Emerging queens in airing cupboards?

[Poly Hive]

Good grief you do have some spare time?

LOL

PH

 

[REDWOOD]

PH, you said to use the top super as your incubator and the bees will do a great job, so when the queen cells are capped does the colony swarm or do you remove them first ?

 

[drstitson]

the hive is not in swarm mode.

 

[REDWOOD]

the hive is not in swarm mode.

Common scene when you think about it

 

[Poly Hive]

If the good Dr will give me a chance...

I use a starter box to get the grafts accepted.

They are then moved to a strong colony to finish and if required the starter box is used again.

In the strong colony they are put in a populous super which to my mind must be the top one so as to get the cells as far from the queen as possible to avoid upset. They are left there until sealed, and after that put into cages in case of mishap to the beekeeper.

Always plan for the worst (motor malfunction, life issues, etc) and with the cells in cages the virgins will be fed and cleaned. So still useful for mini nucs.

Or of course the sealed cells can be put into nucs.

PH

 

[REDWOOD]

Thanks Terry, look like i'm going to do a lot more reading on queen rearing If I get my new Apiary

 

[MJBee]

Thanks for the picture of the queen cage PH - very timely

I have 10 queen cells coming up to day 14 tomorrow and only 5 Apideas, so made up 4 of your cages today to give me a breathing space to assemble Nucs

 

[Poly Hive]

It's what it's all about.

PH