# Timing of cell BUILDER setup



## Kingfisher Apiaries (Jan 16, 2010)

You might want to wait a month or two before doing anything...its super dry everywhere.
mike


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Everybody has their own methods, and often the timing is not critical.

For me, I'll make up the finisher hive the same day the 24 hour old cells go into it. But to save hassling around having to find the queen I'll often divide the two brood boxes of the finisher hive with an excluder 5 days before. Then, when I set up the finisher on the day the cells go in, all that's needed is to find which box has eggs and put that on the bottom, and lift some frames of eggs & young larvae out of it, shake them so the queen is definately in the bottom box, and put them over an excluder, in the second box, around the queen cells, to pull up nurse bees through the excluder. Later, more young brood can be lifted up from the bottom box as more queen cells are added, to keep making room for the queen to lay.

By definition, the finisher should be boiling with bees. This of course, can make it quite time consuming to find the queen so a method that avoids having to find it can be a plus.

However I use that method simply because for me, it's easiest. Many other methods will get good results also, to some extent it's whatever works for you, combined with what is easiest, which will also factor in what equipment you have available, and how many queens you are raising. And, as David rightly pointed out, climatic, seasonal and flow factors may also shape the method you use.

Hoping others will post ideas here also I'm always interested in learning from other peoples ways of doing things.


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## WilliamsHoneyBees (Feb 17, 2010)

NO expert here, but I have been setting up the finisher the same time I graft putting the feeder and a frame of pollen in at the same time. This gives the nurse bees 24 hours to george themselves on sugar syrup before I put the cells in. I have been feeding the finishers like crazy and have been getting some really nice queens.


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

Kingfisher - it really isn't very dry here. A little hot, but we had a crazy monsoon-like rain just a few days ago. But it's apt to be hot and/or dry for the rest of the season, so it's either cope with it or give up. Besides I have all these mating nucs going...


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## Kingfisher Apiaries (Jan 16, 2010)

Oh ok...
mike


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

Oldtimer - I just looked back over your great thread on graftless queen rearing and you used a queenless confined starter, and a temporarily queenless free flying finisher hive. 

I've been using a free flying, but extremely populous nuc (ala Joseph Clemons) as a starter/finisher. 








I've been getting very good results (I think) with it starting cells - plenty of RJ at 24 hrs, and good percent started cells. But for some reason I just haven't been turning out nice big cells with a good reserve of jelly in them. Good looking queens for the most part, but it's all about nutrition, and the smallish cells worry me.

I've seen queenright finishers recommended so often - why do you prefer queenless?


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Wow, well that nuc certainly looks like it will be up to building some good cells!

What happens after they've been used a few times and they are queenless they'll start not feeding and caring for the larvae so generously, not sure if you start a new one each time. Nectar being collected, or being fed, is also important. If feeding, a pretty runny sugar mix can be used, long as they think something's coming in.

Re queenless finishers, I don't really prefer them but it's just part of the way I set up the finisher first time around. If the queenright brood box is taken away from the finisher hive when it's first set up, the bees in the queenless finishing section will usually build awesome cells, first time around. But the finisher needs to be recombined with it's queen about the time the cells get capped, or the bees lose their "morale", and don't do such a good job of cells added later.

So typically when the first batch of 24 hour old cells go into the finisher they will be raised in queenless conditions to capping stage. The hive is then combined with it's queen and more cells will be added every few days, so they will be finished in a normal finisher with a queen. Every time cells are added more young brood is lifted up from the bottom box. The hive will continue raising top quality cells for at least several weeks. But this is very variable depending on season and flow. If they think the flow has stopped, cell quality will go down. Some means of slow feeding a weak syrup to the finishers should be used when there's not much nectar being collected. In my area pollen is never an issue but in areas where it is I guess it should be fed if needed.


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## Kingfisher Apiaries (Jan 16, 2010)

So how many cells in that nuc?
MIke


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## PDG honey (Jul 31, 2010)

We are pulling about 300 cells a day here in Ms. The weather has been alot better. Usually rainy everyday for the last week. I usually build the starter and finisher 5 days before the graft. This gets her swarm phermones going to build those juicy cells.lol The finisher has capped brood in the bottom with the queen. Upper deep open brood and pollen. Honey super above. The Starter is hopelessly queenless and overly packed with bees and brood. All have plenty of food and bees. This time of year we prime the cells and get a 100% take usually. 24 to 36 hours later we swap frames over to the finishers. We start about 40 cells in each starter and finish with 80 per finisher. Hope this helps. phillip


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

I grow small batches of cells, usually less than sixty. The most I ever did in a single batch was sixty cells.

I am lazy, by nature and try to keep things as simple as I can, hence, one box to both start and finish cells.

I find it simple to put together a queenless starter/finisher. I round up two frames of honey/pollen and two frames of emerging worker brood from strong colonies and shake a few extra frames of nurse bees into the mix. Recently I've been assembling them into 5-frame deep nucs, though they're only medium frames (I use medium frames almost exclusively), the space beneath the frames leaves room for all the extra bees to cluster and they can build comb extensions if they so desire, rather than burr-up the cells. I always have pollen substitute patties on them and recently made some low stands of 1/2" wire mesh to make the patties more easily available to the bees. Before they'd eat channels in the patties where they could access them in the space between the frames, now they cluster over the entire surface of the patties, top and bottom - and the patties are consumed quite rapidly. Whenever it appears as though their honey/nectar reserve might wane, I drop in a quart feeder of 1:1 sugar syrup.

Sometimes I get cells that aren't finished as well as I'd prefer, so I scrap them. I usually discover that it was caused by my overlooking a detail or two. I not only need to feed, feed, feed. But I need to feed the best nutrition possible. I've found that I can get some really super cells if I take it one step farther than described above, that is, the night before installing the next batch of new grafts if I put a frame or two of hatching eggs and their nurse bees into the empty nuc box (which is above the occupied cell-builder nuc - to provide room for the feed), then remove the frames of young larvae, but leave the nurse bees, just as I am placing the new grafts.

Using this technique I also discovered that when I didn't have any open brood, other than queen cells, that some queen cells were invaded by _Varroa_ mites, and this would sometimes adversely affect the queens. If I ensure that there is always some older, open brood, in the cell building nuc, the _Varroa_ tend to leave the queen cells alone.

After several rounds of cells and after I've restocked them with fresh frames of emerging brood, several times, and I think they may be starting to slack in their cell-building duties (even if it's just my opinion - it may or may not be true), I then break them up into nucs, giving each one of the cells from the last batch they grew. I then start another cell builder/finisher if I plan to continue growing cells.

BTW, I use a small piece of queen excluder over the entrance in order to help prevent any wandering virgin queens from entering and destroying the developing queen cells. I also frequently check the frames in the nuc for any stray, rogue queen cells lest they emerge and destroy all the developing cells (it has happened that I missed one every so often, with disastrous consequences).

In our hot/dry climate even cells with an entire JZsBZs cell cup of extra royal jelly remaining after maturation, the royal jelly will sometimes dry out before the queen emerges, which seems to indicate the royal jelly is helping to maintain optimum humidity levels inside the cell during development. Though queen cells without a large surplus of royal jelly may still become good queens, I choose to not use cells that aren't provisioned with a large surplus of royal jelly, because there is a doubt in my mind about the sufficiency of their optimal development. Such cells are often smaller, overall, also suggesting the queens they produce may also be smaller.


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

Kingfisher Apiaries said:


> So how many cells in that nuc?
> MIke


Usually about 20 - which usually produces 17-19 finished cells. I've done 40 a couple of times just as an experiment - still about 80% finished cells, but noticeably smaller.


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

OK, I think I might know why I haven't been getting those nice long, fat queen cells - this hive has been queenless since I set it up in March. I've been adding frames of emerging brood about once a week to keep the population strong, and a frame of mixed brood (which go into a mating nuc after the cells are capped) from a good queen whenever it doesn't contain grafts. 

Apparently the regular infusion of brood pheromone isn't enough to keep them hopping. It's still been a good experience - being able to graft every week or so and having a place to grow them without building a new cell builder every time. It just doesn't seem to be the best way to build good cells. It *might* even be a good system if you could easily change it from queenright to queenless and back to avoid the burnout - without causing swarming.


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## fish_stix (May 17, 2009)

David; you may need to investigate using a Cloake Board if you wish to change from queenright to queenless operation quickly. I haven't used mine this year, been using very strong queenless starters as per R. Russells queen raising post several months back, then dumping the bees into the top box of the finisher after placing the cell frame in. I've used Cloake Boards for a long time and they always work well if you keep the strength of the hive up with regular infusions of capped/emerging brood. Also try setting up your finishing hive 8-9 days before grafting with 4-5 frames of capped brood. By the time you graft all the brood will have emerged and you'll have a wealth of fresh nurse bees running around looking for a job.


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

Yeah, a Cloake board does come to mind. I'm thinking this time since I need to renovate my starter anyway, maybe I can just move it to a new spot while I work on the finisher - so that the foragers drift back to the original location - then dump the remaining nurse bees into the top of the finisher. Next go round I'll start fresh.


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## Grant (Jun 12, 2004)

David, I use the queen-right cell starter/finisher as you described in your first post. Not all my "grafts" take, however. So I'm anxious to try a queenless cell starter for the first day. David Burns suggests no longer than 16 hours or the bees realize they can't possibly raise that many cells so they will start deconstructing some of them. It is going to be my preference to make up this cell starter as a "free flying" hive rather than the contained nuc style--just my preference. Then I'll switch them over to the set up you described in the first post.

But back to your original question, how many days? I like to adjust my queen-right cell builder/finisher two days before I slide in my grafted larvae. It seems sorting the frames upsets the colony and two days seems to give them a little time to reorganize.

I also use the Nicot system, for what it's worth.

Grant
Jackson, MO


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

OK, here's what I've done. Yesterday I did 40 grafts and put them into my very crowded, but probably burned out queenless 5 frame nuc.

Also yesterday I rejiggered a strong honey hive with the queen and capped brood below an excluder, open brood then a box of food above. Left room for the cell bar in the open brood box. Also shook in about 8 frames of nurse bees from another hive. Feeding 1-1 from 3 quart jars over holes in the inner cover.

This morning I turned the old starter/finisher around and moved it down a couple of spots, and put a new nuc in its old spot with a frame of brood so that the foragers would vacate, and move into the new box for the day.

This afternoon I moved the started cells into the finisher, and shook most of the nurses from the old hive in with it - which made it pretty overflowing with bee, I must say. 

Recombined the starter/finisher back to it's old spot - it finally gets a well deserved queen and a chance to grow like a normal hive. Should make them happy after 3 queenless months.

If the cells don't look pretty danged good at 3 days I'm gonna harvest the jelly from them and do it over with a starter of nurse bees shook from queenright hives - and have another run at it. That will give me a finisher that is about 4 days old at that time.

BTW - grafting from one of my new Russell Sunkist Cordovan Queens.


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