Jenter-----Nicot????

[sc-bee]

I have questioned on this topic before---but once more please! I have not purchased either. The flow was terrible here this year and now---well 108 degrees---geeezzzeee. Bees not been very happy. I purchased the Queen rearing video from Beeworks--thanks to all for the advice and thanks to Jean.
I have searched and read all available post and here is what I have kinda gathered:

Both are very similar in make-up.

Parts for Nicot are usually not interchangeable with other systems.

Jenter parts are sometimes interchangeable

You can clean both systems parts and re-use---please elaborate on how.

My biggest concern is I read somewhere in a post about the possibility of having to trim down large cells to remove them from the jenter systems frames. Your experience please.

Do you use the roller cages?

How do you place cells in nucs if you don't use roller cages?

Please share any other advice and experiences good or bad you have had with the systems.

Thanks again
Steve

[Michael Bush]

I have several Jenter boxes. I have seen the Nicot. I use the Nicot hair culer cages on the Jenter because they are larger. If you use the hair curlers put a drop of honey in the end for the queen to eat. I don't use the hair curler cages most of the time because I put the cells in mating nucs to emerge. Sometimes I use them when the weather is hot as the queens will sometimes emerge early. Sometimes I use them when I'm just swamped and don't have time to deal with them or I don't have enough mating nucs.

Based on what people who use the Nicot say, I think the Nicot and the Jenter both work fine.

[cmq]

Why use either? Grafting is not difficult give it a try!
I have found the graftless systems to be expensive and cause more work in the long term. You have fill the cage, find the queen & confine her, then release her and assemble the various parts then place them in the cell builder... this all takes time.
One good thing can be said for the graftless systems, through their use and observation, you and can pretty well obtain the get the "feel" for the proper age (developmant / size) of the larvae and can transfer it at the earliest possible time. Something that I feel alot of queen rearers dont do.
With everything else equal, the youngest larvae will recieve a greater amount of care and thus develop into a better queen.
To graft and get an acceptable percentage I use magnification, obviously not required for the younger folk, and a bright source of cool light.

[Cristian Radut]

I've bought a Karl Jenter kit in the summer of 2003 and proved to be functional, but you have to do the breedeing with swiss precision. First prepare the cage in the middle of a frame, then put the queen in cage, wait for her to start laying, and then have to estimate the time that larvae will born; if in that day you have some job to do (Hawaii, Seattle, site-seeing) and won't be able to use the larvae... the game starts again.

That's why it's preferable grafting: you choose directly the larvae.

PS: Roller cages can be used when you have some young queen ready to emerge cells and don't want to miss them.

[JC]

I have 2 problems with the Jenter system:

1. They do not have a video for beginners. All of those plastic parts can get confusing. The Nicot system and the system from Dadant both have videos.

2. I do not like the galvanized metal cell bars. Someone mentioned in another thread that he had to trim the queen cells to get the cells out of the bars.

I do like grafting, once you learn to tell the age of the larva. I remember when Otto Macksen adopted a system from Farrar in 1965 to keep track of the age of larva. He built a cage with queen excluders that held two deep frames in the middle of a deep super. The queen laid eggs in these two frames; he would graft from those two frames and rotate another two frames into the queen cage on a regular basis. I wonder if there is any information on this system in the literature.

I use to make a grafting tool out of a coat hanger, or something thicker, in the 1960s. Additionally, Brushy Mountain has a very nice cell bar frame (#505), or you can make your own.

[Michael Bush]

If you want to control the age of the larvae for grafting (at least until you know how to gage it) you can just build a push-in-cage from #5 hardware cloth to confine the queen:

http://www.bushfarms.com/images/QueenConfinement5.jpg
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesqueenrearing.htm

[wayacoyote]

Jenter system: I've had it one season and only started using this week just to see what I've been missing. I find it to be a lot easier than the "Cupalarvae" that I purchased before. And all the parts are reusable. After reading, rereading, rerereading the timing of things, I can see why grafting would be preferable to many. But I've got it and intend to use it.
One thing that I figured out, since I'm too cheap to buy a cell bar, is that I can get a decent fit for the cells by drilling a 3/4 in hole in a peice of wood to use as the cell bar. The YELLOW cell holders will drop in nicely without jamming too much. However, they will shift, so I wouldn't try running with a bar full of nice queen cells.
If withdrawing finished cells become a problem, i'm sure I could find a way to notch the cell bar something like a key hole to get the cells out without having to trim them.

My difficulty, and the purpose of my rererereading the instructions is that everyone uses different #'s for the days. I figure an egg is laid on day 0 (meaing it is 0 days old). but then I don't know if they hatch on day 3 or after being an egg for 3 days or what. I'm guessing the egg hatches on day 3 (or roughly 72 hours after laid).

Michael did a good write up on how to use it with a FWAF (Cloake board) which is what we intend to do.

Good luck,
WayaCoyote

[sc-bee]

Cupalarvae is this the same as Nicot???

[Cristian Radut]

Hmmm... approximately.

Nicot is the sistem and cupularvae are parts of it (in fact, the little brown plastic cells are called so...)

Or am i wrong?

[Michael Bush]

>My difficulty, and the purpose of my rererereading the instructions is that everyone uses different #'s for the days. I figure an egg is laid on day 0 (meaing it is 0 days old). but then I don't know if they hatch on day 3 or after being an egg for 3 days or what. I'm guessing the egg hatches on day 3 (or roughly 72 hours after laid).

If you confine the queen on Saturday Morning. Release her on Sunday morning. Tuesday night the eggs will start to hatch and by Wednesday afternoon most of them will be ready to graft.

It's 3 1/2 days to hatching. Four covers that they aren't all laid immediately but over a period of a day.

[wayacoyote]

Thanks, Michael. That's exactly how I needed it explained to me. Great meeting you at HAS. My wife and I really were really disappointed we didn't get to stick around to buy your dinner. Maybe next time?

WayaCoyote

[Michael Bush]

>Great meeting you at HAS.

It was great to meet you and your beautiful family.

> My wife and I really were really disappointed we didn't get to stick around to buy your dinner. Maybe next time?

Anytime.

[wayacoyote]

I just tried the Jenter queen cage. All my good queens are in my outyards, so I put it in with a not-to-breed queen to see how well she would lay in it. She laid eggs just fine. So today was the day to transfer larvae to the cell-bar (If I were to pursue it that far), but when I went into the hive, all the larvae were gone. There was some bees in the "cage" but no larvae.

Here's how I had is set up.
I didn't set the cage into a frame of comb as prescribed. Instead, I cut panels of plywood to fit in the frame around the cage (I'm using a medium frame). I did set it in the hive with the face next to a comb which contained eggs, but the frame behind it was capped honey where the instructions say it should be eggs as well to prevent them from carrying the eggs out of the cage.

Do you think that I would have had better success if I had followed the rules to a tee?

The instructions say to leave it in the hive all the time. They'll fill it with honey, but will quickly empty the cells once the queen is put in it so that she can lay. That seems a little risky to me with the risk of throwing off some very delicate timing (yes, I know, grafting is a lot less frustrating

And Lastly, we're definately in the mid-late summer derth which, due to the drought, may be the last of any foraging for the year. Any chance I could get 4 well mated queens out of my girls or is the breeding season over in southwest Kentucky?

WayaCoyote

[Michael Bush]

My bees are not doing well at queens right now in general. It's been rainy and they are probably not brining in much and it's been hot. They keep tearing down the cells after they are built.

I always put the jenter in a frame of comb and put that between two frames of open brood. I have not had good luck unless the eggs are directly across from open brood. Otherwise they just remove the eggs and fill it with nectar.

[Troy]

I bought a Jenter kit and would like to give it a try. It did not come with a video or anything.

I know I have read about it in general terms on this site and I have the basic ideas in mind, but it would be helpful to have it all in one place.

Is there a "how to" guide anywhere on the net?

[Michael Bush]

>http://www.beeworks.com/catalog/inde...products_id=84

This covers the Nicot, but the principles are the same for the Jenter.

[Velbert]

I have a Nicot, My Russian has been it it 3 mounts straight
I have 3 of them I just rotate the grid Put queen in say 8 PM 8/1/07 go on the 4 th day about 7 or 8 PM on 8/5/07 There will be plenty of right aged ones to use 30 To 60 cups I then just pull the excluder cover off both Nicot and let the queen crawl onto the empty one and place the Excluder cover on ( some times you have to guide her down with your finger)

And if you choose not to leave her in the grid for a lone time IF YOU Will LEAVE HER IN THE GRID UNTIL DAY 4 WHEN you transfer the cups there will be larva's (GUARANTEED) if you are not in to bad of a drought

The nuc I have her in has went 2 weeks with out any brood at all Until I got brood from another nuc to keep it going and there has always been larvae on the 4th day of transfer OR (GRAFT)

I have not done any grafting now going on 2 weeks just left her in the grid. went Friday evening to change her to another grid with new cups and as I pulled a frame out I seen brood in the combs OH NO I thought at first my thoughts was my breeder got out of the grid but NOPE another young laying queen.

What I had been doing prior when I transfered cups was to place 3-4 in the breeder box and they built some very beautiful well fed queen cells
I did this 4 time but the last ones I did, I for got about them well you know what happened they hatched. When I checked and seen they looked weaker I new they had swarmed so I looked every frame didn't find any virgins, must have missed one.

I went frantically to the frame with the grid and the breeder queen. WOW was I relieved to see my Russian breeder still roaming around on capped brood. So I changed the grid out to get another graft for Tuesday.

[wayacoyote]

Velbert,
Are you saying that you keep the breeder queen caged in the laying cage and keep her hive going with brood from another hive? I've heard that moving a valued queen to a nuc may help her longevity in that she might get the chance to lay as many eggs as in a production hive. Sounds like your method, if I understand it, would do this in spades.

WayaCoyote

[Velbert]

Yelp it works very well don't have to hunt her up or pluck her from the combs every time, she cant leave with a swarm you have larva for transfer every 4 days.

You don't have to leave here in as long as I do

But if you will always leave her in until the 4 th day when you transfer the cups you will always have larva.

[Velbert]

Went this evening after work and took the grid out and took 33 Cell cups with very young larva not no more than 12 hours, The queen didn't lay a soon as she normally does after being on capped brood she was kinda of short like her ovaries was not kick in to producing eggs when I place her in the grid on Friday. So I put her on another newly loaded grid with new cups. will see what she does in these cups.