nicot method

[Cuckmere couple]

just watched Stewart's (norfolk honey comp) video on this and am tempted

anyone have any experience positive or negative?

P

 

[Ian123]

Perfectly good if you cant graft, give grafting a go though as its so much easier/quicker. And if you get a poor take on a batch you can just go pull a frame of larvae and go again in a few minutes. Give a few methods a try and am sure you will find the best way forward for you

 

[Cuckmere couple]

thanks Ian

grafting sounds complicated in terms of kit etc, or, if i just take plunge, is it quite straightforward?

watching the video, the Nicot seems to have it all there for you

I watched a guy at our association talk through his queen rearing through grafting and he had wooden tops he'd 'turned' and all sorts of stuff which i'd struggle to produce

 

[Poly Hive]

Ok so here's the deal.

Can you buy a length of 10 mm dowel and sand it to 9mm with a rounded end? My bet is yes you can. Ok so you just made your cup maker. You soak it over night and pre each dip in the wax you dip in water. Simple. Your cups want to be about 15mm long and three or four thick. If you botch them you pop them back to melt again so no probs there.

You then glue them to a length of ply or timber with more wax. You graft into them. How simple is that? I could make it a tad more difficult with making handlers for the cells but there is no need. Mount your cups in a frame and insert into queenless young bees. Leave 24 hours the ones with fresh wax on them are accepted and the empty un touched ones are failures. So you graft again.... and I can tell you practice improves your acceptances. Get after it.

PH

 

[nantmoel]

I started with a Nicot system, they are a little hit and miss, I was never a lover of caging the queen in the system. I had better result if I sprayed the system with diluted honey, then put it in a hive and let the bees clean it, did this without the QE on it. Then after a few hours I would cage the queen for her to lay-up the cells, this would happen normally over night. I would then release her and three days latter move the 'hatched' eggs into a cell raiser. However there were times when the bees removed all the eggs from the cells! so I had wasted 4-5 days! Thats when I moved over to grafting, its really is not that difficult. I did purchase a pair of magnifying glasses with a build in LED light, make finding the tiny grubs so much easier. I will say that most people fail with grafting as they don't prepare the 'cell raiser' colony correctly, then they think it's down to their poor grafting skills. BTW I use a Chinese grafting tool that I have thinned down to make it more flexible.

 

[Poly Hive]

I started with a Jenter, same same as Nicot and had the same issues and actually on more than one occasion ended up grafting out of it as she had missed every plug. Helpful that... not.

I use a double cranked stainless grafting tool and it works very well for me. I like the wax cups as unlike the plastic there is a give in them which allows the tool to be pressed down to slide off a sticky grub. That works for me I must stress.

As said the starter box needs to be heaving with young bees. I used to make up starter boxes in five frame nucs with at good 7 to 9 frames of young bees shook in. I know it was right when I took off the roof and there was a festoon of bees hanging where they had clustered in the gap for the graft frame.

So.... if you don't have enough colonies to rob that amount of bees what to do?

Well an option for a few cells is the Cloake Board method. I tried that last year and while not wildly successful it did work giving me 6 or 7 cells a time which was all I needed so it was ok. Could it have done better? Arguably yes but it was my first play with it and it got me to where I wanted to be. I may try it again this year but as I am going to want a larger number of cells I may well be grafting again. I got ASDA to make me grafting specs and they were both intrigued and happy to help. £40 was the cost.

PH

 

[For want of a better word]

just watched Stewart's (norfolk honey comp) video on this and am tempted

anyone have any experience positive or negative?

P

Yes. sometimes + more often -

Take PH's advice

Starter colony can be made up using a nuc ( I use Paynes polly with the side feeder... easier than lifting sloppy top feeders full of 2:1)

Cram with bees shaken from supers...... frame of sealed brood* 2 pollen the rest just drawn comb... mix the bees from several colonies and spray with dilute sugar syrup on introduction..... put your grafted cell cups in there.. once started move to a finisher q- above a qx..... and feed... we use a Miller with the cap off and feed Candipol.

Keep a record of the grafting dates!!!!!!
Virgins can be kept in roller cages in the hive ( fit in day 14 from egg)
If hatched in an incubator keep them in wooden Benton cages... survival seems to be better.

* no idea why!!

 

[For want of a better word]

I got ASDA to make me grafting specs and they were both intrigued and happy to help. £40 was the cost..... more info please!

I looked at some "surgeons" glasses..... small lenses that fit at the tip of the nose.... did ask Vision Express... quoted £200!

 

[Cuckmere couple]

ok...intrigued to give it a go

will watch a couple of videos (any recommendations welcome)

still a few stages im unclear on - plus whether i can achieve this from the 3 colonies i have without destroying all honey production this year

am also looking at mini mating hives if any advice....kieler type or the rainbow one form Thornes etc

 

[Poly Hive]

I was at the optician at ASDA in Edinburgh and explained I was having trouble no seeing the larvae. I explained the size and the translucence, the distance and sort of demonstrated what I was doing, and they took the measurements with a tape measure and 10 days later I had an excellent pair of glasses for that precise situation. They are bloody useless for anything else but do I care?

PH

 

[Parsonage Bees]

Tried a Nicot cage for the first time last year. Failed.

Left queen in cage for 24 hours and found one egg! Releasing queen found QC, they'd started without me.

Cutting QCs and transferring them to 3 frame nucs after an artificial swarm I ended up with 6 mated queens.

The Nicot cage has 100 odd cells and I don't need that many queens. You seem to have the same number of hives as me. Finding and handling the queen is a risk you can avoid by grafting the larva yourself. I might have damaged this expensive bought-in queen when handling her as the artificial swarm failed and I lost her. As a second year beek my issue is having enough drawn wax for the nucs. I could have produced 25 QCs but had nowhere to put them.

I've bought a grafting tool. Might try making my own wax cups.

. . .. Ben

 

[Poly Hive]

Would it be helpful if I posted up some pics of my DIY kit that you can make up for sub £20 if not £10?

PH

 

[jeff33]

Yes please PH, any pics of stuff like that are always welcome. I am currently making mini mating nuc wooden frames which are exactly half size of a BS frame. I am trying to make them in a way so that they can be joined together to fit in a standard BB. Once the bees have drawn it up and queen laid in there I can remove the frame, split in 2 and place in mini nuc.

Problem with Nicot is that you may end up with lots more cells that you can handle. If you can't do anything with them and only need 3, there isn't much point using it.

 

[Parsonage Bees]

Would it be helpful if I posted up some pics of my DIY kit that you can make up for sub £20 if not £10?

PH

That would be great. Thanks.

Perhaps the Nicot system is best for bee breeders and beeks with at least 20 colonies.

. . . . . Ben

 

[Murox]

just watched Stewart's (norfolk honey comp) video on this and am tempted

anyone have any experience positive or negative?

P

Have a good think about the methods Randy Oliver suggests here http://scientificbeekeeping.com/small-scale-queenrearing/ you can almost certainly use them.

 

[madasafish]

My eyesight is terrible even with glasses. Old age..

I use Nicot.
Tips..
Ensure the breeder colony has a flow on or feed it at least a week before: or the queen will /may not be laying when you cage her.

Either gently wax the cups or cover them with a fine layer of honey before inserting the cage into the hive to be cleaned/absorb nest scent for 24 hours.

When inserting queen inside cage into brood nest for Q to lay, always ensure it's in the MIDDLE of the brood nest.

If you can't see young larvae at the bottom of cells very well, hold the cage up to the sun (or a torch) with the light shining through the cell bottoms (Or vice versa ,, both work) and look in the opposite side.. Makes seeing larvae much easier.



If I could see larvae , I still could not graft as my hand shakes a little..

 

[For want of a better word]

With the Nicot.... when you release the queen( Day 1... Day 0 is queen put in cage) you see loads of eggs.... 3 days later (when eggs supposed to hatch) all gone!... no larvae to put into started colony on day 5.Have tried putting cups with eggs straight into finisher on day one... against all what the books say and the Masters of Beekeepering dictate... and have had queens... not a lot.
Grafting from the smallest larvae I can see seems to give better results....

I need a pair of Poll Hives Magic specs!!!

 

[Beefriendly]

Try some Dentists Loupes, some good ones on fleabay for not much money. Most come with a light source, choice of mags, I'd stick with 2.5x as about right. They come with the glasses.....

 

[Cuckmere couple]

Would it be helpful if I posted up some pics of my DIY kit that you can make up for sub £20 if not £10?

PH

yes please PH

would be very helpful indeed

thanks all for guidance and comments too...very helpful

P

 

[Goran]

What about this heavy artillery I saw.. Friend of mine bought it.. and first I said when took it in my hands: what a job You'll have above all other high intense workload ( he plan to use it for royal jelly..).

http://www.charliebeekeeping.com/CQR-3-queen-rearing-system

About nicot.. I know couple beeks which had problems with it. Personally never tried.
I use jenter which is similar, also my mentor use it a lot. We use it with cloake board method and have no issues. We wax the insert cells, not sure how it would go with nicot, since in nicot insert cells and cell cup are in one piece.. When queen lay into jenter, it lays into normal size cell and later is attached to insert cell which is wider as queen cell. Maybe is that also the reason the queen unwillingly lay into wider cells of nicot?

Quote which could depict why we over here for ourselves use mostly kits and no grafting:
" Proper nutrition is critical and will determine if the caste of a
fertilized egg will become a queen or worker. The age of larva chosen to be reared as a
queen is also critical. Larvae should be grafted within 24 hours of egg hatch. Larval age
affects the quality and quantity of royal jelly received. Initially the diet is high is sugars,
stimulating a high rate of feeding. As the larva grow, the diet changes and increases in
protein content. The queen larval diet affects queen performance, influencing; queen
weight, the number of ovarioles, and the size and volume of the spermatheca. "