Queen cells covered in comb

Tearing what's left of my hair out about this to be honest. On Friday I went into my cell raiser to put roller cages on some sealed QCs only to find that the bees had built comb all around them and connecting them. In the process of cutting it off to get the rollers on I damaged a few cells which is slightly frustrating to say the least.

Any suggestions for preventing this? Maybe using a different colony as a cell raiser if it's only certain colonies that are prone to this?

Cheers, Gerry

Hi Gerry
You can put in a foundationless frame with three strands of fishing line (50 lb) close but not next to the cells
They will build free comb on that and it helps keep them busy expecially if its there before the cells
Doesn't always work though
Feeding directly over the cells seems to make it worse
or possibly to avoid cells from Zorg syndrome you could move them to a cell finishing hive with a bit lazier bees :)

I was thinking these were my laziest lot DR ;) Thanks for the suggestions. One of the problems was that some of the QCs had cells which hadn't been started next to them so there was a bigger gap than there would have been with a better acceptance rate. Maybe my grafting needs to improve....

You can cage them soon after capping and this prevents all that brace comb … they just build it on the cages. Alternatively, I'd be tempted to not bother caging them at all and simply cut them out carefully just before putting the cells into the nucs for mating (I'm assuming that was their fate). They'll have filled with nectar by then and it'll be a sticky business.

I don't think grafting success will change this. If there's a strong flow on (and/or you're feeding) they can build brace comb between a full row of 'accepted' cells in a day or so (not this year though … nothing like good enough nectar flows here).

I like the foundationless frame idea and will give it a go though ...

Just cut a bit of the comb away and push the roller cage straight up and over the cell. This happens on a regular basis and the queens emerge ok.