Incubator for Queen Cells.

[Dark Bee]

I wonder if anyone here has made his or her own incubator? If you have, would you share your experiences please.

[Poly Hive]

Not personally but had the use of one Bernard made, old fridge, heating element in, water trough, and thermostat. Worked well BUT .................NEVER forget to insert a tiny bit of queen cage candy other wise your precious virgins may starve, which is heart breaking. Also too much and they get claggy and die too.

PH

[Dark Bee]

Thank you PH for reply. A fridge is perhaps larger than I might need. I was thinking of something more modest, perhaps shoebox size :o
A drop or two of honey is what we use in the recess at the bottom of the hair curler, her majesty likes a slurp on arrival, but qcc would no doubt be as good if not better.
I wonder if any one has modified an egg incubator for queen cell incubation ? I know it has been done, what the problems are I don't know. But it would possibly be more cost effective and technically superior to one made from scratch.

[drumgerry]

Haven't done so yet but I have a Brinsea Octagon 20 (old style) which I'm sure would be fine. It has good temperature control and the humidity can be varied and monitored with a wet bulb thermometer. It would also be easy to knock together a rack to hold caged queen cells

[Poly Hive]

Egg incubators have been used very successfully, see some info here.
https://www.gillaspyshoneybees.com/pages/incubator

A little bit of searching gave this: http://www.besamungsgeraet.de/__en/_pdf/9_SCHLEY_incubator.pdf

PH

[Dark Bee]

Thank you for your further information. I had found the second website you identified, but as mein Deutsch ist nicht ser gut, the matter rested. I am anxious to avoid the scent of burning beeswax - too reminiscent of high church services. So for that reason I want reliable controls! I have found several reasonably priced small incubators on an internet auction site - I may eventually buy one when satisfied as to their reliability. Drumgerry has mentioned making a frame for q. cells. Someone I know of, has used a piece of plastic drilled with appropiate sized holes - might be, or might not be as good or better.

[Jon]

PM Keith Pierce who posts here.
He uses an incubator to rear hundreds of queens every year.
I was at a queen rearing presentation he did last Saturday and there was a lot of chatter about incubators.
He's not too far from you either, West side of Dublin.

[madasafish]

I made my own incubator for hatching eggs.

Heating effort: 25 watt old style lamp.
Thermostat: underfloor heating one.
Box: Cardboard. Insulated with foam insulation.

Worked very well.

Total cost £15 - the thermostat bought new - surplus - on ebay..

Edit

I added a small water trough for humidity with a small sponge. Measure temp and humidity with a cheap £7 garden digital measuring thingie and fiddled around with sponge until the humidity was approx right.

My hatching rate was c 80% for quail and turkey eggs.. (turned eggs by hand)

Rather Heath Robinson but cheap.

[Jon]

The small commercial egg incubators are around £100

[drumgerry]

Octagon 20 on ebay seems to go for around £100 or maybe cheaper (or should that be cheeper?!) for the old style I have.

[Calum]

Hi
I use a really old egg incubator, no need to worry about humidity, as long as there is a water supply there (with enough surface area) the humidity is a function of the temperature..
It looks an awful lot like this:
http://sell.bizrice.com/selling-leads/1259032/chicken-egg-incubator-eggs.html used 5€ out of the newspaper.. Seeing it can be bought from 4$ just ruined my day. :(

[Dark Bee]

Thank you all for your comments - they are helpful. I shall either buy a commercially produced model and do the slight modifications required or build one from scratch if quality controls and heating element can be sourced. I would install a relay to switch on an auxiliary heat source in the event of failure of the primary. Primarily I want an incubator for my own interest, I like experimenting:rolleyes:. There is also the attraction of using it to help a bee breeding group which hopefully will be established in the not too distant future - previous moves to do were scuppered by a less than helpful gentleman with his own agenda.
One more thing, if anyone knows where the necessary electro-mechanical parts can be obtained, please post. I have some addresses, but more would be better.

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi Dark Bee
Ebay has lots of egg incubators and kits if you wanted to build your own.
Some incubators use a fan some don't some are transparent lids some with just a small viewing window
digital humidity meters are about £6-00