How many cells could I raise?

[Apple]

We use a flat plate with 40 to 50 holed drilled to take the nicot cup and holder with a wet grafted larvae in it.
3 nucs ( 6 frames polly) have laying queen set aside ( make up 3 framed nucs with queen some brood and a shake of workers ,,, and feed move away to another site?) them merge the three nucs, as much brood and bees as you can into the one box.... bees will be bearding on the front as it will be crammed to the gunnels.
Chaotic for a while but bees soon settle down and draw those cells down.... possible to get about three sets of grafts this way before the bees get fed up. ( Check frames for qcs and break down after 3 days)
If you can arrange things correctly you can then break down the starter and make up more 3 framed nucs to mate the queens raised in the finisher( put in a sealed cell on day 14)

I we can all do this will not need to worry about sneaking bees in from Wompopo land or whereever via the back door of Eire/NI !!!
Chons da

 

[Rockingod]

I think the critical part is having a sufficient source of young nurse bees to set-up your mating nucs. Pointless having 30 good virgins if you can't provide them with sufficient entourage. bear in mind that you will need to steal brood frames from hives to build-up your cell raiser and again to fill-in all your mating nucs with nurse bees....you need to have descent amount of hives to supply all that.

Hi Jeff, I totally agree bro. Getting the nurse bees (and as young as possible) is always a big challenge.
I don't use the nurse bees/brood frames to build up the population in the cell raiser boxes. A couple of weeks before I start rearing, I choose a couple of strong colonies with good laying 1 year old queens and put them on double brood. I can usually get around 16/18 (ish) frames of BAS by the time I start using the Cloake board.
I have found that if I have anything less than 15 BAS they will not provide enough bees to raise the queens. (I normally put in 30 grafts but on really strong boxes I'll run to 40). By using the Cloake board system one is really pushing the boundary of the swarming instinct/preps which is exactly what is required to build strong queen cells.
My success rate is usually around 80% using this system.
As for populating the mating nucs I have no problems at all as I'm currently running around 150 active boxes. So plenty of bees available. To get the right age group of bees I usually strip the bees out of the supers as these are generally the younger stock. (By the time I'm ready to start grafting at least 50% of my colonies will have supers on). For those that don't have supers on, I simply lift out the brood frames and give them a very slight shake. This knocks off the older bees from the frames and leaves behind the sticky nurse bees that can be harvested. The only problem with this method is that the queen has to be found (and caged) before starting to shake the frames. Don't laugh.....It happened to me in the past during my less experienced period. Filling mating nucs on one occasion and happened to see a queen. The mark had rubbed off and I'd missed her when shaking the frames!! So now it's find the queen and cage her on all occasions.

As an aside, I'll probably raise around 400 queens this coming year using the Cloake board system. I'll use 150 (ish) myself to replace older stock and to make up new nucs. The rest I'll sell on. The only queens that I have ever bought in have been breeder queens from Ricky Wilson's stock lines by the way.

 

[Nige.Coll]

You can add 10 more grafts after 4 1/2 to 5 days as the original grafts will then be sealed. That way if your raiser colony isn't quite right it isn't expecting them to feed 20+ at a time.

 

[Rockingod]

You can add 10 more grafts after 4 1/2 to 5 days as the original grafts will then be sealed. That way if your raiser colony isn't quite right it isn't expecting them to feed 20+ at a time.

Thanks Nige,
Brill idea !! Never came across that one before but I'll definitely give it a go next run. I'll also check the lower box at the same time that I remove the capped grafts to make double sure there are no rogue QC's down there. Had it happen to me before during my inexperienced youth and they did swarm. Bo**ocks ! Never made that mistake again!

 

[Rockingod]

I can't see why anyone, raising queens on a small scale, would use mini-nucs to mate the queens. More sensible to mate them in a nuc with the standard frames you already use.

Could it be because to get a queen mated in a mini nuc you only need a cup full of bees to care for the queen? In addition, in a mini nuc there is less chance of it getting robbed out?

 

[jeff33]

Could it be because to get a queen mated in a mini nuc you only need a cup full of bees to care for the queen? In addition, in a mini nuc there is less chance of it getting robbed out?

I agree mini nucs are very handy especially for someone like me who has limited supply of bees and wants to keep a lid to 20 hives max. Last year I had 14 hives and raised queens from 1 apiary which had 10 hives. I used the cloake board method but had to take a few brood frames from these hives to max out the cell raiser with young bees. I also only put 12 grafts at the time as I didn't have had enough stock to fill the mini nucs and make-up nucs afterwards for the mated queens.

I am planning to do the same number this year 12-15 grafts at the time x 2 rounds throughout the season but in insight and reading through this thread I will go for a Q- nuc as a cell raiser option and finish them in a Q+ hive.

The other thing I will do next year is overwinter as many nucs as possible to provide brood for other stuff. This year I have overwintered 6 nucs but they are all being transferred into full hives either as production hives or to focus on my bee improvement programme.

 

[Nige.Coll]

If you look into the research by David R Tarpy in the states on queens he has shown raising queens in tiny colonies like in an apidea can lead to shortened lifespan and other issues. Leaving the queen in the colony she was raised in for 3 weeks before moving gives the queen the best chance of easy introduction and reduces supersedure and other problems.
There is other research by Juliana Rangel that shows how much a queen is impacted by pesticide/varroa treatment chemicals in wax.
Amitraz for instance can reduce a queens egg laying by nearly 10 eggs per hour and the queen will have a smaller retinue, she has also done a lot of work on drone fertility.

 

[madasafish]

I can't see why anyone, raising queens on a small scale, would use mini-nucs to mate the queens. More sensible to mate them in a nuc with the standard frames you already use.

I use mini nucs. Our weather means QR cannot start till early May and I really don't have enough colonies to provide bees for nucs for QR AND to get a honey crop And to raise more nucs. Weather dependent our honey season stops end July . ditto QR. So I have this balancing act trying to do several things simultaneously in a short season.

 

[Rockingod]

I use mini nucs. Our weather means QR cannot start till early May and I really don't have enough colonies to provide bees for nucs for QR AND to get a honey crop And to raise more nucs. Weather dependent our honey season stops end July . ditto QR. So I have this balancing act trying to do several things simultaneously in a short season.

Yep....Always a problem trying to achieve the right balance. As a rough guide, I don't start QR until I have (as a minimum) sealed drone brood. However, I will 'bend' this if the season is showing promise. On my donor colonies I'll pop on a thin slab of pollen sub to encourage early brood production. To try to encourage drone brood (from my drone breeding colonies) I've also tried capturing the queens on drone foundation frames. Normally, I would use these drone production colonies for the II queen rearing. However, trying to encourage 'early' drone production can be a bit hit and miss IMHO. If anybody else has any ideas for bringing on drones early I'd appreciate hearing from them.

 

[mbc]

Yep....Always a problem trying to achieve the right balance. As a rough guide, I don't start QR until I have (as a minimum) sealed drone brood. However, I will 'bend' this if the season is showing promise. On my donor colonies I'll pop on a thin slab of pollen sub to encourage early brood production. To try to encourage drone brood (from my drone breeding colonies) I've also tried capturing the queens on drone foundation frames. Normally, I would use these drone production colonies for the II queen rearing. However, trying to encourage 'early' drone production can be a bit hit and miss IMHO. If anybody else has any ideas for bringing on drones early I'd appreciate hearing from them.

Steve Taber in "breeding super bees" writes about keeping hives raising drones all winter, he wrote combs with holes in them for connectivity of the colony was important as is plenty of pollen and syrup feed, iirc he was working in Tucson Texas mind, a bit different to even the mildest isles of Scilly climate in the UK

 

[Nige.Coll]

Some of the recent research in the States re drone fertility has shown a drone may not be fully fertile until 30 days after emergence. Not all of the sperm had moved into the seminal vesicles.
The 12 to 14 days in the books can be wrong.
I assume it's down to the activity of the drone to some degree as they need to fly to mature, so yet another part of the chain impacted by the weather making our queen rearing season shorter.

 

[Nige.Coll]

If anybody else has any ideas for bringing on drones early I'd appreciate hearing from them.

Have you tried boosting the parent colony or uniting two early season to make a large colony ? since one of the triggers for the colony queen rearing is bee numbers having a large colony early on should be a trigger for drone production too as the two are linked.
Haven't tried it myself but it seems logical.

 

[KJB]

Very interesting topic.
I have only 5 colonies, hoping to have 10 by year end and try to get some honey.
I was thinking of using a nuc as a cell builder
Getting the cells draw above a q right colony using an almost closed off q excluder, ram the nuc full of nurse bees and hope for the best.
Hoping to raise maybe 10 queens.
It might work?

 

[mbc]

If anybody else has any ideas for bringing on drones early I'd appreciate hearing from them.

Have you tried boosting the parent colony or uniting two early season to make a large colony ? since one of the triggers for the colony queen rearing is bee numbers having a large colony early on should be a trigger for drone production too as the two are linked.
Haven't tried it myself but it seems logical.

Virgin queens can be induced to start laying( obviously these will be unfeetilised eggs) by repeated sedation with CO2, a trick used in II sometimes to inbreed lines, theoretically you could II a queen with her own drones !

 

[Rockingod]

Diolch mbc, I'll certainly give it a go as soon as the season starts. Yep....I know/understand the logic of mating a queen with her own drones. I have experimented in a very small way in the past but using the naturally produced drones from her own colony. However, I wasn't aware that 'repeated' CO2 sedation would induce her to lay drones. When you say 'repeated sedation', for how long a dose and how many doses can you suggest? Any help would be very much appreciated.

 

[mbc]

Diolch mbc, I'll certainly give it a go as soon as the season starts. Yep....I know/understand the logic of mating a queen with her own drones. I have experimented in a very small way in the past but using the naturally produced drones from her own colony. However, I wasn't aware that 'repeated' CO2 sedation would induce her to lay drones. When you say 'repeated sedation', for how long a dose and how many doses can you suggest? Any help would be very much appreciated.

Crikey, I've only ever read about it, never given it a go myself, I think it was in a Laidlaw and Page book or possibly Atkinson, I'll take a pip when I get a chance.

 

[Rockingod]

Very interesting topic.
I have only 5 colonies, hoping to have 10 by year end and try to get some honey.
I was thinking of using a nuc as a cell builder
Getting the cells draw above a q right colony using an almost closed off q excluder, ram the nuc full of nurse bees and hope for the best.
Hoping to raise maybe 10 queens.
It might work?

Hi KJB, Yes, it would work but if you have 5 colonies (with more to come this year) you are not short of spare equipment. I would have thought that using a Cloake board would be a much better solution. The problem when using nucs is that you simply do not have the 'massive' (and when I say massive?.... I mean MASSIVE!) volume of nurse bees needed to build the QCs. You would only need one Cloake board to start and they are pretty cheap to buy (around £30 and they will last a lifetime....even cheaper if you make your own as I have). The procedure for producing queens using a Cloake board is dead easy......If a dumb arse like me can do it anybody can!

 

[Rockingod]

Crikey, I've only ever read about it, never given it a go myself, I think it was in a Laidlaw and Page book or possibly Atkinson, I'll take a pip when I get a chance.

Dim problemo bach. Diolch.

 

[jeff33]

Yep....Always a problem trying to achieve the right balance. As a rough guide, I don't start QR until I have (as a minimum) sealed drone brood. However, I will 'bend' this if the season is showing promise. On my donor colonies I'll pop on a thin slab of pollen sub to encourage early brood production. To try to encourage drone brood (from my drone breeding colonies) I've also tried capturing the queens on drone foundation frames. Normally, I would use these drone production colonies for the II queen rearing. However, trying to encourage 'early' drone production can be a bit hit and miss IMHO. If anybody else has any ideas for bringing on drones early I'd appreciate hearing from them.

I have stuck a 1/2 frame in the middle of the brood nest last year towards mid-april as the hives were building really well , they will draw the rest as drone and the queen tend to lay in it if its in the middle of the nest

Hi KJB, Yes, it would work but if you have 5 colonies (with more to come this year) you are not short of spare equipment. I would have thought that using a Cloake board would be a much better solution. The problem when using nucs is that you simply do not have the 'massive' (and when I say massive?.... I mean MASSIVE!) volume of nurse bees needed to build the QCs. You would only need one Cloake board to start and they are pretty cheap to buy (around £30 and they will last a lifetime....even cheaper if you make your own as I have). The procedure for producing queens using a Cloake board is dead easy......If a dumb arse like me can do it anybody can!

Yes totally agree. I struggled to get enough of nurse bees last year with 10 hives. Cloake Board is the way forward with such a small number of hives. Equally your 5 hives will not produce enough drones to flood the area so higher rate of hit and miss with mating.

I usually try to raise drones at least 30 days b4 grafting which means that I don't graft until mid-May. Not a problem for me, it is small scale for my own use and the handful of nucs I sell.

 

[madasafish]

Very interesting topic.
I have only 5 colonies, hoping to have 10 by year end and try to get some honey.
I was thinking of using a nuc as a cell builder
Getting the cells draw above a q right colony using an almost closed off q excluder, ram the nuc full of nurse bees and hope for the best.
Hoping to raise maybe 10 queens.
It might work?

I use two 5 frame nucs and a Cloake Board for QR. Works very well.
1. But these are 5 frame Lang Jumvbo nucs- each eaquivalent to a National brood box)
2. I need extra nucs to feed them both with emerging brood to increase the number of nurse bees
3. I raise approx 12 QCs at a time.. but by the time they are mated and laying I expect a 40% loss.
4. With 5 colonies, you should get at least 200lbs of honey in a reasonable year.