Cell punch system

[wightbees]

In the new yr of Bee keeping i am wanting to try Cell punch system for rearing new Queens. First is there a good book on grafting and queen rearing that i could buy , any recommendations ?
Now with this system if i was to have a small nuc with just new bees and stores and i added a few punch cells would they then feed these up into new Queens?

 

[justme]

Not if these were unsealed cells which I believe you mean/say. To get good queens as opposed to scrub queens you need lots of nurse bees available. Not sure that a nuc full of nurse bees would be able to rear a few good queens, 1 maybe.
I think I've just seen a post on queen rearing today on this site with a decent video on it also. Take a look at that, I think it'll help.

Di:.)

 

[RoofTops]

Have a look at the thread on making increase which is currently running. The German video shows some interesting ways but as pointed out above you need a strong colony as the starting point - although you can make a colony strong by adding frames of sealed brood to it a week or so before it is needed. It also shows a way of cutting out cells using a knife. A bit like cell punching but without the punch.

 

[wightbees]

ok thanks all

 

[hedgerow pete]

my mould for the wax cells is either a pen end or a piece of metal tube with a wooden handle as for a book any on the subject of grafting should do for you there

 

[wightbees]

Thanks , but i am now wondering.How many house bees does it take to raise 1 egg.
If there was only one in the nuc.

 

[RoofTops]

Thanks , but i am now wondering.How many house bees does it take to raise 1 egg.
If there was only one in the nuc.

Don't know how many per egg.

If you want to raise a single queen then you could try taking away the existing queen fromn the nuc (but what to do with her?) but the danger is the bees will then make an emergency queen cell and may choose a larva too old to benefit from a royal diet. You could introduce a single grafted larva but even one queen cell requires hundreds of visits from nurse bees.

You might be better off letting your nuc get overcrowded by delaying moving them to a full sized hive and they should then make queen cells under the swarm impulse - and they could be good queens as a result. Just make sure you old queen is clipped.

 

[wightbees]

Thanks rooftops.

 

[Hombre]

On the German video I noticed the taking of a square of comb bearing eggs or young grubs. I did this and inserted it in a similarly sized hole in the comb of a receiving colony.

I had acceptable results, but note the trimming of the height of the comb to better promote the resizing, to queen size, of the cells by the bees.

I think that in 2011 I shall continue on this route incorporating what was subsequently shown in the video. No cell punch required, just a slim sharp knife to do the deed. Same principles, less demanding hardware. http://mkat.iwf.de/mms/metafiles/02000018010220000000_lo.asx in case you missed it. Take notes, watch it lots of times, there is so much there that you can't hope to absorb it at one sitting. And an attractive presenter too. The Sweinty Girl . . .

in Linux using Mplayer plugin for Firefox there is a full screen option bottom right rather than try to absorb it from the default postage stamp display.

 

[For want of a better word]

Thanks for that link Hombre
I have spent most of this afrenoon with my German dictionary.......ich nicht vorstehein.
Well you can see from that how bad my German is!!!

 

[Finman]

Now with this system if i was to have a small nuc with just new bees and stores and i added a few punch cells would they then feed these up into new Queens?

2 frames of bees will make a queen but the quality will be very poor. Second, the genetic quality of larva is the most important.

 

[Black Comb]

Thanks for that link Hombre
I have spent most of this afrenoon with my German dictionary.......ich nicht vorstehein.
Well you can see from that how bad my German is!!!

Clicking on the English version will help.

 

[Black Comb]

2 frames of bees will make a queen but the quality will be very poor. Second, the genetic quality of larva is the most important.

So if I understand correctly, once the queen cells are sealed they can be transferred to a small nuc for hatching and mating?

 

[Hombre]

Ich nicht verstehen . . . but Google does. My chosen language is Spanish, the words seem smaller and the grand children's pals and neighbours don't speak German.

Yes, the cells are put into a large queenless cell builder to get fed by oodles of young nurse bees. When sealed, they are transferred to a finishing colony, to free up the cell builder for the next batch if you are making more than one.batch.

The sealed cells are finished in a finishing colony and emerge as caged queens and then introduced into three frame nucs for mating. I suppose that a mini nuc could be used at this point if required.

 

[blackbrood]

in Linux using Mplayer plugin for Firefox there is a full screen option bottom right rather than try to absorb it from the default postage stamp display.

Thanks. I have been trying to get this to work in firefox/linux for about a week now. Mplayer add on works great.

 

[Poly Hive]

As far as I know three is no longer a punch cell kit made. There was a long discussion on this some years ago an at that time the consensus was that you had to make your own. A rifle shell case was the preferred method.

If you are faffing about with punch cell, you might as well just graft. Simpler probably.

PH

 

[mbc]

"If you are faffing about with punch cell, you might as well just graft. Simpler probably. "

I totally agree

 

[wightbees]

I have seen a video on cell punch and it looked simple, to be honest i need to read a book on grafting. I think maybe watching someone would help, it's not the same watching a video.I might have to have a look around and see who does this sort of thing.
I expect there's no one here on the IOW that does much of this, so prob have to go to the mainland.

 

[Mike a]

Wightbees

How many Queens are you thinking about raising?

 

[MJBee]

http://www.teesbees.co.uk/ Has a "how to" article on the punched cell method.
On the home page click on "beekeeping articles" then "Queen rearing on a shoestring"