has anynbody started Qrearing yet?

[piggy]

not many drones around yet.

 

[Hivemaker.]

Yes.

 

[bee crazy]

Queen Rearing under way up this end

 

[piggy]

not many drones around yet.

Good luck for the season everyone .Think I will sharpen my cut throat razor and start next week. Will be using a cut out /punch method, as my eyes don't work very well.

 

[rook66]

Will be using a cut out /punch method, as my eyes don't work very well.[/quote]

Piggy, Can you elaborate please

 

[piggy]

Will be using a cut out /punch method, as my eyes don't work very well.

Piggy, Can you elaborate please[/QUOTE]
The cut out method, as used by the German lady in the Q rearing video on you tube. I tried this last year with some success. Dave Cushman describes punch cell very well.

 

[DanBee]

Yes.

 

[domino]

I'm doing an AS next week, I've got it on double brood and the boxes are packed. The back half of April has been good for mine.

 

[Barbarian]

Just done a split on one colony.

Started a strong colony to get them ready to raise Q cells from a donated frame of eggs.

Hope to try 'notching' frames of eggs this year. Tried last year for first time but didn't have much luck.

 

[Tim1606]

40 grafts went in yesterday and 40 today.

 

[ashleybee]

Ditto. I did 40 friday and 40 today. Fridays 36 taken out of the 40 best ever for a first graft of the season but I did take down a couple of small ones that I didn't like the look of.

 

[Stupeex]

Started today, qcells in incubator.

 

[victor meldrew]

Yes the bees have, picked up a swarm day before yesterday!
VM


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Barbarian]

Gawd. A swarm in Wigan. That's a heads up for me. Thankfully no sign of interest at my bait hives.

 

[rolande]

Thankfully no sign of interest at my bait hives.

? Why bother putting bait hives out if you don't want bees to show interest in them?

 

[victor meldrew]

My thoughts entirely!
If a clue of colony condition is the reason then ' no it won't'
VM


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[pargyle]

? Why bother putting bait hives out if you don't want bees to show interest in them?

Clearly expecting his own hives to swarm - bait hives there to (hopefully) collect his own bees .... best of luck with that !

 

[Teemore]

Yeah, the bees have started Queen rearing. Have been watching drone development/presence in my strongest stocks and was of a mind that colony queen rearing was about to start up. I plan to use the presence of queen cells as my trigger to start my 'planned' queen rearing for the year. Cup-kit is sitting ready to go.

Am sitting in work today worried that one of my colonies is going to swarm today.... despite the crap weather yesterday i took the opportunity to check on a couple of apiaries to see if extra supers were needed and spotted capped Queen cells in one stock. It was too cold to do anything by way of swarm management and in all honesty i should not have even have looked into the brood box (pollen frame lifted out and one brood frame examined) but wanted to confirm my suspicion that they were thinking about swarming....

Unlikely to be able to get home before 18:30 this evening and it would be 19:30 before I could get to that apiary. This is one occasion when I am glad that the weather forecast is poor but i know rightly that if they get a blink of sun today, a prime swarm could be off over the hedge (if it hasn't already gone!). Whilst there is some nectar in that stock, there is no big amount of stores built up thus far and yet they are ready to swarm. Hopefully they know more than the weathermen about forthcoming weather. It has been so cold that other than my initial health check of my stocks, inspections have been lacking. Maybe I can convince my boss to let me take annual leave on Friday......

 

[Barbarian]

Thank you for the friendly and helpful responses to my post on this thread.

I use bait hives for several reasons. It is easier to collect a swarm in a bait hive than having to attend the home of a member of the public. A swarm going into a bait hive is a quick and easy process. There is less alarm to the the public than a swarm appearing in a public or private place.

I try to avoid loosing swarms from my hives and believe that most of the swarms in the bait hives are from other sources. By capturing swarms, I am usually able to pass them on to members of my association in need.

My original post referred to the habit of scout bees checking a bait hive SEVERAL days before the swarm leaves the parent hive. If I see scouts checking out a bait hive then I know that a hive in the area is preparing to swarm.

Thank you for your patience in reading this post.

 

[jp19sqn]

Just a query. In the Hopkins method of Q rearing it says to place the frame down horizontally. How do you do this with national brood frames as they will not fit horizontally into a national super without chopping the lugs off.... Any tricks gratefully received.