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Thread: To wire or not to wire? that is the question

  1. #11
    Senior Member Kate Atchley's Avatar
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    Sep 2010
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    near Kelso, Scottish Borders
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    Thanks Jon

    The Apideas themselves are generally fine but the cells which failed to deliver queens were strong-looking swarm cells and I was not certain of their age. They were cut out carefully without damage but I guess they went into the mini-nucs too early.

    Usually I wait till day 14 or 15, having caged the queens beforehand but using an incubator seems an attractive option after my recent experiences. Yesterday I checked a set of 8 good queen cells in the cell-raiser last seen as they were being sealed. A solitary 3 remained in the centre of the bar, the rest all neatly tidied up as though they had never been there!

    Leaves me wondering when's the ideal time to cage cells if you don't use an incubator? The bees have torn down quite a lot of fully-developed ones, and the cold has taken a few more which were caged but might otherwise have been kept warm with a wrapping of bees? Hobson's choice?

    We have warm weather now but it is hard to imagine how dreadfully cold and wet it has been, for May and June, with seldom a day temperature above 11 degrees. I see that the colonies I have been working most have succumbed to chalk brood and are clearly stressed. They need to be left to recover.

    I sorted out the mini-plus nucs yesterday and found the bees remarkably tolerant of my interference. Pollen going into some of those so maybe they will be okay after all.

  2. #12
    Junior Member
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    Mar 2010
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    Glenmidge DG20SW
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    Hi Just following your threads with interest min temp around 78 F have hatched out q cells in my honey warming cabinet Hamish

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