Time of day to get queen to lay?

[SRatcliff]

So I confined my queen in the jenter comb box around 5pm and I plan on releasing her before work at around 10am tomorrow morning. Will this allow her the right time to lay eggs? Will she lay in the evening and at night. There is also a low of about 47 degrees tonight.

[AstroBee]

I'll be interested to hear how this works for you. I've not had great luck releasing the queen with just eggs present. I've had the bees clean out the eggs from the cell plugs after her release. Now I just keep her confined for 3 + days and release her just before I pull out the larvae. Perhaps I just had a couple of bad experiences that have led me to an overly conservative approach. Please keep us posted on what you find.

[SRatcliff]

Did you have trouble with there being multiple eggs in each cell plug?

[beedeetee]

Well, ask two beekeepers....I try to leave mine only 16-18 hours. Otherwise I will get double eggs. I have never had bees remove the eggs from a Jenter. I leave it right where it was when the queen was in it. I just remove the cover over the hole. I do check for eggs before removing the queen and I put it in the brood nest a couple of days before I add the queen to get it smelling like the rest of the frames.

I have had them put honey in the cells in the couple of days that it was in the hive before the queen was added, but they moved it out right away.

[SRatcliff]

I put it in the hive for a couple days before, but on the end and not right in the broodnest. When I confined the queen, I stuck it in the heart of the broodnest. I guess we'll see in the morning, and if she hasnt layed yet, I will leave her in longer. Would like to hear other experiences as well. Thanks!

[SRatcliff]

Could I block the bees from removing the eggs until they hatch, or do the workers have to constantly tend to them?

[Michael Bush]

In my experience anything over 24 hours you'll get a lot of double eggs. Anything much under 24 hours and you may no t get any eggs. She lays it all up quickly once she makes up her mind to lay in them, but sometimes it takes her a while to accept them.

[SRatcliff]

As of 10:00am EST, 17 hours later, there are eggs in all the cells with no double eggs, so i released the queen. I did this in a hive, that was basically still a swarm, that I cut out two sundays ago. I stuck the jenter cage on an empty medium frame, and this morning they had already built two sections of comb on the frame, hopefully this will encouraeg the bees to leave the eggs in the jenter box. Here's a pic.


Shot at 2012-04-25

[AstroBee]

No, I don't have problems with multiple eggs. This past Monday I released my queen who had been in the Jenter frame for 4 days. I pulled 24 larvae and placed them in the cell bars. I then inspected all of the remaining cell plugs. I carefully looked at each plug and found only one plug that had two eggs - all others were singles. This is with a Glenn Apiaries II Pol-Line queen. She's a great queen, but perhaps not a supercharged egg layer that others may have.

Again, please keep us posted on your success. I'd like to reduce the time that she's confined, but don't want to waste efforts if the bees are going to clean out the eggs.

[SRatcliff]

Did a check earlier today. The eggs are still in the cells. Since there weren't as many bees inside the jenter cage blocking my view, I did notice that there are a few cells with multiple eggs. I am getting ready to crowd my cell starter hive down to an 8-frame medium and make it queenless. Then I will transfer the cell plugs tomorrow.

imag0065op.jpg

[SRatcliff]

The "grafting" was completed a couple hours ago. I'd say that in the Jenter cage, 50% were still eggs and 50% were larvae, so I still had plenty to choose from for my 26 cells. About 30 minutes after placing the cell bar frame into the hive, the bees were already taking to the cells and hanging from them. Began to feed heavily.

Anyone have any advice from here on out?

[Michael Bush]

The #1 most important thing is that the starter is LITERALLY overflowing with bees.

[SRatcliff]

Did a check today. They only started 4 of the 26 cells. Frames 3-7 also had 2 or 3 queen cells started, most being on the bottom of the frames and a couple of started cells in the middle of a certain frame. While I had a huge number of bees in the hive, I didn't have as many as Michael said I should have, if it were reduced to a 5-frame nuc I think I would have. Not sure if that was the problem though? Perhaps I didn't use the best aged larvae, which I really don't know what is, but I believe they were just a few hours old given the number of eggs that had not hatched yet.

Anyway, I will still use those cells and the frames with cells, so I'm happy. We live and learn. Any ideas on what I could do better next time?

[beedeetee]

It is because your cell builder had larva the right age for them to start their own without your cells. You're lucky that you got any cells started. Your cell builder needs to be free of any larva of queen rearing age. Otherwise after you make the box queenless they will start their own cells before you add yours.

[SRatcliff]

Oh I see. I thought that the plastic cells looked like started queen cells to the bees, and encourages them to make them on the fake cells. So basically you're forcing them to use your cells rather than just encouraging them?

Thanks

[beedeetee]

Look at the "Cloake Board" thread in this forum area to see the steps. You don't need a Cloake Board. The theory is the same. The cell builder needs to think that they are queenless, have lots of nurse bees and not have any alternative larva to use.

Don't feel bad. The first time I tried to raise queens I found 7 frames of capped brood, two frames of pollen/honey and a frame of my cells. I always thought that the queen stayed on a frame until it was pretty well filled and then moved to an adjacent frame. So I picked capped brood frames a couple of frames from the queen's location in the donor hives.

I left it queenless over night and then added my frame of larva. No takes. I did find queen cells on EVERY brood frame. I think that I had about 20 cells. So I used them, but I learned that the queen roams the hive laying eggs every day.

[Michael Bush]

I put open brood on both sides of the cells to draw the nurse bees to the cells.

[fish_stix]

I've had them start queen cells on frames with larva within a couple hours of making up the starter hive. Once they start cells they usually will not draw and feed introduced grafts. As Michael Bush stated, the results are totally dependent on the number of bees available to feed and nurse the cells. Shake in nurse bees until they are just boiling out the top when you remove the lid. I use a 5 frame nuc for a starter and shake in 4-5 lbs of bees plus 3 frames of capped/emerging brood and plenty of honey and pollen. You can use the same nuc for 3-4 grafts by keeping it populated with nurse bees and capped brood. On the last graft leave them a cell and it becomes a new hive. We go through several hives and shake nurse bees off frames of open larva to populate the starter.

[SRatcliff]

The queen cells on the frames of comb look younger. I made up the starter hive the day before the cells were introduced. Just an observation.

[SRatcliff]

I put open brood on both sides of the cells to draw the nurse bees to the cells.

Michael, do you already have the open brood in the starter hive before you put in the fake cells?