Cupkit System

[Jimbo]

After trying grafting of larvae I much prefer the Nicot Cupkit sytem for bee breeding. This is my second year using this system and it works really well. This year the mother queen layed the eggs more easily than last year. I think this is due to the Cupkit being a bit older and not as 'clean'. I checked the cups yesterday and could still see the eggs had not hatched. They were however a little bigger than on day 1 when they were laid.
I left them for another 24hrs and today found they had hatched and were floating in a tiny amount of clear nectar that the house bees had placed in the cups. I transferred 10cups to a cell cup frame and placed them in a queenless colony to draw out the queen cells. Will report back on how many are taken up. I like this system as you can easily see the eggs and you can age the larvae and calculate when the Queens will hatch. The best bit is you can easily get 1 day old larvae without any mechanical handling of the larvae.

[Calum]

completely agree with all you have written (I dip my cups in molten wax and shake as much off as I can to coat them). I have 2 jenter sets which is pretty much the same system.
The uptake rate is much higher with this method as due to no mechanical handling- none get damaged.
Also everything happens at the same time -
Eggs laid, eggs hatch, cells closed, queens hatch. So they do not need to be disturbed so often. Also cageing is a doddle, and they can all be caged together either just after cell closure (I prefer as they are not build out so much) or in the 2 days before hatching.

[Adam]

I have used the cupkit system for the first time this year and I do prefer it to grafting. There is no reason to wait for the eggs to hatch. I have a batch 'going through' where I put 9 plastic cups with day-old eggs in a queenright hive and 7 have come good which is enough for me. (I use 9 beacuse I am sure to lose something!).

For queenright queenraising I have the queen on a frame in the lower brood box. Excluder over that. A super or two, then the brood chamber above that with the rest of the brood and food. My batch are due to be sealed any minute now so I can transfer them to mini-nucs next weekend when they are 14 days old. Its good that there is a 16 day queen-rearing cycle that fits into two weekends so nicely!

[Adam]

The queencells can go into apideas or the mini-nucs that the Buzzy Bee shop sells, that is, if they don't go into a full sized nuc of some kind.

[Pete L]

I have tried the cupkit system and personally find it too time consuming for no better results,athough i do like the cell holders,brown cell cups for grafting into and the roller cages for the sealed cells. I usually graft three times a week, from mid april until mid august,new drawn brood combs are constantly added so there is no searching for a comb with the right age larvae,just remove comb and graft, which takes ten minutes max for 20 grafts,and i like to use larvae from several different breeder queens,and all cells are removed to incubators when sealed,they all emerge on the same day inside the cages when needed to make up new mini nuc's,or ripe cells are used for re queening established nuc's.

[gavin]

*That* is what I'm going to do with the Cupkit system sitting beside me here. Use the components for grafting. Thanks Pete.

[Jimbo]

That's the last of my mated queens off to a good home today. Just have to wait now to see how good the morphometry turns out. The success rate was 70% from egg to mated queen this year which was better than last year using the same cupkit system. The eggs came from a queen that gave 93% Amm and mated in an isolated area where the colonies producing the drones were a minimum of 70% Amm to max of 98% Amm

[The Drone Ranger]

Thats a great result Jimbo hows the other qualities - Temper, following etc ??

[Jimbo]

I use the BIBBA stud book software to record characteristics. It ranks my colonies on the traits I am trying to breed in. The top one is docility then non following, brood pattern, quite on the comb etc etc. I combine this with the bee wing morphometry to select the breeding stock. For example this year I selected a queen to breed from which had a good wing morphometry and was ranked high for docility. It was not my best queen. The best were given 2 frames of drone brood ( it is important that you get your IPM right or you will produce varroa). I also test for Nosema and check carefully for other diseases eg Chalk brood, EFB. etc. I think it is important to breed from bees that are as healthy as possible.
There was one colony that had a high wing morphometry but was not ranked high for docility and was a bit harder to work with compared to the others. This colony was removed to another site so any drones would not affect the docility.
It is too early to assess this years batch of queens. Some queens were distributed to members of our association are asked to provide me with a sample from the colony next year and a note on how docile they are. This is to let me know if the breeding and conservation of the local bees is going in the right direction. It is not an exact science as you can still get the odd bad result ie the colony with a high wing morphometry but poor temper but it is a start

[The Drone Ranger]

Sounds like it's going well

Do you have an isolated mating area or is it mostly a case of getting plenty drones in the sky.?

[Jimbo]

A bit of both. My most isolated site is located on MOD land, however there are 3 other beekeepers still within flying distance. I have checked their bees to see how native they are and they are also in the range 75% to the best at 88% for Amm. This year a new beekeepers joined our association who was within my isolated site so I provided him with a nuc with a high percentage Amm queen. He is happy as he has got bees and I am happy as it gives me a bit of protection for my breeding site. I also try to improve the odds by getting more drones in the area so that I get a full mating if possible. I am after quality queens so a queen that mates say with up to 15 drones will be better than a queen that mates with only a few. If you look at the Gaultea setup they use a valley for their mating but have rings of protection around their valley. My aim is to increase the protection and to eventually get the Rosneath Peninsula back to where it was in 2007 where nearly all the colonies were near native Amm until the hybrid colonies were brought into the area mainly by the new beekeepers who did not know any better