If you can see them they are probably too old, but, in my experience, they'll just feed them and cap them even though they are sidways. If they are queenless, they will probably make some queen cells, but they would have done that anyway if you put it in normal orientation. To do the Hopkins method, you take a frame of known aged larvae and destroy every other row and then ever two out of three cells of the remaing rows so you can have them where you can seperate them and use the queens for more hives than that one.

If they are queenless you'll have cells sooner than friday but they should be well developed by then.

 

The hopkins method is time consuming and kills larvae... in my opinion.

Take a frame that has brood of all ages, shake the bees off, and place in queenless nuc. Feed Feed Feed. Come back in a few days and go to the frame, pull it out carefully and see of they are creating queen cells.

 

MB,

If I was to guesstimate their size I would say between .035 and .050 inch in length and blond hair thin. They looked to me to be about as big as a printed ten point comma, as a real world example. And they looked almost to be standing on end.

Chef,

I originally did add a frame of brood, but perhaps I did'nt have larvae of the appropriate age in there. Since I pulled the comb and was just going to put it with my collection of comb pieces, after noticing the larvae I thought I would do something with it. I keep a lot of notes and I am always trying something new or different.

My next project is to attempt the Hopkins Method in its entirety. I just haven't built the specialized frame for harvesting cells and larvae yet. It does destroy larvae, that is true, but the number of queens raised makes up for it.

What I am thinking is to make a divider out of an excluder, that I can use to divide an eight frame box into a four frame, divider, three frame area. I can move the queen into the smaller side, and when ready put in the "Hopkins Frame". That should force the queen to lay in the specified frame. I guess you can do that as many times as needed.

I have a favorite colony; I thought I would go through it and set it up that way so I can get some queens from that one in particular.

Just a thought...

Albert

 

when you added the frame of brod to the queenless colony, did you feed?

 

Sure did! Frame of honey and they had a baggie of 1:1 syrup.

Albert

 

>The hopkins method is time consuming and kills larvae... in my opinion.

No opinion about it. You kill every other row, but the bees have little invested in them at that point. It still saves having to have good enough eyesight to graft and you don't have to buy any equipment except a little #5 hardware cloth and some one by threes to build the shim.

The shim can also do double duty as a baggie feeder.

 

Ok Fellows,

I checked today, and there are about 8 queen cells in progress. Two are adjacent to each other, but the rest are one or two cells apart. The cells are about .25-.30 inch long. Capping should occur on or about the Monday the 19th.

Now, when do you harvest them? If I have read Better Queens correctly,

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesbetterqueens.htm

as soon as the bees start to build the cells they can be moved. Am I correct? Or should I wait untill they are capped?

I have some nucs ready to accept them. Two frames of honey and pollen, and a frame of open and capped brood. With attached nurse bees. I'll secure the queen cell to a top bar. Is there anything else I should be aware of?

In my first three nucs I have allowed the bees to make their queen, this time I would like to start my own queens. I wish I had the coolers nucs ready but I don't! And anyway I'm trying to standardize all my equipment to medium frame dimensions. I have 4,6, and 8 frame boxes.

Thanks,
Albert

 

>as soon as the bees start to build the cells they can be moved.

Jay is using a swarm box for a starter and then moving them to a finisher. But as far as putting cells in a nuc to emerge, I do them on the 14th day after the egg was laied or the 10th day after the larvae were given to the starter.

>Or should I wait untill they are capped?

I'd wait until four days AFTER they are capped. Until then they are VERY fragile.

 

Thank you Mr. B,

I wasn't sure if I understood J Smith correctly. Now I understand.

This is a good learning experience, it is giving me a good opportunity to let me observe what happens from the earliest moments.

I am going to correct my calendar to reflect the dates you gave me.

Again, Thanks!
Albert

 

Fellows,

I checked yesterday, and what I found puzzled me.

The cells aren't there anymore. At least not the way they were a couple of days ago. Now what I found is a wider shallower cell. The larvae look different too. I' m checking again today but with my Opti-Loupes on. I am confused some what.

Jay Smith says that bees will occasional tear down and rebuild, so I hope this is the case.

I'll keep you all posted.

Albert