First queens emerged 2015

[busybeephilip]

Calum, If youre any good at making stuff I'd buy a temperature controller, they are now very cheap you just need a cabinet and a heating source, and computer type fan to circulate the air. Get one with 0.1% accuracy

[Black Comb]

Calum
Does this mean the larvae are fed essentially by the flying bees?

[mbc]

Calum
Does this mean the larvae are fed essentially by the flying bees?

This occurred to me too.
I'm obsessed with getting lots of nurse bees and very little or no competition for their attention in my cell raisers.

[Jon]

This occurred to me too.
I'm obsessed with getting lots of nurse bees and very little or no competition for their attention in my cell raisers.

My method as well

[gavin]

can anyone recommend a good incubator? We are using a chicken egg brooder with the base filled with water.... Works fine, but its getting on a bit....

This is the one recommended by many. I've bought one but it is still unused.

G

http://www.theincubatorshop.co.uk/pr...semi-auto.html

[prakel]

I don't know what the next step in Calum's method is but to start the cells flying bees are amazingly efficient -I'm tempted to say that they do a better initial job than young nurses.

The Taber method keeps the starter fresh by regularly switching it with the queen-right unit through the season; moving the started cellls to a finisher and adding some brood to the starter as required if I remember right. Similarly, Ramic gets the started cells back into a queen-right environment asap.

[fatshark]

This is the one recommended by many. I've bought one but it is still unused.

G

http://www.theincubatorshop.co.uk/pr...semi-auto.html

And I've been looking for a secondhand one of those on eBay for weeks and they usually sell for a disappointingly high price … or hold their value well, depending on whether you are the buyer or seller. That's a pretty competitive price in the link above. My honey warming cabinet holds temperature well enough for queen incubation (and humidity is OK with a plastic container of water inside). It has the advantage of being big enough to incubate 800 cells at once should I decide to scale up (or should I have a neighbour doing likewise)

[gavin]

.... or should I have a neighbour doing likewise ....

A kind offer. However my scaling-up plans are taking shape nicely ....

[Calum]

Calum
Does this mean the larvae are fed essentially by the flying bees?

hi, no, the bees processing honey in the super are not flying bees

[Calum]

I don't know what the next step in Calum's method is but to start the cells flying bees are amazingly efficient -I'm tempted to say that they do a better initial job than young nurses.
.

Hi, after 5 days the cells are closed, they are caged, I can either let them "finish" in the super - and use it and its bees for filling apideas, or I can reunite everything (the super with its colony) and "finish" the caged cells in the super of another strong colony (ie super well filled with bees), and restart the same process with another strong colony. Apparently doing this is a good method for reducing pressure to swarm, without loosing too much honey. Or if i had an incubator, i could finishe them in that. I am looking at a 12v one for 145€ that i could run in the behouse with a car battery and a solar panel... worried that - the temp setting of 0,3°C may not be accurate enough, and that the height between floor and lid may not be enough for the cages on frame bottom bars i use...