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Thread: Queen Rearing pdfs

  1. #61
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    Will Griffiths outlined his system of raising a queen in an apidea in an article in the WBKA mag some time ago. I'm not convinced, for me a cell raiser should be at least double brood and very populous. I suppose it depends on how many cells you're after.

  2. #62

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    I have in the past, at the end of the season,after the main cell raisers have been packed up, but still maybe time for a mini nuc to raise and get a queen mated, done a single graft, in strong mini nucs, after any emergency cells they have raised have been destroyed, the one cell has had the full attention of plenty of young bees.

  3. #63
    Senior Member prakel's Avatar
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    edit: reply to mbc, post 61.

    I'm sort of on the fence here, I can't say that the idea of raising a cell in an apidea sits well with me but then, I don't have the experience of apidea management to make a genuine judgement call on what can be done with them, at the same time I don't wish to contradict my own belief that, assuming they're ready, the density of bees in the box, irrespective of how large it is, has an important bearing on how well the cells are started. Is there any chance at all of getting an online link to Will Griffiths' article? I think that it may be worth a read even if not entirely applicable to my own situation.

  4. #64
    Senior Member prakel's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pete L View Post
    I have in the past, at the end of the season,after the main cell raisers have been packed up, but still maybe time for a mini nuc to raise and get a queen mated, done a single graft, in strong mini nucs, after any emergency cells they have raised have been destroyed, the one cell has had the full attention of plenty of young bees.
    Excellent information, nothing like practical application to find the truth of a thing.

  5. #65
    Senior Member fatshark's Avatar
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    I've let Kieler mini-nucs raise a scrub queen between my own grafted cells. If you remove the mated queen they rapidly raise a small number of cells. I knock all but the best looking off and let them get on with it. It works, but the queens tend to be on the small side (though I acknowledge this isn't the same as being poor) and I've never had the confidence to use them other than a stop-gap measure to keep the mini-nuc populated for a later round of grafting. This would generally be in a 4-5 frame Kieler (single height), so probably a few more bees than an Apidea.

    Like many other posters here I use the Ben Harden system. I've built fat dummies with a feeder for syrup and give them 100-200ml of syrup a day until the cells are capped (Dave Cushman has instructions for these*). I usually graft 10-12 at a time and get about 80% or so take like this. For nemphlar and beejazz it might be worth feeding them at the same time … the only time I've had the BH system fail is when there's no flow.

    I've been meaning to try the method Rosie uses … looks good and has the attraction (like the BH system) of minimal modification to a working colony.

    * as an aside I notice that Dave Cushman called these large dummies … I prefer 'fat dummies', much less politically correct

  6. #66
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    Quote Originally Posted by fatshark View Post
    I've been meaning to try the method Rosie uses … looks good and has the attraction (like the BH system) of minimal modification to a working colony.
    I would be pleased if you did because I am anxious to know if it works as well with other strains and districts.

    Steve

  7. #67

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    Re: "it might be worth feeding them at the same time..." Well, what happened was, I had a frame feeder next to the dummy block and frame of pollen, and hundreds of bees managed to drown themselves. I still don't understand how that happened, I had a piece of wood floating on the syrup. Perhaps there were just too many bees attempting to access the feeder and it sank.

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