Queen Cells and Cold Survival

[Big Ed]

I am currently in the process of my first attempt at queen rearing using a Nicot system. Here's a quick run down- I put 23 larvae into a swarm box last week and they drew all the cells out. Put them into a queenright cell finisher and they capped 19 (I made a rookie mistake and damaged at least 3 of those with a brush when I put them in :( ). Yesterday I made up three frame mating nucs with one frame of sealed brood, one frame honey, and one empty comb in a 5 frame box with a follower board.

Here's my question:
Due to time constraints, I dequeened existing colonies and made up the nucs 1 to 3 hours ahead of time. The weather was not great, late afternoon 55ish degrees. I tried to have the hives open and ready before I added a queen cell to minimize exposure to cold, and to keep the cell bars partly covered in the finisher, but there were periods of 5 minutes or so where some of the cells were exposed to the cold. This is because I had to carry the cell bar to the nucs, pull off a cell, and gently set the bar against the stand each time I went to place a cell in a nuc and close it up. I know this was not optimal, but it was the best I could do under the circumstances. To top it off, last nights low was around 45 degrees. I made sure I put plenty of bees in each nuc to help with this.

Needless to say, today I am very worried I may have made some mistakes. Hope I didn't chill my first queens. Also, I had to put them in a day or so early since I am a fireman and I am at work for 24 hours today. They are due to emerge tomorrow or Tuesday. I opened up 2 cells that fell out of the bar and the queens were well developed, with wings just starting.

Can anyone help allay my fears or verify that I am a bumbling idiot that should give up bees and get an ant farm instead? :D

Any opinions or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks
Eddie

[jean-marc]

They'll be fine. If the matings nucs had few bees and for whatever reason the bees did not cluster around the queen cells, then I'd say you may have a problem. Exposing cells to the elements for 5 minutes at a time should not be a problem.

Jean-Marc

[Michael Bush]

Sounds like you're doing fine.

[Big Ed]

Thanks jean-marc and Michael. I guess in honor of Mother's Day I have decided to worry and fret over my "little ones". This being my first attempt, I just want everything to work out and not be a waste of a lot of hard work building all the new woodenware, stands, etc. My wife does however, think that all 12 new nuc boxes are "cute", though because I used 5 different colors of electrical tape to make little patterns above the entrance to help with queen orientation. Jeez is she easily pleased. I wonder if I put 100 more in the yard if they would be alright as long as they are "cute"?. :D

[Big Ed]

Does anyone know just for grins how long queen cells can tolerate cold and what is the temp cutoff? For instance 65 deg for 15 min, 55 for 10, etc? What would it take to kill the pupae, or will it just delay the development time?

[PA Pete]

Here's an old thread (http://www.beesource.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=5;t=000265#000000) on that topic - I was just researching this two weeks ago as I had to pick up queen cells from a nearby beek and transport them for a half hour. Turns out I kept them in my cooler (with hot water bottles) for about 3 hours, with the temperature right around 80 degrees, with no aparent injury to the two queens that now inhabit my two nucs.