# Do you use your JZBZ cups more than once?



## SDiver40 (Apr 14, 2013)

If your refering to grafting cups? I've tried it, but the bees dont seem to like it much. Much better success using new cups each time. Put in new cups, place them in the hive and let the bee's clean and polish them. Then graft and place back in your cell starter.


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## Colobee (May 15, 2014)

From the latest Mann Lake catalog - "_ Reusing cell cups greatly diminishes the acceptance rate_". At 6 cents each, I kind of think this is not a marketing ploy (to get you to buy an extra 100 for $6, 1000/$40).

With everything else involved, I'd want to hear otherwise from a volume queen rearing beek ( which I am NOT) before cutting _that_ corner...


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## drlonzo (Apr 15, 2014)

Capphd said:


> If not, why?
> 
> Thanks


If I had to take an educated guess about why there's a lower acceptance rate with reused cups.. I'd say that it has something to do with the previous queen's pheramones in the cups. I know washing them out would help but maybe there's something more we don't know about queen pheramones. 

For instance have you ever seen what happens in a hive that has been allowed to raise their own queen or emergency cells? The bees will go around and cut down all the cells little by little that did NOT take over the hive. In doing so they will leave the cup that the new queen in the hive came from. Again my guess is because of the pheramones being left in the cup.


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## tarheit (Mar 26, 2003)

I have not had any less acceptance reusing JZBZ cell cups. Have done a few tests, one bar with new cells, one with used and acceptance was exactly the same.

That said, I only reuse cells where the queen emerged and mated successfully in the mating nuc to reduce the chance of any disease remains in the cell cup that may have lead to the demise of a virgin. It also means the cup had plenty of time to be cleaned out and polished by the bees before I reused them.

-Tim


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## Moon (May 7, 2011)

I don't reuse, mostly because A) I don't have the time to wash/clean them properly before reuse and B) The last couple of years since I started grafting I usually press the queen cell and cup into a brood frame and make nucs from it then typically forget about the queen cell. It's usually not until I'm going through my nuc boxes at the end of the season that I start seeing the old cells and I typically scrape them out and leave them lying out in the field.

I feel like a litter bug


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

For raising a few good queens I don't reuse the cups at .02 cents a piece.
Also, if you can use the dowela to dip into the wax to make them it is much easier
to recycle the cell wax afterward.


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## BWrangler (Aug 14, 2002)

Hi Guys

I'm now retired. But have raised thousands of queens through decades. And I reclaimed JZBZ cups without any loss in efficiency. Here's how:

http://bwrangler.litarium.com/reclaim-plastic-queen-cups/

Give it a try. Let me know how it works for you.

-dm


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## BeeGhost (May 7, 2011)

I am going to do a grafting session in about 2 weeks, I will take all my used ones from the last session and place them on one bar and put new cups on another and see what happens. I wont do anything to the cups but trim the wax down to the edge of the cup and I will put the whole frame in the cell starter for an hour or so to let the bees "warm" them up and that's it, I will then graft take pictures and take pictures again after 48 hours and again before placing in mating nucs and see what happens. Its for my own curiosity as well!!


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I reuse mine. I don't see any difference really. Maybe they like the used ones slightly better, but all in all it's the same. If you want to clean them, don't boil them or they will deform. But you can put them in a basket (I made one from #8 hardware cloth) and swish them through hot water quickly if this makes you feel better. You could also probably get by dipping them in wax IF you make sure the wax is only about 150 F or so and you don't leave them in for any length of time.

But I don't see any gain by doing all of this...


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## zhiv9 (Aug 3, 2012)

I thought the spread of Black Queen Cell Virus (or other pathogens) was the main reason not to reuse them.


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## BWrangler (Aug 14, 2002)

Hi Guys

I've found that, besides pathogens, using JZBZ cups more than just a few times, without cleaning them up, reduces acceptance.

I would reuse cups but toss unaccepted cups aside, especially if they contained any kind of cocoon or debris. When I'd get about a 1000 or so culled, I'd clean them. The difference between the acceptance of the cleaned cups and the reused cups was significant.

Those cups rattle around and pick up a lot of debris, much of it not naturally found in a hive. Letting the bees polish them increases acceptance somewhat. But it requires more labor. And acceptance remains lower than when the cups were new.

So, I switched to routinely cleaning all used cups. One benefit, no bee polishing needed. And it's just so easy to open a bag and get a clean, ready to use cup rather than looking through a handful of grungy ones for something acceptable.

On another note, I've used thousands upon thousands of the different colors. But settled on the charcoal and the yellow as easiest to see into.

Anyway that's my take.

-dm


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## Cristian (Jul 28, 2014)

How do you clean the cups , just through them in hot water ? .


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## BWrangler (Aug 14, 2002)

http://bwrangler.litarium.com/reclaim-plastic-queen-cups/


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## Tim B (Apr 16, 2009)

Saw the beatingest thing yesterday while working through some hives. I hadn't removed plastic cups in many of the nucs I started last summer. Noticed one hive was drawing a queen cell on their own out of one. It had a viable larva are royal jelly...so I guess the bees don't have a problem reusing them. I should have photographed it.


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## BWrangler (Aug 14, 2002)

Hi Tim and Everyone

Neat!

The real need to clean those cups was a result of what happens to them after they're removed from a hive and before they are used again. Most of them end up rattling around in a box in the bee truck. And eventually they end up setting around the honey house for awhile until needed. As a result, they just get dirty and work best when cleaned.

If I remember correctly, a cup was cleaned and used about 4 or 5 times each season.

-dm


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