"New?" method of queenrearing?

[justgojumpit]

So here's my idea, adapted from the hopkins method of queen rearing

1: Insert a new frame of recently drawn comb into the broodnest of your parent hive.
2: Once there are just-hatched larvae in the frame, remove it and cut out rows of cells from sidebar to sidebar. Make sure to avoid damaging that row of cells, cutting through the rows on either side.
3: Attach these strips to the undersides of the bars on a queen cell frame.
4: Damage two out of every three cells along the length of the row.
5: Insert the queen cell frame into a hive that has been queenless for 24 hours.
6: remove the cells when capped and allow to incubate, hatch, and mate in nucs.

This seems like it should word and would eliminate the need for a special box to hold the frame sideways as in the hopkins method. What do you all think?

justgojumpit

[little55]

Sounds like it would work to me you could also use rubber bands to hold the strips to the frame. the bees will remove the rubber bands after the cells are secure to the frame. thus not needing any special equipment.

[mwjohnson]

Hi Jumpit
I bet it will work.

I thought to use a frame with cell bars too,and attach strips of foundation to the bars, kinda like Alley attached strips to combs.

My thinking was that queens that were reared between frames of open brood and pollen/nectar "might" be better feed than those up on top, I too look foward to others responses.

One thing that's been troubling me is that you won't have much of a "handle" on the capped cell once you cut them apart, and want to install them in your mating nuc.

I guess that the same would be true of the Hopkins (Case) method too.

I sooo hate to think about attaching them with my T-50 stapler....

[Michael Palmer]

5: Insert the queen cell frame into a hive that has been queenless for 24 hours.


It will work even better if you can set up the cell building colony so...

1. The only larvae that the bees can raise into cells are the ones you added on your cell bar frame.

2. You place a good frame of fresh pollen next to the cell bar frame.

[beekuk]

It will work,no problem with that,very much the same as the punched cell method where instead of using a strip you just punch out the cells containing larvae and mount on the cell bar. use a rifle shell sharpened up as a cell punch.used to be able to buy the kits?

[justgojumpit]

How would you all go about fastening the cell punches to the cell bars? I was thinking about stapling thin small squares of wood to the underside of the cell bar, and then using molten wax near the point of re-solidifying to attach the cell punches to the pieces of wood. Then when the cell was ready to be removed, the little piece of wood with the queen cell attached could be pried off of the cell bar, and then that piece of wood could be straddled across two frames in the nuc to receive the queen cell. The queen cell would then hang between two frames.

justgojumpit

[beekuk]

Hi here is a link to some info,also look at cell punch frame by clicking on top left link.
http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/cellpunch.html

[Michael Bush]

It's a great plan!

Here's the book on it:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesbetterqueens.htm

And the same book distilled down to a method:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesqueenrearing.htm

And another version of the same method that predates that one:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beeshopkins1886.htm

And the same method except with OLD comb instead of new that predates all of them:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesalleymethod.htm

And a somewhat similar method that doesn't require cutting into strips:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beeshopkinsmethod.htm
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesqueenrearing.htm#hopkinsmethod

So I guess its not very new... since the basics of it were published in 1883 and virtually the exact method was published in Gleanings in Bee Culture for August, 1880 by Jos. M. Brooks and repeated in 1886 in Hopkins' book above.
http://www.bushfarms.com/beeshopkins1886.htm#securecells

:)

But it is a great method.

[Velbert]

This may be more work than most may want to do. USES WORD


http://www.box.net/shared/5aa3amg4km

[justgojumpit]

Thanks for all of the links and replies! I will be looking into those tonight

justgojumpit