Grafting / Queen rearing 2019

[fatshark]

I've not used an Octagon, but have used my honey warming cabinet (which can take about 87,000 queens at once, but hasn't). I put the Nicot cages in an ice cream tub with lots of moist kitchen paper. Getting them to emerge isn't a problem but, like drumgerry, I've had more success priming mini-nucs with mature cells, not virgins. In my setup, unattended virgins didn't survive particularly well. I didn't try adding attendants. I mainly used this setup when conditions were good and I wanted to put a second or third batch of cells into my queenright Ben Harden system. This always worked best when there was a good flow on and they would inevitably build a huge web of brace comb around the cells ... by putting them into the incubator I could fire up the next batch and avoid all that surgery to free (even caged) cells from the cell bar frame.

As an aside ... I've had to teach my computer to 'learn' the word drumgerry ... because of this:

Screenshot 2019-06-14 22.54.13.png

[drumgerry]

Tee hee . Nice to know my weird username is good for something!

Had horrific weather here in Speyside most of the last fortnight. Hoping the apidea queens took their chance for a mating flight in the sunshine last Friday or maybe tomorrow as we have a decent forecast for once

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk

[greengumbo]

Update !

They have started to emerge and are being distributed to the group for filling apideas and the like. I was planning filling mine tonight so inevitably there are thunderstorms forecast. In the incubator I used some seed tray wicking mats that worked very well to hold humidity.

[madasafish]

I use an incubator I built 15 years ago for quails.. It is Heath Robinson but appears to produce results OK.. If it works, almost anything will

Just about to restart QR - the month of June has been abysmal 12-14C tops daytime and LOTS of rain and grey skies.. Getting queens mated has been fun - not. And almost all my laying queens have stopped laying as zero food coming in...

For humidity I have a tray full of water under a wire mesh floor and a microfibre cloth half submerged in a 500g plastic margarine container . It wicks out water very effectively - average 65% humidity or so...

[greengumbo]

I use an incubator I built 15 years ago for quails.. It is Heath Robinson but appears to produce results OK.. If it works, almost anything will

Just about to restart QR - the month of June has been abysmal 12-14C tops daytime and LOTS of rain and grey skies.. Getting queens mated has been fun - not. And almost all my laying queens have stopped laying as zero food coming in...

For humidity I have a tray full of water under a wire mesh floor and a microfibre cloth half submerged in a 500g plastic margarine container . It wicks out water very effectively - average 65% humidity or so...

My humidity readings are bang on 65% so very similar. Good to know !

[greengumbo]

Update !

They have started to emerge and are being distributed to the group for filling apideas and the like. I was planning filling mine tonight so inevitably there are thunderstorms forecast. In the incubator I used some seed tray wicking mats that worked very well to hold humidity.

A further update and questions for you all !

So the incubator cells have hatched fine and are now in mini-lysons / apideas.

However I had left a batch of caged sealed cells in one of the hives (the queenless one that also raised this batch before I caged on day 10). As the incubator queens had emerged I went to the hive to remove what I assumed would also be emerged queens. Only 1 had emerged succesfully. The rest had died in development and by the looks it was about day 11 or 12 but a few later.

What could have caused this issue ? The weather turned horrid during this period so I wondered if the bees couldn't warm the caged queen cells sufficiently during this cold period.

In the future I will use the incubator for all capped cells I think.

[fatshark]

I'd have thought they'd have only 'abandoned' the cells if there were too few bees in the box.
I almost always use queenright colonies and either a Cloake board or Ben Harden setup so can't really comment from much experience. Whenever I've used a queenless colony it's always been heaving with bees.

[greengumbo]

I'd have thought they'd have only 'abandoned' the cells if there were too few bees in the box.
I almost always use queenright colonies and either a Cloake board or Ben Harden setup so can't really comment from much experience. Whenever I've used a queenless colony it's always been heaving with bees.

Hi FS,

Box was rammed so very odd. On "the other forum" a few people reported similar things and suggested the cold can definitely do this. Ho hum - next time !