[aran]

Im in the middle of queen rearing using MP's cell builder 10/10 method.
I have had over 75% acceptance which im stoked with since my grafting skills i would say are shaky at best.

Here are couple or three questions i cant figure out.
1. Why recombine the mother colony with the queenless cell starter after the cells are capped on day 5? I mean if they are already capped then what is gained by recombining with the queen right mother colony ( over a queen excluder of course)

2. Is grafting day considered day 1 or day zero?

3. why wait until day 9-10 to harvest the queen cells before putting them into nucs? I mean if they are already capped on day 5 why not do it then? or day 6,7,8,9 for that matter.

 

[AR Beekeeper]

I can't answer for Mr. Palmer, but I can give you my thoughts.

1. Returning the mother colony returns queen pheromone, uncapped brood pheromone, and young emerging bees to the portion used as a cell builder. It is not for the benefit of the cells, but for the colony, that you recombine the two parts.

2. I consider grafting day as day 0.

3. By day 10 the pupa have matured enough to prevent damage to them from jarring the cells, also by day 10 the bees in the mating nucs will get the pheromones produced by cells ready for emerging. I have placed cells younger than 10 days, but I have had the bees destroy the cells more often than with 10 day old cells. Was age the cause? I don't know, but why take a chance if you don't have too.

 

[Bob Anderson]

Ditto for what AR Beek says.

I often use day 5/6 cells in nucs. Other people have used cells that aren't even capped yet. Do not play around with day 7/8 cells. The queen's wing buds are developing during that time frame and any jarring of the cells can result in wing damage and hence a non-flying queen.

 

[aran]

I can't answer for Mr. Palmer, but I can give you my thoughts.

1. Returning the mother colony returns queen pheromone, uncapped brood pheromone, and young emerging bees to the portion used as a cell builder. It is not for the benefit of the cells, but for the colony, that you recombine the two parts.

2. I consider grafting day as day 0.

3. By day 10 the pupa have matured enough to prevent damage to them from jarring the cells, also by day 10 the bees in the mating nucs will get the pheromones produced by cells ready for emerging. I have placed cells younger than 10 days, but I have had the bees destroy the cells more often than with 10 day old cells. Was age the cause? I don't know, but why take a chance if you don't have too.

ok so all of that makes sense thanks for those answers.

With regards to answer #1 then does it matter if the recombine happens on day 6? Weather on day 5 is going to suck