apidea management and grafting photos

[Jon]

What do you reckon your %rate is regarding mating succesfully

Last year which was my first season grafting and using apideas in volume mating success was around 50%.
It rains all the time in Ireland.

This year of the first 16 I set out, three queens went missing, two turned into drone layers and 11 are mated well.
I check every few days and if I find a queen is missing I immediately put in another queen cell or a virgin.

I have another 30 or so with virgins in and they should have flown on Saturday or Sunday with the brief spell of warm and sunny weather.
Another 15 or so had queen cells inserted yesterday, due to hatch today.

how long do you leave queen in apidea once laying or do you whip them out quick to reuse apidea again.

Whicking them out too early has been linked to early supersedure or rejection. There is Australian research to show that the optimum age for introducing a new mated queen is 28-35 days old. The pheromone level is low at first and then builds up.
I used a couple for requeening at the weekend and they had been laying for 21 or 22 days as the first brood was hatching in the apidea.

Edit. having checked the paper in the post below I think the best introduction times refer to the age of the queen rather than the number of days since she started to lay.