[greathorned]

I await three new queens in the mail that will not be here until next week. I split my strong hive on May 24, so today I went through to see which one the Queen was in. I found the 8 frame spit that I left in my Bee Yard had the Queen, as plenty of uncapped brood were present. The other 3 await the delivery of their new Queen. During inspection, I saw, and carefully cut-out two queen cells. The third hive had what appeared to be a hatched queen cell.
As I do not want queens present when the new ones arrive, I cut out the remaining un-hatched ones.
So as I had nothing to loose, I conducted an experiment. I carefully mounted them on two separate entrance feeder tops, and introduced about 5 nurse bees into the glass feeder jar with some added sugar, with a few drops of water.
I am keeping them in the car today, as it is warm here in the Northeast.
Has anyone done this before, and if so is there a good chance that they will hatch? I may have one hive that went Queen-less, so this was worth the experiment.
Regards,
D. Lee

 

[KevinR]

Has anyone done this before.
D. Lee

Are you asking if anyone has put the a queen cell in a jar with a few bees in their car in the northeast? That might be a stretch.

But, people hatch virgins incubators fairly often. If the temps are a constant ~92 degrees and you didn't damage her. I wouldn't be completely surprised to see her hatch.

With that said, I'd rather let the cell emerge into the nuc, instead of trying to introduce the virgin.

 

[kilocharlie]

Yes, the Glenns used to hatch their queens in jars to keep them from killing each other, to facilitate moving them in and out of the incubator, and to facilitate the instrumental insemination process.

Check out their website, www.glenn-apiaries.com

They have now retired, but last I checked, they were maintaining their website.