In the swing

[mbc]

I feel I'm really getting in the swing of things now, just checked my fourth graft and found 47 out of 60 cells started satisfactorily, these were on three separate frames so two of them were transferred to two other cell finishing colonies, making three in total once the board was removed from the cloak board on the cell starter to make her in to a cell finisher. By the time these cells are ready to go out (ten days from yesterday) the queens from my first two grafts (which I havent checked at all yet) should be ready for harvesting, and there should be no need to make up new mating nucs to house the new cells. Deep joy

[Jon]

What date did your first virgins emerge?
I had 7 or 8 emerge on 12th May and I have about 25-30 out now in Apideas.
I am hopeful of getting a few mated before the end of May.

I have about 40 more cells started as well.
I am finding it variable this year as always.
I graft one day and get 18/22 starts and the next day it might be 2 starts.
I am using a queenless Payne polynuc to start cells which are then transferred into a queenright setup 24-48 hours later.
The queens I have seen so far look to be a reasonable size.

On Friday past I set up another Payne poly nuc and this one is a double with 6 more frames sitting in a triple eke above the nuc.
I reckon that one should be a good cell starter.
I have it loaded with sealed brood and a couple of pollen frames.

[mbc]

Monday 5th of May, three weeks are up tomorrow, so I allow myself to check them from now on. I think I would waste most of my time checking nucs unnecessarily early if I didnt keep disciplined about it.

[Jon]

I bought a load more Apideas from swienty so I am going to discipline myself about checking as I don't have the time to be a tinkerman.
I am using a coloured pin system which lets me know what is in the apidea without having to take off the lid and look at the record sheet or worse still remove frames.

mmlzKgSRsCAQxnAdcNRZmeg.jpg

Yellow means has a queen cell
green means has a virgin
white means mated queen
red means queen missing and/or action needed
blue pin means too many/too few bees in it.

[mbc]

Lol. I too use coloured pins, very quick and easy apart from i havent found the ideal ,pocket sized, multi compartment dispensing box yet, so end up fiddling with little boxes and dropping pins etc. If you have the solution please share

[Jon]

I just keep a tray of them at each site where I set out apideas.

The other thing I intend to trial is the Payne poly nuc as a mating nuc with just a single frame of bees and brood pushed against one of the walls with an insulated dummy frame.
Take a frame of sealed brood plus the adhering bees, place it in the nuc and add a ripe queen cell.
Keep closed until the virgin is out, same as with an apidea.
When the queen starts to lay a couple of weeks later all the brood will have emerged. You could then remove the frame and add another of sealed brood and two frames of drawn comb and you should have a nuc with a laying queen and 3 frames well covered with bees a week later.

[mbc]

Mine are mostly in mini plus hives, but also apideas, kielers and split national brood boxes, they all work well and I'm looking forwards to seeing how successful they each are. The mini plus were the easiest and cheapest in resources to set up as I'd overwintered a few so just needed to dismantle all the bees and brood from them in to lots of separate units.

[Jon]

I bought one mini plus in my order from Swienty so I will give it a go at some point.
How many of those do you work?
Do you use them as doubles or singles?

[mbc]

I run about 30 of them as doubles, but they're very flexible, if one side fails or you harvest a queen from one side they can easily be turned into a single, or visa versa with a prosperous single being divided back into a double. I bet you couldnt guess that i like them.

[Jon]

Nothing against them but the Apidea works well for me and I got them for under £18 bulk buying from Swienty.