Using queen cells on day 3 after grafting.

[Plenty of honey]

so, i am asking this question as my colleague tells me its becoming popular by some queen and nuc rearers in France. i would be really interested to hear what everyone thinks. to me it has merit.

Firstly, you insert a started cell in to a queen less colony, in this case it would be a recently made up mating nuc. (Mini-Plus for us here)

The bees have no other cells started or if so, its probably a 24 hour cell at the max.
They treat this cell as their own, they in effect, are acting as this cell"s finisher.

Their only finishing one cell you've put in there, so if your nuc has good stores, the have more than enough to make this a really well fed cell.

Frees up your cell builder quicker, and your not having to manage nutrition in the cell builder for the next two days.

The main thing that gets my alarm bells ringing is, transport of said 3 day old (after grafting) unclosed cells is very tricky. You have to transport them extremely carefully, but upside down and they are prone to chilling more easily.
We will be trying this next Monday, grafts went in yesterday. Mating nucs made up tomorrow. If this works it will save me time and i cant see any reason why it cant be used queening full blown nucs after the summer flow!

Very interested to hear who has tried this before?

 

[For want of a better word]

I wonder if this would work using a 3 day larvae in a "push thru" cell punch... would be easy to mod up one of the mating nuc frames to take the Terry clip??
Plus the frame to be punched could be taken to the nucs easilly.

Food for thought... thanks!

Yeghes da

 

[Queenman]

Larry Conner has an article on using 4 day cells.

 

[Anduril]

Larry Conner has an article on using 4 day cells.

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&s...VvSoeTzt8LKKiqRSQ&sig2=Jgqk5u36krEyjE51CISqwg I believe this is the article, very interesting.

 

[mbc]

I read about this and so gave it a go, I didn't like it, some worked and some didn't but it was the uncertainty that did my head in, without checking to see if the cell was accepted too many of my mating nucs were hanging around in limbo without a viable queen for my liking.

 

[nantmoel]

Latest Graft

Last Sunday I grafted 20 cell cups, I put these into a Q- starter that was made up 24 hours before I grafted. They were left in the starter which consists of 2 frames of pollen and honey, in a closed ventilated box rammed with bees, for 24 hours (I also feed 1:1 syrup). I removed them from this starter and put them in two Q+ hives (10 grafts per hive). I'm really pleased with the results 13/20.. I then move them into an incubator where hopefully in 7 days time they will start to emerge.

SORRY posted this in the wrong place and can't remove it!

 

[piggy]

larry connor says he has transported cells 48hrs after grafting without the need for heat, I presume up side down with the spike part of a jz bz cup pushed into Styrofoam.
.

 

[Plenty of honey]

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&s...VvSoeTzt8LKKiqRSQ&sig2=Jgqk5u36krEyjE51CISqwg I believe this is the article, very interesting.

Thanks for posting this Anduril! all i can say is ours went in fine, but you need your cells close to your mating nucs, and you need warm weather, to reduce the chance of getting them chilled. (well according to the article Larry Connor says this isn't a real issue) Will report back on the result!
We made up 40 mini-Plus like this, upside down and very carefully. kept them away from any wind. it was about 23 degrees C so that really helped too. Making more up next week.