# Simple Queen rearing Calander from Glenn Apiaries



## drlonzo (Apr 15, 2014)

Don't forget the queen excluder between your queen and your grafts in the cell finisher.
Make sure your starter has lots and lots of young nurse bees.
Find or make a very good pollen comb for your starter/finisher.
May want to give your mating nuc's a day between pulling your mated queens and setting new cells.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

drlonzo said:


> May want to give your mating nuc's a day between pulling your mated queens and setting new cells.


whats the reason behind that?


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## drlonzo (Apr 15, 2014)

Ian said:


> whats the reason behind that?


Some say that it gives the colony (even if it is a small one) enough time to realize they are queenless so they will accept the queen cell easier. 
On the other side of that, Palmer pulls his queens in the morning, and places cells in the evening with great acceptance. Lauri does pretty much the same thing too. 
I usually give them a day myself and have great acceptance without problems.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Ill be using those mini mating nucs, I am assuming acceptance is better with small little bee populations

Tom, what day do you transfer the cell to the nucs? I want to move them on day 13 before they hatch on day 14. How close to a rule is the 14 day hatch for queen cells? Would I be better off moving them on day 12 or is there a chance of damage to the queen being cooled or bruising by handling the cells too early?


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## drlonzo (Apr 15, 2014)

Ian said:


> Ill be using those mini mating nucs, I am assuming acceptance is better with small little bee populations
> 
> Tom, what day do you transfer the cell to the nucs? I want to move them on day 13 before they hatch on day 14. How close to a rule is the 14 day hatch for queen cells? Would I be better off moving them on day 12 or is there a chance of damage to the queen being cooled or bruising by handling the cells too early?


Ian, I normally move them on day 10 after the graft, or day 14 in the cycle. When you graft you always have a chance of getting a larva that is from hours to a day older than the rest. If you wait till the day before they are ready to emerge, one may have already emerged and killed your cells, and worse yet slipped through the excluder and killed off your queen below it.

A queen excluder will keep a fully grown queen out of certain areas, but often will allow a young virgin to slip through.


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

go to this page http://www.thebeeyard.org/queen-rearing-calendar/ and plug in your graft date.

The resulting page spits out all the necessary dates.


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## PeterP (Feb 5, 2014)

Ian, out of curiosity, how many queens per cycle are you planning on raising and how early in season do you plan to start? Have you considered using an incubator to get more efficiency/economy of the cell builders? 

I think the basic schedule is straightforward. It is when you try to mitigate risks or maximize resource usage that people interlace cycles and it gets complicated.

Regards Peter
caveat, I am a hobbyist and have raised a grand total of 6 mated queens.


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## Mbeck (Apr 27, 2011)

I was on a Sunday graft day schedule last year for while. Worst idea of my life, it seemed to make sense Sunday's are a laid back day and grafting only takes a short time right? Wrong, Ive got a wife and kids. The reality of how we spend Sunday's are nothing like I imagine them to be. 

I would guess that umpteen thousand miles away sitting in a snow bank you are imagining an idealized Sunday summer day relaxing with the family and taking a few minutes to bang out a few bars of grafts. Rethink that.

Maybe not what you were looking for but that was my first thought.

Placing cells a couple days early works well for me. My biggest challenge is keeping everything equalized and uniform week to week.

Looks good to me but what do I know


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Comment on the Sunday work noted.

But typically through the summer I'm 15/7, and catch the fam from times I can. Just the way it is here. Saturday's and Sunday's are ideal because there is no work force to manage, my weekend free time sort of speak.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

I'm small scale , 20 a a time. 
The incubator is a good idea. 

Is there any problems associated with queen damage moving the cell on day 10?


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

If you are raising these queens for re-queening colonies, is there any reason to not just place the cell directly into the target colony, and skip the tiny mating nuc altogether ?


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## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

Ian said:


> Is there any problems associated with queen damage moving the cell on day 10?



I would like to know this ^ as well..... My problem is I never know when I will have to go out of town to cover a job for one of my guys. So what I would like to know is would it be ok to move them day 8 after the graft instead of day 10 which would be day 12 of the whole cycle I guess. Basically I would want to graft on Saturday and move the following sunday into mating nucs in the same yard..... this would be on a small scale just to produce replacement/ expansion colonies......


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## drlonzo (Apr 15, 2014)

grozzie2 said:


> If you are raising these queens for re-queening colonies, is there any reason to not just place the cell directly into the target colony, and skip the tiny mating nuc altogether ?


It is actually one of the easier ways to requeen a failing production hive. You place the ripe cell in the center of the honey super and she will emerge and go kill off the old queen for you then fly out, mate up and come home for work...


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## drlonzo (Apr 15, 2014)

Ian said:


> I'm small scale , 20 a a time.
> The incubator is a good idea.
> 
> Is there any problems associated with queen damage moving the cell on day 10?


Ian, I've had no problems moving on day 10 after graft, just be careful and don't thrash them around. lol


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

grozzie2 said:


> If you are raising these queens for re-queening colonies, is there any reason to not just place the cell directly into the target colony, and skip the tiny mating nuc altogether ?


I use to make up nucs to drop a cell into. But 80% average mating success leaves too much bee resource in an unproductive state. The mini's use hardly nothing and just keep chugging along. Gota watch the food stores and populations though. But by the time the queens are caught they usually had the mini Nuc plugged with brood and the drone layers would get a cup full of bees
The mini nucs will allow me to bank some late season queens for my fall brood inspection. Those queens cost me nothing, so dropping them into a salvage hive is easier. The late season requeenwd hives sitting in my winter shed look awesome.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

I remember reading somewhere a while back about a removable board. Has anyone used this set up? 
I like the idea as it keeps the starter and finisher together and simply pulling out the divide after the graft is accepted.


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## drlonzo (Apr 15, 2014)

Ian said:


> I remember reading somewhere a while back about follower boards. Has anyone used this set up?
> I like the idea as it keeps the starter and finisher together and simply pulling out the divide after the graft is accepted.


I think you may be referring to a cloak board? Followers are normally used to take up extra space in a hive. Cloak boards are used to separate two halves of a hive and allow you to make queens above the lower brood nest. 

However, just remeber that when using this method you need to make sure there is no other "queenable" larvas in the top but your grafts. Otherwise they will make queens of it and they will emerge and murder your cells.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

drlonzo said:


> Cloak boards


Thanks, that is why my searches were coming up empty!

My plan is to keep the queen down, and move capped brood up. I want to keep the same hive as my starter and finisher as long as they don't get too grumpy on me.

Ya, I guess I would need to inspect my frames to ensure nothing else is being reared up there too. That would really throw a wrench into things...


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## drlonzo (Apr 15, 2014)

Ian said:


> Thanks, that is why my searches were coming up empty!
> 
> My plan is to keep the queen down, and move capped brood up. I want to keep the same hive as my starter and finisher as long as they don't get too grumpy on me.
> 
> Ya, I guess I would need to inspect my frames to ensure nothing else is being reared up there too. That would really throw a wrench into things...


They shouldn't be too grumpy with you. You'll only have them "queenless" for about 48 hours or so up to 5 days if you want them to completely cap them for you prior to opening up the cloak.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

I was planning on opening the cloak 24 hrs after the graft. Is there a preference between how long to leave the cells in the queenless state?


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## KQ6AR (May 13, 2008)

Heres an excel file that was going around a few years ago.

View attachment Queen breeding.xls


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## drlonzo (Apr 15, 2014)

Ian said:


> I was planning on opening the cloak 24 hrs after the graft. Is there a preference between how long to leave the cells in the queenless state?


Not exactly Ian. It is said that 24 hours after grafts are placed into a "queenless" hive, they will be started and can then be transferred into a queenright finisher. It is also implied that the queenright finisher has more nurse bees and resources and will be able to finish out the cells better than just a "Starter/Finisher" combined that is queenless. 

Palmer runs his queenless starter till the cells are capped then moves to the queenright finisher. But the starter also has all the foragers too in his setups.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Both rearing time tables provided by G's and Dan's link say not to move or disturb the cells after capping right through til day 13. I guess moving the cells closer to the hatch the better.


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## wdcrkapry205 (Feb 11, 2010)

Ian said:


> Both rearing time tables provided by G's and Dan's link say not to move or disturb the cells after capping right through til day 13. I guess moving the cells closer to the hatch the better.


I think most commercials place their cells in an incubator a couple days after being capped. I just wouldn't lay them on their sides. Last year I tryed to cut it close and had some cells hatching while being planted. You can watch for the house bees to be removing some of the material at the bottom outside of the cell just before they hatch.


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## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

I plan to try out a cloak board and the ots method this yr and see how it goes for a few cells


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## lakebilly (Aug 3, 2009)

Ian, are you planning on using your cell starter for multiple batches? If you are where on your calendar do you reload the starter with capped brood?


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Ah yes, good point.

this is small scale, looking to graft 56-60 cells at a time, to fill 40 mating nucs every two weeks. This work is not too intensive. 

What I had planned (and this is where feedback is welcomed) before every graft, I'd move the capped brood up to make space for the queen below. That would be on a two week rotation. I'd also shake a good number of frames uptop to increase the number of bees, feed them sugar, and close them off from the bottom box. Later that evening I will drop my two frames of grafted cells into the top queenless box (guess it's called a swarm box?) 36 hours later I plan on removing the divide and to allow the hive to merge and carry forward as a queen right starter finisher. 

But I'm going to have to check for stray cells on those brood frames.... Probably a good time for that when I remove the cells on day 14, or anytime before the cells are capped I would guess. 

This strict instruction I keep reading; " do not disturb cells or colony after cells are capped til day 13" , how important is that? I have seen vids of producers handling cells around that critical time roughly "to my eyes" to be put in incubation.


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## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

do you spin your bottom entrance around when it's closed up so returning forragers return to the top? I have read where that helps, but saw a video where a guy just laid a board up against the hive above the bottom entrance and they returned to the top no problem.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

Ian said:


> This strict instruction I keep reading; " do not disturb cells or colony after cells are capped til day 13" , how important is that? I have seen vids of producers handling cells around that critical time roughly "to my eyes" to be put in incubation.


"Handling" is kind of a relative term. The first 3 days after they have been capped is when they are the softest and most easily damaged. Any handling of cells should be done with a very light touch. Any cells still in builders on day 10 after grafting are always pulled and incubated for safety's sake to be put in the next day. I handle them carefully but I really think they are pretty tough at that point as we usually lay them horizontally in a warm dish during installation nd haven't noticed any ill effects from doing so. The next day (11 days after grafting) we figure they are pretty tough and only take care to see they aren't chilled or over heated.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Typically speaking; are the days counted "day # ___" from the day the egg was laid or from the day the beekeeper grafts the larvae?


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Well, here is a look at my Spring Queen Rearing Calender, Visuals help me organize my thoughts into actual plans;



Its a bit intimidating posting this after a 10,000 cell producers post...lol But what the heck, I use this forum to glean knowledge anyway I can. Silly questions are the ones not asked! Right ? 

It shows 5 grafts in May through into June, the fifth graft leading into July. That will equate about 100 mated queens by the end of June, plus however long I extend the project out for. My intention is to set up a program to expand onto in future years. 

What ya think?


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

Ian said:


> Typically speaking; are the days counted "day # ___" from the day the egg was laid or from the day the beekeeper grafts the larvae?


Folks may have different ideas on this but our "lingo" is to date everything strictly from the graft date. It really dosen't matter as long as YOU understand it. For our purposes, if you grafted on the 1st they must be pulled on the evening of the 11th (if not sooner) for incubation and installed by the evening of the 12th. Leave them in the night of the 10th at your own risk, you won't often have one hatch, but when it happens its a bit of a mess. They will start hatching by mid day on the 11th depending on exact grafting age and incubation temps.


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## johng (Nov 24, 2009)

I like to move my cells on day 10 - 11 if you wait until day 12 all bets are off. I'm still learning so I'm sure I get a few larva that maybe a little older than the rest and I have some that will hatch a little early on day 12. So if I move them no later than day 11 everything is fine. I always plan on moving them on day 10 and have a high 90% hatch rate so they must be pretty tuff. It seems that if the cell makes it all the way to day 10 without the bees tearing the cell down you can almost always be assured you will get a virgin queen to hatch out. 

When I talk about day 10 I'm talking about 10days after grafting. Good luck with your queen rearing Ian. It has been one of my favorite parts of bee keeping but, it has also been the most frustrating.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

Ian, if I am reading your calendar correctly, you are only allowing 11 days after hatching for your queens to get mated and start laying. That is about the very soonest you will see any eggs. I would give them at least 2 weeks so that you can really get a good look at her pattern plus it will help maintain bee populations in your baby nucs.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Hmm, yes I do want to make sure the queens have time and I also want them to brood the Nuc before pulled. 
So using two weeks as the suggested wait time in the mating Nuc, that means it puts my "perfect" timing out by two or three days... Hmmm

Not a big deal, I'd just stager the next round graft back two or three days but it throws my bi weekly Sunday afternoon out the window... Lol

I could run things right down to the wire, but I'd like to leave a day or so lee way to help manage weather and work load. 

How do breeders run their work calendar?


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## Flyer Jim (Apr 22, 2004)

Ian said:


> Hmm,that means it puts my "perfect" timing out by two or three days... Hmmm
> 
> 
> 
> How do breeders run their work calendar?


Yea, stupid bees, don't know there is 7 days in a week. 

You can use the Mike Palmer 8 step program, it gives you 16 days in the mating nuc, but it will mess up your Sundays.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

Ian, There are a number of folks on here who could advise you better than me on this. I only did baby nucs for 3 years. We caged at 2 weeks and it seems like we still were always in need of booster bees to keep them strong enough.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Unless I incubate on day 10 after the graft and cage the virgins. 
Then introduce the virgins on day 13 after catching the mated queens. 

When Beekeepers hatch cells and cage the virgins, how long can they be held in the cage before viability decreases? Do the newly hatched queens need to be fed immediately as I believe worker bees are?


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Yes, the virgin queens need to be fed immediately. They will eat other workers too if not immediately feed inside the cage. They are aggressive and hungry after hatching, alright. Some said the virgin will go inside the cell trying to find nourishment and never bee able to back out again so she died inside the cell. Though I have never seen one before. 
I like the idea of using the standard so to save time and not having the minis for the extra equipments to restock and handle. This will allow the queen to be evaluated and be put into a production hive later on or use as a nuc queen. Having a free roaming virgin will allow her hormones to develop that is why after 3 days it is harder to introduce a virgin into a nuc vs a newly hatched one without the strong queen scent yet. It seems to be true with my experience so far. I think Lauri said 2 days is the max for a viable virgin caged inside an incubator. Maybe we should get her here for all to learn.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

My neighbour use to hatch out virgins, I don't know if he still does. I'll have to check in for a chat. 

Delaying my graft three or so days looks to be the simple plan


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

ian, you were asking about the removable board a few posts ago. you may have this already but this was helpful for me:

http://www.delta-business.com/Calga...od of Queen Rearing and Banking Sue Cobey.pdf

i've only ran a few rounds of cells myself, but i was pleased with how this worked and will continue to use the method.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Thx squarepeg, I'm going to refer to that link


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## TalonRedding (Jul 19, 2013)

I think the calendar makes sense and is basically how I'll be timing my grafting schedule this year. I definitely like the idea of keeping them in the starter for as long as possible until the cells become fully cured. I've learned that the hard way. I'll be using mating nucs that I've built this year for the first time, so learning when to stock them with bees and to what amount of bees is peaking my interest.
This question is a little off topic, but like Ian said, the silly questions are the ones not asked. How many of you who run larger operations take advantage of swarm cells? Do you ever cut them out and place them in a mating nuc or failing hive like you would with a grafted cell? Obviously, I have a teeny tiny operation compared to you all, but this seems to work very well for me and requires very little energy on my part. 
Please don't stone me!


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Swarm cells yes, perfect opportunity to reap natural cells but keep in mind the point others on this topic made about cell disturbance during the cell maturity. Handle with care and keep them warm


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

TalonRedding said:


> This question is a little off topic, but like Ian said, the silly questions are the ones not asked. How many of you who run larger operations take advantage of swarm cells? Do you ever cut them out and place them in a mating nuc or failing hive like you would with a grafted cell?


I do only if I am running short on my own cells. We are usually making splits at that time of year and all our splits get a cell. Because of the maturity of our cells on installation, those are almost always going to be the surviving virgin in cases where swarm cells are present. As far as commercial mating yards I'm pretty sure it's the policy of most queen producers that any rogue cells are destroyed as they want all their nucs in the same yard to be on the same schedule for sake of efficiency and they want to be in control of the genetics of the cells.


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## WBVC (Apr 25, 2013)

How do you bank the Queens? Why not put the mated Queens directly into Queenless nucs?



Ian said:


> http://www.glenn-apiaries.com/queenrear.html#anchor1569921
> 
> 
> I'm setting up a small scale queen rearing program this season. I found this calender on my search which helps lay out the plan. I will run a graft in a two week rotation every (second Sunday) which allows me to harvest the mated queens from the mating nucs as I drop in cells ready to hatch. The mated queens will be banked for a day or so until the nucs are made up.
> ...


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

I'll cage them and place them into a queen bank hive until we are able to pull apart a few production hives to make nucs. Later on, I am going to do my best to keep things going during the pull so I will have late season mated queens ready to doctor up honey pull casualties. I will see how strong my endurance is this season lol


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## WBVC (Apr 25, 2013)

You place the queen cell in a honey super...closet or farthest one from the brood chamber...rather than in the brood chamber itself?
If you don't have a honey super on can you place the Queen cell in the brood box itself?

Also if you are using an incubator do you move the Queen cells as soon as they are capped? If not then when to put them in the incubator?

I take it by using an incubator you just need to keep the cells in the starter(lots of young beesand pollen and nectar plus syrup) until they are capped.

If your virgins emerge in an incubator how long can you keep them in there before placing and how do you feed and water them? Do virgins require attendants?



drlonzo said:


> It is actually one of the easier ways to requeen a failing production hive. You place the ripe cell in the center of the honey super and she will emerge and go kill off the old queen for you then fly out, mate up and come home for work...


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## WBVC (Apr 25, 2013)

Is there a top entrance for the bees above the cloak board in the starter or are they trapped in the top starter until the cloak board is removed?

Will you be using full 10 frame boxes for your starter/finisher or a packed 5 over 5. If not using a smaller box set up could you and still expect success?



Ian said:


> Ah yes, good point.
> 
> this is small scale, looking to graft 56-60 cells at a time, to fill 40 mating nucs every two weeks. This work is not too intensive.
> 
> ...


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## WBVC (Apr 25, 2013)

Why do you put them in an incubator rather than placing the cells in a mating nuc? I thought it was more likely Queenless bees would accept a cell rather than a virgin and a cell can't fly away.
Is it because you inspect and cull virgins that aren't up to your expectations or do you give all virgins a chance to mate?



johng said:


> I like to move my cells on day 10 - 11 if you wait until day 12 all bets are off. I'm still learning so I'm sure I get a few larva that maybe a little older than the rest and I have some that will hatch a little early on day 12. So if I move them no later than day 11 everything is fine. I always plan on moving them on day 10 and have a high 90% hatch rate so they must be pretty tuff. It seems that if the cell makes it all the way to day 10 without the bees tearing the cell down you can almost always be assured you will get a virgin queen to hatch out.
> 
> When I talk about day 10 I'm talking about 10days after grafting. Good luck with your queen rearing Ian. It has been one of my favorite parts of bee keeping but, it has also been the most frustrating.


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## WBVC (Apr 25, 2013)

What is the make up of a queen bank hive? Queenlees, queen rite with queen bank over an excluder. Capped or open brood with the banked cells etc? Obviously i have never done this but am keen to learn as plan to try Queen rearing this year.



Ian said:


> I'll cage them and place them into a queen bank hive until we are able to pull apart a few production hives to make nucs. Later on, I am going to do my best to keep things going during the pull so I will have late season mated queens ready to doctor up honey pull casualties. I will see how strong my endurance is this season lol


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

the link i provided in post #42 has answers to some of your questions janne. check it out, it's a pretty clever method for using an existing hive that can be put back to regular use after the queen rearing is done.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

squarepeg said:


> the link i provided in post #42 has answers to some of your questions janne. check it out, it's a pretty clever method for using an existing hive that can be put back to regular use after the queen rearing is done.


Sue's system is quite similar to what we do as well. Not just any good double will work, it requires two full boxes of bees so neither chamber is short on bees on the inevitable cool nights. A pretty strict protocol of brood rotation and "rogue" cell cutting has to be maintained or things can get ugly pretty fast. No matter how you choose to raise cells, the most important components are well fed, highly populated and crowded hives.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Woe Janne, slow the question! Lol  
I will send some thoughts along to help answer some questions next post. 

I suggest to you before you start into this process. 
"Contemporary Queen Rearing" , it's got the basics pretty much spelled out.


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## WBVC (Apr 25, 2013)

Thanks...have the book...and a few others...still reading through them.
Sorry for so many questions...the gist is easy to follow but details can make all the difference


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## Mbeck (Apr 27, 2011)

Ian said:


> I'll cage them and place them into a queen bank hive until we are able to pull apart a few production hives to make nucs. Later on, I am going to do my best to keep things going during the pull so I will have late season mated queens ready to doctor up honey pull casualties. I will see how strong my endurance is this season lol


More questions than points?
1.
It seems that the longer you shut down recently mated queen (banking or caging and slower installation) the more problems crop up and the rougher their start and acceptance. Queens left to lay uninteruppted for even 10 days seem more bullet proof to bank etc.
2.
If point one is anywhere near the reality I'd want to give each queen a month of uninteruppted laying to "prove" and have another month to correct if I was counting on that hive going into a wintering shed and coming out in the spring ready to explode, of course I have no experience with anything near that. 

Maybe I'm way off base?


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Janne hive I will be using will be, as Jim suggests, a strong double hive. I'm only doing 60 cells at a time so there is not much stress put onto the hive but strength is key. 
I have grafted into a packed full 5 frame swarm box with good luck, and then I have also had a graft fail in this arrangement after a cool night and tightly clustered bees moved away from the graft bar ends. 
My objective is to use a regular hive set up, modified to create the conditions favourable to starting cells twice a month then set back to its regular set up to carry on normal production. 
The incubator can be used to manage hive time more effectively. Hatching them out was a passing thought. Best option is to drop cells into mating nucs.
A queen bank simply is a hive set up either queenless with young bees or with a queen confined away from the stored queens. Frame bars of caged queens are placed in the hive so that the hive attendants can nurse and care for them, natural hive temp and humidity helps keep them viable longer stored in cages. 
Contemporary Beekeeping covers these topics in detail.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Mbeek any mated queen that starts out good will be dropped into a Nuc then they are on their own. Banking will happen for a few weeks near the end of August for convenience sake. its nice to be able to simply fix up a hive instead of shaking them out,


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## sjj (Jan 2, 2007)

Ian said:


> ... so that the hive attendants can nurse and care for them, ...


… or simple bite off parts of their feets.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

My banks have always been very calm. How do you set your banks up sjj?


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

I updated my calander setting up a graft Sunday, Second week Wednesday, second week Sunday, second week Wednesday. This gives two weeks in the mating nuc, should work.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

So will you "replant" cells the same day as caging? If so, would it be less confusing to continue with the same color for the next batch of cells? One suggestion would be to cage in the morning and if you don't feel you were able to get all of your misses and smaller baby nucs back up to size switch in a frame of brood and mark the weak nucs. Have a good source of readily available bees in another location and a good bulk bee handling box or two available to transport booster bees into your mating yard. When you return to plant cells, douse the box with just enough water to keep them from flying and use a soup ladle or the like to boost the weak ones.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

I figure to leave a day or so lee way between caging and replanting cells into the mini nucs. I'm not doing a lot but weather here can really bung things up. Yes the chart is confusing so I tried to keep each graft a different colour to help me clearly read it. 

I love the bulk bee handling box idea, soup ladle boost the hives. I am going to prepare the work to include this idea. This will allow me to boost the mating nucs the same time I replant the cells. 

How do you keep your cells warm during transport between the finisher and the nucs? I see in BeeMaid a $500 incubator carry box, but Im not interested in that kind of cost for what I am doing. I do not want to chill the cells.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

http://s470.photobucket.com/user/jimlyon/media/2013 Texas/1364696614_zps8507567e.jpg.html
We carry this homemade incubator in the truck. in cool conditions, I like to microwave a couple of bags of rice or gel packs and lay them on the bottom of a small soft sided foam cooler. We lay the cells in a warmed heavy pyrex container atop the warmed rice and carry the cooler around in the yard from hive to hive, leaving the top unzipped just enough to reach in and grab a cell. In a hot sun, the cooler without any warming source, works well for shading the cells. We have found a hot afternoon sun is at least as big of a threat to cells as cool conditions can be.


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## Flyer Jim (Apr 22, 2004)

If you use an incubator put in a couple bottles of water, they act as heat sinks and when you move the cells you can put the bottles in a small ice chest, already the right temp.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

How is the webbing controlled? Last year I was finishing them in strong doubles and ended cutting lots of comb. 
Is it possible to finish out cells without webbing during a flow?


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

Ian said:


> How is the webbing controlled? Last year I was finishing them in strong doubles and ended cutting lots of comb.
> Is it possible to finish out cells without webbing during a flow?


That can be a problem for sure, be prepared to do some delicate work cutting out comb if you hit a heavy flow. I have found it helps some to place a frame of foundation on the outside wall of the cell box.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

are there any drawbacks to removing the cells once they are capped, roller caging them, and letting them ripen in an incubator?


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## WBVC (Apr 25, 2013)

How far through the summer do you think you can keep this up? Is your last graft in June or do you try to continue through July and Aug?
We don't have much bee food after mid July.



Ian said:


> I updated my calander setting up a graft Sunday, Second week Wednesday, second week Sunday, second week Wednesday. This gives two weeks in the mating nuc, should work.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

i would like to keep it going throughout the summer but it just occurred to me webbing is going to be impossible through the summer flow


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## Flyer Jim (Apr 22, 2004)

Ian said:


> i would like to keep it going throughout the summer but it just occurred to me webbing is going to be impossible through the summer flow


as soon as they are capped put the cells in an incubator


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Ya it looks like I'll be asking a bunch of questions on incubators now lol


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Ask, Ian. Ask. How can we learn without asking more questions, huh.

So putting a frame or 2 of foundation on either sides will take care of the wax on the cells, eh.
If no flow then feed them patty and syrup too. I'm sure the fresh pollen you collected will help with this
process. Pack them onto a frame to give it to the bees.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

Incubating is probably a pretty good plan in a heavy flow. My only real reservations about early incubation are that the bees can do you a favor by identifying and tearing down any unhealthy cells and they are quite fragile shortly after being capped. I definitely would NOT sandwich your cells between foundation, put any foundation at least one frame away from your cells.


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## Flyer Jim (Apr 22, 2004)

Good points all. I only use the incubator for the last two days,just for the odd early queen. I would think that the raising of queens will vary by location. Not much webbing going on here, not much flow, but not much chance of chilling in the summer.


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## sharpdog (Jun 6, 2012)

Ian said:


> Ya it looks like I'll be asking a bunch of questions on incubators now lol


I built an Incubator out of 2 ICF styrofoam honey supers, with an insulated top and bottom. Add a controller, a lightbulb, water spunge, done. It has the built in frame rest, Allowing you to pull cells out of the builder, and transfer the whole frame into the incubator with the minimum of disturbance. Just a thought.

Luke


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## sharpdog (Jun 6, 2012)

sharpdog said:


> I built an Incubator out of 2 ICF styrofoam honey supers, with an insulated top and bottom. Add a controller, a lightbulb, water spunge, done. It has the built in frame rest, Allowing you to pull cells out of the builder, and transfer the whole frame into the incubator with the minimum of disturbance. Just a thought.
> 
> Luke


This year I am contemplating making sure its water proof and locating the incubator directly in the yard with the cell builder, so the transfer is instant. (I have the cell builders near the house, so power is available.)


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

I know how to build all of the above but do not know what kind of
controller you are using. So what is the controller brand or how can I find one?


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## sharpdog (Jun 6, 2012)

beepro said:


> I know how to build all of the above but do not know what kind of
> controller you are using. So what is the controller brand or how can I find one?


I am using a logic controller that is much too elaborate for this purpose. It’s a http://www.controlbyweb.com/x310/ and I do not recommend it for this purpose. I also use it to control my wintering shed and to track temperature data over the internet. Although it works great, I only used it because it was available. It is much more complicated to set up then a simple temp controller that many others have recommended for their incubators.

Luke


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Are there any tip out there on getting the bees to take to the mating nucs?


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Last year I filled my mating nucs and left them every few hundred feet down our road and left them for a couple night before moving them to the mating yard. Kind of extreme I thought but it worked. I doubt this is regular practice with most breeders. lol


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## drlonzo (Apr 15, 2014)

Ian said:


> Last year I filled my mating nucs and left them every few hundred feet down our road and left them for a couple night before moving them to the mating yard. Kind of extreme I thought but it worked. I doubt this is regular practice with most breeders. lol


Ian - Are you using standard frame mating nuc's or mini's of some sort?


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

drlonzo said:


> Ian - Are you using standard frame mating nuc's or mini's of some sort?


mini's


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## drlonzo (Apr 15, 2014)

Ian said:


> mini's


Are the frames already drawn? If so most of the bigger outfits just scoop them up out of a shaken tub and pour them in about a cup to each one with some syrup, then put them out with a queen cell from what i have seen videos of so far. Others talk about getting brood frames from other hives and cutting them down for the mini's to keep the bees put.


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## sharpdog (Jun 6, 2012)

The small styrofoam mini's work pretty good, because they close bee tight with ventilation, and have a place for feed. What I found works best on those is: Shake bees from another apiary into a tub, then add feed, a cell and 2/3 of a cup of bees into them. Close them up and place in a dark cool place for 3 days, then place in the location you want, and open the door. My problem is I built mini nucs that did not have feeders. That made that process less effective. I had to build a custom box to hold my mini frames, and place them on another hive to get drawn out and filled with feed. I then placed the bees with a frame of feed.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

sharp dog, will the bees drawn comb on foundation during the three day close up?


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## sharpdog (Jun 6, 2012)

squarepeg said:


> sharp dog, will the bees drawn comb on foundation during the three day close up?


Well squarepeg, I'm not sure. I only have 2 mini's with built in feeders, and when I first got them, I cut drawn comb out of a full sized frame and placed it in the mini. It is slow and painful. I have read on this site somewhere that they will draw foundation in that time.

2 years ago I built a bunch of mini's without feeders, and the first year conditions were just right and everything was easy. Last year everything seemed difficult, but what seemed to work best was to add a cup of bees and close them up as described above. But not having feeders, I scooped a few table spoons of granulated honey into them, after I learned what happens if they don't have feed.&#55357;&#56874;

This year I'm switching designs again&#55357;&#56852;


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

understood sd, thanks for sharing. it would be interesting to me if the bees would start building comb while closed up with a feeder in anticipation of an emerging queen. keep us posted!


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

oh ya, a cup full of young bees on foundation in the mini nuc and syrup, frames get drawn out quick


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