todays news

[The Drone Ranger]

DR:

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!
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Guilty M'Lud

[prakel]

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.

In which case I'm genuinely surprised that more people aren't raising their quality queens with this method.

[Kate Atchley]

Steady the Buffs
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 brood box ...

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

... So early season the queenright method was best and mid season the queenless method was best
... Hope the next lot are all 100 success
DR

DR that's hugely helpful. Many thanks for sharing your results and showing the changing pattern of cell building in different conditions, through the season. (And a relief to know others too sometimes have no or poor starts!) Reading this, I'm pretty sure that my bees in the queenless cell starter day 1 began to start lots of cells (hence curtain of wax-builders hanging from them) but once the frame was above the Qx with the queen below, they changed behaviour to being stingy and drawing out only one cell. It ties in with your experience.

Rain is forecast for days and days but I'll feed up a colony with a view to creating queenless conditions and will try again when there's a break. So watch this space!

[prakel]

I'll feed up a colony with a view to creating queenless conditions and will try again when there's a break. So watch this space!

Your mini-plus hives probably aren't mature enough yet but just a thought -I've been using very strong double box mp's for cell raising with great success through the summer. True minimization of resources. Don't know how many good cells one of those units could handle as I've not needed to try for more than a dozen (which they handle very well) in one box at a time. Just another 'possible' to either consider or forget .

[Kate Atchley]

Interesting you add this Prakel. Plan to overwinter a few queens in double Mp boxes but, as you suggest, they're not strong enough to try this yet. Had also been wondering about fitting a Cupkit box into an mp frame and trying that and the mp cell raising next year, taking the queen and some of youngest brood out with the CK box.

I love grafting (though presumably lose some larvae through clumsiness) but the CK system can be useful and avoids larval damage.

Our colonies here are not large (Amm generally create small colonies and there's no OSR or equivalent here) so trying for 12 cells at a time would be fine. Do you double up the cells vertically in one frame or spread over two frames to go into the mps alongside one another?

[Jon]

In which case I'm genuinely surprised that more people aren't raising their quality queens with this method.

The key thing is colony strength. It has to be boiling over with bees.
Once you get cells started you have the option to move them on to a queenright colony for finishing or leave them where they are if the colony is strong enough to deal with them.

[prakel]

Once you get cells started you have the option to move them on to a queenright colony for finishing or leave them where they are if the colony is strong enough to deal with them.

Although I'm still not really convinced that this is a truly efficient way to start cells I will give it a go at some point.

But whatever route you take, you've got to shake through all of the combs in search of cells whether there are any or not. So I still fail to understand how this is acually easier than a broodless starter or one with only sealed brood as it's been suggested to be.

[prakel]

Do you double up the cells vertically in one frame or spread over two frames to go into the mps alongside one another?

I've been using two bars (not even frames) with a comb between them to avoid any comb building games which they might try in a double space.

[Jon]

Although I'm still not really convinced that this is a truly efficient way to start cells I will give it a go.

But at some point, whatever route you take, you've got to shake through all of the combs in search of cells

You have to do that with a queenright system as well as the combs are constantly being circulated from the bottom box to the box above the excluder.
It is a PITA and if you miss a cell and a virgin emerges you lose a frame of cells. A couple of years ago at the association apiary I missed a cell on a comb and the cell starter swarmed with the virgin! I had to climb up a thorn tree to get it back.

[The Drone Ranger]

Although I'm still not really convinced that this is a truly efficient way to start cells I will give it a go at some point.

But whatever route you take, you've got to shake through all of the combs in search of cells whether there are any or not. So I still fail to understand how this is acually easier than a broodless starter or one with only sealed brood as it's been suggested to be.

Hi prakel
My VHS tape recorder gave up the ghost so I can't watch the old tape again
That's going to bug me now and I'm afraid it's all your fault LOL!