todays news

[The Drone Ranger]

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.

My tip is fit the cupkit to the frame and just surround it with foundation
If conditions are right they will draw that wax out
Well that works for me Kate

Cutting drawn frames and putting it in one is a pain
It's alien comb to them anyway and they start filling it with nectar
That's extra mess

[Kate Atchley]

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.

Gotcha! Is it raining everywhere? Lots of us online!

[prakel]

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

That's my point, it entails work even though it's being presented as an alternative to the

many complicated methods around

Personally I can't see how it's less complicated than a broodless starter.

[prakel]

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!

So many things have been! There are people with the ability to transfer commercial vhs onto disk. But I'm doubtful about the legalities of the beast.

[prakel]

Is it raining everywhere? Lots of us online!

Brilliant sunshine and nectar going into the boxes at last. If only the rain had come sooner.

[Jon]

Personally I can't see how it's less complicated than a broodless starter.

I don't think there is any method which does not involve a fair bit of work and some care about when cells are likely to emerge.
With my queenless starter which I feed brood to every week I have run it for three months and put through 2 batches of cells per week on average since mid May.
You have to take frames out and put frames in but that's no big deal. I often put in the frame I have just grafted from. The open brood pheromone helps prevent the development of laying workers.
This also avoids having to open the graft donor colony twice as you do not have to open a second time to replace the frame when you have finished grafting.

The most labour intensive part of the work is checking the apideas and all this entails and also marking, clipping and caging queens for posting plus all the e-mail communication with the people they are posted to.
Grafting and getting cells started is a critical part of the work but fortunately does not have to take up a massive percentage of the time involved to get the finished product.

With a broodless starter do you start a fresh one every couple of weeks or what way do you work it?

[The Drone Ranger]

Brilliant sunshine and nectar going into the boxes at last. If only the rain had come sooner.

I was happy this morning to see sun and did a few inspections
My attempt to get the laying workers in a keiler to adopt a larva have failed
The geniuses are now raising a queen cell on drone larva instead
Weather has all changed now --- heavy rain
Fiddlestix

I am no expert as you know, but sometimes the straightforward approach is enough
Take grafting, most people just find a suitable frame
Some more dedicated, recommend frame trapping the queen to ensure the whole frame is at the right stage
In a big commercial operation they do all this stuff but on a small scale its not essential
Just saying

Ps.
I remembered an article on how to make a ringing table for microscope slides
The main component was a head from a Video Recorder
All is not lost after all

[prakel]

With a broodless starter do you start a fresh one every couple of weeks or what way do you work it?

I personally rotate around different hives so they have one 'go' and then they can get back to normal life. There's no need with this method to have a dedicated unit. It suits me to use different colonies which are often (but not always) in totally different locations. At present this is proving an ideal way for me to manage things.

The point which I feel is getting lost here is that I personally have no major hang-ups about how to do things -I'm more than happy to change anything if it improves results or adds some other benefit so when someone suggests a method which I've never contemplated and he's backed up by a commercial queen breeder then of course questions will spring to mind. I trialled the method that I'm currently using for the first time last year and have used it almost exclusively this year. I say 'almost' because I've also played around with another method too but to a much lesser extent. So there's no question about my flexibility.

[Jon]

I agree prakel. If it works, it works, and the variations on the methodology are not the most important thing.
Since I scaled up a bit I am looking for ways to save time and cut out any bits of the routine which are not mission critical.
If you are working on your own there is a limit to how much you can produce and it focuses the mind re. which method is more time consuming than any other.
I could do grafts in a day to produce cells for many more apideas than I can manage on my own.
The bottlenecks lie elsewhere.

[HJBee]

Thought I would share a picture from our Apiary visit today, which in true Ian Craig style was interesting and spontaneous. Even in the changeable weather the bees were in quite good form. Lots to see and learn.