Nicot Cupkit System

[nantmoel]

Our 'Cupkit' came this morning, I just spent 10 mins fitting all the cups to the back of the system, I have a ready drawn frame to put it into. Does anyone else on this forum use this system for raising queen? If so can you please share your experiences.

 

[Cussword]

I'm thinking of buying one next year, let us know how you get on?
Actually, thought about getting one this year, then realised that I hadn't got a clue.
.

 

[B+.]

Our 'Cupkit' came this morning, I just spent 10 mins fitting all the cups to the back of the system, I have a ready drawn frame to put it into. Does anyone else on this forum use this system for raising queen? If so can you please share your experiences.

I didn't have much success with the cage so I prefer to graft straight into the brown cell cups

 

[snelgrove]

Although alot dearer I have always used jenter, this works well with apidea mini nucs. Getting the queen to lay after the first time was a problem.

 

[protheroe]

Quick and easy grafting straight into the cups and a magnifying glass always helps.

 

[For want of a better word]

About as much use as a Flow's hive... works intermittently
Use a Hopkins board.. bees choose the larvae to bring on an you get much better and stronger queens.

 

[nantmoel]

Quick and easy grafting straight into the cups and a magnifying glass always helps.

I tried grafting, but the hive I put the grafts into had QS, and they didn't draw any of them. I would love to graft direct but my first experience knocked me back to be honest.

 

[tonyofarr]

We have been using this system for about 3 years, and put 32 grafts into a hive yesterday. We had one hive that absolutely refused to cooperate and removed the eggs from the cups after releasing the queen, but the other colonies we have used have been fine. Sometimes you have to allow the queen an extra 12 hours to lay up the frame, we use a magnifying glass to check the frame and find it easier to look for eggs looking through the back of the frame rather than looking into the cells from the front.

The reason we use the cupkit system is that we are both rubbish at grafting, and find we get a lot more grafts accepted this way. We are not needing the large no. of queens like B+., our last batch gave us enough for 12 mating nucs and 11 nuc hives, and some spares just in case some q cells did not hatch.

When we were grafting by hand into wax cups we were lucky to get 3 grafts accepted on a frame, and found it really frustrating. We started using the cupkit to simplify things and save our remaining sanity.

 

[For want of a better word]

We have been using this system for about 3 years, and put 32 grafts into a hive yesterday. We had one hive that absolutely refused to cooperate and removed the eggs from the cups after releasing the queen, but the other colonies we have used have been fine. Sometimes you have to allow the queen an extra 12 hours to lay up the frame, we use a magnifying glass to check the frame and find it easier to look for eggs looking through the back of the frame rather than looking into the cells from the front.

The reason we use the cupkit system is that we are both rubbish at grafting, and find we get a lot more grafts accepted this way. We are not needing the large no. of queens like B+., our last batch gave us enough for 12 mating nucs and 11 nuc hives, and some spares just in case some q cells did not hatch.



When we were grafting by hand into wax cups we were lucky to get 3 grafts accepted on a frame, and found it really frustrating. We started using the cupkit to simplify things and save our remaining sanity.

Some have some luck with cell punching... but nobody makes the kit today!

Yeghes da

 

[Goran]

I tried grafting, but the hive I put the grafts into had QS, and they didn't draw any of them. I would love to graft direct but my first experience knocked me back to be honest.

Don't be discouraged to use the systems.
I didn't gave comment here till now cause I use other ( jenter) kit. But it is simmilar ( I won't advocate now which is " better").
I started with it and won't change to grafting by my free will ( even I have excellent eyesight so far). My mentor use only jenter for ages ( to see some of his lines.. awesome). He is targeting honey not for queen selling.
I am also extremelly satisfied with queens from kits. Some colleagues which got queens from me also said are very satisfied.

Also other things have to consider:right timing, breeding colonies, starting material, type, way and amount of feed, mnucs, etc..

 

[tonyofarr]

I'm sticking with the cupkit system, works for me, I just need to work out how to breed aquatic bees with masks and snorkels ! It has been raining all day and I'm really p***ed off with it, the met office has only forecast 1 day without rain this week.

 

[nantmoel]

I'm sticking with the cupkit system, works for me, I just need to work out how to breed aquatic bees with masks and snorkels ! It has been raining all day and I'm really p***ed off with it, the met office has only forecast 1 day without rain this week.

I was going to put the frame with it one into the hive today - but the weather is the same here. I was going to give it 24hrs then put the queen in. What method do you use?

 

[Poly Hive]

My objection is that one you are buying and tying into a "system" and my experience has been the queens don't lay the cups and I ended up grafting anyway.

Learing to graft is merely practice. By grafting you have more freedom, you are not tied in to a system and you can make all your own kit, cheaply. Some dowel some ply and a couple of frames and off you go.

PH

 

[domino]

I tried grafting, but the hive I put the grafts into had QS, and they didn't draw any of them. I would love to graft direct but my first experience knocked me back to be honest.

I had this problem until I spent 20 minutes with someone who actual knew how to do it well. After that I'm getting about a 60% acceptance rate which isn't amazing but it's good enough.

 

[Goran]

This season I bought new jenter kit. 100% laid at first try, on bars 1-3 only not accepted per breeder. Few days before harvesting all rest sealed and OK, couple I would have to discard due too much comb built around them. Unfortunatelly.. that was the end due to other non beekeeping circumstances.
Anyway in previous years I used jenter, none of jenter queens later were superseded. There were bad queens by my merrits, which I supersede by myself..

 

[Plenty of honey]

Ive only ever grafted direct too. I admit i have not tried the other systems of getting the queens to lay direct in the the cells but i just like grafting.

I used JZBZ all last year with good successes, and converted to Nicot this year, because it was much more flexible for me personally. Especially the ability to cage queens on day 9 / 10.

Read this discussion as it might be of help
http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=36958

Be cautious though, i just lost a whole load of cells as one of my cups fell down in the first grafts, got wedged in the super frame below the queen less frames. They finished it like a normal cell as they were hopelessly queen less. I harvested the entire batch and then put in the next, the finished queen hatched out and slaughtered all my new cells on day 4!!


http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/attachment.php?attachmentid=13266&stc=1&d=1467019388


Yesterday i shook the entire colony through a shaker box, found the current queen and the stray virgin, ( guilty of the foul deed) made a nuc with the virgin, as she's now special, murderer of 60, she's got to be worth keeping for that reason alone!!!!

 

[tonyofarr]

Nantmoel, I put the queen in the cupkit in the morning and check 24 hours later so that if the queen has not utilised as many of the cups as I would like I can leave her until the afternoon and check again. I wait 3 days for the eggs to hatch and select cells for my grafting frame so that I am using very young larvae. I prepare the cell building colony so that the grafting frame is slowly lowered into a brood box full of young brood and nurse bees, the bees need to be filling the 'gap' that the frame is being immersed into. With the weather we are having at the moment I am feeding the building colony with syrup. After 2 days I check how many grafts have been accepted.

I was taught how to graft by a beek that was brilliant at it, and used wax cups that we had made. I used a chinese grafting tool and tried 'dry' grafting, and priming the cups with royal jelly first and still got really bad success rates. I suppose I could have persisted with trying grafting a bit longer but with 2 young children and a lot going on decided life was too short and I needed to simplify things hence trying the cupkit system.

 

[nantmoel]

Well the Nicot Cupkit has been in the hive for two days, I have just popped the breeder queen into it - I will check it tomorrow for eggs.

 

[B+.]

Well the Nicot Cupkit has been in the hive for two days, I have just popped the breeder queen into it - I will check it tomorrow for eggs.

Did you make sure that there are cells available for her to lay in. Sometimes, the workers fill the cells with nectar when space is short

 

[nantmoel]

Did you make sure that there are cells available for her to lay in. Sometimes, the workers fill the cells with nectar when space is short

I checked there was space, even though they had started to fill in the comb around the cage, I knows she's a pedigree queen, but by god she can move a bit! lol. My first attempt at catching her failed, I closed the hive up and when back an hour later, her offspring are so calm on the comb not need for gloves, picked her up by her wing and popped her in. Fingers crossed - if not another go at grafting is on the cards.