Nicot System Queen rearing

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Queen Bee
Joined
Jul 28, 2008
Messages
6,344
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Location
Hampshire uk
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
6
I have a Nicot system queen rearing kit with all the bits.

It will be my first attempt at raising my own queens.
I have a couple of Queen rearing books.

One big tip I have been told is to put the Nicot kit in without the clear front for 24 hours to allow the bees to clean the cups.

Any other queen rearing tips would be great.
 
Toss it and learn to graft ,far less bother
 
Now thats the sort of comment I was looking for,I do have the metal graft tools so may give it a go.
 
Just go for it you will never regret it, with nicot you have to plan, go into hives to many times, just a pain.
 
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How many queens you are going to need?

Rearing is very easy if you use a hive which has swarming fewer.
 
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I would like to raise 10.

What do you do Finman?
You must of tried most techniques over the years?
 
I would like to raise 10.

What do you do Finman?
You must of tried most techniques over the years?

Former I made a hive queenles and gove them queen cell cups. I was not satisfied to results. In bad cases I got 2-3 virgins.

Now I use swarming hives and I change the larvae in queen cells. They rear them 100% and they will get best care. In "emercengy queen cell" rearing part of queen will be too small. They are not feeded enough.

Then I took the frame with queen cell or two and put into mating nuc when queens are near to emerge. If I transfer larvae in Sunady, they start to emerge in Thursday.

I take mating nucs 2 miles away. Succes rate is very good. Allmost 100%.
I rear about 30-40 queen per year.

Biggest problem is o get a mother hive from where I get larvae to rear.

I have Nikot system but I have not used that egg laying system. Protecting tubes are good.

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One thing in rearing queen is that hive will be out from honey production. That is why I prefer to use swarming hives because they are out of yield anyway for a while. And why not to take mating nuc bees from that same hive.

The rest of bees I may join to some another hive.
 
Thanks Finman top post.
So I could also use a swarm I have collected from my local area as the nurse hive?
 
I don't agree with Jim regarding
with nicot you have to plan, go into hives to many times, just a pain.
Yes we have to place the 'Kit' into a hive 48 hours before inserting the queen. How I use the 'Cupkit' system is as follows.

Introduce the Kit minus the front cover. Let the bees walk all over it to get the hive 'smell' on it. Leave for 24-48 hrs.
After the time replace the front cover and insert the queen (its not difficult if she is marked) then close the stopper.
I leave for 24-48 hours and go back to the hive and let the queen out and remove the kit.
I would have repaired my queen cell holder and the next bit is easy. Check there is an egg in the small brown cup (it should have some royal jelly) and attach it to the cell building frame. Which must have been placed in the breed hive as the bees will put there pheromone all around the cups and when you insert it with the eggs they will accept it no problems.
Place the frame in the big breeder colony.
Check in 5 days to make sure things are OK. Then you need to prepare for the number of queens that the bees are raising.

Before all this takes place we must ensure the queen we are breeding from is what we want our future queens to become. (Not always possible, genetics)

I find there is a surplus of eggs but then I freeze some and also preserve some for microscopy purposes.
I use mini nuc's for my queens to become mated in.

Regards;
 
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If you make queenless the hive, this very handy way to get queen cells in good places.
Foundation is not attractive to bees.

Put it in the middle of larvae frames which has most of nurser bees.
Cut the frame swhich allready has larvae.


millerfound.gif
 
Sorry for confusion Finman.

Last season I collected a few swarms and was thinking of using one of these as nurse bees after a period of quarantine as they would not produce honey next year.

Good advice regards placing bars in hive before adding cell cups because I would of waited and failed
 
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If you make queenless the hive, this very handy way to get queen cells in good places.
Foundation is not attractive to bees.

Put it in the middle of larvae frames which has most of nurser bees.
Cut the frame swhich allready has larvae.


millerfound.gif

WOW what a tip,never seen or read this before.
 
What Finman is refering to is what we call the miller method. this is a link that explains this from the cushman site,been around for years. I still prefer the grafting method using a sable brush,but also see nothing wrong with the cupkit system either, if this is what you prefer. in each method the aim is simply to get the larvae in a cup to produce good queens,both methods do this,you do however need to be more careful with the grafting,where in the cupkit you do not touch the young larvae,so less chance of harm to them.

http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/cellstarting.html
 
I still prefer the grafting method using a sable brush,but also see nothing wrong with the cupkit system either, ]

I use only a part of Miller method, if I use it.

This only one way to get 10-15 queen cells in proper place and then you change the larvae. I prefer crafting. So I get small proper age larvae.

*** THE TEMPERATURE OF REARING FRAME is very important.
*** You must PROTECT queen cells from emercengy queens which may emerge where ever in the hive during 10 days.

Last time when I used Miller system, bees made combs over two queen cells.
I noticed those cells when I extracted honey from that frame. Two cells were under capped honey. When I raised queens, it was a good honey flow. They filled the gap with comb.

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Michael Bush use to teach easy queen rearing methods but his idea is natural queen change. He do not select queens or kill old queens. "Let nature do it".
 
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