48 Hour Queen Cells

[BWrangler]

Hi Jim

Those cells were left setting in a cooler in my garage. It's been awhile so I don't remember exact figures. But it would have been mid 60's to mid 70's, considerably cooler than a broodnest or incubator.

I've monitored attrition rates. Like everything bee wise, the rates vary between bees and seasons. But, through time, the normal losses fall into some broad ranges:

- grafting to sealing. 3 to 15%
- sealing to hatching. less than 1%
- hatching to laying. 10 to 18%

My queens weren't shipped and introduced, so I don't have any figures for that. But I suspect acceptance losses would be in that 15 to 18% range.

If so, sealing to hatching losses could be traded off for shipping/introduction losses, if the open cells are as robust as my small tests indicate, and a beekeeper is buying them through the mail.

If a beekeeper is producing them for himself, it's just so much easier and cheaper to produce 2 day old cells and use them to requeen a hive than it is introducing mated queens. To reduce risk, a beekeeper could insert 2 open cells instead of just one and still be way ahead.

Jim, what do you think?

Regards - Dennis

[jim lyon]

Well, Dennis, I think it is a really useful and intriguing idea with a lot of applications. Your attrition numbers, which I don't question, are not what we normally see during our cell season in March and April in east Texas. We get mysterious bouts of "funkiness" (as I like to refer to it) that comes and goes. We graft, 600 to 800 per day for about a month and a half. This past season we had a bout with something that cost us around half of our cells grafted for two consecutive days that look beautiful and completely normal until about day 7 or 8. It dosent happen every year but I am never shocked when it does. We arent alone with these problems, in some areas south of us these problems went on for weeks. You never know for sure what causes it but Yellow Jasmine pollen is most likely the culprit and the problems will go away as quickly as they come. The bottom line for us is that the only way we can assure ourselves that the cells are healthy is to let them go full term and carefully inspect them as we are putting them in.

[RayMarler]

See Bob Russel post #19

http://www.beesource.com/forums/show...ld-queen-cells

[Joseph Clemens]

This was a 48 hour old cell that was placed in a mating nuc (for finishing), right after the finished queen was harvested. It's now almost due to emerge -->

[Myron Denny]

I was thinking this would be a good way to start a Nuc. Are there any updates to this thread? Have there been any problems? Is there a time in the spring that causes problems. I realise you have to have drones to have this succeed.

[pine_ridge_farms]

I start nucs this way sometimes. I just make sure that the nuc has a surplus of nurse bees, a frame of pollen, a syrup feeder, and very little open brood. This allows the queen cells (I usually give a nuc a few) to be fed very well.

[kilocharlie]

I especially like the part about distributing the feeding task over more bee resources, taking stress off the cell builder (and reducing the cycle time!)

Thanks for bringing this matter up. It will really help in my current situation - having recently had most of my bees killed and having to stock up from only 2 strong colonies. I'll just isolate all my remaining queens and have them lay for 3 days in their "queen jails", graft from these and use cut-cell and cell-punch as well, start them for 24 hours above the Cloake Board, pull the board out, wait 24 hours, and distribute the QC-48's into package bee nucs (or better yet purchase a couple strong colonies and split them...)

I can repeat the process every 4th day that way, and get back in the game this spring without having to wait until queens (that I did not order because I did not anticipate this) are available in the late spring. This saves me two or three months ! Again, thank you!

[Almondralf]

So why is it 48h - wouldn't it be better to wait just before capping - like 72h?

[jim lyon]

The need for more careful handling becomes more critical as they mature. At 48 hours they are still just larvae floating in a nice pool of royal jelly. They will be capped over about 120 to 130 hours after grafting (between 5 and 6 days).

[kilocharlie]

Ray Marler - Thank you for the link to the 2006 thread about the same topic! I assume that the New Zealander fellow named Bob Russell is a different chap than Dr. Robert Russell of Mississippi, but either way, his wisdom is helpful. I see it is a poor idea to use this method with package bees - he mentions it really only works well with stronger colonies and splits. I'll probably make up a few of the full 10-frame cell raiser boxes with ventilation screens, just for having this option available to my system. I'll probably make up Pine Ridge's foam-and-bucket system, too.

Almondralf - Just to expand upon what Jim says - the QC's are most vulnerable in the late gorging / early pupal stages, still a bit vulnerable to jarring or shock as almost-mature queens about to emerge, than they they are as small, 48-hour-old grubs (larvae) floating in royal jelly. It is a good time to transport them, and has the additional advantages of 1) distributing the cell-raising "load" over many more bees, 2) more closely approximating supercedure response, and probably improving average queen quality, 3) reducing the cycle-time on your production setup (not overall time, though), and 4) adding the possibility of an additional brood-cycle break in which to reduce varroa destructor mite populations.

One further suggestion is to not kill the resident queens, but put them in numbered cages and into the queen bank while the new ones are taking - just in case you end up with NO queens! After things are hunky-dory in the re-queened hives, you can do your evil deeds to the old queens. I sometimes take a shake from a strong hive with less-than-the-best genetics, let my 2-year-old queens unite with them, then let them swarm on their own from cardboard boxes back to nature if it is early enough in the year. At least they have a chance to make it.

[RayMarler]

kilocharlie
Good luck on rebuilding your numbers up this year. This sounds like a very good system to me, but I've not tried it yet. I have 2 good looking hives so far so after I get some honey, perhaps I'll try it out for summer splits. It may do better for varroa control than using ten day cells like I did last year.

[weldingfreak6010]

Hi Guys

You can read more about my tests at:

http://beenaturalguy.com/legacy-quee...day-old-cells/

Regards - Dennis

Here is an updated link

http://beenatural.talkingstick.me/two-day-old-cells/

[BWrangler]

Hi Guys

From my experience, they are very robust and readily accepted. I've said a little more about it here:

http://talkingstick.me/bnatural/two-day-old-cells/

Regards - Dennis

[jean-marc]

So does anybody use these 2 day old queen cells in queenright colonies that have a one or two year old colony? If these cells were addedthen the bees behaved as if it were a supercedure cell, finished them and then the virgin killed off the old queen and went and got mated this would be a huge labour saving method to requeen. No need to find and kill the old queen. No need to introduce a new queen. Anybody know?

Jean-Marc

[kilocharlie]

Jean-marc - The problem with adding QC's to a queenright colony is that you are likely to lose a bunch of bees to swarming. as they may interpret the QC as a swarm queen rather than a supercedure queen. It is probably better to use the Cloake board in the starter/finisher then plant the QC's straight into nuc splits.

If you wanted to supercede a queen, you could catch mama queen, hold her in a queenless "queen bank" colony, introduce the new queen with a Laidlaw cage, and killl the old queen after the new queen has been accepted.

[jean-marc]

Kilocharlie. Are you basing this on experience or assumptions? I don't think bees would swarm with one cell, but I have not tried this before. We requeen hives in august. The issue with catching the old queen is it is very labour intensive. It is hard to get a crew that can average much more than requeening 50 doubles per man day. When we do it the colonies are just jammed with bees which slows the process down. The same crew could probably do 70-80 a day in the spring. I thought if the bees could do it with a 2 day old cell, that could work for me.

Jean-Marc

[kilocharlie]

Well, try it on a few colonies and see what your numbers are. It may work for you. Again, focus on emulating supercedure, NOT SWARMING, so do this while adding an empty super.

[Michael Bush]

I want my queens well fed. Mating nucs do not feed them well. I'll stick with 14 day old cells...