# What went wrong????



## jwithington (Apr 22, 2014)

Background: I used my jenter kit to get the queen to lay her eggs into the cells. I have transferred the day old larva into my starter box with lots of bees. Out of the 19 cells i transferred, the starter bees commenced on 7 of them and after four days i moved the cells into the finishing hive (a queenless hive). 

Post Analysis: Today I checked the state of my 'queen cells' as they should be sealed now and awaiting hatching in a couple of days time, but i found that none of them gotten past the larva stage. They seemed to have died for some reason and remain sitting in the royal jelly. Thoughts please as to what went wrong.

Possibilities are;
1. I should have left the starter hive until the cells were sealed
2. The past few nights we have had cold temperatures (7 degrees C), has that got something to do with it
3. Once moved back into a finishing colony have the bees ignored the cells
4. Or is there something else I'm missing

Your thoughts suggestions etc are always welcome. quite disappointed as it was looking so promising. I am wanting to be able to get at least a 50% take on cells placed into the hives.


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

How long was the finishing hive queenless? Is it possible that they had drawn some emergency cells themselves? In the first few days they are very hard to detect.


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Welcome to Beesource! Juhani's guess would be my first question - HOW queenless are they? 

Also your cold nights makes me want to ask about the arrangement of the finisher hive - where were the imported queen cells in relation to the night time cluster? If they were at the lower or outer edge, or altogether outside the cluster, they died of chill. They need to be in the middle.

Disruption of the starter or finisher colony is always a stress on an already stressed (queenless) colont. You could make use of a Cloake Board to reduce this disruption in converting a queenless starter to a queenright finisher. If both were queenless, why did you transfer them? Could well have left them in one hive in a queenless state and finished them right there.

Usually the ignoring of queen cells by a finisher means they have their own queen cells started.


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## jwithington (Apr 22, 2014)

It has been queenless for several weeks and I was hoping with the introduction of almost sealed queen cells, they would finish them off


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## jwithington (Apr 22, 2014)

kilocharlie said:


> Welcome to Beesource! Juhani's guess would be my first question - HOW queenless are they?
> 
> Also your cold nights makes me want to ask about the arrangement of the finisher hive - where were the imported queen cells in relation to the night time cluster? If they were at the lower or outer edge, or altogether outside the cluster, they died of chill. They need to be in the middle.
> 
> ...


I lieu of your comments about the cold I am beginning to think the sudden cold nights have been the cause of the problem. Without there being any other brood in the box, the bees may have clustered in the wrong area. 'Dam you spring weather'. 

I appreciate all the comments and suggestions guys and girls.


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

jwithington said:


> It has been queenless for several weeks and I was hoping with the introduction of almost sealed queen cells, they would finish them off


A finisher which has been queenless for weeks!? Try next time a strong finisher hive with 2-3 Langtroth which has a queen under excluder and some unsealed brood and pollen above excluder. Make this arrangement couple days before they are going to get the queen cells from the starter. The bees above excluder think there is something wrong with their queen and use their super seduce instinct to make a new queen. It is for advantage to move the cells from the starter just after one day in the starter. Starter bees do not make the best cells.


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

At about 3 weeks of queenless state, the worker bees begin to develop their ability to lay eggs. They will be very difficult to re-queen, and will not raise queen cells. Laying workers are a pain! There are a few different ways to deal with them, but do not expect success - they are often a lost cause.

You can introduce a frame of open brood every week, and try to introduce a mated queen under a Laidlaw cage or other push-in cage. Beepro even came up with an entire frame of capped/hatching brood surrounded by #8 hardware cloth and adding a mated queen to that. Seems like a good idea to me - the equivalent of a Laidlaw cage the size of an entire frame! The queen out-lasts the laying workers.


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## rookie2531 (Jul 28, 2014)

X2. :thumbsup:


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

In my experince the cell builder is really teh biggest challenge. Shake nurse bees only into a nuc. 5-6 lbs as many as you can get! and then add 2 frames of capped brood, one of honey and one of pollen on either side of your grafts. it should be hard to get it all in the box...... sooo many bees And only YOUNG bees... if you don't kill bees putting the lid on, there are not enough in the cell builder. 

Just my 2 cents worth.


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

:scratch: Cell builder without queen is not the ideal solution.

Do not mix the two phases of queen rearing:

1. Phase
Cell starting in a Starter hive : 2-3 kg of young bees, pollen frames with some food, (very little light syrup), NO QUEEN

Give up to 50-90cells

Wait one day and remove the the started cells from the Starter hive to the Cell builder

2. Phase
Cell building with a Cell builder: strong 2-3 story hive, queen under excluder, some open brood and pollen above excluder


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