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Of my 5 apideas, 3 now have laying queens and 2 have absconded.
I have 4 virgins about to hatch and replace the mated queens.
Whats the best method.....spray all the bees again and pop Vs in as per first round ?
The rainbow minis have been a bit of a faff with lots of comb in the feeder and foundation strips falling off the frames. Apideas and mini lyson all great.
Get your round 2 queens in as cells rather than virgins to improve acceptance. Some people protect the cells, others don't bother in mini nucs. Once your virgins are out you can try them but they would be best quietly slipped into thoroughly queenless stock (with no opportunity to make their own).
You can get no better discussion of this topic on t'internet than right here :):
http://www.sbai.org.uk/sbai_forum/sh...-into-mini-nuc
The consensus was that cells are easiest but some have good success with virgins (caged, in colonies that really know they're queenless, or just put straight in).
Foundation strips? I cut to size, pour molten wax of the plastic section with the cell engraving and press the foundation onto that.. Does not fall off.Quote:
Originally Posted by greengumbo
But the bees love comb in the feeder - I think I'll fill them to the top of the feeder where the QE is to discourage that..
Cheers - I admit the original set up was a rush job so my strips were not fixed properly. That will learn me.Quote:
Originally Posted by madasafish
I cant put the ripe cells in in time unfortunately so they will have to be caged virgins.
Do I have to remove the brood prior and replace with new frames ?
Fun this ! Just wait until its all Amm :)
I don't nor does our Association Apiary..Quote:
Originally Posted by greengumbo
Excellent discussion - thanks Gavin.Quote:
Originally Posted by gavin
Some really good information in you guys brains. You should write a wee pamphlet !
SchhQuote:
Originally Posted by greengumbo
I will write a best selling ebook and charge £1 per download... no acknowledgements of others' inputs - of course :-)
wait till eveningQuote:
Originally Posted by greengumbo
wet the virgin with water slightly sweetened with sugar
(that stops her running about )
put her in the entrance of the mininuc without disturbing bees
cross fingers
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Cheers DR. Worked a treat for one apidea. The other one I knocked and disturbed so she got attacked at the entrance. I grabbed her, stuck her in a cage and popped in that way. Let her out a few days later.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Drone Ranger
When I checked yesterday both apideas have the virgins running about. I will leave them to get on with it :)
I have previously not had much success with putting virgins into colonies. However this year I brought home 4 that I 'pulled' from a colony I had been asked to help out with. One was caged for 24 hours and released onto the top bars. One was dunked in syrup and dropped into wet bees in an upside down mini-nuc and turned over. The others were let out straight into nucs with a bit of smoke. (Very few older bees in the colonies and apart from the mini-nuc, had been waiting for a queen so definitely queenless. All queens came good.
Would you use a butler cage for this? I hatched three queens I had raised in a cupkit (disappointing yield as I had put in 21 cups with eggs). I ran the queens into a mini nuc with a generous cupful of syrup soaked bees and they all took and mated (yay)
Will try again next year. Any thoughts about why only 3/21 eggs made it to queens? I used a Paynes polynuc as the host but it was stuffed with bees and stores. Is it to do with the size of the hive? Would I do better in a brood body? I used the polynuc because it was easier to look through and check there were no native queen cells that would hatch before my cup queens and murder them
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A Paynes nuc with an extra brood box full of bees would be better but of course that makes the searching for additional queen cells less easy (not so hard though!). The windy, showery, cool summer we're having is reducing the vigour of stocks and leading to poor takes when grafting. Only two set in one of my double Paynes this week and another 10 frame (and supered) queenless colony gave just 6 cells. Feeding before and after helps and a good supply of pollen near the grafts (or Candipolline over the top bars) (thanks Jeff!) makes a difference but the strike rate is still much lower than times when foraging was good.
Thanks Gavin that is both reassuring and helpful. I was doing more reading and think that I did not have enough nurse bees. Kate's excellent letter in this months magazine also made that point
In Ullapool we had a really lovely April and May a very cool wet June and then a mainly warm sunny July (beekeeping makes you think about these things)
I will try again next year and try in a brood body with lots of nurse bees. The pollen tip is a good one too. Anyway I was pleased with my three queens and now have my five colonies headed up by well laying 17 queens
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I hatched three queens I had raised in a cupkit (disappointing yield as I had put in 21 cups with eggs)
RDMW once the lava hatch and transfer them from the cassette to the cell raising bar
Leave the cassette where it is with all the other larva
Check next day to see how many are accepted
You can go back to the cassette and replace all the cell bar cups that failed
All these larva will still be the same age
You will then get more starts
Ah that's interesting. I transferred them at the egg stage. Was that too early? Sorry to be stupid but how do I know when they are "accepted"
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too early RDMW you have to wait till the eggs have hatchedQuote:
Originally Posted by RDMW
looking in the back of the cassette you pick the ones with the most royal jelly
use the white middle section of the cupkit system to pick up the brown cups
That is easier than using fingers
When you see eggs just take the white plug out of the front of the cassette
it takes the queen a little while but she will find the way out
Then wait till the eggs hatch before you go to the next stage of putting them on the cell bar
One day later check the cell bar if there is a ring of wax round the cell cup AND the larva is still there with a good supply of royal jelly that means the bees are trying to raise a queen ie the larva has been accepted
any empty ones replace them with other larva from the cassette as per previous post
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although this is an oldish thread
a nice German video here on youtube. Althought it is all in German, these beekeepers are clearly very organised and the relevant bit to this thread is at about 22minutes 45seconds in. Where they are setting up apideas and running virgins in to them, dunked in honey. You can also make out that the virgins already have disks stuck to their backs
I am convinced that on the odd occasion I have had a virgin come back and enter the wrong hive - although without a disk I could not be sure. I have some numbered disc somewhere but I have never used them.