# When to remove Queen cells from notched queen rearing



## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

The first one/ones hatched today. Curious thing is that the virgin only killed the other cells that were within a day or two of hatching. Those that were 3 days away or more were not being torn down and showed no signs of being damaged.

Guess I need to brush up on my queen math.


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## Swiftwisdom (Dec 9, 2013)

Brad Bee said:


> I removed my best queen from her hive on 5/5. I notched at least 2 spots on 3 different frames. I'm letting my largest hive raise some extra queen cells for splits, while raising their own replacement queen. I checked the hive 5 days after queen removal and killed a few cells where 2 were made side by side so that I could remove cells later without damaging them.
> 
> If ALL the queen cells were made from eggs laid on 5/5, then I would need to remove the extra cells no later than 5/20 (I think)
> 
> ...


Hey Brad Bee; I'm just curious with regard to the notching; if you pulled the queen, the hive will make emergency cells anyway. No?


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## Tenbears (May 15, 2012)

I generally go by capped date. The bees do not make Q cups until the larva hatches. Eggs on a single frame, can be anywhere from 1 to 3 1/2 days old. Meaning the queen cells could contain queens of various stages. The only way to know for sure is to monitor capping dates closely. I mostly graft for that reason. But when I do On The Spot I watch for them to be capped to determine when I harvest to add to nucs, usually around 6 days, but have pushed it to the brink on occasion. I mark them with various colored sharpies to track the cap dates,, (My memory is not what it once was.) 

For a queen Egg 3.5 days larva 5days +-1 capped 8 days +-1 total 16 days +-1 laying 12 days +- 5 total 28 days +-5


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

Swiftwisdom said:


> Hey Brad Bee; I'm just curious with regard to the notching; if you pulled the queen, the hive will make emergency cells anyway. No?


Yes the hive will make emergency queens but the cells will be better, resulting in better fed queens if the comb is notched. If you don't already know, look up On The Spot (OTS) queen rearing.


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

Tenbears, I should have monitored them more closely. The main reason I didn't was due to not wanting to unstack the full supers to get to the brood nest.... Next time, I'll unstack the supers. Actually, I hope by next year I will have a consistent supply of mated queens ready to stick in hives.


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## Tenbears (May 15, 2012)

Queen rearing is interesting, and everyone develops their own techniques. OTS seems to be more manageable in a hive reserved for that. Keeping the notched frames in a the top box, and without supers is a great way to monitor progress. 

I use to do what is now called OTS queen rearing years ago, I found it to be intriguing. However, I became more concerned with numbers and moved into grafting. As I suspect you will too. The lessons learned from OTS are valuable and help set a good foundation. 
Aren't these bees great?


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## tpope (Mar 1, 2015)

Brad Bee said:


> Yes the hive will make emergency queens but the cells will be better, resulting in better fed queens if the comb is notched. If you don't already know, look up On The Spot (OTS) queen rearing.


Plus you can direct the bees as to *where* they should be raising the queens.


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

One thing I noticed with the still viable queen cells was that the cap on the end of the cells had been chewed away but the cocoon was still intact. I noticed this in another hive that I placed queen cells in. Anyone have any idea why the bees are uncapping a cell before it's ready. They aren't damaging the larvae, just chewing off the cap.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Yes, the workers will remove the extra queen cells when there is a virgin in
there. The virgin is the one directing them to do so. I had seen it being there myself.


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## AR Beekeeper (Sep 25, 2008)

BeeBrad; The bees usually remove the wax at the tip when the virgin is within 1 or 2 day of emerging. It is believed that they do this to aid the new queen in removing the tip of the cell.


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

AR Beekeeper said:


> BeeBrad; The bees usually remove the wax at the tip when the virgin is within 1 or 2 day of emerging. It is believed that they do this to aid the new queen in removing the tip of the cell.


Thanks. I guess that's what they had in mind.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>If ALL the queen cells were made from eggs laid on 5/5, then I would need to remove the extra cells no later than 5/20 (I think)

If you made them queenless on 5/5 and notched some cells on 5/5, it doesn't really matter what age larvae were in the cells you notched, the bees will start with larvae that is just hatched (4 days old) and those will emerge 16 days from when the egg was laid, 12 days after they were queenless on 5/17 or possibly 5/16 if the weather has been warm enough. The concept of notching is that you pick the correct age larvae (4 days from when the egg was laid) and that means you should put the cells in a nuc (or the hive they will mate in) 10 days later (5/15 in this case).

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesmath.htm


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

Michael Bush said:


> >If ALL the queen cells were made from eggs laid on 5/5, then I would need to remove the extra cells no later than 5/20 (I think)
> 
> If you made them queenless on 5/5 and notched some cells on 5/5, it doesn't really matter what age larvae were in the cells you notched, the bees will start with larvae that is just hatched (4 days old) and those will emerge 16 days from when the egg was laid, 12 days after they were queenless on 5/17 or possibly 5/16 if the weather has been warm enough. The concept of notching is that you pick the correct age larvae (4 days from when the egg was laid) and that means you should put the cells in a nuc (or the hive they will mate in) 10 days later (5/15 in this case).
> 
> http://www.bushfarms.com/beesmath.htm


That sounds so simple when I read it. LOL For some reason I never add queen math up correctly. 

I've got myself in a pickle again I think, so somebody please check my addition. I have a very strong, but queenless hive. I don't have any cells started, so I let them start their own. Thursday, I put a frame of Ritecell foundation in a nuc that I want them to raise a queen from. I went back Saturday and they had just started drawing a patch of comb on it. The queen had already laid eggs in the barely drawn comb. The eggs were still sticking straight up, so I'm guessing that they were laid Saturday (5/16), but I will use Friday (5/15) as the laid date for safety. Sixteen days from Friday would be 5/31. As luck (or my lack of proper planning) would have it, I'm going to be out of town from Friday 5/29 until after lunch on 5/31. If my queen math is correct, I should remove extra cells on 5/30, but I won't be here to remove them. I guess I have two options. I can either remove the cells on Thursday, or I can build 1/8" hardware cloth cages around the queen cells and remove them on Sunday afternoon after I get back. 

What's the recommendations from you guys?


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## j.kuder (Dec 5, 2010)

beepro said:


> Yes, the workers will remove the extra queen cells when there is a virgin in
> there. The virgin is the one directing them to do so. I had seen it being there myself.


queens do not give orders they have no control over anything other than egg laying


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## j.kuder (Dec 5, 2010)

here is an online queen rearing calendar put your dates in hit the generate calendar button and it will give you all the dates and what to expect. your notching day would be your graft day.
http://www.thebeeyard.org/queen-rearing-calendar/


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Whether you notch them or not, the bees, once they are queenless, will start queens from just hatched larvae. They won't start them from eggs (although eggs are a good sign that there is the right aged larvae there somewhere) they won't start from six day old (from the egg) larvae. They will start from four day old (just hatched) larvae. The idea of notching is both to help them tear down the wall and to pick the right aged larvae. But if you don't the bees will. So if you give them a frame of eggs that haven't hatched yet and make them queenless, they will ignore your eggs and start from the right aged larvae. The only exception would be if they can't find the right aged larvae and then they might wait for the eggs to hatch...


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

MB, why do you say they might wait for the eggs to hatch. If they don't have anything else to choose from, what other choice would they have?


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>MB, why do you say they might wait for the eggs to hatch. If they don't have anything else to choose from, what other choice would they have?

They usually do have something else to choose from. Even if you don't think so... eggs and brood can hide in nooks and crannies and corners...


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