Q Rearing questions

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darrenperrett

Field Bee
Joined
Jan 17, 2009
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Location
Devon
Hive Type
14x12
Number of Hives
10
My Q cells are due to hatch next Sunday so:

Is it better make up some mini nukes with and pop in a Q cell just before hatching or run in a virgin ?

Is it ok to use Neopoll in the mini nuke feeder and as Q release in a Q cage ?

How much foundation do you use as a starter strip ?

Darren.
 
Eggs hatch. Queens emerge.

If you are simply cutting out queen cells then you have no choice other than giving a ripe queen cell.

Alternatively, if you have a queen rearing frame with nursery cages then you can run in virgin queens, and this has got to be the best option.
 
Thanks MB
They`re in a Q rearing frame and will have nursery cages on. I just wasn`t sure which was the most reliable option.

Darren.
 
I nearly always run in a newly emerged virgin for the first setting up of the mini nuc's,and ripe queen cells after the removal of the mated queen.
In the feed compartment i use fondant,and narrow starter strips about half inch deep,this strip is bent L shape and held to the top bar with two drawing pins.
 
The guidelines on the BIBBA site recommend adding the queen cells about three days before the queen is due to emerge and then opening the nuc the day after she emerges. I have followed this timetable this week, filling the nucs on Monday, emergence on Thursday (they seemed much quieter on this day) and opening them on Friday.

But running in a virgin is also practised and has I guess the advantage is it allows the beekeeper to check she has all the necessary legs and wings etc. I hope to raise a second batch of queen cells and will probably add the queens after they have emerged. This is because the mating site is a 30 minutes drive from my house and I don't want to carry sealed queen cells in my car for that long as they may get chilled or damaged by vibration.
 
Sorry if this is a stupid question but what is "running in a virgin queen"?

Running in?
 
"running in" is using a hatched virgin queen, opposed to using a ripe queen cell, running in is when you introduce her to the prepared mini-nuc.Well that's how I have always understood it.
 
It is exactly what it says - allowing the new queen to run into the hive.

Another method is placing queen in a cage and allowing the bees to release her later.

Another might be to hatch her into a nuc and then unite the colonies.

Regards, RAB
 
My mini nuc top bars are grooved. I offer up the wax to the groove and with a small paint brush I paint molten wax to seal them together. The wax strip is about a half inch.

The normal way to organise these units is to put inj a virgin the first time and then a cell there after.

I can write up the whole management if there are enough interested?

PH
 
Thanks everyone, all replies appreciated :cheers2:

I hadn`t thought about using with a virgin and then follow with a cell.

I can write up the whole management if there are enough interested?

PH

I`d be interested PH, then i`ll know what went wrong :eek:

Darren.
 
Min Nuc

Hi P/H, I for one would be very grateful if you would find the time to write up the process in full,us novices need all the help we can get.May be this should be a sticky.Thanks in anticipation.Ainsie :cheers2:
 
I would also be very interested PH :)
 
I'm in too.
 
Perils of Queen Rearing

I inspected my mini-nucs today, two days after they went to the mating site and 3 days after the queens emerged.

I went through them all and checked the queens had emerged from their cells and removed the remains of the cells. All went fine but one cell appeared still sealed. I removed it anyway and was preparing to unit the mini-nuc with another, assuming the queen had not emerged, but curiosity got the better of me and I opened up the sealed queen cell - to find a dead worker entombed in there. I have read about this but not seen it before. Some hapless worker had gone in for a sniff around and been walled in by her mates. Charming. A lesson learned - the cell looked very normal but slightly shorter than expected, which was perhaps the only clue. The original queen cells were all quite long but this one when I first saw it was short but the end was very well closed - you couldn't see the join, so to speak.

I also found them all without food of any sort. I had given them a commercial beefood containing pollen but I hadn't a lot at the time so split 1kg amongst 9 mini-nucs. This turned out to be far too little, they had all scoffed the lot in 7 days and were a bit nippy too, so I guess they were hungry and more than a bit upset at me. I had forgotton to bring more food and for a moment I was tempted to leave them be for another day and visit them again tomorrow but then I realised why so few bees were flying from the mini-nucs. These were all young bees harvested from brood frames so I suspect most of them couldn't fly and therefore the little colonies had few foragers to collect their own food. I made the one hour round trip journey home and came back with 2 kg of bee food and distributed that amongst them.

Lssons learned were don't assume a sealed queen cell has failed, the bees may have repaired it and always ensure mini-nucs have food, at least until they have a reasonable amount of foragers but even then their stores are very limited so they can't survive long in bad weather if they don't have additional supplements from the beekeeper.
 
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Lessons learned were don't assume a sealed queen cell has failed, the bees may have repaired it and always ensure mini-nucs have food, at least until they have a reasonable amount of foragers but even then their stores are very limited so they can't survive long in bad weather if they don't have additional supplements from the beekeeper.

Oh wonderful, something else that's never black and white! How often does this happen? Going to top up the stores on my minis tomorrow. Hopefully two queens ready to fly...in between showers :S.
 

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