Point with a finisher hive?

[tindam188]

I have been looking at this method of queen rearing where you put larvae into artificial cells then into a starter hive then into finisher to finish the building of cups, is it true that the finisher hive has queen in? would the queen swarm?

My main question though is whats the point in a finisher hive? Could you just leave the cells in the starter untill fully developed etc... then into a mating hive.

Thanks in advance, TINDAM188

 

[drstitson]

finisher can be any strong queen right colony.

no - bees won't swarm.

take a look at morris board method if you want a simpler approach.

 

[Red Bee]

finisher can be any strong queen right colony.

no - bees won't swarm.

take a look at morris board method if you want a simpler approach.

What a brilliant non answer, love it lol

 

[Adam]

I have been looking at this method of queen rearing where you put larvae into artificial cells then into a starter hive then into finisher to finish the building of cups, is it true that the finisher hive has queen in? would the queen swarm?

My main question though is whats the point in a finisher hive? Could you just leave the cells in the starter untill fully developed etc... then into a mating hive.

Thanks in advance, TINDAM188

The starter hive may be a hopelessly queenless, broodless artificial swarm, which have the entrance blocked. E.g. you add bees to a box, with some pollen and syrup and when you add the queen cells, they will start drawing them as they haven't got much choice. In the long run, you want to move them into a finisher, which has lots of bees to continue the feeding, and isn't so stressed. Often, a queen right finisher is used (although not neccasarily) with the queen kept in the lower box via a queen excluder, and the cells placed in an upper broodchamber between frames of young brood and lots of pollen. This encourages nurse bees up to look after the brood, and also to continue feeding the (already started) queen cells.

This is well described by the NBU here: https://secure.fera.defra.gov.uk/beebase/downloadDocument.cfm?id=36


Adam

 

[drstitson]

BTW you'll need more than 1 colony to graft and use a starter and finisher!!!!!

i'll rehash my non answer - look to the morris board - get your colony as strong as possible in early spring and then you can produce a couple of good queen cells (1-5) every 6 days allowing you to make up a nuc every week or so.

 

[Chris B]

A queenless starter colony will readily begin queen cells from grafts but will not be able to nourish the larvae properly beyond 24 hours.

A queenright strong finisher colony will happily continue these queen cells (even if it wouldn't have started them so readily). It also has the resources to nourish them properly.

I used this approach 3 times this spring and it worked well, but I'm not sure it was much better than a simpler method. I'll try again next year though.

 

[fatshark]

Using the Ben Harden method you have the starter and the finisher as the same hive ... and you can even graft from the same one as well. Possibly even easier than the Morris board method; all you need is a second brood box and two "fat dummies" to squeeze the bees in the upper box around the grafts.

Works very well. Further details on the Dave Cushman site (of course).

 

[mbc]

A queenright cell finisher produces better fed, larger virgin queens suposedly raised under the supercedure cell raising principal with potentially more ( or larger -cant remember )oviaroles than virgins raised by queenless cell finishers by the emergency principal.
Never had a queen from a cell finisher swarm but I expect she would if the bees wanted her to

 

[For want of a better word]

Never had a queen from a cell finisher swarm but I expect she would if the bees wanted her to

? not if she is caged on hatching?...... but if she got loose?????
just a thought......

finish incubation in an incubator... or is that not natural enough?

 

[mbc]

Had virgins hatch early above an excluder on a cell finisher several times and it causes no end of trouble but the mated queen below hasnt swarmed on me - yet

 

[Hivemaker.]

finish incubation in an incubator.

It is the method most professional queen producers use.