Ezi-queen system?

[wayacoyote]

Just got my Ezi-queen system and I'm a little confused. It has these little black "pins" that push into the back of the laying cells. It is the only thing that's removed from the laying cells when transfering to the cell-builder bars. These pins only have a tiny shallow depression on their face. The video doesn't elaborate when to transfer these to the bars.

From what I'm learning, the builders accept their job better if the eggs have hatched. But these little pins don't seem to have enough space for holding both larvae and royal jelly. They are tiny with tiny depressions.

Anyone using this system to tell me that I'm concerned for no reason?

Also, the pins are supposed to be replaced each and every time. That seems wasteful to me. They are attached to little bars for easier manipulation. But must be broken off when transfered to the builder-bar so they can be spaced out. Anyone have a way to reuse these without spending lots of time in the manipulation?

I'm beginning to wonder if the Nicot system, as Jon's discribed it, isn't better for me as the laying cups are deeper as I understand him.

Waya

[Jon McFadden]

Hi Waya,
It sounds like the Ezi-queen system is similar to the Jenter System. With any of the systems, it is important for the larvae to be getting fed royal jelly before transferring to the cell builder. If eggs are transferred before hatching, the workers in the cell builder will eat them.
Since there is a limit to how many larvae the cell builder can feed to make quality queens, I limit mine to two 20 cell frames or 40 queens at a time. I think 45 is the maximum recommended for any system.
One of my acquaintances tried the Nicot a few years ago. He and a fellow he knows were both doing it. They transferred eggs to the cell builder and they both lost all their eggs.
Needless to say, he didn’t think much of the Nicot System.
I am using the Nicot System because it was the only one that was being actively marketed in 2000. It's cheaper than the Jenter by $25 at that time, but I would have bought the Jenter had I been able to find a source.
I am very happy with the results I am having with the Nicot and have purchased a second one. I don't reuse the cups that queens are reared in, but I have reused the ones not selected for grafting. They are so cheap that I bought a couple of hundred of them for this year.
Regards,
Jon

[wayacoyote]

Thank, Jon

So you think that the tini, tiny heads of those "pins" will be large enough to hold a day-old larvae for transfer? I'm sure it works or they wouldn't risk selling them. But boy, these things look small.

I think it was your thread that I read last night before posting this. If so, you are a bounty of info by posting your progress reports and expriences. Michael Bush reuses his parts, I think. Your Nicot system seems to be better suited for that. This Ezi-queen system makes it very unpractical. but, like you said, one is limited to what is being sold that "season." However, I think I could get 2 Nicot systems for what I paid for the Ezi-queen. I may just send this back.

Waya

[Michael Bush]

>Just got my Ezi-queen system and I'm a little confused. It has these little black "pins" that push into the back of the laying cells. It is the only thing that's removed from the laying cells when transfering to the cell-builder bars. These pins only have a tiny shallow depression on their face. The video doesn't elaborate when to transfer these to the bars.

If you confined the queen on day 0 transfer on day 4.

>From what I'm learning, the builders accept their job better if the eggs have hatched.

They won't accept them at all if they haven't.

> But these little pins don't seem to have enough space for holding both larvae and royal jelly.

The larvae is very tiny at that point.

>Anyone using this system to tell me that I'm concerned for no reason?

I use the Jenter. The plugs are about 1/8" in the Jenter.

>Also, the pins are supposed to be replaced each and every time.

I reuse everything on the Jenter now and it doesn't seem to hurt anything.

> That seems wasteful to me.

Me too.

> They are attached to little bars for easier manipulation. But must be broken off when transfered to the builder-bar so they can be spaced out. Anyone have a way to reuse these without spending lots of time in the manipulation?

I guess I don't know how they fit in the back. The Jenter ones are seperate to start with.

[wayacoyote]

Thanks Michael.
1/8 inch sounds the same as this. I think the fact that these are designed to break off for use is the big difference in the two designs.

Basically, there's plastic strips, each with 10 "plugs". The plugs are pushed through the back of the queen-laying-cage (strip is in the back). This means you've loaded 10 cells with plugs in 1 motion = fast.

Once ready with day-old larvae, you pull a strip with it's 10 attached plugs from the back. now push the plugs down through the back of the queen-cups which are crammed together. You've transfered 10 larvae in 1 motion = fast. But now they are too close for good queen cells.

So break off the plastic strip, thus isolating each plug/cup and spread them out along holding bar.

Very easy, very fast. I suppose this helps to keep larvae exposed as little as possible. But next go around, it will be tons slower if trying to reuse the plugs and do it plug by plug. They don't have anything to hold to as they aren't meant for reuse.

I think it's an adequate system, little different from what you guys use. but for the price? I thinking I paid over $150 for this. If I can use the Nicot system and reuse the parts, I would rather. I'm ready to sell queens and thus have this pay for itself. I'm mostly interested in graftless system for my own queens.

If I knew how to build a website, I would post pics of this.

Waya

[Big Ed]

Waya, I've seen the instructional video that comes with the Ezi-queen at my last bee club meeting. I was a little overwhelmed when I learned you could put 420 cells in there for the queen to lay in. I think it is more for larger commercial operations. I'll stick with my Nicot-just used it for the first time and happy with the results(23 cells in cell finisher right now). About $60 from Betterbee.

[Jon McFadden]

I ordered two videos from "The Bee Works". One was called, "Queen Rearing", $24.95. The other was, "Nicot System", $14.95. "Queen Rearing" included everything the "Nicot System" had plus "No Grafting" and "Grafting". I would have purchased "Queen Rearing" only, if I had it to do again. The guy covers all of the caveats if you listen carefully. My son missed several while we were watching, so I was able to rewind and emphasize what the guy was explaining.
I also made a timeline to keep the days straight.

[Jon McFadden]

I meant to put the URL in the last message. Sorry.
http://www.beeworks.com/uscatalog/details/queenrearDVD.asp

[wayacoyote]

Thanks Jon, Big Ed.
I have to say that I too was taken back by the 420 cells. And the video, while it showed the steps for opening the hive, smoking it, and replacing the cover in great detail, didn't have much to say about the actual queen rearing process. In fact, it didn't give any timings or show the day-old larvae, etc... I was under impressed. This is going back.
Waya

[Big Ed]

The best part of the video was the crazy "Kiwi" beekeeper working the hives without an ounce of protective clothing. smile.gif

[wayacoyote]

I liked how the hive sounded like it was ripping apart everytime he separated parts. And how he made sure to tell us to include bracken (fern) in our top feeders. Who does that? smile.gif

Waya

[Jon McFadden]

When Will and I work our hives, our beekeeping protective clothes are a pair of shorts and tee shirt. We have found over the years that we do a better job of working with the bees, if we work with them. In 45 years of keeping bees, I have only been stung badly twice. Once was because the beekeepers I was working with reneged on their agreement not to wear gloves, and the other was when Will and I got in a hurry reconfiguring hives late one afternoon.
We use shorts for two reasons:
1. They're cool and comfortable
2. Bees and ticks don't climb up our legs undetected

[Michael Bush]

>2. Bees and ticks don't climb up our legs undetected

Undected or not, they still climb up your legs. smile.gif

Having seen a few hives go postal quite quickly and unpredictably, I would wear at least a veil.

[Jon McFadden]

Hi Michael,
Bees on the ground will climb up your legs to get a higher place to take off from. Bees that are flying will land most any place, but in my experience, most of the time, these will take off from where they land. Working bees at night, almost always if I have long pants on, I will get a couple up my pant legs.
I have long practiced using a veil, but recently have discarded it because it is getting too hard for me to see through the mesh. My son, Will, uses a veil when we are cleaning bees out of buildings because he is usually putting his head in their flight path, but otherwise doesn't.
I expected to have to get bee armour when Will and I started raising queens because, as you know, things have to be done on a rigid schedule. Turns out, we haven't had to, yet.

[Bob Russell]

This system was developed here in New Zealand not far from me.It was intended during the early developement that I myself would be using the system for commercial royal jelly production.We would have been using multiple laying cages.My son was working at a royal jelly commercial production site at the time of the EZI-QUEEN developement.

At this site you can see the components of the EZI-QUEEN SYSTEM

http://www.eziqueen.co.nz/eziqueen.shtml

[ May 18, 2006, 05:10 PM: Message edited by: Bob Russell ]

[Michael Bush]

Bob, Can you elaborate on how you use it to collect royal jelly?

[Bob Russell]

Click on EZI-QUEEN observe components.Then click on Royal Jelly and you will see Royal Jelly Queen cells 30 on each strip and used as such against the seperately spaced queen cell cups for queen raising.

[Michael Bush]

I've seen the web site before. But I'm still unclear how you collect the royal jelly.

[Bob Russell]

>But I'm still unclear how you collect the royal jelly.

I take it your meaning of collect is how do you harvest the royal jelly at the end of a 72 hour production cycle.

[Michael Bush]

Yes. How do you harvest the royal jelly. Why 72 hours production cycles? Any details would be useful.

[Bob Russell]

Royal Jelly is a very lucrative product in a very competative market.The product has to be produced,havested and stored in such a way so as to maintain the quality of the product.China has developed methods to enable collection of up to 10 Kilograms per hive.Because of my position of office in our Beekeeping Industry the knowledge and Technology of those producing it has to be respected.The Developement of the EZI-Queen system has further enhanced the production of royal jelly.Maf Technology,Private Bag,Mosgiel New Zealand produced a 28 page document "Commercial production,storage and marketing of royal jelly in New Zealand" by r.f.van Toor in the late 90's.

ABJ in the July 2000 issue described "The Technology For Royal Jelly Production".In March 2003 they also ran a very good article "Optimizing Royal Jelly Production" Those two articles alone carry very in depth information.

The reason for harvesting at 72 hours (on fourth day from grafting) is to optimise production.Harvesting in small operations can be by using a royal jelly spoon.High tech commercial operations use a vacuum pump normally of the diapham type.Good queens selected for royal jelly production are a must.

[Michael Bush]

What method is the "EZI-Queen" system offering?

[Bob Russell]

I suggest anyone interested in the product to contact "EZI-QUEEN" via the web site or an agent for further information.

I can say the system is unique (one interchanable system that does both queen cell raising or royal jelly production)

Compare the simple one movement fitting of the jelly cup strip against the manual fitting of each individual cup using a conventional system.

[wayacoyote]

Bob is right about the "simple one movement". That was definately one strong benefit to the Ezi-Queen system. And if I were doing this for profitability and mass productivity, it would be a strong lure.

Waya