I will tell you how not to do it:doh:.
I had never used my Jenter before and had heard that people had problems getting the queen to lay or, if she did, the eggs would disappear when they went back to transfer the larva to cell bars.
So I waited until I had eggs in the Jenter, removed the queen and put it back in the brood nest. Then on that same day I got a single deep and went to three strong hives and took 2 frames of capped emerging brood from each. I found the queen in each donor hive and moved 2-4 frames away and selected capped brood with no open brood (more on this later). I kept the adhering bees on the frames and then shook in another frame or so of nurse bees from each hive. So this was a strong single deep.
I put a frame of honey and pollen, a frame of foundation, a frame feeder and 6 frames of capped brood. This left room for a frame of cells.
I have kept bees for quite a few years and often I would find the queen and then go back in a day or so and find her again on the same frame or on a frame or two away. Most of the time on the frame with most of the eggs. So I always assumed that she just moved from one frame to the next every day or so....
I learned something with my queen rearing experiment.
So on the appropriate day I removed the Jenter from the donor hive, made up my cell bar and put it in the cell builder. Now I waited anxiously for a couple of days and went out expecting to see my cells starting to look like queen cells. I pulled the bar out....nothing
. I looked in the cells and found they were empty and dry.
I pulled the first frame out and six queen cells. Now what are the odds that the queen walks around the hive at night depositing eggs on frames:scratch:??? Well pretty good it seems. There were queen cells on all 6 brood frames. I think a total of 30-35. I was stunned.
Anyway it turned out fine as I only wanted about 6 queens so I just put each brood frame into each mating nuc. One frame had 13 cells so I just let them fight it out.
So my lesson was to make the cell builder up early if you use brood frames and then carefully remove all queen cells made or maybe just shake a bunch of nurse bees onto empty frames with a couple frames of honey and pollen, feeder and foundation.
I had never used my Jenter before and had heard that people had problems getting the queen to lay or, if she did, the eggs would disappear when they went back to transfer the larva to cell bars.
So I waited until I had eggs in the Jenter, removed the queen and put it back in the brood nest. Then on that same day I got a single deep and went to three strong hives and took 2 frames of capped emerging brood from each. I found the queen in each donor hive and moved 2-4 frames away and selected capped brood with no open brood (more on this later). I kept the adhering bees on the frames and then shook in another frame or so of nurse bees from each hive. So this was a strong single deep.
I put a frame of honey and pollen, a frame of foundation, a frame feeder and 6 frames of capped brood. This left room for a frame of cells.
I have kept bees for quite a few years and often I would find the queen and then go back in a day or so and find her again on the same frame or on a frame or two away. Most of the time on the frame with most of the eggs. So I always assumed that she just moved from one frame to the next every day or so....
I learned something with my queen rearing experiment.
So on the appropriate day I removed the Jenter from the donor hive, made up my cell bar and put it in the cell builder. Now I waited anxiously for a couple of days and went out expecting to see my cells starting to look like queen cells. I pulled the bar out....nothing
. I looked in the cells and found they were empty and dry.I pulled the first frame out and
six queen cells. Now what are the odds that the queen walks around the hive at night depositing eggs on frames:scratch:??? Well pretty good it seems. There were queen cells on all 6 brood frames. I think a total of 30-35. I was stunned.Anyway it turned out fine as I only wanted about 6 queens so I just put each brood frame into each mating nuc. One frame had 13 cells so I just let them fight it out.
So my lesson was to make the cell builder up early if you use brood frames and then carefully remove all queen cells made or maybe just shake a bunch of nurse bees onto empty frames with a couple frames of honey and pollen, feeder and foundation.
