Nicot question

**Rube63** · 06-29-2012, 06:44 PM

I need some direction please. I moved one of my very good queens to a nuc a few days ago to force her hive to make cells. During the time she was in the nuc I decided to put my Nicot in with her and let her lay in it. I now have eggs in all the cells and will move them to my bars on 6/30 but instead of moving the eggs move the queen and let that nuc which is booming raise the cells. What do you think? Thanks in advance Ron Hawkins...

**theriverhawk** · 06-29-2012, 06:52 PM

Hmmm...never done it that way. I usually make a box eggless before I place the cell cups in there. Wouldn't there be fresh eggs in the box or still young enough larvae from before the queen was put in the NICOT? I may have misread your post.

**Rube63** · 06-29-2012, 07:05 PM

I see what you mean the bees might pick the larvae in the comb over the ones in the cell cups even though they will be the right age when I take the queen out. However the fact that she stayed in the Nicot almost 3 days before she layed might put the ones in the cell cups closer to the right age since she was'nt putting any eggs in the comb during that time...???

**knoxjk** · 06-30-2012, 07:11 AM

Originally Posted by Rube63

I see what you mean the bees might pick the larvae in the comb over the ones in the cell cups even though they will be the right age when I take the queen out. However the fact that she stayed in the Nicot almost 3 days before she layed might put the ones in the cell cups closer to the right age since she was'nt putting any eggs in the comb during that time...???

The eggs have to be between 3 and 4 days old. If they are older than 4 days the larvae is going to be too old.

**MethowKraig** · 06-30-2012, 09:21 AM

One big advantage of the Nicot system, or similar, is that you have complete control over the age of the larvae. The egg hatches on day 4 and the younger the larvae is when you transfer it, the better results will be. (However, don't use eggs. For some reason the bees destroy them.)

The queen doesn't like the plastic cups. To overcome this, spray the cage with syrup just before you introduce the queen. From my experience, she will not lay the first day, but on the second day will fill all the cups. You know the age of the larvae within 12 hours.

As for using a Nuc to start the cells, the best starter colonies are packed with bees. Mimic swarm conditions. A honey flow, pollen, more bees than space. See Michael Bush: it is the density of bees that is critical. Two boxes of bees reduced to one box. A single box of bees reduced to 5 frames. Etc.

Cells should be "started" in queenless hive for 24 hours. Then should be moved to a queenright hive with an excluder to separate the queen from the cells. It is the starter conditions that are critical. A finishing (queenright) hive can be of mediocre quality and still get excellent cells as long as the starter was booming with bees and well fed.

I use a variant of the Cloake system, wherein a single hive is divided for 24hrs to provide the queenless "emergency" impulse to start the cells, but reunited the next day.

"Met-How" Kraig (no "th")