Very little in beekeeping is guaranteed 100% but cells being torn down is something I just don't see unless there is a virgin queen at large.
If I was having cells torn down, even 5%, I would protect them.
Very little in beekeeping is guaranteed 100% but cells being torn down is something I just don't see unless there is a virgin queen at large.
If I was having cells torn down, even 5%, I would protect them.
Red light district in Moidart!
My first foray into using MiniPluses was with the approach Jon has been using, wet bees thrown on top of a hatched virgin. Today may be a good day for mating for them given that the wind has finally gone. I didn't use any cover and now realise the difficulty of keeping bees out of the way. Visiting assorted apiaries in the dark with a head torch doesn't appeal, largely because we're now at the time of year with hardly any dark.
So I've been thinking about transparent covers and cell introduction. Two comments:
i) when you push the frames apart there is just the right gap for the white Nicot cell holder without any tampering with the frames. As the cell is only going to be there for a few days, closing up the frames after removing the cell shouldn't be a problem.
ii) the new design Paynes boxes work very well with a transparent plastic cover. It is a simple matter to brush extra bees out of the way before replacing the cover and those bees just fly back in the entrance. Should work just as well with the Miniplus.
I had considered getting costings for a local company to cut thin perspex sheets the right size for the top of the MiniPluses, but someone (forget who) on the Beekeeping Forum recently mentioned laminator pouches. A4 would be big enough for each half of the MiniPlus top and 100 A4 pouches plus a laminator (from Tesco) amount to less than £20 with perhaps £15 for a guillotine. Seems like the way to go. It should be possible to cut an Apidea style hole and make a flap from offcuts if that's the way you want to go.
Yes, I think I'll made covers. I did so for all my Paynes nucs before they were supplied with them ... can buy sheets of polypropylene cheaply and cut with Stanley knife or scissors.Originally Posted by gavin
But, we'll need to allow the bees to move up to the feeders of the MPs ... so another variation on the Apidea model.
Sunshine at last and off to the apiary!
Kate
Doh! Of course!Senior moment there ....
Just a slot matching up with the feeder channel. Do you have a supplier for thin polypropylene?
Definitely seen it myself, rarely but it happens. Not a sufficient problem to warrant using cell protectors -one of my more wacky ideas (yes, I have a lot of them) is that there may be some benefit to the bees if not the queen herself if they have access to the cell....not quite sure how or why, but it becomes quite obviously after a while that some cells appear to get far more attention than others.
You could try http://www.theplasticpeople.co.uk though they have recently introduced a minimum order value. Also various offers on Amazon and eBay. Thickness of 2mm will do, or 3mm.
Kate
Re. covers … your laminator pouches sound a bit pricey unless I'm missing something. I've used thick clear (ish) plastic on all my Kielers with a "three sides of a square cut" flap for cell introduction. Works very well. You can buy tennis court-sized sheets of thick plastic for just a few quid if you can't find any from a new sofa (which is where my last lot was scrounged from). I'm using damp proof membrane on some poly nucs at the moment. There's something about the surface of DPM that stops propolis and wax sticking very well. Works a treat.
Re. cell protectors … I don't use them and I'd not use any QC that fitted in one of those silly little orange things from JzBz. It might - just - accommodate a scrub queen cell, but anything that's received serious attention from workers in the cell raiser simply won't fit. Sometimes they don't even fit into the Cupkit cage thingy.
+1
I twist a little pre cut electricians insulation tape round each cell before popping them into my insulated cell travelling box.
I am aware this is mostly a waste of time, but it takes so little effort or expense I feel it's worth it for those few cells it saves, not for the value of the cell as such, but saving the inconvenience of finding mini nucs lacking virgins and getting out of sync with their group.
For mini crown boards, fertilizer sacks or dpm as Prakel suggested, is hard to beat. I have two for each mp box, one stapled to the central divider and another to use when the dividers out, I also have a little dummy board for each to stop the frames getting too fat when used as a single unit, a little cut out lined up with the feeder slots works well.
Sorry, as fatshark suggested.
Last edited by mbc; 08-06-2015 at 09:59 PM.
MBC. Do you ever get cells torn down by workers in queenless apideas on introduction?
The very odd time I have seen a cell torn down and it is not due to a stray virgin it is in an apidea which has brood and a means of making its own queen.
I cannot honestly recall.
Most of my mp boxes have the means of making an emergency cell when a qc is added, I only really use apideas as a handy way of harvesting "wild" virgins as I do my rounds, as they're so small a few boxes can be crammed into odd corners of the truck without getting in the way.
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