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Cell finisher question

1K views 4 replies 3 participants last post by  JasonA 
#1 · (Edited)
I’m hoping to get some input on my starter/finisher setup in which I’m hoping to rear 10-15 Queens.

I put 5 frames of capped brood with accompanying bees into 5f nuc box that will serve as my starter.

Sitting right next to it is a 5X5 nuc with brood in both boxes. It was a swarm that I hived 12 days ago, so while strong, I don’t know population balance, but it’s vigorous.

After 24hrs, would it be advisable to place Queen in lower 5X5 box under excluder with room to lay and frame of grafts in top box and use as finisher?

Would it help/hinder the process to also place the starter box with accompanying bees on the stack?

Or, might it be better to select a bigger hive as finisher? Thanks
 
#2 ·
5 frames of capped brood is a lot of bees when it hatches out, plenty strong(and then some) like over kill... but you have to wait till they hatch out +5 days to be useful in cellbuliding... capped brood is all about the graft your going to do next week or the week after..

You still need to fit a frame of honey frame of pollen,a graft frame and a LOT of nurse bees shook in to the 5f nuc.. you need 200 5-10 day old bees or 400 mixed age bees with NO other jobs per cell you place so at a minimum that's 2 full FULLY covered frames of nurse bees shook in, most frames are less... so your looking at 3-4 to be sure

given your goles, your likely are best served using the nuc as a starter finisher as you can make that of volume of queens, and you can graft till you get it right with limited work (vs some outher methods) as you just add a frame of capped every week

http://doorgarden.com/2011/11/07/simple-honey-bee-queen-rearing-for-beginners/
https://www.beeculture.com/net-gain-cell-building-system/
 
#3 ·
My plan is to graft on day 10 following make-up of 5f nuc. My thinking was that by using 5f of capped brood, I could avoid shaking in more nurse bees. I was hoping to avoid shaking nurse bees from production hives. The brood came from nucs so I could shake nurse bees from them.

I figured that if the 5f nuc became overwhelmed with emerged bees, I would add another nuc box to The configuration to give room for pollen, honey and graft frames.

Were I to use as starter/finisher combo, (as opposed to using QR 5X5) would the additional shook nurse bees be working as finishers/starters or combination of both?

Also. I’m feeding the 5f nuc and gave pollen patty.
 
#4 ·
Checking in on builder yesterday looking for e-cells I found the 5 frames of brood mostly all emerged now.
Since that might be overkill, do I still need to shake in 3-4 frames of nurse bees into the builder.

Is that where the mixed age bees come into play? That’s why I wondered if using the 5X5 nuc as finisher would be more desirable than the builder. Thanks
 
#5 ·
You can't have too many nurse bees. I've used the nuc method successfully before. Check for e cells again before you put the graft in. Feed them syrup and pollen sub and add a frame of pollen if you can find it. I also place a foundation next to the grafts. Seems to help with the large amount of nurse bees as they want to build comb between the cell cups. Give them a place to put that wax other than the on grafts.
 
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