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Author Topic: Incubator  (Read 7612 times)

Van, Arkansas, USA

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Re: Incubator
« Reply #20 on: March 18, 2018, 08:36:33 pm »
Capt44, hey Buddy, good to see you here.

I use professional made incubator with hair roller cages.  Works very well for hatching queens.

Note:  if you place queen candy in the incubator be careful, high humidity and 92F will melt some candies and cover the queen in candy.

The hair roller cages (nicot system) has small indents on the flip lid.  Place food (honey, royal jelly, sugar solution) in these small indents before the queen hatches.  The queen cannot fit in not these small lid indents so food is available when she hatches.

Remove the queen cell as soon as the queen hatches.

Keep humidity at 70-75 %, you can control humidity with a sponge.  Cut the sponge to {fit} the humidity, in other words place a wet sponge in a container and allow the humidity to reach equilibrium, if to high, reduce the size of the sponge until your optimal humidity is reached.
Blessings

Offline Bush_84

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Re: Incubator
« Reply #21 on: March 18, 2018, 08:53:26 pm »
I placed my order but of course since they all seem to come from China it?ll be a while lol.
Keeping bees since 2011.

Also please excuse the typos.  My iPad autocorrect can be brutal.

Offline beepro

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Re: Incubator
« Reply #22 on: March 20, 2018, 02:14:18 am »
Last season I use the plant water absorbing crystals inside my incubator to control the
humidity.  I try to set it around 50-55%.   I did not have a humidity gauge either.   No issue with
hatching the queen cells.   

Van, Arkansas, USA

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Re: Incubator
« Reply #23 on: March 21, 2018, 05:46:24 pm »
Beepro, why not buy a humidity gauge?  I purchased 6 from China: temperature C/F with humidity.  They are only a few bucks each and accurate.

Offline capt44

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Re: Incubator
« Reply #24 on: March 22, 2018, 12:50:58 am »
This is the queen incubator I built.
The fan/heater and humidifier I bought from http://www.incubatorwarehouse.com
I keep the temperature at 92 degrees F and the humidity at 70% +or- 1%
I have had excellent results with this incubator for the past 3 or so years.

« Last Edit: March 22, 2018, 01:28:44 am by capt44 »
Richard Vardaman (capt44)

Offline beepro

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Re: Incubator
« Reply #25 on: March 25, 2018, 06:13:31 am »
My homemade small fridge incubator is just a trial run on the Q-cells.   So using my method of
gauging for humidity with the water absorbing crystals is a way for me to guesstimate on how
much moisture is needed and does it works also.    Knowing how much moisture to give is also a learning curve that I
have to go through on using this incubator.   Of course, using a humidity gauge will give more accurate reading.    Because my
trial run is not yet finish (an ongoing process) I have to design more efficient method of hatching these Q-cells.   Maybe to put the
water absorbing crystals inside the jar under the Q-cell.

Offline Bush_84

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Re: Incubator
« Reply #26 on: April 17, 2018, 12:27:35 pm »
So a bit of a bump but I got my stuff in the mail. I ordered some Chinese grafting tools from China in addition to the linked stuff I provided. The hair roller setup came promptly but the grafting tools took a lot longer. The guy was very responsive to emails but there was an inventory shortage and a very clear translation issue lol. Either way I still got 10 grafting tools for what I could buy 1 from Mann lake. Now I just need spring to show up so I can get started for the season. We keep getting snow and cold. It?s miserable.
Keeping bees since 2011.

Also please excuse the typos.  My iPad autocorrect can be brutal.

Offline Bush_84

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Re: Incubator
« Reply #27 on: April 17, 2018, 04:17:09 pm »


Double post ftw...I got to tinkering today and realized a couple of things. Firstly the base can be attached with push pins lol. Removing the yellow holder thing is impossible however. So is not a good solution. Second thing is that the jzbz queen cups fit on top of the hair roller cage. For me this solves some issues. I was planning on using this stuff for the cages. I will try both this year to see if I prefer one over the other in practice but less is more in this case I feel.
Keeping bees since 2011.

Also please excuse the typos.  My iPad autocorrect can be brutal.

Offline beepro

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Re: Incubator
« Reply #28 on: April 19, 2018, 03:33:30 am »
I don't even bother with the holding cages anymore inside the incubator.  I use a small 1.5" glass jar with a lid on.  These small
jars I got them from work because they are too small to be recycle.  Then drill a small hole on the plastic lid enough to fit a QC inside protruding down the jar but not touching the bottom.   The queen will emerge inside the glass jar inside the incubator.   Then dump the virgin queen in the mating nuc hive within hours of emergence.  Simple, free and reusable small glass jars for every queen making season.   

 

anything