Setting up a cellraiser

[Jon]

May be optimistic but I set up a queenright cell raiser colony yesterday.
I was hoping to graft today but things are looking a bit grim.
Lots of drones and drone brood in my colonies.

[darlo]

Hi Jon
Interested in how you go about setting up a cell raiser colony? Do you need drones flying before doing it etc?

As yet I have not seen any sign of drones, or drone cells in any of my colonies.

[gavin]

If you don't even have drone cells in your colonies then I would wait - unless you think that there are drones being produced by other colonies near you. Mine have lots of drone sealed cells and some have a good handful of hatched drones.

Jon uses the method commonly called the Ben Harden method (although Ben notes that it isn't his). See the Wilkinson and Brown paper linked to in this thread:

http://www.sbai.org.uk/sbai_forum/showthread.php?574-Ben-Harden-Queen-Right-system-of-queen-rearing

cheers

Gavin.

[Jon]

And as you are constantly rearranging brood between two boxes it is a very effective means of swarm control as well. The queen is never short of space to lay in.

[nemphlar]

My 3rd year using the B H method, usually manage half a dozen grafts! Just checked and had to transfer 12 cells from 20 grafts into cages. They're due out around Wednesday can anyone advise how long can they safely be left in the cages

[Jon]

Virgin queens can die very quickly in cages. The bees do not always feed them like they do with a mated queen. Put a wee bit of fondant in the bottom of the cage as a food source. If I let cells hatch in cages I try and get a couple of bees inside the cage/roller before the cell hatches so that they act at attendants to the newly emerged queen.

[nemphlar]

Thanks I had feeling it was too good to be true, looking at the forecast, I'll be standing in the rain trying to make up nucs

[Jon]

I have gone away for a weekend and found several dead in the rollers on my return.

[Jon]

I grafted 20 larvae into this one this afternoon. Not really expecting any to get started but at least I am back on the horse. 10c during the grafting but it only took 10 minutes.
I have a dozen or more colonies with a good number of drones so it is frustrating to have this weather impede the grafting.

[gavin]

On Saturday with half a dozen inexperienced beekeepers in tow I put a brood frame with shallow unwired foundation into two favourite colonies. The idea being I'd do the thing where you slice off the bottom of a frame with a sheet of eggs and open up every third cell along the cut to encourage queen raising when introduced into a vigorous queenright cell raiser nearby. However today the same two colonies had queen cells. Five days on and a freshly hatched egg in a queen cup can convert into a sealed Q cell. They've started their own cell raising despite the weather. Now I have two artificial swarms with their own queen cells developing.

[Jon]

I checked 9 on saturday and another yesterday and no sign of any cells yet.

[Rosie]

I've got my own method nerr. It uses a two-queen hive. I never had much luck with Ben's. Either I was no good at it or my bees take a lot of persuading to make queen cells.

Rosie

[Jon]

The conditions have to be right which usually means decent weather and a nectar flow.

[Rosie]

That's asking a lot around here but I had the same problems in sunny, mild Derbyshire

[Jon]

I am only in my 3rd season at this but it has always worked for me. Last year I had 2 or 3 cell raisers on the go all summer and I was getting about 30 cells per week.

It is variable. Sometimes you graft 20 and they start 18 and other times it is none at all.

[nemphlar]

You've got to laugh, long range weather is bad till end of may, if the girls don't get out on Sunday they missed the window

[EmsE]

The conditions have to be right which usually means decent weather and a nectar flow.

How does everyone decide when the best time to begin their queen rearing? Do you wait for the bees to let you know they are ready to think about it or do you prompt them to do it?

[Jon]

Steve, is your method the double stack system which was in the bibba magazine last year?

Emse. there are several variables. You need strong colonies. You need drones. you need decent weather, and you need something decent to graft from.

[Rosie]

That's the one but I didn't think they had published it yet. Perhaps I had given you a preview. I'm hoping it will be in the next magazine.

"You need strong colonies. You need drones. you need decent weather, and you need something decent to graft from." And a steady hand and good eyesight.

[Jon]

The one I am thinking of was a double stack of nuc sized boxes separated by a box in between which took the grafts. Just checked the wing puller's gazette and it was spring 2009. John harding queen rearing system.

I am really short sighted but when i take my specs off i can focus right down to the larva in the cell.
No hand shake yet in spite of years on the apple wine.

[Rosie]

I tried the John Harding system too but I preferred my own. I'll try to separate out a snippet from the unpublished magazine article which explains it.

[Rosie]

1020
2-queen hive built with 6 half sized National brood boxes

As can be seen from the picture the hive is made with 6 half-sized brood boxes below standard National supers. The bottom four boxes form two adjacent towers, each containing 10 brood frames and a queen. Each tower has its own entrance and half sized queen excluder on the top so that the queens can never come into contact with one another. Above the queen excluders are another 2 half size brood boxes running at 90 degrees to the lower ones, thus allowing the workers to mix freely. Above these are as many supers as are necessary.

The method I used for raising queens was to put a frame of young brood and another of pollen from below a queen excluder into one of the top brood boxes and amongst the honey and nectar that was already there. After a day, when the brood was covered in nurse bees, a thin sheet of plastic film, cut from an animal feed bag, was slipped beneath the top brood box containing the young brood and a grafting frame was put between the young brood and the pollen. This meant that the bees in there were cut off from much of the queen pheromone from below but the bees could still access the box freely by climbing over the top from the adjacent box. After another day the grafts were inserted and two days later the plastic film was removed to make the arrangement fully queenright again. Any time after the cells are sealed the whole procedure can probably be repeated in the other box. With careful timing a set of cells can, in theory, be produced every week or so without significantly affecting honey production and without having to handle queenless bees. Furthermore the queen cells are probably produced by the supersedure impulse which, hopefully, will produce better queens.

Rosie

[Jon]

Ben harden sounds simpler if you can get it to work. I presume you still have to do weekly inspections for queen cells in the bottom stacks.
the queens in the Ben harden system are produced under supersedure impulse.

[nemphlar]

E the last attempt with 12 out 20 grafts is unknown territory for me, dont know if it was the single brood bursting with bees or my first go with 00 paint brush grafting tool

[Jon]

I also use the paintbrush. If you remove a queen from a strong hive it is dead easy but you have the problem of managing a queenless colony and all that entails. I definitely prefer queenright systems although if I have a colony which wants to swarm i split it or remove the queen and run a couple of batches of grafts through it.

[nemphlar]

When I said a single full of bees I meant this was the position just prior to putting the B H box on top and putting the grafts in, it does seem to work.

[Jon]

Ok. Got it. I play it by ear an use any colonies which are thinking about swarming as cell raisers as well.
The queenright system works for me most of the time.

[Rosie]

Ben harden sounds simpler if you can get it to work. I presume you still have to do weekly inspections for queen cells in the bottom stacks.
the queens in the Ben harden system are produced under supersedure impulse.

I didn't bother inspecting last season and had no problems but this blood line are reluctant swarmers and even reluctant queen cell drawers too - hence the double queen system to overcrowd them even more. I plan to try the system with a normal, more prolific colony this year but for them I will only use one queen in a normal, single national. I just need to plonk 2 half size nucs on top of the queen excluder and off I go. What can be simpler than that?

Rosie

[Jon]

If you can trust your bees not to make cells in the bottom box that is simple all right.
The two queens I grafted off last year did not make any queen cells.
The main colony I want to graft from this year has a queen into her 3rd season now and it has never made a queen cell and has a 100% amm plot based on a large sample of about 80 wings.
You might just have been unlucky when you tried the Ben Harden system as you do get batches of 20 grafts which are completely ignored for some reason.

[EmsE]

Emse. there are several variables. You need strong colonies. You need drones. you need decent weather, and you need something decent to graft from.

Assuming you have all that, do you wait for the bees to begin to raise queen cells before beginning your queen rearing or do you start things before they they do?

[Jon]

In a queenright system you start when you want to. It complicates matters if they start to make their own queen cells in the bottom box. You want them to make cells from the introduced grafts in the top box which is the genetic material you elected to use from your best colonies.
The cell raiser colony might have unsuitable genetics so you don't want it making its own queen cells.
If I find cells in the bottom box I make a split or remove the queen and set up a different colony as the cell raiser.

[Neils]

How viable is a Nuc as a cell raiser? I'm somewhat lacking colonies suitable for too much fiddling right now but I could make up a Nuc without too much trouble. Will they go for it or is that a non starter?

[Rosie]

I am sure it will work Nellie but I would not put many grafts in as the limited number of nurse bees you have might compromise the quality of the queens if they struggle to feed them all abundantly. Remember to make sure they have plenty of nectar or syrup plus lots of pollen.

Rosie

[Neils]

My current graft frame takes 10 cells. I was considering a frame of brood, a frame of stores and plenty of young bees from my strongest colony. Top it off with a good feed and make sure the frame of stores has plenty of pollen.

[Jon]

Should work but as Steve says don't try too many grafts.
make sure the frame of stores is open stores rather than sealed so they can access it immediately.
Either side of your graft frame put a frame of open brood. This acts as a magnet for nurse bees.
Any space left, fill with pollen frames.

[Neils]

So I guess the next question is, can I use nurse bees from different colonies and just lob them into the same Nuc?

Ie if I take a frame of open brood, minus fliers from one colony, and the same from another, topped up with bees from a super, am I just going to have a fight on my hands or will the play nicely together?

[Rosie]

Nellie they usually play nicely together, especially if you collect nurses from 3 or more colonies. I would not put super bees in though. I would shake the nurses in from another frame of brood. The shaken ones could be from your third hive. However, if you want to raise queen cells in there I would add even more bees.

Rosie

[Neils]

OK, There's two of us working together. For our first attempt we have a graft frame that will take 10 cells. So here's my plan.

Into a Nuc, from our 3-4 strongest hives we are going to take 2 frames of open brood, give those a gentle shake to remove the Flying bees and shake the remaining bees into the Nuc (ensuring that the queens are not on them and there are no queen cells present). At this stage is there any value in giving these bees an OA treatment to knock down any varroa? I have to admit I have no idea if Varroa will go for queen cells.

Into that nuc we are then going to place 2 frames of open brood, 2 frames of open stores containing nectar and pollen, put the Nuc on a stand next to or on top of a hive and pop the lid back on.

From our two best colonies we are going to graft 5 larvae each.

Once complete this frame will then be placed in between the two frames of brood, crown board replaced and a contact feeder of 1:1 syrup put on top. The frame pattern will be 1 stores, 1 brood, Queen Cell, 1 brood, 1 stores.

After 7 days transfer the, hopefully developing but not yet sealed, queen cells into apideas along with some nurse bees from one of the main hives, swap out the brood if sealed for open brood, shake in some more Nurse bees, move the Nuc to a new location to lose flying bees, top up the feed/stores and repeat if we still have apideas?

[nemphlar]

It seems obvious that you sandwich the graft between 2 frames of brood to have more nurse bees in the locale, but the Ben harden method suggest 1 of brood and 1 food.

[Jon]

After 7 days transfer the, hopefully developing but not yet sealed, queen cells into apideas along with some nurse bees from one of the main hives,

7 days is too soon for two reasons

1. The cell will likely get chilled in the apidea
2. The larva is pupating through different stages for 4 days after the cell is sealed, ie up to 8-9 days after grafting. This is a really delicate stage in terms of not disturbing or chilling the developing queen.

I transfer mine at day 10 or better still day 11 if I have put rollers on them at day 9 or 10 after grafting.
The rollers are to stop an early emerging queen wreaking havoc.
If you transfer cells too early you will lose a lot of queens. I don't even like moving the cells at day 9 as they still have 3 days to go before queen emergence. I have tried and a lot don't hatch.
The trick is to get the cells in the apideas as late as possible. Sometimes the queen has already started to chew out of the cell when I put it in the apidea.

[Jon]

It seems obvious that you sandwich the graft between 2 frames of brood to have more nurse bees in the locale, but the Ben harden method suggest 1 of brood and 1 food.

My method is more like the Wilkinson and Brown which Ben Harden adapted as I generally have 9 or 10 frames of brood and pollen in the top box as opposed to 5 or 6 and a couple of dummies.

I grafted 110 larvae today into 5 queenright cellraisers.

I grafted 12 last night at our queen raising group on a hive roof in bad light to demonstrate grafting and checking this afternoon they had started 7 so I am hopeful they are now in the mood with this glorious weather. I was surprised as I had a lot of diffs getting the larvae off the brush and I had 25 people around me watching. Sometimes the cattle all come over as well and then you have a really big audience. The paint brush got passed around several times so that folk could see the size of the larva you have to graft.

1034

[Neils]

So if you're putting the hair rollers on them in the cell raiser, are you closing the bottoms off with something? The ones that came courtesy of the busy bee shop are all open bottomed or are you just using hair rollers that are closed at the bottom at this point?

Apologies if these are slightly stupid questions, I want to make absolutely sure that what I think I'm doing is right.

[Jon]

The roller cages are open at the end you put over the cell and the bottom opens and closes. You can put a wee bit of fondant in the bottom in case a queen hatches early and needs something to eat.

[Neils]

Definitely a blond moment there, of course they do :rolleyes:

[Neils]

Final silly question, as a noob. Is there any value going up the day before and marking/identifying a frame of eggs that I reckon might be larvae by the following day? I'm thinking this is probably overkill.

[Jon]

What you can do is place a frame of drawn foundation right in the centre of the brood nest of the colony you want to graft from 4 days before you graft.

[Neils]

That might have to wait for the second attempt, I'm going to miss that deadline so will have to wing that bit.

[Jon]

I don't usually bother either but today I has real difficulty finding suitable aged larvae. It was cold and rainy all last week up until Sunday and then turned hot on Monday. The queens obviously shut down towards the end of the week as nearly all the frames were sealed brood, older larvae or eggs. I did find one good frame but it was not from the colony I had planned to graft from but still a good one.

[mbc]

How viable is a Nuc as a cell raiser? I'm somewhat lacking colonies suitable for too much fiddling right now but I could make up a Nuc without too much trouble. Will they go for it or is that a non starter?

Its a question of quality IMO, its quite possible to raise queencells in apideas but would you want the resulting queens heading your production colonies ? A healthy balance of bees is obviously required to raise the best possible queens and this balance is very difficult, if at all possible, to achieve manually. It often confounds me that despite taking as much care as practically possible to raise the very best queens from the youngest larvae in the very best provisioned cell raisers, experience and my records show that quite often the best production colonies are headed by queens who have either come from supercedure or swarm cells. While annoying (by making my queen rearing seem inadequate), this fact that becomes apparent from carefuylly kept records is actually quite conforting, mama nature does it best !

[Jon]

Not necessarily.

The 5 colonies I brought to our breeding apiary are all headed by grafted queens reared in queenright colonies introduced to apideas as queen cells on day 11 from grafting. Two of them are going into their 3rd season. All marked and clipped so definitely not supersedure queens.

1035

I have found that trying to introduce queens to a new colony when they have only been laying a short time leads to early supersedure.
I also suspect that nosema plays a significant role in early supersedure as a spring dwindle colony will throw up a supersedure cell and there is literature linking supersedure and nosema going back a long way.

But I do agree that supersedure queens are often a cut above the rest due to the extra nutrition and attention.
Trouble is going on another generation means you can lose control of the genetics.
It is easy to set up drone producing colonies if you are 100% sure of the queen you are grafting from but going on another generation it becomes a lottery.
Some of my grafted queens have produced colonies with 50% yellow workers due to the drones they have encountered.
If one of these superseded you could end up with a hybrid queen heading the colony.



John Rhodes and Graham Denney

This project aimed to identify critical areas in queen bee production and introduction, that may be contributing to low acceptance and poor early performance being reported with commercially reared queen bees.

Beekeepers have not been satisfied with the introduction success rate and early performance of commercially reared queen bees for a number of years.

Queen bees from five commercial queen bee breeders produced in spring and in autumn were introduced into honey production apiaries belonging to three commercial beekeepers. Survival rates of test queens and older control queens were monitored at 4- week intervals for 16 weeks. Data considered critical to the survival and performance of test and control queens were recorded.

A significant loss of 30% of spring reared queens occurred compared to a loss of 13% of autumn reared queens. Control queen losses were 17% during the spring trial and average of 5% for the autumn trial. The age of the queen at introduction, numbers of spermatozoa stored in the queen’s spermatheca, Nosema disease, physical damage to the queen during transport, and external hive conditions were identified as factors, which may have contributed to the queen bee failures.

Further trial work investigated survival rates of commercially reared queen bees introduced into commercial honey production apiaries when the queens being introduced were 7, 14, 21, 28 and 35 days of age. The minimum age at which queen bees should be caught from mating nuclei lies between 28 and 35 days, this provided the premium survival after 15 weeks of 66.25% (60% when queens caught at 28 day and 72.5% when queens caught at 35 days).

This project is continuing and has lead to more beekeepers requeening colonies in the autumn and commercial queen breeders catching queens from nucleus colonies at between 28 and 35 days so the purchased queens have a better chance of survival.

http://www.beekeeping.com/articles/u..._australia.htm

[mbc]

I try and sort the wheat from the chaff by selecting the dozen best honey producers from between 150 and 200 hives which are mostly headed by grafted queens and yet the percentage of non-grafted queens in the top dozen each season is disproportionate despite my best efforts at selecting the best stock to breed from and attempting to raise the best queens possible.

[Jon]

Hi MBC
Are you running that many colonies yourself or is that the total number in a breeding group? A lot of work involved either way.
Hybrid colonies are more vigorous in the F1 generation and will likely produce more honey.
I had one in the garden last year headed by a black queen which had mated with a lot of yellow drones and it produced a really good honey crop and I took several nucs from it as well. I would not breed from it though as I know the genetics will be a total mix in the next generation.
It is working as a queenright cellraiser at the moment and started about 20 grafts I did yesterday.
I only want to select from the best of the near pure amm colonies to avoid any effect of heterosis.

What worries me about supersedure queens is that you lose control of the genetics as the bees chose the larva to make the next queen from and it could carry DNA from any one of the dozen or more drones her mother mated with - an unknown quantity.

[Neils]

Right then, because I'm going for the General Husbandry Assessment next year I'm trying to be organised about this and have created a tick sheet to work from. I'm sure I've messed up some of the timings please, so knives at the ready:

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7103/7258064972_b8d2a5055d_b.jpg
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7073/7258064808_9389987e57_b.jpg

As I was putting it together and bearing in mind jobs and time to get up to the apiary and so on:

Given that the queen cells are caged, what are the implications around leaving them a day or even two late (day 17 on the queen cell timeline) to get them into apideas?

Again, once we're satisfied with the timings and so-on I'll be happy to make it available as a pdf or Word Document.

[fatshark]

When using the Ben Harden system what do you do if/when you find cells in the bottom box? Last year I had no such problems but this year - with the recent improved weather - the colonies have taken off. I have successful grafts which should be sealed on Saturday, but the box is beginning to look rather busy. No QC's yesterday. Fingers crossed!

With thanks.

[Jon]

Hi Neil.
Nearly there.

1.Don't put the rollers on until 2 days before emergence. It might complicate keeping the cell at the right temperature during the crucial day 4-8 day stage after grafting.
2.if you think some might hatch early or you may have to get to them late put 2 or 3 bees inside the roller as you put it on. This is easy as the cell is covered in bees anyway.
3. Check the apidea 1-2 days after the date the queen should emerge to check that she is out of the cell. If the queen is dead in the cell replace it with another one asap.
4. Only open the apidea if the queen has emerged.
5. Check apideas once a week. You get queens lost on orientation flights from 5 days onwards so no need to lose 3 weeks before checking if it is queenright. Again put in another queen cell asap.
6. Keep a record sheet under the lid of each apidea to record checking. I use one based on the one Adam D devised.

[Neils]

Page 2 seems like a good thing to stuff under the lid then! I'll update it and post it up again.

obvious question, I've got 5 apideas, where am I keeping all these queen cells bursting to emerge/just emerged to go into them when the initial queen cells fail?

even if we assume that I production line queen cells, with a finite number of apideas, what do I do with surplus queen cells/vrigins?

[Rosie]

I would put the queen cells into the apideas a day earlier than you i.e ten days after grafting. I also keep the mini-nucs closed in a cool dark place for 3 days and spray water into them a couple of times a day before moving them to their final positions and opening. Having said that many people open the mini-nucs immediately and seem to get away with it. Be careful to position the mini-nucs a long way from your other hives and all facing different directions.

Rosie

[Jon]

obvious question, I've got 5 apideas, where am I keeping all these queen cells bursting to emerge/just emerged to go into them when the initial queen cells fail?
even if we assume that I production line queen cells, with a finite number of apideas, what do I do with surplus queen cells/vrigins?

This is the advantage of getting a group together and grafting a batch every week.
If you have extra queen cells you will find any amount of takers for them.
Worst case scenario just discard them. last summer there were a couple of times I had 30 or 40 cells due to hatch and I always found a home for them.
Get a mailing list together of interested members of your bka and put the message out.
I have got 30+ on a mailing list of attendees at our queenrearing group sessions. If you offer queen cells grafted from good stock you get your hand bitten off. I have about 75 cells to find homes for by the end of next week and i bet i don't have to discard any.

[Rosie]

If you have extra queen cells you will find any amount of takers for them.

Our association is in the throws of buying a carricel specifically for this purpose. I think the only real way to be effective when trying to improve local bees is to work together in large BIBBA-type groups or as an association.

Rosie

[Jon]

Steve. I have found that you don't have to make up the apideas 3 days before cell introduction and keep them in the dark. I do it a day before and don't get cells torn down. I put the rollers on at day 9 or 10 and try and introduce on day 11. May not be standard practice but it works for me. I don't open apideas until I have checked that the virgin is out of the cell. In an ideal world you fill them on one site and set them out on another but I mostly fill them and set them out on the same site maybe 40 feet away from the main colonies. The key to avoiding drifting back is to wait until the virgin is out of the cell.

[Neils]

I would put the queen cells into the apideas a day earlier than you i.e ten days after grafting. I also keep the mini-nucs closed in a cool dark place for 3 days and spray water into them a couple of times a day before moving them to their final positions and opening. Having said that many people open the mini-nucs immediately and seem to get away with it. Be careful to position the mini-nucs a long way from your other hives and all facing different directions.

Rosie

The Mrs might not approve but I wondering whether to take them back home and stick them in the garden if they're that labour intensive. Apideas I can cope with, full hives or even nucs, no way.



This is the advantage of getting a group together and grafting a batch every week.

Early days! Our local group (aside from the association) is, ahem, polluted by the "natural" crowd and I'm sure this is against their principles or something.

[Jon]

Early days! Our local group (aside from the association) is, ahem, polluted by the "natural" crowd and I'm sure this is against their principles or something.

Don't bet on it. Once you take the lead and start organising something they will be lining up to get a slice of the action. The real diehards just wring their hands as their bees die slowly from varroa vectored virus and post on biobees about how Bayer and monsanto are killing the bees and we will have to hand pollinate all the crops and pay triple. I sold 14 lbs of honey to my local health food shop today, delivered by bicycle, and I bought a kilo of brown rice while i was there so I reckon my credentials are good. Still was more than £60 up on the deal.

[Neils]

This is putting my toe in the water. My aim this year is purely selfish. Test the method, raise some queens, replace some buggers with some better queens with a bit of luck, maybe raise a couple of nucs. Once I'm happy that I've figured it out I'll look to expand the scope. Might offer a queen or two up to some more experienced guys to see what they think, but I'm not rushing into flogging bees or queens, even inviting them in to join the group to new guys until I'm satisfied I know what I'm doing.

I'm anticipating with the number of colonies around us and the number of people buying in bees that we'll have some horrors, but as we've got some horrors anyway, it doesn't really matter, if we can get the method working we can increase the number of queens we raise and start to get rid of the crap.

[mbc]

Right then, because I'm going for the General Husbandry Assessment next year I'm trying to be organised about this and have created a tick sheet to work from. I'm sure I've messed up some of the timings please, so knives at the ready:

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7103/7258064972_b8d2a5055d_b.jpg
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7073/7258064808_9389987e57_b.jpg

As I was putting it together and bearing in mind jobs and time to get up to the apiary and so on:

Given that the queen cells are caged, what are the implications around leaving them a day or even two late (day 17 on the queen cell timeline) to get them into apideas?

Again, once we're satisfied with the timings and so-on I'll be happy to make it available as a pdf or Word Document.

I would add feeding the cell raising and drone rearing colonies for at least a month before grafting ( especialy remembering to feed the larva doner colony before and during putting an empty comb into the brood nest)

[Jon]

When using the Ben Harden system what do you do if/when you find cells in the bottom box?


If I find cells in the bottom box I assume the colony wants to swarm and I do some form of an artificial swarm or else remove the queen to a nuc.
I set up a different colony as a cell raiser.
It does happen, but thankfully not that often. If you have swarmy stock it is likely a big issue.

[Geo224]

If I find cells in the bottom box I assume the colony wants to swarm and I do some form of an artificial swarm or else remove the queen to a nuc.
I set up a different colony as a cell raiser.
It does happen, but thankfully not that often. If you have swarmy stock it is likely a big issue.

What if the Q+ cell raiser is your only one, could the cells be left in the colony to be finished off after the AS was done?

[Jon]

No problem with that but if they are natural cells on a frame you can't use the roller cages on them like grafted cells so you have to be aware of the risk of cast swarms if you have several cells in the box.