Incubator for queen rearing

[xray7]

I am going to try queen rearing this season and would like to buy an incubator to hatch queen cells in and wondered if anyone had any recommendations ?

There are a number of inexpensive poultry egg incubators on the market but are they suitable ?

 

[MuswellMetro]

I am going to try queen rearing this season and would like to buy an incubator to hatch queen cells in and wondered if anyone had any recommendations ?

There are a number of inexpensive poultry egg incubators on the market but are they suitable ?

any poultry egg incubator but check the humidty but i think it is easier to spit off a Nuc of bees and use that

 

[user 6228]

One day i will come up with a calculator that says what size of cavity and the thickness of kingspan you need for the weight/number of bees.. But at the moment i have a glass of beer distracting me.

 

[sipa]

Can I ask Why you need an incubator ?

We rear a lot of queens and don't use one.

 

[Hivemaker.]

There are a number of inexpensive poultry egg incubators on the market but are they suitable ?

Banbury incubators do some quite good ones, also some of the incubators advertised for reptile use are quite good, i find it's good to have one that the complete bars of cells and cages can fit straight into.

 

[Tribesman]

Hi

I use an incubator for rearing the queens all the time, it's very handy. If you are buying an incubator especially for the job buy one with adjustable temperature because you should turn the temperature down about 2 or 3 degrees after they hatch out of the cells. They will last longer in the incubator that way. With regards to the humidity, if you just keep a tray of water in the bottom of the incubator it will keep the air moisture content up enough, top it up every day. I think that I generally set it at 34degrees and then reduce it to 32 degrees. The incubator that I use belongs to our local gun club, they used to use it for pheasant eggs, I think you can buy one like it for €130 and it will fit 50 queen cells in the round curler type cages no problem,