Cell building methods

[mbc]

I turned this up while surfing, for anyone who wants to be humbled by beekeepers really knowing their onions when talking queen rearing.
I notice that Michael Palmer, who started the thread, now frequents this forum.

 

[susbees]

And the up is??

 

[alanf]

And the up is??

"this" is a link to beesource.com . It's the method Michael described in the NHS talk and probably elsewhere. It's a production line with multiple dedicated cell builder hives and a tight schedule. He said he raises 1500 queens a year like that, so it works for him.

 

[mbc]

Whether you wish to raise a couple of queens or a few thousand the principles that determine your success are the same.
What particularly impressed me about t5hat thread was this question and reply ;

"Quote Originally Posted by JensLarsen View Post
Why do you leave the CB for five days before re-uniting?

(Edit: Br Adam is not very detailed in the paragraph "our own method", I guess he used lots of variations to the overall principle)

I re-unite after 24 h and let them finish in a queenright state, then move to incubator on day five when removing the excluder. Robber screen and excluder on entrance might be a good idea for open queenless starters. I used to have a support colony but ended up depleting it to the degree that it superseeded. Now I simply run two colonies in parallel and let them rest a week between grafts. Spreading out the rearing is good for minimize risks of bad mating weather."

MP:
"I agree that Bro Adam really doesn't go into enough detail. Heck, he only touches on wintering nucleus colonies.

I leave my cell builder queenless until the cells are sealed. I've arranged them so they have the maximum amount of nerse bees to feed the cells. If I unite them back with the queenright section, wouldn't a large number of the nurse bees go back to feeding worker larvae in the queenright section?

I used support colonies too, and harvested nurse bees by placing open brood above an excluder overnight. I find that by adding sealed brood 10 days before grafting that I'm doing the same thing...maybe with better results."

Real nuts and bolts queen rearing being discussed openly and freely with no side or ego involved. A pleasure to read and surely worthy of further discussion.
How do queen rearers over here feel about Q- or Q+ finishing of cells ?

 

[pargyle]

This was interesting and useful reading ... essential for New beekeepers hoping to expand next season .. well explained and easy to understand. Well worth printing off or saving somewhere.

 

[Michael Palmer]

mbc, I've used just about every cell building method...except the Cloake board. I feel that one to be too haphazard. I want more control.

I believe that when raising queen cells...queens...that quality must trump quantity. Always. I've raised decent cells with other methods, but BAs super strong cell builder, boosted with emerging brood 10 days before grafting, imitating a strong colony in swarming mode, consistently yields cells that are better provisioned with jelly than the queenless swarm box starter/queen-right finisher.

The plan takes advantage of two of the three cell building methods that the bees employ to raise their own queens...swarming impulse and emergency response. The cell building colonies are so strong, with nurse bees, and the field force to provide proper nutrition for the cell builders, that the cells are still packed with jelly when the virgins emerge.

Prof. Farrar from the U of Wisconsin once said that better queens can be raised from less than ideal stocks under ideal conditions, than can be raised from the best stocks under less than ideal conditions. That's where overstocking with nurse bees, and providing the best nutrition comes into play.

You can set up a cell builder with all the bees you want, but if the nutrition isn't there, the quality isn't there. In America, scientists and beekeepers are telling us that queens don't last a year any more. Perhaps the result of quantity trumping quality? Some of the big producers are catching a thousand queens a day.

Providing proper nutrition is more than feeding thin syrup, and relying on pollen flow, or feeding protein supplement. It's about providing an abundance of pollen right where the bees need it...next to the graft. And, there are pollen combs and pollen combs. You can hunt for pollen combs in production colonies...but you can make a better pollen comb than you can steal from your bees....something like this....

 

[alanf]

...Providing proper nutrition is more than feeding thin syrup, and relying on pollen flow, or feeding protein supplement. It's about providing an abundance of pollen right where the bees need it...next to the graft. And, there are pollen combs and pollen combs. You can hunt for pollen combs in production colonies...but you can make a better pollen comb than you can steal from your bees...

I remember the slide at the NHS talk. On the strength of it I bought a pollen trap in the sales hall, which shows at least somebody was paying attention.

 

[Finman]

-

It is better to stand a little bit realism in the discussion. - Even if it has no succes in this forum.

700-hive owner and 2 hive owner are in discussion.

Palmers says :but BAs super strong cell builder, boosted with emerging brood 10 days before grafting, imitating a strong colony in swarming mode,

I do not know how many cells that colony produces during 2 weeks cycle? - 20, 40? or...then.. Who needs here 40 virgings in one summer, and he does not know to rear them?

What we need is a colony in swarm mode. It's natural idea is to make 15-20 queen cells.

My opinion is that a beginner or 10 hive owners does not need early queens, which are in danger to stay poorly mated for cold weathers.

Normal guy really has time to wait summer and natural swarming period when colonies want to rear more queens than anyboby wants.

One of Biggest problems in beekeeping is the queen cells production of hives and check out every week it. Then how cell rearing can be then a problem?
.

So, rethink again what youi are really doing in beekeeping. Be flexiple to your self what ever you are doing there.

.To rear 50 queens in smarming hives is very easy. I have reared 40 years queens with professional methods, and I just ask myself, why I did it so,

I have 20-30 productive colonies and I change very queens every year.
I do not accept their own reared queens because they are from from selected colonies. And when I have young queens, it is rare that hives renew their queens.

Like Michael said: the Super strong cell builder-----it means to me 150 kg honey yield... 150 kg x 6 euros = about 1000 euros. ...Not free price queens...


Needles to say that a British beekeeper may do as they like. - yeah. Everyone adult on overseas do so. Why not the British!

 

[Finman]

.
The writer of book Bad Beekeeping, Ron Miksha wrote that his Brother reared allways his queens in the colonies which were in swarming fever. And his Brother won often the price of Best Queens Prize. Perhaps that was the idea why I stopped to read queen rearing books.

.

 

[Suzi Q]

I remember the slide at the NHS talk. On the strength of it I bought a pollen trap in the sales hall, which shows at least somebody was paying attention.

When is the best time to put on a pollen trap? Will the collecting of pollen not deprive the colony, at that time, of pollen, or do the bees make up for it by collecting even more pollen? I suppose the collected pollen is frozen for later use.

 

[Michael Palmer]

I add mine at Dandelion bloom and leave through brambles. That's about a month. With 12 traps, I can trap all the pollen I need for growing a few thousand cells.

The colonies with pollen traps seem unaffected. I believe I've read not all the pollen is removed from the bees, and the colony sends out more pollen foragers.

Yes, freeze the pollen as soon as you harvest it.

 

[Michael Palmer]

Finman, what you say is true. Surely it is easier to raise queen cells in a swarmy colony. All you have to do is find a strong colony in swarming mode, and let them raise you cells. Fair enough. But you are talking 20-30 colonies.

And I am talking raising queens on a much larger scale, as you noted. That's why my methods are different than yours. I only responded to this thread because I was asked to, and I'm not saying beekeepers with only a few colonies should follow my plan.

For you, you only have to find a swarmy colony within your stocks, and use it to your advantage. That very search is why I can't rely on the method. I require four cell building colonies with 48 grafts, every four days from mid-May until mid-July. I couldn't possibly rely on finding swarming colonies to get the work done.

My mid-May, out pollen/nectar flow is going well. Most years, bees are storing nectar and strong colonies have brood frame counts of 9-12 langs. This is the time when the bees are beginning to raise cells of their own, so is the same time I get my cell building into full swing.

I agree that having strong cell builders can mean harvesting a honey crop as well as good queen cells. I'll post a photo of my cell building apiary after cell building is finished, and before honey harvest.

-

It is better to stand a little bit realism in the discussion. - Even if it has no succes in this forum.

700-hive owner and 2 hive owner are in discussion.

Palmers says :but BAs super strong cell builder, boosted with emerging brood 10 days before grafting, imitating a strong colony in swarming mode,

I do not know how many cells that colony produces during 2 weeks cycle? - 20, 40? or...then.. Who needs here 40 virgings in one summer, and he does not know to rear them?

What we need is a colony in swarm mode. It's natural idea is to make 15-20 queen cells.

My opinion is that a beginner or 10 hive owners does not need early queens, which are in danger to stay poorly mated for cold weathers.

Normal guy really has time to wait summer and natural swarming period when colonies want to rear more queens than anyboby wants.

One of Biggest problems in beekeeping is the queen cells production of hives and check out every week it. Then how cell rearing can be then a problem?
.

So, rethink again what youi are really doing in beekeeping. Be flexiple to your self what ever you are doing there.

.To rear 50 queens in smarming hives is very easy. I have reared 40 years queens with professional methods, and I just ask myself, why I did it so,

I have 20-30 productive colonies and I change very queens every year.
I do not accept their own reared queens because they are from from selected colonies. And when I have young queens, it is rare that hives renew their queens.

Like Michael said: the Super strong cell builder-----it means to me 150 kg honey yield... 150 kg x 6 euros = about 1000 euros. ...Not free price queens...


Needles to say that a British beekeeper may do as they like. - yeah. Everyone adult on overseas do so. Why not the British!

 

[Goran]

Sorry, if I may ask. Beside the pollen, have You noticed the difference when feeding with honey or with sugar in queen quality? Or this showed no difference or irrelevant?

 

[Red Bee]

I have 20-30 productive colonies and I change very queens every year.
I do not accept their own reared queens because they are from from selected colonies. And when I have young queens, it is rare that hives renew their queens.

Like Michael said: the Super strong cell builder-----it means to me 150 kg honey yield... 150 kg x 6 euros = about 1000 euros. ...Not free price queens...

20-30,000 euros a year!

Nice!

 

[Michael Palmer]

Sorry, if I may ask. Beside the pollen, have You noticed the difference when feeding with honey or with sugar in queen quality? Or this showed no difference or irrelevant?

I do feed the thin syrup, but I'm also raising the cells on our flow. Sometimes the bees take very little syrup. It's there as a backup in case it rains for days, or the farmer cuts the fields, or the flow ends for some other reason. I've never tried feeding thinned honey.

 

[Goran]

Thank You very much for answering.

 

[alanf]

I add mine at Dandelion bloom and leave through brambles. That's about a month. With 12 traps, I can trap all the pollen I need for growing a few thousand cells.

The colonies with pollen traps seem unaffected. I believe I've read not all the pollen is removed from the bees, and the colony sends out more pollen foragers.

Yes, freeze the pollen as soon as you harvest it.

I do recall reading some research (which of course I can't find now) which showed bees regulate the amount of pollen foraging based on what they are receiving. If a proportion is trapped they increase the pollen foraging effort to compensate. That may reduce the nectar take and it assumes there are foragers to add to the workforce.

Full scale commercial production will have to wait. What made sense was the idea that the best queen cells need a lot of feeding and that means plenty of nurse bees. That applies as much to small scale use of division board /snelgrove /cloake /demaree methods as it does to dedicated cell building hives. What they have in common is that numbers of nurse bees have been increased but foragers are in short supply. It can't do any harm to supplement the pollen supplies.

 

[mbc]

mbc, I've used just about every cell building method...except the Cloake board. I feel that one to be too haphazard. I want more control.

I believe that when raising queen cells...queens...that quality must trump quantity. Always. I've raised decent cells with other methods, but BAs super strong cell builder, boosted with emerging brood 10 days before grafting, imitating a strong colony in swarming mode, consistently yields cells that are better provisioned with jelly than the queenless swarm box starter/queen-right finisher.

Horses for courses but I see the cloak board as merely a device to make it easier turning a q- cell starter into a q+ finisher very quickly and easily without disturbing the cells, and is no more haphazard than any other system.
When using the board properly all the open brood is initially raised above the board and subsequently the young bees shaken off and the frames of open brood given to another colony for finishing just prior to putting the graft in, the theory being the first new eggs the queen lays below only hatching right at the end of the time the grafted cells are still being fed, so no significant migration of the young engorged bees until it matters not.
Thanks for posting the pollen frame photo, a picture says a thousand words and this really brings home the emphasis you place on nutrition.
I'm still left a little confused as to what importance to place on finishing the cells in a q+ state, I'm not trying to knock your system it obviously works for you, but I had understood that queens finished in a queen right condition had, on average, heavier ovaries. I will try and dig out the reference.

 

[mbc]

-

Like Michael said: the Super strong cell builder-----it means to me 150 kg honey yield... 150 kg x 6 euros = about 1000 euros. ...Not free price queens...

Doubtless there is a cost in lost honey from a cell building colony, but it can go on to collect a good crop even after producing lots of queen cells ( again thanks for the photo Mike, I'm jealous !). The real tax on an apiary is the bees taken out of production for stocking nucs, but this is where mini nucs come into their own, each good colony can provide enough bees to stock several without noticeably holding them back, indeed, with a bit of judicial use of bees from colonies starting to boil over and possibly thinking of swarming the total apiary crop can be increased by avoiding that.

 

[Finman]

Doubtless there is a cost in lost honey from a cell building colony, but it can go on to collect a good crop even after producing lots of queen cells ( again thanks for the photo Mike, I'm jealous !). avoiding that.

BUt in real life, it does not that way.

with a bit of judicial use of bees from colonies starting to boil over and possibly thinking of swarming the total apiary crop can be increased by avoiding that.

To prevent boiling over you add boxes, extract capped honey and add ventilation.
That is normal procedure in good flows.

If they are going to swarm, you make false swarms.

When good flow is on, I prefer to join colonies that split them to nucs.