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Introducting a Queen Cell - Do you have to wait?

8K views 25 replies 13 participants last post by  tommysnare 
#1 ·
When putting ripe cells in mating nucs...

Do you have to (or should you) wait 24 hours? Or can you install them as soon as you make up the nuc?
Do you have to keep ripe cells upright all the time? I swear I've seen guys with just a bunch of them in a cooler on a warm cloth...

I'm supposed to be putting these cells in Wednesday...

Thanks,

Adam
 
#2 ·
I have always added the cell the same day the nucs were made. I usually make the nucs, then remove the bar of ripe cells from the starter/finisher colony and start putting them in. I try to keep cells upright, but if the cells are ready to emerge in 12 to 24 hours the queen's wings should not be damaged by laying the cell on it's side. I try not to jar the cells or allow them to cool.
 
#4 ·
Yep, put them in at the same time. You can use cell protectors to make sure they don't get torn down or even a roller cage, but then you have to release the virgin after she hatches, easier just to put the cell in. The last few I did, I made the nuc, took it with me to pick up the cells, put all the cells in it, brought them back, and distributed as needed. Cells emerged next day, queens were laying as of yesterday which was day 11 post emergence.
 
#6 ·
During a program we were doing for beekeepers 2 weeks ago, we popped queen cells into 4 queenright colonies (one was a 5 frame nuc, 3 were 2 deep 10 frame boxes).

A week later, we couldn't tell what became of the cell in the nuc...it was chewed back to the plastic. Could be because of the smaller space inside the box.

2 of the cells had definitely emerged (hole in the bottom of the cell), and one had definitely been chewed out (big gapeing hole in the side, tip still intact).

...that's with a laying queen in the hive. No cell protector (just pushed the plastic cell cup into some comb half way between the center and sides of the top box).

deknow
 
#8 ·
...that half of the cells had the queens emerge normally for sure.

One cell (in the nuc) was chewed back to the cup so I don't know if the queen emerged or not. The forth one was definitely chewed out by the bees.

None of this was under ideal circumstances...a public event, opening hives, transporting almost ripe cells in a nuc, etc.

Cells are cheap to produce, and you should always have a backup round coming if you are counting on the queens...no matter how you introduce them. Bees are generally eager (or at least willing) to accept a cell or a virgin even if they are queenright.

The point is that it probably isn't necessary to wait too long after removing the queen....even when the queen is present you have a good shot.

deknow
 
#9 ·
If the conditions are right, installing queen cells in queen-right colonies results in supercedure.

Have you ever seen newly started queen cells in the honey supers, and when you search the rest of the hive thinking the colony is getting ready to swarm, you find not even one cell or queen cup with an egg? In such a case, I feel the colony is attempting to supersede. So, by placing ripe queen cells in the honey supers during a flow, you imitate what the bees do anyway.

Bees make better beekeepers than beekeepers make bees. To be a better bee...

Observe and Imitate. :)
 
#11 ·
I prefer to wait a day for a couple of reasons. I want to encourage some cell development in that first 24 hours as insurance in case the virgin dosent hatch or is killed. Secondly it isn't unusual for a nuc to lose a lot of bees to nearby queenright hives. this gives you the opportunity to add bees or switch hives as needed to insure their bee numbers are adequate.
 
#12 ·
Secondly it isn't unusual for a nuc to lose a lot of bees to nearby queenright hives. this gives you the opportunity to add bees or switch hives as needed to insure their bee numbers are adequate.
Or even to a queen-right nuc where you took an old queen during makeup. Pretty obvious the next day if there are any nucs that have an old queen. They are the ones with a big beard.
 
#14 ·
"MY METHOD OF FORMING NUCLEI AND INSERTING QUEEN CELLS.

"With the nucleus hives, a few spare combs, and provided with some long pins, I go to a hive, and without troubling to look for the queen-except merely to glance over the combs as I take them out-I insert the cells as quickly as possible. Instead of taking the time to fit them nicely, I give a hasty look at the cell, cut a hole in the comb I think will suit, put in the cell and fasten it there by running two pins through the base of it into the comb, one each way-sometimes one is sufficient. Advantage may be taken of a depression in the comb and so save cutting a hole. In this way I can insert the cells and form the nuclei in a very short time. If the queen should be seen during the operation, she is placed with the frame she is on to one side until all is finished, when she is put back into the hive after contracting it with division boards, if necessary. Should she not be seen it only means the loss of one queen cell, which is more than made up for by the time saved in not waiting to find her. I have often spent a considerable time looking for the queen in a strong colony and then perhaps had to give it up. Professor Cook recommends inserting the queen cells twenty-four hours after the nuclei are formed, but says: "We may do it sooner but always at the risk of having the cell destroyed." I very rarely find one destroyed, and I think the risk likely to be greater when time is allowed for the bees to commence building cells before giving them one. Occasionally it happens that a nucleus colony will not accept a queen cell even when it has been queenless for some little time. When this occurs a cell should be protected in a cage when placed in the hive until the queen emerges, when there is likely to be no further trouble. "--Isaac Hopkins, The Australasian Bee Manual, 1886, Chapter XI

http://www.bushfarms.com/beeshopkins1886.htm#mymethod
 
#15 ·
We used to place cells on the same day but found acceptance was erratic and unpredictable. Rarely do we experience acceptance (as defined by successful mating) less than 80% since we began waiting for 36 hours. This past spring it was 86% in 2012 it was 84%.
 
#16 ·
Jim,

Are you re-queening full sized hives with cells or are you putting cells in mating nucs when you get those acceptance rates? I do what you do with full sized hives, but with mating nucs I just put the cell in when I make up the nuc. I don't think that I have ever had them start their own cells except when the cell was not viable.
 
#18 ·
i have my first round of cells that should be capped by tomorrow, and day 10 will be next wednesday.

i was thinking about making up my queenless nucs this weekend, and then removing any emergency cells they make before placing my cells because i want to replace the genetics anyway. would making them hopelessly queenless increase acceptance?

also, i'll only need 6 or 7 cells, but i'll have at least a dozen. i was thinking about caging the ones i don't use, letting them hatch in the finisher, and banking them for up to a week as insurance in case some of the cells i place don't make it.

my other option is to place more than one cell in the nucs.

any thoughts?
 
#19 ·
>i was thinking about making up my queenless nucs this weekend, and then removing any emergency cells they make before placing my cells because i want to replace the genetics anyway. would making them hopelessly queenless increase acceptance?

I don't think it will help at all. I would just make them queenless the night before, or even 2 hours before. A small nuc will know they are queenless in 2 hours.
 
#21 ·
The answer to whether a hive will accept or reject a cell goes a bit deeper than simply how long they have been queenless. Other factors come into play as well. My experience is that a gentle honey flow is more conducive to cell acceptance and that nervous defensive bees are much more likely to reject a cell as well, particularly if there are some robbers sniffing around. The very worst cases of cell acceptance I have experienced are invariably in just such a hostile environment. If it were as simple as the length of time then one would have by far the most success placing cells in hopelessly queenless hives and anyone who has tried that knows it is rarely successful.
 
#22 ·
>My experience is that a gentle honey flow is more conducive to cell acceptance

I agree. That probably had more effect than queenlessness. You can feed just a little at dark so it's gone by morning and improve acceptance a lot without setting off robbing.

>what would your approach be with any extra cells, i.e. double up on placing them vs. letting them hatch and banking the virgins?

That depends on what I have time for. Doing double cells is an easy way to use them up and slightly improve odds. banking virgins requires more work and you can only bank them for a week or so anyway, so what will you do with them then?
 
#23 · (Edited)
A few things I didn't see mentioned here I have experienced.

When you wait 24+ hours to introduce a cell or virgin, you obviously allow them time to make their own cells. Such as in my mating nucs that have been queenless for 24+ hours, when I install a virgin, I go through the nuc and remove any started cells.
But there are times that marked virgin is successfully mated, has returned and is laying when she disappears and a new unmarked queen is found in the nuc. I can only explain it by assuming I missed a wild queen cell, it developed while the installed virgin was maturing and getting mated, When the cell hatched, the new virgin-being the killing machines they are- did in the young newly mated queen. This has happened several times to me and that is in a small mating nuc. With Larger nucs your chances of missing a started cell are greater.
(All my virgins are marked when hatched out of the incubator. The only unmarked queens had to be hatched out from self made cells)

So if you give the nuc enough time to possibly make their own cells, you run the risk of missing a cell and the same thing happening. A waste of a few weeks and you run the risk of letting the nuc dwindle. You'd be just as good making a walk away nuc. But if it is getting late in the summer, it may make the difference between success and failure for that nuc to build enough to overwinter.

I guess my point is, there is a danger if you wait long enough for them to get their own queen cells started. Sometimes a newly started cell is no more than a cell only slightly enlarged with more royal jelly..not even elongated yet and covered with bees. It would certainly pay to go back a few days later and recheck for rouge cells again when they would be bigger and easier to spot. Depending on how many nucs you start, that would mean another full day of labor or more.

Also, if a nuc is queenless for very long, the eggs will disappear. Whether they clean them out or cannibalize them, I am not sure. That's a loss as well if you let them do that.

They know they are queenless pretty fast when you remove the queen. Personally I wouldn't give them more than a few hours before placing the cell, and wouldn't hesitate to put them in as you make up the nuc.
It's how you handle the new nuc that determines it's mood as well. Make them up and close them in and they'll get heated and ticked off and could very well be hard an a queen cell. Make them up and let the foragers fly back to the old hive and they are receptive young bees left to accept your cell. Just gently brush in enough extra young bees from a frame of open brood to allow for the loss of the foragers.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Miller-Compound-HoneyBees-and-Agriculture/256954971040510
 
#24 ·
very interesting points on this thread and a huge thanks to all of you. i have a few nucs that had problems drawing queens a couple weeks back. they just wouldnt draw queens for some reason. frame after frame... they just hatched out the brood and backfilled the frames. last weekend we made a strong nuc from a hive that does incredible and are from our favorite feral bees. brought it home and kept the screened lid on for good ventilation. replaced the lid on day 3 and added feed. went out today and we have 9 capped cells. we cut and added the queen cells into the brood frames of the problem nucs today and hopefully all goes well. the hive they are from is a crazy colony. insane builders with a queen that lays picture perfect and tons. they store well also.tiny plump bees :)

anyone seeing this emergency method we chose (last resort basically) going wrong ?
one of the 4 problem nucs has been queenless for probably 10-12 days now !
the others are heading towards a good week !

we checked for signs of laying workers and didnt see any.
 
#25 ·
many thanks to all who have contributed.

i feel like i am a little late in the season to try grafting and making up nucs, but with the late spring here, getting busy with catching and hiving swarms, and now the honey extracting has pushed me later into the season than i wanted to be.

our flow is trickling down as evidenced by not much foraging going on and more bees bearding on the fronts of the hives. also, i don't think i'm seeing as many drones as i did earlier in the season.

but i wanted to get my hands wet with grafting and have plenty of extra bees with the caught swarms so i decided to give it a shot mostly for the experience and to see what happens. i have a back up plan for queens if needed.

my other mistake was timing day 10 on a work day, so it will be day 11 (the 4th of july) when i pull the cells. i have some roller cages that i could put on on prior to that if ya'll think that would be a good idea.

my plan is to look at the cell frame tomorrow (day 5) and see how many good cells are there, and look over the six remaining caught swarm hives and see how many frames of bees i have all together. i have 13 more empty nuc boxes ready which should be about right.

what i was thinking about doing was pulling three frames of bees and the queen from each of the swarm hives and making nucs with them, and then dividing up the rest of the bees three or four frames to each of the seven remaining nuc boxes.

this will use up seven of my queen cells, maybe leaving me probably seven more. i might use a couple of them to try and requeen weaker hives in my production yard.

any remaining cells i thought i would let hatch out and bank them in the yard for a week, and check the mating nucs to see if they might need one of those virgins.

i won't try another round this year, and any of the nucs that don't get a laying queen could get a purchased queen or get combined back to a queen right hive.

i am open to suggestions on this plan and thanks again for the feedback.
 
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