Time in Apidea

[Geo224]

I have some Apidea nucs out now.

Once a Q has mated how long do people leave them to lay in the Apidea for?

I'm planning on making up some queenless 14 x 12 nucs ready to accept my mated Q's, apart from introducing the Q in a cage, can or has anyone placed an Apidea on top of a nuc and united the Q that way?

[Jon]

This Rhodes and Denney link I posted before suggests leaving the queen in the apidea for 28-35 days from emergence.
At a minimum I would wait until there is sealed brood so you can check it is worker brood and a reasonable pattern.

[Beefever]

Yes, up to now I've often done this over the feed hole with newspaper and a small piece of zinc queen excluder (really cautious). But now I want a quicker turn around to use the Apidea again. So my question is –
Once you've removed the queen from an Apidea, how long before you can introduce another queen cell and does it need protecting?
I believe it is safer to introduce a cell rather than a virgin in this instance.

[fatshark]

I've united them but it's a bit of a palaver (involving a Heath Robinson crown board and various straps - made worse by the fact that I use Kielers that have small feet which get in the way) and a waste of a populated mini-nuc in my view. The bees know they're queenless within minutes of the mated queen's removal. I usually leave them a 2-3 hours and then add a new cell. This timing is as much to do with recovering the new sealed cells and distributing the mated queens ... I suspect you could do it pretty much simultaneously.

[Jon]

I do the same as fatshark. A couple of hours is plenty and if you leave it several days they will make their own cell from a larva in the apidea.
I don't believe I have ever had a cell torn down over a period of 4 years involving hundreds of cells introduced to apideas.
It would only happen if there were a queen already in the apidea.
I have no idea who invented that cell protector stuff you read about but it seems to me to be unnecessary.
I move cells between cell raiser colonies all the time and they are always perfectly happy to take cells from anywhere.

I made a mesh adapter to unite the contents of two apideas via the feed compartment using an apidea super on top.
You could also do a heath robinson with an apidea on top with the floor removed and some gaffer tape but the super is neater.

can or has anyone placed an Apidea on top of a nuc and united the Q that way

A lot of people do that and a lot of them loose queens as you are uniting a few hundred bees with several thousand.
if I was going to do that I would cage the queen in an introduction cage in the apidea for a couple of days.

[Kate Atchley]

Thanks ... I have a number of laying queens approaching 28-35 days of age and had planned to unite some directly from their Apideas but I will not risk that having read your comments, Jon.

Please confirm for me: if I am introducing a queen to a nuc she goes in the cage alone and has 5 or so workers with her if she has to travel. Is that right?

Would some of you like to describe the good brood pattern we're looking for with the newly-laying queens? Some of mine have a fairly pepper-pot pattern at first but then the sealed cells are solid once she has been round again. There is some drone brood in one: is that a sign of poor mating or might it be okay for drones to be laid in the Apidea?

And how much does size matter? One queen is smaller than usual but her laying seems fine.

[Jon]

Please confirm for me: if I am introducing a queen to a nuc she goes in the cage alone and has 5 or so workers with her if she has to travel. Is that right?

I usually introduce queens with attendants in the cage. Some people say not to but I usually get queens introduced successfully like this.

Would some of you like to describe the good brood pattern we're looking for with the newly-laying queens? Some of mine have a fairly pepper-pot pattern at first but then the sealed cells are solid once she has been round again. There is some drone brood in one: is that a sign of poor mating or might it be okay for drones to be laid in the Apidea?

Solid pattern is best. Could be a sign of poor mating but I would not worry unless really bad.

And how much does size matter? One queen is smaller than usual but her laying seems fine.

I don't worry about the size of the queen if it lays well.

The easiest way to introduce a queen is to a couple of frames of sealed brood covered with young bees.
It is much easier to requeen young bees than old bees.

[Kate Atchley]

The easiest way to introduce a queen is to a couple of frames of sealed brood covered with young bees.
It is much easier to requeen young bees than old bees.

I will prepare a few like that. Had thought I might shake bees from supers to ensure they are young. Or would you move the brood frames with their attendant bees?

[Jon]

Or would you move the brood frames with their attendant bees?

I would take two frames of sealed brood and then shake in more bees off open brood as the open brood will have younger bees covering it.
Ideally you take bees in one place and move to another to avoid losing the flying bees.
Wedge the cage between the two frames with the tab closed.
Put in a frame of stores and a frame of drawn comb as well.
Check 24 hours later and if the bees are calm and not trying to kill the queen, open the tab.
Don't rush. If the bees are aggressive towards the cage leave it another day or two.
She should be out 24-48 hours after the tab is opened.
leave alone for a week before pulling frames and looking for the queen and don't try to mark and/or clip until she has been laying for a couple of weeks. You could check she is out of the cage 48 hours after opening the tab.
They can be a bit nervous with a new queen and could kill her if disturbed too much.
been there done that with a queen just started to lay and you feel pretty stupid when you find a box full of emergency queen cells a week later.

[Dark Bee]

Thanks ... .................................................. .................................................W ould some of you like to describe the good brood pattern we're looking for with the newly-laying queens? Some of mine have a fairly pepper-pot pattern at first but then the sealed cells are solid once she has been round again. There is some drone brood in one: is that a sign of poor mating or might it be okay for drones to be laid in the Apidea?

And how much does size matter? One queen is smaller than usual but her laying seems fine.

It may be of some slight interest to know that one of the characteristics of the native bee is to store pollen under the brood nest.
Too much of a pepper pot pattern on a brood frame can indicate inbreeding.
In a pure breed of bee I would expect uniformity of size, in cross bred bees size variations would not be abnormal. But perhaps the Q. in question had not come into full lay?