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Thread: Cupkit System

  1. #1

    Default Cupkit System

    I understand the basics of the cupkit system what confuses me is the timing, once the queen has laid in the brown cells are the cells placed in the queen less colony straight away or do you wait a further 3 days can anyone enlighten me.

  2. #2
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    Hi Ebee. I graft rather than using cupkit but the principle is the same.
    The bees start a queen cell from a suitable aged larva rather than an egg so I imagine you have to wait until the egg has hatched before putting the cups in your cell raiser colony - which does not necessarily have to be queenless.
    I think Jimbo mentioned that he uses cupkit so he would be the best placed to comment.
    I suspect that all unhatched eggs would be removed on introduction.

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    I have used the cupkit system for a number of years. For your timings you can download a nice excel sheet from the BIBBA web site called Tom's Tables. You just enter your start date and it corrects all the dates and times for you. In practice I have found that the queen sometimes when placed in the cupkit will stop laying so after 24 hr I check for eggs using a magnifying glass. If I don't see any I leave the queen for a further 24hrs and usually find eggs on the second visit. This alters the dates on Tom's Tables by 1 day, but other than that I find it an easy system to use and get about a 70% success rate in producing the queen cells ready for Apideas

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    Hi. I am new on here.
    If you search IWF.de and watch raising queens it is fantastic as are all the videos I have watched. I am now trying to find out who they are and how to contact them. I would like sizes of their hives and how to make their floor.
    KR

  5. #5

    Default Cupkit System

    Thanks for your advice I will put it into practice in my attempt at rearing my own queens.

  6. #6

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    that's a very useful site, thanks for the tip

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    Senior Member Adam's Avatar
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    I used a cupkit for the first time last year. On both occasions I put it in the centre of the broodnest for a day first so the workers could prepare the cells. Queen in the next day. I left her in for 1 day the first time and 2 days the next (I think). Then put the brown plastic cups in the holders and into the queenless part of a rearing hive. So in both cases it was eggs that went in rather than 1 day old larvae. The brown colour of the cups means that you should be able to see eggs through the translucent plastic. Poundland glasses always helps.

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    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    That's interesting Adam. I read somewhere that eggs would be rejected and it had to be larvae.
    As Roger Patterson often says, you read a lot of twaddle in bee books.

  9. #9
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    I usually wait until they are 1 day old larvae in the bottom of the cup when you usually see a tiny drop of brood food. I have never tried just using the eggs. I suppose it would depend how queenless the colony is. I would have thought if the bees were desperate to produce a queen then they are unlikly to dispose of the eggs

  10. #10

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    Well thats module 7 sorted, please Mr/s examiner, watch IFW.de I think that answers all your questions, now where is the nearest pub I am not due home for another couple of hours .....

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