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48 Hour Queen Cells

32K views 41 replies 22 participants last post by  kilocharlie 
#1 ·
I have read a couple of articles recently about using 48 hour started cells to distribute gene pool material from a good queen or breeder queen to the masses. I'm not sure I understand the advantages of this other than the superior genetics. Are their other advantages (ie ease of transport, better percent acceptance)?? Would not sealed queen cells work better? I must be missing something here. Anyone with ideas on this please share. Thanks

Tim
 
#4 ·
My understanding is that the 48 hour q-cells are less vulnerable to being harmed at that age. I believe that Dr. John Kefuss in Toulouse Fr was one of the first to ship 48 hour cells. There have been a few articles covering his work/breeding in recent years.
 
#5 ·
Bee Culture had an article in the June issue from Dr. Larry Conner discussing it breifly.

I also saw this on the Michigan Beekeeping site. These are the new way to get bee stock into your hive from breeder queens. You carry the cells home in a styrofoam cup and install them into a queenless nuc you have made up. The colony completes the construction of the cell.

Tim
 
#8 ·
No (takes three days for an egg to hatch), 48 hours from grafting probably.

I have a friend who uses this. Many of the apiaries he has to get into are so rugged he hasn't got a chance of getting 9 day cells into intact, and you can't tell what condition the young queen is in inside the cell once you get there.

He carries in two day cells in a nuc with nurse bees and loves it - he can see the larvae is well inside the cell before he puts it into the hive. Occassionally a larvae is jarred out of the cell by the rough tracks, , but he can see that and just chooses the next cell.

Has great acceptance and success.
 
#12 ·
I can't say I fully understand the advantages of a 2 day old cell over using ripe queen cells. I have two concerns, one is the incubation temps and handling while transporting immature larvae. Perhaps these styrofoam cups contain bees and a method to keep the very soft wax from being crushed? My other main concern is that there is always some attrition as the cells mature I would estimate an average of 5 to 10 % with an occasional instance of even more serious problems. You can have nearly 100% confidence in the health of a 10 day old ripe cell once you learn how to recognize abnormalities.
 
#14 ·
OK I can accept that. They are just making it easier for researchers to transfer their genetics by moving the "heavy lifting" of queen cell production away from the researchers to the beekeeper. Any additional losses due to handling would just be part of the cost of doing business so to speak.
 
#16 ·
48 hour queen cells are cells that were grafted 48 hours ago. I transport mine when going to other yards in a piece of styrofoam with holes drilled in it for the cups to sit in and chuncks of styofoam are the same size as a small bucket where multiple layers of foam and queen cells can be stacked in. Another advantage to using 48 hour queen cells is spreading out the work of the cell builder. When planting 48 hour cells in a 5 frame nuc that nuc only has to feed that one queen cell. I see bigger cells doing this with lots of surplus royal jelly. I don't always plant 48 hour cells but when I'm in a pinch for more queen cells in the queenless mating nucs I will and it works out really well.
 
#19 · (Edited by Moderator)
Hi Guys

I've experimented with unsealed queen cells and found them to be much more robust than sealed queen cells. Once harvested they:

- didn't require any temperature control.
- were practically immune to transportation shock.
- needed no attendants.
- were readily accepted.

I suspect they could successfully and easily be shipped almost anywhere.

You can read more about my tests at:

http://bwrangler.litarium.com/two-day-old-cells/

One test not mention consisted of letting 24 hour old queen cells set unattended, in a cool place, for two days. The bees readily accepted these cells and raised normal, healthy queens from them. That's how robust they are.

Regards - Dennis
 
#20 ·
Thats some really interesting info Dennis. How long were the two day cells left unattended by bees and at what temps? I do continue to have some concerns about transferring what I consider to be the problem of normal attrition in the cell maturation process into a nuc. It isnt unusual for us to see 5 to 10% of our cells that appear healthy at the 48 hour stage but by day 10 have been either chewed out by the bees or are showing signs of being unhealthy.
 
#21 ·
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
 
#22 ·
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.
 
#27 ·
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!:applause:)

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!
 
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