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Thread: Setting up a cellraiser

  1. #1
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    Default Setting up a cellraiser

    May be optimistic but I set up a queenright cell raiser colony yesterday.
    I was hoping to graft today but things are looking a bit grim.
    Lots of drones and drone brood in my colonies.

  2. #2

    Default How do you do that?

    Hi Jon
    Interested in how you go about setting up a cell raiser colony? Do you need drones flying before doing it etc?

    As yet I have not seen any sign of drones, or drone cells in any of my colonies.

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    Administrator gavin's Avatar
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    If you don't even have drone cells in your colonies then I would wait - unless you think that there are drones being produced by other colonies near you. Mine have lots of drone sealed cells and some have a good handful of hatched drones.

    Jon uses the method commonly called the Ben Harden method (although Ben notes that it isn't his). See the Wilkinson and Brown paper linked to in this thread:

    http://www.sbai.org.uk/sbai_forum/sh...-queen-rearing

    cheers

    Gavin.

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    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    And as you are constantly rearranging brood between two boxes it is a very effective means of swarm control as well. The queen is never short of space to lay in.

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    My 3rd year using the B H method, usually manage half a dozen grafts! Just checked and had to transfer 12 cells from 20 grafts into cages. They're due out around Wednesday can anyone advise how long can they safely be left in the cages

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    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    Virgin queens can die very quickly in cages. The bees do not always feed them like they do with a mated queen. Put a wee bit of fondant in the bottom of the cage as a food source. If I let cells hatch in cages I try and get a couple of bees inside the cage/roller before the cell hatches so that they act at attendants to the newly emerged queen.

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    Thanks I had feeling it was too good to be true, looking at the forecast, I'll be standing in the rain trying to make up nucs

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    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    I have gone away for a weekend and found several dead in the rollers on my return.
    Last edited by Jon; 16-05-2012 at 09:10 PM.

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    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    I grafted 20 larvae into this one this afternoon. Not really expecting any to get started but at least I am back on the horse. 10c during the grafting but it only took 10 minutes.
    I have a dozen or more colonies with a good number of drones so it is frustrating to have this weather impede the grafting.

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    Administrator gavin's Avatar
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    On Saturday with half a dozen inexperienced beekeepers in tow I put a brood frame with shallow unwired foundation into two favourite colonies. The idea being I'd do the thing where you slice off the bottom of a frame with a sheet of eggs and open up every third cell along the cut to encourage queen raising when introduced into a vigorous queenright cell raiser nearby. However today the same two colonies had queen cells. Five days on and a freshly hatched egg in a queen cup can convert into a sealed Q cell. They've started their own cell raising despite the weather. Now I have two artificial swarms with their own queen cells developing.

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