggs tend to be drone eggs - which can make great looking queen cells, only to be torn down later on ...

One fix is to insert suitably-sized straws into each of the 110 cells to reduce their diameter to 5.0mm - which was the size recommended in the original Patent (US 4392262).

LJ


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## ChrisBex (Jul 24, 2014)

Well I found out the reason my grafts weren't taking. The queen must of had her cloaking device on when I shook bees into the NUC. I removed her Friday from my cell starter and checked back on Sunday morning and culled any remaining queen cells on the frames where she laid. 

I grafted again Sunday afternoon and found it to be even easier then last time. I picked a frame with black plastic foundation that had tiny larva just hatched and grafted them into the cell cups that I have been using ever since I started this project. A lot of people say they don't take to used plastic cell cups, but in my case 32 out of 40 did take. I had 80% take this go around. I think the ones that didn't take was because I used older larva or I might have rolled the larva or damaged it in some way.


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## ChrisBex (Jul 24, 2014)

Well I had 26 extra queens after I made up my 10 nucs. Gave the rest away, that's right free, to members of our beekeepers association. I'm currently holding on to 3 for two more members then I'm out. 

It's crazy how fast they go and still getting requests for 10 here, 20 there, and 2-4 everywhere. I hate turning away members. Some members actually gave donations. I really didn't want to get rid of this many queens, but I didn't have the resources to mate them... this year. 

I can't wait till March next year. I'm going to try and graft 80 queens to sell to members of the club. One guy said he would try 40 next spring, depending on how well these do, and he was looking for a local queen producer.

I'm 27 and will graft queens till I can't see anymore or hold a paperclip. 

I think I found my calling.


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## Little-John (Jun 18, 2015)

Good to hear a success story ...

I'm still trying to discover why some folk are successful with the Nicot cage, and others aren't. I read that you're grafting now - very successfully indeed ! - did you ever have any success when using the cage ?

LJ


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## ChrisBex (Jul 24, 2014)

Little-John said:


> Good to hear a success story ...
> 
> I'm still trying to discover why some folk are successful with the Nicot cage, and others aren't. I read that you're grafting now - very successfully indeed ! - did you ever have any success when using the cage ?
> 
> LJ



I didn't have any success using the Nicot system yet. I plan on trying again next year in mid March. I think its mainly a fault of my own. I plan on using the Nicot and grafting side by side for comparison for ease.


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

One day, one day! We're nowhere near being able to raise that many queens at a time, although I'm setting up to do this on a smaller scale next year (see the 12V frame incubator thread). If I can get either natural queen cells or grafts, a group in my club has the rest of the queen rearing stuff, and they've been using the Nicot cups. I've got one queen and two of her daughters that came from my mentor. He managed to lose the queen they came from before he worked the bugs out of queen rearing, so my queens may be the best stock we have available.

Might get a queen castle, though. 

In the meantime, I'll be watching this thread with interest.


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## rookie2531 (Jul 28, 2014)

Congrats on the acceptance. How big was your starter? I had a double deep starter this past spring and only put 15 in that, got 13 of 15. I only could split so many at once since I only had 3 hives this past spring. But next spring, if I can get 30 on my first split, that will give them so much more time to build up.


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## ChrisBex (Jul 24, 2014)

My starter was a just a 5 frame nuc with an empty on top to put a quart jar feeder in. I was honestly surprised how many cells took in this nuc.

I'm going to try again next spring with this same setup and try to get better results. 

I checked my nucs I made for the virgins. I only got 6 out of 10 to make it back alive. 4 queens didn't make it back. Already got capped brood in sone of them! The rest of the virgins I gave away to club members. 

So September queens are a viable source for splits for me. I can raise queens, make 5 frame nucs for splits and leave virgins in nucs to mate. All before the end of September. If they don't mate I'll just combine back with a production colony or another nuc. 
We have enough warm weather left I might try and put a frame of eggs in the nucs that didn't make to see what will happen. 

I'm also suprised at how easy it was once I ironed out all the cogs. Queen in a starter is no bueno.


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