Queenless Cell Starter

[YHB]

Hi All,

i am going to try Randy Olivers Queens for Pennies and set up a 2 - 3 Nucs as Queenless Cell Starter / Finishers.

i have 4 hives set up as support hives to take capped brood to create the Nucs 6 - 8 weeks prior to proposed queen rearing date.

i was wondering how long it takes a hive to become a drone laying worker colony? or if i cycle the frames for new capped brood every few weeks will this not happen?

 

[Ian123]

I don’t know the process he’s suggesting have you got a link.
I use a queenless cell starter/finisher this is a single brood wall to wall mainly sealed brood. When the first batch of cells is ready they go out to queenless nucs, you can break this cell raiser up for more nucs or add brood for another round even if only a few frames. Many of the nurse bees in the box are still of the right age. The box should be literally overflowing with bees.

 

[jeff33]

Hi All,

i am going to try Randy Olivers Queens for Pennies and set up a 2 - 3 Nucs as Queenless Cell Starter / Finishers.

i have 4 hives set up as support hives to take capped brood to create the Nucs 6 - 8 weeks prior to proposed queen rearing date.

i was wondering how long it takes a hive to become a drone laying worker colony? or if i cycle the frames for new capped brood every few weeks will this not happen?

Create queenless nucs 5-6 weeks prior to queen rearing? You should use nurse bees to feed your queen cells, not 5 weeks old bees. Your cell starter should be set up the day before grafting or even the same day so long as it's full of nurse bees and the frames within are emerging brood.

 

[YHB]

This is the link.

https://scientificbeekeeping.com/queens-for-pennies/
This was my queenless starter and queen right finisher using a cloake board last year. Sadly all my queens died.

Going to a simple approach this year with the Nucs.

That’s why I was wondering how long it takes a colony to become drone laying workers

Create queenless nucs 5-6 weeks prior to queen rearing? You should use nurse bees to feed your queen cells, not 5 weeks old bees. Your cell starter should be set up the day before grafting or even the same day so long as it's full of nurse bees and the frames within are emerging brood.

the reason i am setting it up 6 - 8 weeks prior, is so i can stuff it full of bees. then have ideally at last 2 rounds of capped brood emerge as i rotate in 4 frames of capped brood at least every 10 days from my support hive which should be on there third brood box. then i will drop in a pollen frame facing the grafts and i will feed it. i will take out the stores frames, make a space for the grafts or a graft frame. then i wll give the hive an undrawn frame with foundation to work on. depending how big the colony gets to, i may even drop a second box on and mirror the bottom box.


however, my question is how long does it take for a colony to become a drone laying worker? or with rotating capped brood into the hive every 10 days will i not need to worry about that?

 

[rolande]

It's not just a case of how long it takes a colony to clearly present as a laying worker unit (they say that there are always laying workers in the colony, but in normal circumstances they're policed in such a way as to not become an issue) because this will vary widely between different colonies. There's also the issue of the colony simply losing what I'm going to call 'heart' if you keep it queenless for that long, hardly the ideal environment for raising the very best queens.

 

[jeff33]

It's not just a case of how long it takes a colony to clearly present as a laying worker unit (they say that there are always laying workers in the colony, but in normal circumstances they're policed in such a way as to not become an issue) because this will vary widely between different colonies. There's also the issue of the colony simply losing what I'm going to call 'heart' if you keep it queenless for that long, hardly the ideal environment for raising the very best queens.

yes, fully agree with Rolande, colonies will only be responsive for a small period of time if left constently queenless and given round after round of cells. You should only do a couple of rounds with cell starters and rotate them throughout the season...before it turns into a puppy (queen) farm!!

PS, thanks for the link but unlikely to watch it based on the recommended approach

 

[Poly Hive]

My top tips are forget anything from across the pond as the conditions are totally different to ours.

I raised hundreds of queens using a queenless starter box which after three rounds of cell starting was given a cell to make them a nuc. So no wastage.

Unless you need dozens of queens why over complicate? KISS You say you have 3 hives..... so maybe calm it a bit??

PH

 

[YHB]

yes, fully agree with Rolande, colonies will only be responsive for a small period of time if left constently queenless and given round after round of cells. You should only do a couple of rounds with cell starters and rotate them throughout the season...before it turns into a puppy (queen) farm!!

PS, thanks for the link but unlikely to watch it based on the recommended approach

okay, thanks

 

[YHB]

My top tips are forget anything from across the pond as the conditions are totally different to ours.

I raised hundreds of queens using a queenless starter box which after three rounds of cell starting was given a cell to make them a nuc. So no wastage.

Unless you need dozens of queens why over complicate? KISS You say you have 3 hives..... so maybe calm it a bit??

PH

thanks for these points they are appreciated. i currently have 30 hives and i need 40 - 50 queens to replace my current stock. we are expanding to 50 production colonies with 8 brood factories. depending how well get on we are also looking to have 20 - 30 Nucs going into winter.


each year i will need to successfully graft 75 - 100 queens from a breeder queen, but i dont want to buy a breeder until we have the process nailed. already have 20 queens coming from border honey as a stop gap for this year.

 

[jeff33]

thanks for these points they are appreciated. i currently have 30 hives and i need 40 - 50 queens to replace my current stock. we are expanding to 50 production colonies with 8 brood factories. depending how well get on we are also looking to have 20 - 30 Nucs going into winter.


each year i will need to successfully graft 75 - 100 queens from a breeder queen, but i dont want to buy a breeder until we have the process nailed. already have 20 queens coming from border honey as a stop gap for this year.

If you are looking to raise that many queens the nuc cell raiser may not be the best option. Look at Mike Palmer cell raiser, I think he can raise around 30-40 Qcs at the time. You need a lot of resources to deal with the cells afterwards. Personally not sure if 30 hives is sufficient, those who work on this scale will be better placed to say

 

[Ian123]

If you are looking to raise that many queens the nuc cell raiser may not be the best option. Look at Mike Palmer cell raiser, I think he can raise around 30-40 Qcs at the time. You need a lot of resources to deal with the cells afterwards. Personally not sure if 30 hives is sufficient, those who work on this scale will be better placed to say

Perfectly possible rather depends if you have enough nuc boxes!
Let’s say you make up 25 nucs end of April these need be no more than a decent frame of stores, collect now from left over stores. A frame of sealed brood/bees and shake of bees from say 2 other frames. This is ample for receiving a cell and when brood emerges gives a good covering on say 3 frames in a nuc box.
Let’s say 20 of these successfully mate I’d leave the first queens to lay up as much area as possible when this starts to emerge that’s a full 5 frame box….ish. You can then remove queens and split these nucs simply by taking a frame of brood and bees another store frame and removing the existing nuc/turn the entrance You leave this small unit to collect flyers, you’ve done a artificial swarm of sorts. I’d suggest you can do this an easy 3 times doubling your numbers with no more reduction on your main hives other than the first few frames. All sorts you can do it’s fun and games!

Of course it’s not as easy as that but you can top up failed nucs with a frame of emerging bees from main hives or make up a few extra nucs from cell raisers. Some nucs can be moved to single broods some come the end of season may need to be united, come the end of main flow some can be put into position of large hives with caged queen and you’ll end up with a decent single box hive.

 

[jeff33]

Perfectly possible rather depends if you have enough nuc boxes!
Let’s say you make up 25 nucs end of April these need be no more than a decent frame of stores, collect now from left over stores. A frame of sealed brood/bees and shake of bees from say 2 other frames. This is ample for receiving a cell and when brood emerges gives a good covering on say 3 frames in a nuc box.
Let’s say 20 of these successfully mate I’d leave the first queens to lay up as much area as possible when this starts to emerge that’s a full 5 frame box….ish. You can then remove queens and split these nucs simply by taking a frame of brood and bees another store frame and removing the existing nuc/turn the entrance You leave this small unit to collect flyers, you’ve done a artificial swarm of sorts. I’d suggest you can do this an easy 3 times doubling your numbers with no more reduction on your main hives other than the first few frames. All sorts you can do it’s fun and games!

Of course it’s not as easy as that but you can top up failed nucs with a frame of emerging bees from main hives or make up a few extra nucs from cell raisers. Some nucs can be moved to single broods some come the end of season may need to be united, come the end of main flow some can be put into position of large hives with caged queen and you’ll end up with a decent single box hive.

Good tips Ian, may try this myself.

 

[YHB]

If you are looking to raise that many queens the nuc cell raiser may not be the best option. Look at Mike Palmer cell raiser, I think he can raise around 30-40 Qcs at the time. You need a lot of resources to deal with the cells afterwards. Personally not sure if 30 hives is sufficient, those who work on this scale will be better placed to say

its not going to be easy, last i did follow the Mike palmer / Richard Noel method for a cell starter. thats what i have in the photo. that is one of 4 brood factories that where on doubles. i swapped out the one shown that was ready to swarm and was overflowing, i them removed uncapped frames and transferred in 11 frames of capped brood in the top box. i came out every fews days to knock down cells in the bottom box. then on graft day, i added in more frames of emerging brood, two pollen frames and shook in all but three frames of bees from the bottom box. i then rotated the existing hive entrance 180., with the cloake board being the new existing entrance for the foragers. the frame in the picture was 15 minutes after i put the grafts in.


once they book i shut the bottom box entrance and pulled out the divider making it queen right again. then i repeated the process and dropped the cells into the swarming hives adjcent as finishers. in the end i put through 3 frames of around 60 grafts, i got 40ish but not one emerged. i didnt feed and i should have done.

i also placed my planned breeder in an abelo queen trap with two empty frames 3 days before i needed the larvae, so i would have the right age. then i swapped out the laid up frames for empty ones from my brood factories so i had a constant supply of correctly aged larvae. this is why i wanted to try something smaller but with the same overload principle. Randy Oliver says you can rotate around 50 queens in one of the Nucs, but i also appreciate he is at the top of the game i am not.

 

[YHB]

Perfectly possible rather depends if you have enough nuc boxes!
Let’s say you make up 25 nucs end of April these need be no more than a decent frame of stores, collect now from left over stores. A frame of sealed brood/bees and shake of bees from say 2 other frames. This is ample for receiving a cell and when brood emerges gives a good covering on say 3 frames in a nuc box.
Let’s say 20 of these successfully mate I’d leave the first queens to lay up as much area as possible when this starts to emerge that’s a full 5 frame box….ish. You can then remove queens and split these nucs simply by taking a frame of brood and bees another store frame and removing the existing nuc/turn the entrance You leave this small unit to collect flyers, you’ve done a artificial swarm of sorts. I’d suggest you can do this an easy 3 times doubling your numbers with no more reduction on your main hives other than the first few frames. All sorts you can do it’s fun and games!

Of course it’s not as easy as that but you can top up failed nucs with a frame of emerging bees from main hives or make up a few extra nucs from cell raisers. Some nucs can be moved to single broods some come the end of season may need to be united, come the end of main flow some can be put into position of large hives with caged queen and you’ll end up with a decent single box hive.

i understand i need a lot of brood, as i mentioned i have support hives / brood factories that are only for brood rearing. i have 4 that are on doubles on drawn frames. i am going to add a third box to each hive with drawn frames. i am hoping to have 88 - 132 frames i can draw from to build up a cell starter hive or Nuc(s). my plan would be to overload the Nucs with emerging brood every 2 weeks from these hives. i also have an incubator so i can either setup one of the support hives as a finisher with an QE between the 2nd and 3rd brood box or rotate the capped cells into the incubator.

i guess in the end you just have to have a go and see what happens

 

[Ian123]

I think you’re over complicating it, your first nucs to receive cells can be tiny a frame of food and enough bees to cover the brood you put in, it’s effectively a mini nuc you simply need a good single box of bees for a cell raiser/finisher and that realistically could provide 40 plus cells. Simply move out to nucs a couple of days before emergence. Ensure nucs are made up at such a time as they have nothing they can make a cell from. They will try! Your main hives will not miss the bees at that time of year. These nucs become self sustaining you should end up with more bees than you know what to do with

 

[jeff33]

I think you’re over complicating it, your first nucs to receive cells can be tiny a frame of food and enough bees to cover the brood you put in, it’s effectively a mini nuc you simply need a good single box of bees for a cell raiser/finisher and that realistically could provide 40 plus cells. Simply move out to nucs a couple of days before emergence. Ensure nucs are made up at such a time as they have nothing they can make a cell from. They will try! Your main hives will not miss the bees at that time of year. These nucs become self sustaining you should end up with more bees than you know what to do with

I have made a 3x3 frames + 1x 2frames mating hive out of a national brood box. The BB has grooves down the sides to slide some 3mm ply as partition. The hive is usually used to mate queens and start small colonies with 1 frame of brood. depending on the scenario (expand, queen failed, etc), I can either rehive, remove a partition to combine, etc.

In the past I have used it as a cell starter using the full 11 frames and when the cells were ready, I partitioned the hive making 4 small colonies out of what was in the box and gave them a Qc each.

 

[Ian123]

I have made a 3x3 frames + 1x 2frames mating hive out of a national brood box. The BB has grooves down the sides to slide some 3mm ply as partition. The hive is usually used to mate queens and start small colonies with 1 frame of brood. depending on the scenario (expand, queen failed, etc), I can either rehive, remove a partition to combine, etc.

In the past I have used it as a cell starter using the full 11 frames and when the cells were ready, I partitioned the hive making 4 small colonies out of what was in the box and gave them a Qc each.

Hi sounds good and perfectly usable. I moved to 5 frame nucs simply for ease and I had a cheap supply for a job lot some years ago. I got fed up with mini nucs and the attention they require! Smaller boxes have advantages but they also have drawbacks. Larger boxes use the same frames. Simply put just don’t fill them with bees. They happily operate on 2-3 frames with spares each side, no constant need to reduce numbers they can be left to expand or just sit on a couple of frames. Even on five frame nucs come peak time you can be removing stores knocking them back.

 

[joebeewhisperer]

however, my question is how long does it take for a colony to become a drone laying worker? or with rotating capped brood into the hive every 10 days will i not need to worry about that?

In principle, almost indefinitely if open larvae is continuously cycled in. But I agree with the other poster who said they will lose heart. This may be due to colony-balancing pheromones we don’t yet know about.

Yesterday I removed all queen cells from a packed 6 over 6-frame Lyson poly nuc (queen and entourage moved 6 days prior). A few minutes later I set in a grafted frame. Depending on weather I may let them cap the cells (day 5-6) then move to an incubator, or move the cells over an excluder in a larger queen-right hive. If I finish them in the larger hive I’ll place a frame of open larvae beside them, and pollen if readily available.

I generally give them a mated queen within 21 days. So I can let them cap 2 rounds, or I can move them to a finisher and get 3 (or more if I wanted to push them). I plan to shut down much earlier this year so I’ll likely go with 2 rounds. I think you have to make up your mind how long, but with the addition of open larvae, I haven’t had laying workers. This introduces another caveat if you forget to remove new QCs on the open larvae frame(s).