With our notoriously bad weather in the West Highland this summer, I found queen cells becoming chilled as well as torn down in steadily wet weather so, to avoid this, I began to cage the capped queen cells at 5-6 days from grafting, then moving them (careful not to shake or chill them) into this small incubator: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00L9PSVN...986871_TE_item
It's one of the less expensive ones (though price gone up £3 since I bought it 3 months ago), doesn't involve turning, and the cages stand up easily on the base (some incubators have a base shaped to receive eggs though this can usually be removed). I reckon it would hold about 60 cages though I never achieved that!
I kept the temperature at 34º and water in the wee trough. Queen hatching times suggested this temperature is fine, along with John's 34.5º. When I failed to make up enough fresh mininucs to take all the cells on one occasion, the remaining 3 queens emerged overnight on day 11.5 days from grafting ... so on time.
At day 14 or 15 from egg-laying, or 10-11 days from grafting, I added the cells to mating nucs in a state ready to receive them: either freshly made up (which I leave in dark cool place for 3 days or so before opening at mating site), or to replace a recently withdrawn or failed queen/queen cell in mininuc already in situ at mating site. (I haven't been closing these for a few days while the queen emerges and is accepted ... what do others advise when recharging a mininuc with Qc?)
The incubator simply provided more reliability on the progress of the cells, provided I handled them very carefully.
Jon's plan of putting them in the incubator later on may be to ease space pressure in his cell-raising hives?
Feedback welcome for, as the regulars know, I'm fairly new to all this!
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