Apidea - hair rollers

[drumgerry]

Another apidea question guys - hope you don't mind. Checked today and of my first batch of 20 grafts I have 12 sealed QCs. I'm pretty pleased with how my first attempt at the Harden method has gone although I know I'm a long way from having mated queens from those 12 cells.

But my question is - should I put hair rollers over the sealed cells and if so when? They're due to hatch a week on Wed depending if I got my estimation of the age of the larvae right. If we say Tuesday for safety's sake should I be caging the cells now or on Monday? I've been using Jenter cells and holders and I have Jenter roller cages as well.

[Jon]

Gerry.
I cage the cells 3 days before emergence date.
You always get one which emerges a full 24 hours earlier than expected, especially if the weather is warm.
If they are due to hatch Wednesday, I would cage them Sunday evening.
I try and get a couple of bees inside the roller as this means an emerging queen has attendants.
You can also put a smidgen of fondant in the base of the roller so an early emerger has a food source but in general queens in rollers will not last long.

12/20 is good going in this weather. I grafted 20 into a colony on Sunday and they started only one.

I would fill apideas on Sunday and put the cells in on Monday evening or Tuesday morning.
If a queen emerges early, spray the roller, shake her into the apidea and dump a scoop of wet bees on top of her.
By the time they have sorted themselves out she will be part of the family.
Don't open the apideas until you have checked the cell to ensure the queen has emerged.
Most of the bees will abscond if you open the apidea before the virgin queen is out of the cell.

[drumgerry]

Thanks again Jon for the free advice. You are of course the Apidea guru!

I must confess I was amazed they started and sealed 12. I didn't even feed them as I didn't want syrup in my half full supers. I didn't want even the slight chance of them putting it in the supers so decided just to see what they did unfed. It's been about 11 or 12 degrees and grey and dry most days here but the bees have been flying strongly. I can't believe they can be getting much nectar but plenty of pollen has been going in. And the colony I used I was sure was going to start building QCs soon anyway. Too many empty play cups and more of them at each of the last few weeks' inspections. Maybe that's my answer there. Anyway, we'll see how the next few stages of the process goes.

Also getting ready to do a repeat of the Harden method with the local association. The only problem being they invested in 20 Kielers last summer!

[Jon]

You could have got 12 apideas for the price of 20 Kielers and the apideas are so much easier to use and will last longer.

[gavin]

Reading this with great interest. Grafted 10 larvae, one brown cup fell out and presumably is somewhere in the supers under the top brood box, one failed, eight beautiful sealed Q cells getting their rollers on tomorrow and hatching about Saturday. We have an association meeting on Saturday when we will add the queens (or cells) to a batch of Apideas which I hope to set up tomorrow. Also will do more grafting on Sat, as long as we're not rained off. Will now add a smear of fondant and a couple of workers to the roller cages, thanks Jon.

[drumgerry]

You don't have to convince me Jon. As soon as I got my hands on an Apidea I could tell how much better they are. Problems we had last year with the Kielers were loading the bees in, adding the queen cell and topping the feed up. Lots of the bees in them absconded which ruined our efforts. Apideas have all of those issues dealt with admirably as far as I can see. But what do you do when the association has invested in 20 of the pesky things?!

Gavin it sounds like you're much further ahead with your queen rearing than in our association this year. We've been concentrating on a funding application for the last while so hopefully now that's in we can get on with some queen rearing.

[gavin]

Just a few days ahead I think. Our association bees were rather weak this year so we've been slow to start. Did give it a go last summer:

http://www.sbai.org.uk/sbai_forum/entry.php?164-This-grafting-lark

[drumgerry]

Oh and another thing I dislike about Kielers - the top bars. Freshly built comb doesn't lend itself to being taken out to check whether a queen is in lay or not.

I see most of you seem to use the Nicot cells and rollers. I have Jenter equivalents and they seem to be just as good. I do like the metal cell bars with holes cut to take the cell holders. I cut a couple of slots in some hoffman side bars using my table saw to take the cell bars and the bars are believe it or not secured with a couple of blobs of blue tack! Maybe need to rethink the blue tack as it's a bit sticky and stringy but it does work.

[drumgerry]

Great pictures from last year Gavin. I also knocked the side walls of the cells down for my first attempt at grafting (last year as well). I was really unhappy with the crappy grafting tool I was using and bought myself one of the expensive Swiss jobs from buzzybeeshop - the fact that I could get a left handed one sold me on it as well. I don't feel the need to knock the side walls down now and with the addition of a head torch to let me see clearly into the bottoms of the cells I think I've found the perfect system for me.

[gavin]

I should try the Swiss tool. Sounds worthwhile, and I'm not really comfortable with these Chinese cheapo ones but a bit more practice may help I suppose.

Particularly proud of that last picture, the close-up of open queen cells.

[Jon]

I use the £2 sable brush from buzzybee shop.
It is easy to pick up a larva but the trick is to pick it up on the very tip of the brush so that it is easy to place on the bottom of the cell cup by slightly rotating the brush and sliding it back. If you pick up a larva half way up the brush it is near impossible to get it off.

[voytech104]

Hi Jon,
When you graft with any tool - you pick up larvae and then transfer it to the cup. Is the cup pre-filled with royal jelly?


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[Jon]

No I just graft them dry but you often get a blob of jelly with the larva and this makes it a lot easier to set it down in the cup without damage.

[fatshark]

You don't have to convince me Jon. As soon as I got my hands on an Apidea I could tell how much better they are. Problems we had last year with the Kielers were loading the bees in, adding the queen cell and topping the feed up. Lots of the bees in them absconded which ruined our efforts. Apideas have all of those issues dealt with admirably as far as I can see. But what do you do when the association has invested in 20 of the pesky things?!.

Just use them! They DO work. I've got queens out mating in mine at the moment ... It's not the mini-nuc that's the problems, it's the rain and low temperatures.

I don't bother filling the Kielers from the base, just open the lid, lift a couple of the top bars out and scoosh (a valid Scottish word from my Glasgow days) 300ml or so of damp bees into the gap. Reassembly takes seconds. I use a sheet of thick clear plastic as a internal cover, with a small cutout flap centred over the middle gap in the top bars. This allows the addition of a QC in one of those Nicot cups really easily.

I'm not sure why you had absconding problems ... any more than with any mini-nuc. In the only side by side comparison I've done the Apideas had lots more problems with wasp attacks (late season grafts), several of which wiped out the little colonies. In fairness, this could have been due to under stocking ... a colleague did this.

Don't get me wrong, there are problems with Kielers. The lack of QE to the feed compartment is one and, more significantly, the different height of the 'super' you can get for them. It's infuriating having to cut down the upper comb (or perhaps it's the other way round?).

[drumgerry]

I don't doubt you Fatshark but the Apideas come ready to work and the Kielers seem to need a bit of tweaking. Refilling the feed compartment without loads of bees b***ering off was a real problem. Them setting up house in the feed compartment another. The top bars with fragile comb breaking off another. I think if one were to persevere with them as you have and get your own system going with them they would be fine but I'm a lazy so and so and the Apideas just seem less work.