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Royal Jelly and JZBZ Cell Cups - When is Enough Enough?

4K views 7 replies 6 participants last post by  Michael Bush 
#1 ·
I've been building cell builders and grafting for four years now. I know how to get the bees to fill the cups with royal jelly to overflowing proportions. My question is this: At what point - and when - is enough, enough? Many times I check on my grafts on days two or three, and the JZBZ style cups have jelly filled right to the edge of the JZBZ cup or past. At this point, on day three with a full cup, is this enough jelly to allow the larvae to consume all that which it requires?

I have also witnessed cells beginning to be capped on day 4, and so this makes me believe the cells will receive most or all of the jelly within the first three to four days. I have searched around (not too hard), but haven't really come across specific answers to my questions.
 
#2 ·
Watching as I'm curious about this too. I've had jzbz cups full of royal jelly at time that queen cells are capped and on day 10 after graft when I put them into nucs many of the cells have no royal jelly left. Did they have enough for full development or should there still be some RJ left in the cell cup?
 
#6 ·
Rarely, if ever, when you inspect a cell will it still contain RJ. The exception is if you find her emerging (or very recently emerged) and immediately inspect the cell. The virgin will often return back to the cell and consume the remaining RJ. So, the evidence of a clean cell is not definitive. A more useful measure is: are you pleased with the size/lifespan/performance of the queens you're making. There's a relationship between the amount of RJ during development and the size/lifespan/performance of the resulting queen.
 
#3 ·
Apparently I'm missing the purpose for the question. What decision are you going to make if you decide that it is enough? I'm going to let them cap it and after that the bees are only going to keep it warm, fillegree it and clean the wax off the tip. As far as being capped on day 4, if day 4 is since the egg hatched, yes, that's when they get capped. That is day 8 from when the egg was laid.
 
#4 ·
I know nothing about this, but I also have questions because I thought that the base of the cell is _not_ the input end of the bee. Therefore the question of residual royal jelly always seemed to me not very relevant. But I'm interested in learning.

If the royal jelly is to be used, it should run down the cell wall, but slowly. If it does so, then it should be cleared out when the queen emerges and having none left in the cell seems reasonable, a normal thing. But if it's an emergency cell with a horizontal segment at its base, the jelly can't fully run out. And thick jelly can't really run out unless the bee thrashes around to push it down to near the mouth parts.

I started thinking about this while pondering reports of vibration causing queen death. I thought, "Gee. Maybe the jelly is suddenly avalanching down and covering the tracheal openings enough to drown the bee." But maybe not. I'm still interested and curious.

Michael
 
#8 ·
I set up my starter like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enUAOPyWrg8&t=2s

After you set that up you have a lot of queenless nurse bees with no larvae to feed and lots of food and water for them to use to make royal jelly. I you put the frame of larvae in there for about a hour before you graft they will be swimming in royal jelly. Now you graft and then put the cells back in the starter and the brood frame back in it's hive.
 
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