Emerging at 17, 18, 19 days and counting

[HVH]

Either I am going mad or my grafted queens began emerging very late. As usual, I caged a breeder queen to a frame on Wednesday morning around 7:00 am and released her 12 hours later at 7:00 pm. I like having about 12 hours for the queen to lay eggs because it provides enough for my 57 cup arrangement (19 X three bars) with some left over and I don't have any larvae of the wrong age to graft. On Saturday I like to add the queen cups and the frame of eggs (to be grafted) to a strong colony so the cups get polished and the eggs get well fed prior to grafting. Sunday morning I set up a swarm box and by noon have started grafting. Typically I see queens emerging on the Thursday night and Friday morning or about 11.5 to 12.5 days later. I have been removing the queen cells on Thursday morning and letting them emerge in an incubator. The incubator approach was really nice but the queens seemed stressed by Saturday morning when I had time to work in the yard. So I decided to make a frame that would hold the queen cells in the hair curler cages instead of using the incubator and letting the queens get the attention they need. So this is where things get a bit strange. I decided it would be an interesting experiment to place the sealed queen cells in the curler cages one week after grafting - which is right after they are sealed. I thought the experiment was a terrible failure because no queens emerged Thursday night or Friday at all. So out of 45 cells none emerged during the expected time frame. To my surprise 6 queens emerged on Saturday. Another 10 emerged on Sunday. It is 8:30 pm on Monday and another 4 queens emerged since 2:00 pm when I last checked on them. This is not supposed to happen. I went over my schedule and am 100% certain the eggs were laid in a 12 hour window on Wednesday and grafting was on the following Sunday 8/3. Is it possible that bringing the queen cells in the house just after they were sealed and placing them into the curler cages was enough to mess with their development? Has anyone else tried caging queens within hours after they were sealed?

[Velbert]

I have used the hair rollers. Have seen delayed hatching to some degree but not that much. The queen probably didn't start laying in the comb right off also the bees could not cluster right up around the queen cell to keep them good and warm and a few degrees will slow the growth down some causing them not to hatch as soon. YOU MAY WANT TO LOOK AT THEM REAL CLOSE AND MAKE SURE THEY ARE NO DAMAGED WINGS.

[Pooh]

Still learning about all this so just a thought. I read that the bees remove the wax around the cell getting it down to just the cocoon at the tip of the cell which makes it easier for the queen to chew the opening. Could the hair roller prevent the bees from prepping the cell for her to emerge and thus it takes her longer to make her way out?

[BerkeyDavid]

Still learning about all this so just a thought. I read that the bees remove the wax around the cell getting it down to just the cocoon at the tip of the cell which makes it easier for the queen to chew the opening. Could the hair roller prevent the bees from prepping the cell for her to emerge and thus it takes her longer to make her way out?

That's what I was thinking. The bees must do something to those cells of value, you always see them working on the cells. They chew and chew. I am thinking that is why there was so much delay.

[HVH]

The temperature drop Velbert decribes is interesting. I have not personally witnessed the workers paying much attention to the queen cells once they are sealed. Maybe during the night when the temp falls the bees cluster around the queen cells. Anyone have any observations regarding clustering of workers on sealed queen cells?

The idea that the workers help release the queen, though, I don't think applies, because the queens emerge in an incubator right on time without any workers being present. Of course it could be argued that the workers remove some of the cap before day 14 when I remove them from the apiary and place them in the incubator.

I actually had three more queens emerge last night. The queens don't seem malformed in any way. I had one runt emerge followed by three large queens and they all look healthy.

[Michael Bush]

In really hot weather they usually emerge in 15 days, I've seen them as short as 14 1/2. In cold weather they can emerge as late a 19 days that I've seen. It all depends on the temperature.

[HVH]

Thanks Michael,

Your observation corroborates Velbert's hypothesis and does seem reasonable. I should take a peek at night sometime and see if the workers are clustered around the queen cells.

Thanks All,

Chris

[HVH]

Update,

The last batch of queens emerged starting at day 14.5 for a duration of 12 or so hours where 43 out of 46 queens emerged. The only difference is the use of the curler cages on the morning of day 14 instead of day 9 when they were just sealed. So having the cells isolated from clustering bees may have caused a drop in temperature as others have indicated which resulted in late emergence.

[Velbert]

If used in real early spring here have seen that when placed on early some queen cells didn't hatch at all. i now only put them on when I see might be delayed in getting them placed into the mating nucs at the proper time.

[peggjam]

I have seen the samething this year. I have to think it is temp related due to our really cool summer this year. We have had lows in the upper 30's range.:)

[HVH]

If temperature is the culprit then I wonder why queens can emerge several days apart when they were within 12 hour in age. It makes me think that some queen cells attracted the bees for clustering and others did not. Or the location of some cells favored clustering. This would be an interesting research project.