> Can anyone comment on the pros and cons of when to move queen cells to an incubator from a finisher hive?

I don't know of any work that shows this timing to be significant. Once cells are sealed, they are sealed. If in a free-flying hive, they can be at risk of destruction due to stray queens. If there is other brood, there could be hidden queen cells which could hatch unexpectedly and result in loss. Personally, I like cell protectors and they have saved my cells more than once.

We see the bees pay a great deal of attention to sealed cells and are always walking around on them, but do not know if there is anything happening of importance. The recent reports about "heater bees" makes one wonder, but we just do not know.

The fact that bees often build swarm cells on the lower periphery of the brood area is interesting in that if there is a cooler spot in the nest, or place where the temperature could be modulated below the normally even and stable brood nest temperatures, this would be it.

A main reason for moving cells as soon as they are sealed is to free the hive for the next batch of cells. If there is no next batch then that need does not exist.

A good hive is the best incubator that one could want and not dependant non electricity or as subject to human error.

The new kayak

Jean and family and Ellen went to Santa's village for the day.  I skipped the trip.  I've been there enough times and three adults to one kid is a pretty high supervision ratio.

So, with some undisturbed time, I installed the Smart Tabs SX onto Cloud 9 and took her out for a spin, and Cloud 9 isn't the same boat.  She rides level at all speeds. 

Top end might be down a knot or so -- hard to say since things vary from day to day -- but the difference in the boat's performance is amazing. 

Cloud 9 was no slouch before, but she had two speeds which worked well.  Slow and very fast.  Now performance is good throughout the range.

The tabs are not exactly beautiful, but they make a huge difference underway and are not too obvious.  They are one more thing to watch out for when swimming and when docking, though.

Installing the kit was a straightforward and took a half-hour or so once I had watched the video and found the various tools - screwdriver, Battery-operated drill, 3/16" bit.  Finding my drill took the most time.  With the new hoists, lifting the boat was a cinch.

I mentioned the new chain lifts here on June 19th.

Brian: > Can anyone comment on the pros and cons of when to move queen cells to an incubator from a finisher hive?

PLB: > A poultry incubator can easily be modified to hold queen cells on the bars. The chief advantage of incubating is that if any emerge, they don't emerge in the cell builder.

Secondly, it is very handy to have the cells ready early in the morning, to simply be removed from the bars and taken to the waiting nucs. If you're like me, I don't like opening hives early in the morning.

Finally, emerging the cells in cages is a neat trick. That way you can introduce viable one day old queens instead of cells. I would definitely recommend this if there are only a few (100 or less) to deal with.

Randy : > Brian, Dave Miksa told me that he spoke to a French researcher who found that there was apparently some beneficial effect of leaving the sealed cells in the hive for an extra day or so before moving to the incubator. I do not have any reference or data.

AD: > Introducing virgins has a reputation for being tricky. Any advice?

Brian: > have found emerged virgins must be caged and introduced like a mated queen or you risk having them killed by the nuc workers. I don't care for this route as we must return to let them out of the cage,.

Lennard: > On moving cells to incubators. With beekeepers here there are the popular beliefs, I do not know if it's true:

1) when moving just sealed cells the larvae are susceptible of dropping off their food so the cells are sensitive to shock movement. Not so much to temperature.

2) When moving cells at day 10/11 the wings etc are hardening/ripening and then the cells are sensitive to temperature (cold) but not so much to shock movement.

deknow: > we are currently doing this, and it's working well (better than 80% success on the first try).

we are using a zoomed reptibator incubator (designed for reptile eggs).

the person i know with the most experience in this is dee lusby, so i followed her advice (mostly)...which is as follows:

1. you don't want any scent from a hive, from other virgins, from a cage, etc. on the virgin queen....so the cell is placed on top of a 3dram glass vial in the incubator. when the queen emerges, she falls down to the bottom of the vial. you can put a small drop of honey on the tip of the cell before emergence so the queen can feed on something when she emerges (the little circle of wax usually falls to the bottom of the vial with the queen). don't put honey at the bottom of the vial, it will make the newly emerged (and soft) queen stick.

2. after emergence, i squeeze the tip of the cell flat, put a small drop of honey on one of the flat tip of the cell (from where the cell is squeezed). i then press the cell back into the vial opening to keep the queen in (but not so far that no air can get in), lay the vial on its side (with the drop of honey on the top of the flat) still in the incubator, and introduce within 48 hours or so.

i had queenless nucs to introduce these into, and simply smoked them heavily and ran the virgin (directly from the glass vial) between the top bars.

i don't know if the glass vials make a difference (it sure is tempting to emerge the cells directly into cages), but so far it seems to be working just fine.

Mike Palmer and Kirk Webster are going to do a "making up double nucs for overwintering" workshop at the upcoming Northeast Treatment Free Beekeeping Conference, and we will have virgins to introduce into those. I spoke with Kirk this morning, and we both agreed that it is probably best to wait 24 hours between making up the nucs and introducing the virgins....but i expect we will try it both ways (and perhaps some with cells).

i don't know anyone else who does the glass vial thing, and i haven't tried it any other way, so i have no way to make any comparison. i do like this design for an inhive incubator bar, but i'd be concerned about scent issues without testing it side by side with what we are doing: http://www.myoldtools.com/Bees/incubator/

dee claims good success requeening with virgins emerged in vials without dequeening the hive first. she simply removes the top cover, smokes the entrance heavily until smoke comes out the top, and then lets the queen in on the top before closing the cover.

your mileage may vary.

AD: > Personally, I have just chased them in without smoke and no disturbance and had good success any time I did it, but they were freshly emerged and the time of year was right. Newly emerged queens are probably the same to bees as emerging queens. After a while though, the word is that they are less attractive or more noticeable.

The advantage of having them emerge is that you get to see the queen. The disadvantage is that you have to be there to see her and the emergence can be quite variable among a lot of cells grafted at the same time from similar larvae.

Juanse : > we only place virgin queens with ammonium nitrate. close to 100% success rate. we sleep the whole hive plus the virgin. when all sleep we free the virgin. you have some 5 to 10 minutes to do the operation. -

AD: > You have mentioned this before, and I think we are familiar with the concept, but most of us have never done it. Knowing about something and knowing how to do that same thing are very different. It helps to get the small details from a master. (That's you). Could you please explain in detail how you do it?

What is already in the smoker? How much ammonium nitrate to add? How to know when things are right to puff? How much to smoke the hive and when to stop? How to know when they are 'asleep'? How long they take to recover? Any adverse effects? What happens if you use too much? Do the bees lose their sense of location? Any mortality?

Juanse: > Thanks for the compliments, but I am just learning. On the Ammonium (nitrate) however I have more than 5 years of experience, and it works ... The only draw back is the smoker. The ammonium generates lots of heat that end up destroying the smoker. Our smokers last for a year and end up in awful conditions.

You have to have a well light smoker. We use pine needles or eucalyptus barks.

> How much ammonium nitrate to add?

A soup spoon full (20 gr?). In reality we put two times what ever ends up in equilibrium on the tip of the hive tool.

> How to know when things are right to puff?

You start hearing like bubbling inside the smoker and the smoke turns very dark.

One smoker will last for some 10 nucs (5 frames ones). Therefore we work in batches. We place 10 caged queens, then sleep the 10 nucs, then free the 10 queens, then light the smoker again for the following batch of 10.

> How much to smoke the hive and when to stop?

We place the virgin queen in a cage. The cage on top of the frames. Lid on top of all this.

We puff a couple of times in the entrance plus a couple of puff under the lid. You hear "silence" after some 30 seconds of application.

> How to know when they are 'asleep"?

silence is our sign, but if you open the lid you will see them all dead (sleep).

> How long they take to recover?

They recover in between 5 to 10 minutes. It is important not to take frames out or do any manipulations because you risk of crushing the bees.

> Any adverse effects?

I haven't notice any.

As the gas that is liberated is nitrous oxide better not to inhale it or you will end up laughing.

> What happens if you use too much?

The first time I tried it I sleep 12 times the same hive during a day. After the 12th time I start noticing some of the older bees dead. I think is quite secure. You will only use it once in the bees life.

> Do the bees lose their sense of location?

I think so.

> Any mortality? >

Not if you use it once.

By the 15th of August, if the models are correct, the successful splits and the original (parent) hives should have two full boxes of bees and lots of brood.  The ones where the ripe cell failed will be on a decline and have a box of bees or less.  The ones which managed an emergency cell will start building from that date and have lots of brood, but the duds will have only bees and no brood.

If the season ends on August 20th, as it does some years, these hives will barely squeak through and be ready for winter by mid-September but will likely be a bit on the small side.  If the season continues into October, then they will be large.  One never knows.

My system is described in detail on my website and some of that info is listed at Selected Topics.  Here is the listing:  More will turn up with a search

Our Winter Wraps and Pillows (1),  (2),  (3), (4),

• A Bee Culture magazine article I wrote in  2002

• More on Wrapping and Styrofoam Hives

• A pillow supplier in Alberta

JB: ... I look inside the capped brood. I decapped both sides and took each  bee/larva out and none. I could see no varroa or signs of them This is very interesting. All healthy larva/bees and no varroa signs. Looks like varroa waits for a warmer time and do not rush in the cells for  the first rounds of brood.

AD: Thanks for doing this. I have suspected this to be the case, since hives routinely survive winter with loads of up to 5,000 mites and at some point the mites are all phoretic.

Shortly after, when brood rearing starts, there are only a few hundred cells eligible for mite invasion, at most, and if all the mites invaded at the earliest opportunity, then with normal distribution, there would be multiple mites in almost every cell. We know that multiple mites per cell is a recipe for collapse, yet such hives survive and often do quite well.

I wonder if you know the phoretic load for this hive? Is there any chance it had only a few mites?

Now someone needs to investigate this further and also to check the brood of a nuc in spring/summer with known phoretic levels and a new queen that has just begun laying after a broodless period to test the assertion that all the mites pile into the first brood, killing both the brood and themselves.

I find that assertion dubious, if for no other reason than the fact that varroa can survive a long time on dead larvae, or even in the absence of food.

RO: I've been looking this week, Allen, trying to catch a nuc at just the right time. I've never noticed that the first sealed brood in the center of the first frame laid up die, but haven't really looked. I'll let you know.

AD: Thanks Randy. I suppose that one can check any time after the brood patch is laid and sealed, right up until emergence.

Waiting a while after capping would make observations easier -- unless the bees are so hygienic that they uncap and recap and confound the count.

I'd think that it is just a matter of finding that first capped patch of brood, then uncapping from the middle outwards and observing. Signs of recapping would draw the count into question unless some heavy infestation is seen.

It is also important to have a number for the phoretic mites in each hive sampled, since if there are few or none, limited observations would not mean as much as if the phoretic levels were significant -- 5% or so.

IMO, anyhow.

AD: Thanks.

Do you uncap the 'spotty' brood cells to determine

1. if they are the same age as the nearby cells,
2. to count the mites, and
3. to determine if there is brood mortality?

JR: I wish that I had quantitative numbers to provide, unfortunately time constraints have so far prevented my doing this.

For me, seeing a hive go from having numerous easily visible phoretic mites, to having none visible, back to having mites visible when the first brood emerges is convincing evidence that a majority of mites invade the first cycle of brood in a spring or summer split.

I have uncapped a few cells of the spotty brood in the first cycle after a newly mated queen, and noted that the pupae inside cells still capped are several days behind in development of where they should be. This assumption is based on the uniformity of the brood pattern when it was first capped. However, the pupae do not always have a mite on them.

For cells that are emerging, I can easily observe bees that emerge with a mite on its back. The only thing close to brood mortality I see is bees that emerge with DWV, but they still usually carry a live mite.

I do not notice obvious mite mortality, and I agree with Allan that a serious brood uncapping experiment would be the only way to document this.

PLB: Thanks for posting this. It is exactly this level of close observation that will reveal what is needed about the dynamics of pest/host interactions. Such observations may enable us to develop new strategies to confuse, interfere and (we hope) outwit parasites while lessening or (again, we hope) avoiding knee-jerk reliance on chemical treatments. It's the Red Queen Race, for sure, and while we may never win it, we need to keep running.

AD: It is a start, but actually we need much more complete observation to reach any conclusions.

We started with Max Disselkoen's assertion that after a broodless period that most varroa pile into the first brood sealed and die as a result. I questioned that with an explanation of why.

Juanse took a look at a first patch of brood in wintered hive and reported no apparent mites there, but had no phoretic numbers to accompany the observation.

Randy says he is trying to make observations.

Me, I'm 2,000 miles away from my bees.

Jeremy says he sees unquantified effects suggesting that mites do enter the first brood in sufficient numbers to do observable damage, but has no numbers and no report of what is in the cells.

At this point, the original question remains unanswered, but we have received two apparently conflicting observations that suggest the phenomenon, if it exists is not consistent.

As I say, this is a start. I suspect that the trained observers who work with mites daily like the guys at Baton Rouge know the answers, or some answers. So far, though, we are still in the dark.

Most had very few mites in the first cells--maybe one out of 10 or more cells.

However, the last nuc we checked had a single mite in about every other cell.

We didn't find a single cell (out of maybe 100 total opened) that contained more than a single mite, so my observations do not support the hypothesis that the mites flood into the first cells to be sealed and kill the pupa. By extension, it did not appear in my limited observations that any mite control is gained due to mites dying in these first sealed cells.

JR: Randy says that he notices that the hives outbreed the mites for a little while after the new queen is laying. I would definitely agree with this observation. In my opinion the hive made from a queen cell split remains healthy enough to be reasonably productive for an extra one to two months (after the queen mates), compared to a split that already contains a laying queen.

AD: I'm thinking that the assumption here is that we can normally see a representative sampling of the total number of phoretic mites, just by looking.

If that were true, we would not go to the bother of doing ether rolls or alcohol washes when we need to count mites. We would just look at a frame of bees and count the visible mites on bees covering a given area, multiply by a constant, and be done.

It is obviously not that simple, though. Phoretic mites are very hard to spot and it is even harder to make a meaningful estimate from what we can see..

I am guessing that visible mites are most likely when a mite has just emerged with a new young bee or when mites have detected eligible cells for breeding and are searching for a cell. That is a transitional state. Normally, phoretic varroa are much less visible.

What we actually are able to see easily is typically just mite traffic -- the mites in transit between the phoretic state and cells. If there is no brood, then there is little traffic.

Most phoretic mites are hard to see because they are not riding on bees in positions where where they are exposed and obvious.

The mites we do see are those which have not yet found a spot where they can hide between the plates or are on their way to a cell and are typically riding totally exposed on top of the head, the thorax, or the abdomen of the bee. Such positions make a mite far too vulnerable to a fall or grooming and is just a necessary intermediate state between the two safer conditions.

When we immerse 300 bees in alcohol, taken from a frame where we see no obvious phoretic mites on visual inspection, we often find 40 or more mites in the alcohol after shaking.

So, once again, perhaps what we think we see is deceptive.

AD: Thanks. That is good advice.

I've done this with emerging drones in particular in my own hives, but when inspecting, we use alcohol for speed and accurate metrics.

I personally hate to kill so many bees, but when we consider that the effects of not knowing the numbers can kill far more bees and also put the surviving ones into a state of poor health, we feel the sacrifice is justified.

Additionally, the distribution of varroa throughout the brood area is not uniform, so observing currently emerging bees may not give a good indication of the levels throughout the hive.