I'm Off Topic again
Heres todays news
IMGP0892.jpg
Thats wasps drilling their way into my Paynes poly nuc to get the syrup
They have some way to go yet
No I didn't spill the syrup
For some reason two of the nucs seem to be bit porous in the feed slot department
Keeping the blighters busy and they are so easy to squash
Mrs DR helpfully pointed out I should have painted them
DR:
My interest was raised by your comment that this method would be easier than starting the cells in a broodless box and then moving them above an excluder for finishing (Pasaga Ramic). There are other aspects of the suggested method (such as the absolute need to keep a check on all of the combs for rogue cells) which makes me think that it's probably more involved than the sales pitch suggests!
Well, all are welcome to chime in when it comes to increasing my understanding of what it is I'm trying to doOriginally Posted by The Drone Ranger
Prakel. If you take a queen out of a strong colony and put in a frame with grafts 10 minutes later they usually start a lot of them.
I think the orientation of the cup is the key factor, ie they look like cups from which queen cells will be drawn.
They have hundreds of suitable age larvae of their own and they will start a few from these but they seem to prefer the cups on the graft frame.
Jon, I see that you and Drone Ranger regard my method as over-complicated — though it's a minor variant on using a Cloake board — but perhaps I was not clear. I've used exactly the same method for each batch of cells this Summer, with success of around 66% fed/drawn queen cells overall. This latest batch led to only one cell.
I don't know of an explanation other than weather and colony strength: the early days of these cells' development (or failure) brought more wet days of 11C or 12C as through most of May and June. Though breeding colonies are fed, their brood boxes remain light and empty of retained stores. Amongst the Amm bees we're managing, there are no "strong" or "decent" colonies this year, as I understand the term ... only colonies making a remarkably good job of coping with extraordinarily difficult conditions.
Perhaps in such conditions breeder colonies need to be run with constant feeders and no supers, and extra pollen and/or substitute (though my bees seem to dislike pollen substitutes). I had some spare pollen but it's been used already. Maybe that approach would lead to better success with the queen raising.
It's certainly been sunnier and milder in the east of Scotland ... perhaps also in Ireland?
Last edited by Kate Atchley; 31-07-2015 at 10:22 PM.
Kate, I was not thinking about your methods at all when I mentioned over complicated stuff. I was thinking about some of the stuff I have read over the years in the Bibba magazine. Most of the Irish bee breeders I know are big fans of the Cloake board. I was only responding to DR's post about removing a queen from a colony. There are lots of ways to get queen cells started.
I always share what works for me with others on the forum.
Last edited by Jon; 31-07-2015 at 10:17 PM.
DR wasps and polynucs, a tub of petroleum jelly is a good short term fix for stopping the wasps digging holes in soft poly
Steady the Buffs
Kate I apologise if you think I am casting dispersions on your no doubt well researched method
I honestly have no Idea what the ragu punic method involves (clearly)
What I will say in my defense is that the first two sets of queens I raised this year were using a cupkit in a Ben Harden queenright system
They both worked fine apart from some disappearances and mating failures at the mininuc stage which reduced the numbers by about 50%
As the season moved forward and Oil Seed Rape disappeared they lost interest in raising queencells in a queen right colony
So now I dequeened two colonies one Smith double broodbox and one paynes nuc double broodbox
I also set up another double broodbox Smith hive queenright Ben Harden style using a third box on top
Now before dequeening the Poly Nuc the queen was put in a cupkit and it took a day for her to lay (it was overnight the first two times)
Those eggs became larva and went on cell bar in that now queenless double poly nuc got 18 starts from 20
Also using cupkit larva the queenless Smith hive had 18 starts from 20
Those all made sealed queencells (which I fiddled with too much and lost the lot)
So then I grafted into that hive and it was 7 starts from 10 (unusually high for me)
That reduced to 5 after a few days
The queen right Ben Harden Smith triple hive not so good
I put 10 cupkit larva in no starts
I grafted into it next no starts
Tried one more time no starts
So at that point in the season using that hive I was wasting my time
It's probably horses for courses. So early season the queenright method was best and mid season the queenless method was best
It could be weather related or to do with passing the longest day and how the bees feel about that
My post is just part question part suggestion
Added refinements and complications are sometimes just that, and don't always get any better results
Hope the next lot are all 100 success
DR
Today I've put out all but 4 of 42 cells from my last grafft of the season, cloak board's put away and cell builders being cleared of supers ready for thymol, one of them was showing a bit of varroa damage. 4 cells that didn't get placed are in the airing cupboard, I must invest in a proper incubator. That's 12 rounds of grafts, two frames of twenty odd cells each time, failures are being got by the wasps now so a good time to start winding it all up.
Cheers Nemphlar for that solution
Most welcome answer to an annoying problem
Between flappy top crown boards
Dodgy bee squashing fat sides
No flippin frame rails
Bee munching and now wasp munching
I'm going right off poly hives
Excellent plan to convince Mrs mbc that an incubator should be on the Xmas list
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks