# General beekeeping > Queen raising >  Grafting / Queen rearing 2019

## greengumbo

Morning all !

How are everyones preps for queen raising this year ?

Plenty drones about already in most hives and brood levels show hives will be exploding in a week or so with young bees. 

I'm thinking about preparing a few raiser / finisher colonies soon and finalising what queens to graft from.

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## fatshark

I've got one queen that:
a) I will not be grafting from (and I'm busy killing off the drones in that box)
b) I'll be replacing ASAP with one of my own
The queen has an Aderdonian accent and her daughters are always spoiling for a fight  :Wink: 

More seriously, I've got splits on already and some nicely maturing queen cells. 

Interesting range of development in the colonies. Many are really doing well with second super already and double brood. Others are slow to start. 

Overwintering losses were 10% - one drowning, one DLQ - but I also found a hive with no eggs, no sign of the Q and no sign of swarming yesterday. There was a smattering of sealed worker brood, so she was there a few weeks ago. I plonked a test frame in.

Still coolish so when it warms up properly it'll be 'sick' as my kids say  :Wink:

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## Mellifera Crofter

One drowning, Fatshark?
Kitta

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## greengumbo

Ha ha - yes please replace that queen before repatriating it fatshark !

I had plenty DLQs this year and seems like i'm not the only one. At least 15% of my overwintered hives. Development is mixed across my sites but so is the OSR so I've shuffled them about to try match up OSR development with bee power. 

Cold spell incoming so might curb the swarming in the ones that were thinking about it.

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## fatshark

Drowning ... lid + bricks blown away, crownboard ditto followed by three days of torrential rain. I was away. They limped on for a few weeks but I suspect they were queenless. 

Hived my first swarm yesterday evening. Waist height in a small conifer. I even had a skep and sheet in the car ... it would have been rude not to  :Wink: 

I use the term _my_ to indicate that it is now, but it might not have been originally  :Wink:

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## greengumbo

Well blizzards and freezing temps have put paid to grafting for now !

A city hive had eggs in QC today so will convert to raiser next week if temps increase.

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## fatshark

Checked the swarm and they're lovely and calm bees with a nicely laying queen (so I know which hive they didn't come from GG  :Wink:  ). Needless to say, with the weather we're now having, I'm feeding them.

Drove over Rannoch on Monday morning through quite a bit of snow. 

Where has the spring gone?

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## greengumbo

Bit of a forced hand now.

Couldn't get into a hive for two weeks and inevitably when I checked it there are swarm cells all over the place ! No sign of clipped queen but hive still strong so I suspect attempted swarm then bees went back in leaving HM to die outside somewhere  :Frown: 

So I have now filled four apideas with very ripe QCs. So ripe in fact one hatched as I was watching. Lets see if anything comes of them. At least it will prime the apideas for the season  :Smile:

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## fatshark

> I use the term _my_ to indicate that it is now, but it _might not have been originally_


Wasn't mine originally ... checked the colonies briefly on Friday and there are laying queens in all of them  :Wink: 

Apivar strips now in as we've seen high mite levels in some colonies this spring.

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## greengumbo

Demarees all over the place. 

Last year I removed all laying queens to nucs and allowed hives to raise new ones but I noticed some colonies just stopped honey production as soon as queen was removed. I'm doing half and half this year. 

Two more apideas filled last night.

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## fatshark

Interesting, I have one queenless colony that is piling in the nectar far better than neighbouring colonies. I seem to remember we discussed this last season as well. I keep on offering it test frames. They're ignored, there's no brood and I'm 99% certain there's no queen present.

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## madasafish

Started Nicot QR mid April. Waste of time as weather turned cold and queens all went off lay and despite feeding only 1 QC= which came to nothing.
Restarted last week - looks like 10 ish QCs started - currently due to be sealed 23 May. Lots of swarming locally. Came home form inspecting hive we had rescued from laying workers  (add brood, queen unite/smoke like mad/air freshener)  to find : 1 prime swarm in buddleia at shoulder height , 5 casts distributed around plum tree - all at shoulder height.(from TBH which I only inspect at irregular intervals and crammed with bees)

Easy hiving.. but six !  Run out of 5 frame nucs, so using home made 5 frame mating nucs (about 1/3rd National brood frame), Just have enough hive stands and roofs..

When the 10 or so QCs emerge I'll run out of mini mating nucs and vegetable garden will be full of them! (I set them up initially with virgins - more successful than QCs..)

4 Langs on 4 supers, two on 2, 2 with 1, running out of supers : will have to start extracting.

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## drumgerry

My first set of grafts this year.  Done in decent weather.  Harvested from the cell raiser in pouring rain! 17 from 20 is about as good as it gets for me.  

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## Feckless Drone

impressive return there. Cell builder has done you well.

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## drumgerry

Yep - basic Harden setup but using a Cloake Board to make the top half queenless and no open brood up there for them to make queens out of (except my grafts of course!).

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## Adam

I would be very happy with 17/20. I tend to start 8 or 9 at a time rather than any more. As it's only supposed to be a hobby, that's enough in one go for me. I did 8 the other day and I think I have 6 that have taken which is fine for now. I tend to worry about the weather - especially early on - as sometimes the queens don't get up and mate. I would hate to have to discard 17 queens in one go!

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## drumgerry

I'd normally get 10 or 12 from 20 Adam to be honest.  Having to fill 17 apideas probably in the rain on Sunday now as well.  Hoping the buggers don't abscond and the queens mate properly but no guarantees as you know.

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## fatshark

17/20 ... nice one  :Wink: 

There's an unwritten rule in beekeeping that the day you choose to populate Apideas will have the worst weather in any given fortnight.

It's been damp today in the North West and  it's looking worse tomorrow.

Have fun  :Smile:

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## drumgerry

Och I'm only taking bees from supers.  What's the worst that can happen?!......

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## Adam

> I'd normally get 10 or 12 from 20 Adam to be honest.  Having to fill 17 apideas probably in the rain on Sunday now as well.  Hoping the buggers don't abscond and the queens mate properly but no guarantees as you know.


Sometimes you get your eye in and the grafts come out good. It's a bit like cricket. Othertimes you're out for very few runs indeed!

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## drumgerry

Or occasionally rain stops play Adam!

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## greengumbo

Our small North East Scotland queen rearing group had a go at grafting last Thursday on a particularly dry evening (remember them?!). 

One group grafted about 59 cells into three hives and had a take up of 37 cells (the no-takes were re-grafted the day after). The second group had a similar level of success.

My plan is to follow Jon Gettys set up keenly. I have an octogon 20 incubator that I have used in the past but just wondered what the optimum humidity is and if anyone has a good idea of how to keep it steady ? A few times in the past its dried out and emerged queens have died.

Once the cells are sealed I'll move them into the incubator and leave till emergence. How long could virgins survive in there if fed queen candy ? Do I need to stick in attendants particularly ? Just thinking if we cant fill the apideas all in one go.

Any hints about maximising the effectiveness of incubators would be good  :Smile:

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## drumgerry

Ewan you're right that Jon is a whizz when it comes to the octagon 20.  I have one as well and I do what Jon does re humidity - keep both troughs full at all times.  Seems to work well.  Letting it run dry is fatal as the fan dries the air inside.  I've used mine to successfully hatch chickens, turkeys and queen bees!

I find mine good for taking cells up to a day or so before hatch and then the cells go into mating nucs.  I'm not as successful when I give a virgin queen to an apideas.

I'd be reluctant to bank queens long in the incubator especially with no attendants.  Banking them in a colony with attendants is a different matter but something I don't  have experience of.

Cheers, Gerry.

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## fatshark

I've not used an Octagon, but have used my honey warming cabinet (which can take about 87,000 queens at once, but hasn't). I put the Nicot cages in an ice cream tub with lots of moist kitchen paper. Getting them to emerge isn't a problem but, like drumgerry, I've had more success priming mini-nucs with mature cells, not virgins. In my setup, unattended virgins didn't survive particularly well. I didn't try adding attendants. I mainly used this setup when conditions were good and I wanted to put a second or third batch of cells into my queenright Ben Harden system. This always worked best when there was a good flow on and they would inevitably build a huge web of brace comb around the cells ... by putting them into the incubator I could fire up the next batch and avoid all that surgery to free (even caged) cells from the cell bar frame.

As an aside ... I've had to teach my computer to 'learn' the word drumgerry ... because of this:

Screenshot 2019-06-14 22.54.13.png

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## drumgerry

Tee hee .  Nice to know my weird username is good for something!

Had horrific weather here in Speyside most of the last fortnight.  Hoping the apidea queens took their chance for a mating flight in the sunshine last Friday or maybe tomorrow as we have a decent forecast for once

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## greengumbo

Update !

They have started to emerge and are being distributed to the group for filling apideas and the like. I was planning filling mine tonight so inevitably there are thunderstorms forecast. In the incubator I used some seed tray wicking mats that worked very well to hold humidity.

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## madasafish

I use an incubator I built 15 years ago for quails.. It is Heath Robinson but appears to produce results OK.. If it works, almost anything will 

Just about to restart QR - the month of June has been abysmal 12-14C tops daytime and LOTS of rain and grey skies..  Getting queens mated has been fun - not. And almost all my laying queens have stopped laying as zero food coming in...

For humidity I have a tray full of water under a wire mesh floor and a microfibre cloth half submerged in a 500g plastic margarine container  . It wicks out water very effectively - average 65% humidity or so...

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## greengumbo

> I use an incubator I built 15 years ago for quails.. It is Heath Robinson but appears to produce results OK.. If it works, almost anything will 
> 
> Just about to restart QR - the month of June has been abysmal 12-14C tops daytime and LOTS of rain and grey skies..  Getting queens mated has been fun - not. And almost all my laying queens have stopped laying as zero food coming in...
> 
> For humidity I have a tray full of water under a wire mesh floor and a microfibre cloth half submerged in a 500g plastic margarine container  . It wicks out water very effectively - average 65% humidity or so...


My humidity readings are bang on 65% so very similar. Good to know !

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## greengumbo

> Update !
> 
> They have started to emerge and are being distributed to the group for filling apideas and the like. I was planning filling mine tonight so inevitably there are thunderstorms forecast. In the incubator I used some seed tray wicking mats that worked very well to hold humidity.


A further update and questions for you all !

So the incubator cells have hatched fine and are now in mini-lysons / apideas. 

However I had left a batch of caged sealed cells in one of the hives (the queenless one that also raised this batch before I caged on day 10). As the incubator queens had emerged I went to the hive to remove what I assumed would also be emerged queens. Only 1 had emerged succesfully. The rest had died in development and by the looks it was about day 11 or 12 but a few later.

What could have caused this issue ? The weather turned horrid during this period so I wondered if the bees couldn't warm the caged queen cells sufficiently during this cold period. 

In the future I will use the incubator for all capped cells I think.

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## fatshark

I'd have thought they'd have only 'abandoned' the cells if there were too few bees in the box. 
I almost always use queenright colonies and either a Cloake board or Ben Harden setup so can't really comment from much experience. Whenever I've used a queenless colony it's always been heaving with bees.

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## greengumbo

> I'd have thought they'd have only 'abandoned' the cells if there were too few bees in the box. 
> I almost always use queenright colonies and either a Cloake board or Ben Harden setup so can't really comment from much experience. Whenever I've used a queenless colony it's always been heaving with bees.


Hi FS, 

Box was rammed so very odd. On "the other forum" a few people reported similar things and suggested the cold can definitely do this. Ho hum - next time !

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## Adam

Did you cage the queencells on day 11 or 12 in readiness for emergence?
I wonder if the bees lost contact with the queencells and then ignored them. - You usually see bees hanging around queencells making contact with them and they presumably monitor the temperature and adjust accordingly and can't do that with a caged cell.

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