Re: Quaring with Michael Palmer method
What are those mini frames you reference used for? UofG, in the video, cuts out the comb, probably full of brood when their usefulness as mating resources is over, and of the house bees and foragers?
Well all that was used was a cup of bees, 2 mite washes, many of us dump that all the time. If you just doing one run all that is wasted is some eggs, shake it out let them find a home...
The most common way to deal with the brood is a hatch out box placed above an QE (picture from Ian)
or many of the systems (especially if your building there own) alow you to stack them up and over winter
and there are even people who shed/cellar winter the single foam minis, in norway no less
the problem is the not the gear, its that people don'e know how to use it.
Probably not such a bad thing as the quality of the qcell really does matter in long run.
I am referring to high quality swarm cells.
If you are concerned with risking resources at spring buildup either the queen rearing attempt is timed incorrectly or the donor colonies are too weak.
or your a back yard beekeeper who just had a hive swarm on plastic foundation.. Sure maby you have done your reading and a have a 5 frame nuc to put a few frames with a cell in.. but what happens to all those other cells?
you can buy/build more nucs and split up your whole hive 10 ways IF you have 10 frames of brood
or for the same resources in 1 of those 10 2f splits you could stock 10 minis. put push in cages around the cells and end with a good suply of local queens to sell and trade
Close to zero additional cost when one plans ahead and makes alterations before assembling boxes.
false economy..
the equipment isn't making you honey or bees and your locking up drawn comb that could be better used elce ware.
while I don't dissagree that outhers ways may be better for you with your stock and your methods... in terms of efficiency, that's all numbers and minis win hand down. they have been with us for hundreds of years (Jansha 1771) and remain the most popular nuc. for good reason. Its a retilitivly easy thing to produce more queen cells then you can use, if you can use more cells with the same amount of resources, you can make more queens. more local queens is a good thing
Your arugments against them sound like you haven't worked with them... they do have down sides for sure, just not what your bringing up, you should try some..
in my stock pile... I have a 3 frame queen castle (3), a 2 frame queen castle (3), 6 2f stand alones (6), 12 of "mine" witch are 8 one half frame shallows that have a division board center so it can split in to two 3 frames with feeder they can be stacked on each outher or 2 on top of a 8f hive (24), and 10 foam minis (10) for a total of 46 holes for queens At peak last year I think I had 40 running.
Aside from the resorce reasons. they are well dezinged and well insulated, and well ventilated with an internal feeder.
you get an earlier jump on queen rearing the insulation square(ish) brood chamber and 3+ combs leads to a warm center.. you only need about a dozen bees to care for a queen till the eggs start hatching, the rest are for thermo regulation.... 2 frame standalons have very poor thermal properites
can easly move them in and out of dark cool place, spray the frount vents with a bit of water while they are locked up and 3 days later set them back in the same yard... very handy if all you have is your back yard
The tiny combs are fast to find queens on, making it a great way for beginners to learn how to find queens.
Being so small the are quite docile, alowing one to quickly work them with out smoke or gear
Do to the size and no brood they are readly excepting of virgins. A handy thing if you have cells on plastic foundation you want to save, cage them and move the virgins to minis at your leasure.
This spring 1st out will be "mine" as I have 3 stacks overwintering and expect at least one to make it and be brood factory to stock the nucs, folowed by the foam minis... likey a bunch of foam minns I am making, the queen castles if need and last and only if I have to the 2 frame stand alones.
I got the crap kicked out of me last year main yard took 85% losses... likly nosema after late season tetra to put down a efb out break wipe the gut microbse and then got mite bombed....
I came threw the winter with 7, one went drone layer early spring, what I had alive didn't build up (cold spring with screwy pollen flow and they started weak as it was). I didn't get queens mated out and layeing till the 1st week in july...
But I sold queens and got my numbers up (stitting on 20, 25% losses so far) this was mainly do to the 2 mini nuc systems.