Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum

BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => REQUEENING & RAISING NEW QUEENS => Topic started by: TwT on January 02, 2005, 10:08:33 am

Title: Queen Rearing
Post by: TwT on January 02, 2005, 10:08:33 am
I plan on getting ready this year to make my own queens for 2006, has anyone ever use the Jenter or Nicot systems, I would rather choose one of these two so i dont have to graft. I just would like to hear what you all think so I know witch would be the best for me. has anyone in here tried to raise there own queens :?:
Title: Queen Rearing
Post by: Jerrymac on January 08, 2005, 05:29:37 pm
With all the talk about possible bee shortage I thought I would resurect this one. Besides the question put forth by TwT I was wondering if there is someplace that explains how to go about doing this.
Title: Queen Rearing
Post by: Finman on January 09, 2005, 02:43:08 am
here in forum there is plenty of text about queen rearing. Take search .....
Title: Queen Rearing
Post by: TwT on January 09, 2005, 04:14:24 am
hey jerry this site has alot of info on queen rearing

http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman/breeding.html
Title: Queen Rearing
Post by: Finman on January 09, 2005, 04:36:39 am
Quote from: TwT
hey jerry this site has alot of info on queen rearing

http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman/breeding.html


AWFULL SITES! Beekeeping book is squeezed in some sencences.

The way "most do so and so" is no value, it  is not value following if you want to be good. Sorry..
Title: Queen Rearing
Post by: TwT on January 09, 2005, 05:08:05 am
that is just to get a taste finman , we know we need to get some books on queen rearing to learn the tricks of the trade, more than 1 book to, i just ordered a book called  Queen Rearing Honey Bee's by Roger Morse, and im looking at get another by Laid Law (I think thats his name)but thanks for the comment :wink:
Title: Queen Rearing
Post by: Finman on January 09, 2005, 05:13:23 am
How many queens you are going to raise?  - it depends?

Have you good queen from where to take larvas or eggs?
Title: Queen Rearing
Post by: Finman on January 09, 2005, 05:21:26 am
If my hive is going to swarm, I change good larvas into queen combs.  This way I get 10-15 queens. I it good number for mating nucs. Then I divice raising hives into those maiting nucs and carry them to 5 km distance.

Next summer I am going to adapt Hopkins mehod  http://www.beesource.com/pov/hayes/abjmay91.htm


30-40 queens are enough

Raising hive must be big, 4 boxes. One box is not enough. Daughters will be small. I have tried many times. Swarming cells is another question.
Title: Queen Rearing
Post by: TwT on January 09, 2005, 05:42:30 am
good post finman, what do you do with your queens you raise, use them yourself or sell some, I would like to start raising about 50-100 then maybe later raise more, just have to see how it goes.
Title: Queen Rearing
Post by: Finman on January 09, 2005, 06:27:13 am
Quote from: TwT
good post finman, what do you do with your queens .


I change all my productive queens every year. The dead rate in raising process is over 50%.  Somethimes I get nothing from a part. And I discard many after that when I see what kind of bees I got.

If  bees are angry or brood is sporadious, I throw them into bush. Many are gone during mating flight.
Title: Queen Rearing
Post by: Jerrymac on January 09, 2005, 08:54:25 am
If one raises queens by the method mentioned in the link offered by Finman
http://www.beesource.com/pov/hayes/abjmay91.htm
How would you then go about making a new colony with some of the new queens?
Title: Queen Rearing
Post by: Finman on January 09, 2005, 12:08:56 pm
Quote from: Jerrymac
How would you then go about making a new colony with some of the new queens?


Usually I have a langstroth box devided in 4 nucs. One frame brood in each and one food.  It is easier to take them 5 km dintance. If you leave them into same yard, bees return their original hive and you have lost the queen.

Nuc must be stabilized 3 days before you put the queen. There is difficulties to put in the nuc. Losts will happen.

Now I have noticed that easiest way to form new nucs is to divide queen raising hive into small pieces and take them another to the hive yard  to 5 km distance.  If you have in the hive 40 frames you can make 40 mating nucs. and the queen will be nuc's own.  

I have a ponit on a farmer's land which I use as mating yard.

It seems grude but you must get those nuc frames and they have unfriendly bees against new queen.


Also I often take old queen away and I get them a new queen when bees have capped their own queen cells. They gather honey more when they have egg laying brake.

I have bees enough and I may many games with them.  It depends what is going on.

Now I started to use terraium heaters, and it resolved many problems. Usually 2 frame nucs are too cold for brood. But for mating they are good.
Title: Queen Rearing
Post by: Jerrymac on January 09, 2005, 09:06:15 pm
Are you talking about mating Nucs? If you are I guess I don't understand that process. Where do the drones come from for mating? And if someone has only a few hives, would there be a possibility for too much inbreeding?
Title: Queen Rearing
Post by: TwT on January 09, 2005, 09:17:42 pm
heres a site with some info on queen rearing

http://www.beeclass.com/DTS/Appliedqueenrearing.htm
Title: Queen Rearing
Post by: Jerrymac on January 09, 2005, 11:13:48 pm
OK  So the mating nuc isn't where you lock the poor girl in and let the drones have their way with her. She still flies out to mate. Just the name "mating nuc" seemed to be where it takes place.
Title: Queen Rearing
Post by: Finman on January 10, 2005, 02:28:47 am
Quote from: Jerrymac
. Where do the drones come from for mating? And if someone has only a few hives, would there be a possibility for too much inbreeding?


In normal hive there are hundreds of drones. They fly in on the sky long disances.

Queen flyes over 5 km to go over distance of its own drones. It try to avoid inbreeding. Queen copulates with 8-16 drones during one or two days. Even rainy day can be between those days. I have seen that.

Even in Finland we have difficulties to find place where is no other beekepers's drones on the sky.  When I go in any direction in my summer place, I will meet other hives at the distance of 10 km.

But that 5 km distance is more theory than true. When I have that mating place and I had big Monticola bee hive there,   most queens mated with it's own yard drones. My friend have 40 italian hives  at the distance of 8 km and I had 10 italian.

Also I have wild dark bees 5 km to north in the tower of shurch. I have not noticed that queen have brought that blood from that direction.

If you use every year same stock, dander of insemination is true.

You can see a little filament in the arse of queen after mating trip. It happens at the hottest point of the day about  14-15 a'clock.

When I walk in the nature I can see few bees in most places. Even honey catching worker can fly 4 km distance and during summer wild swarms can move 5-10 km from starting point.


When we had "dark German race" in Finland 15 years ago, they were quick to copulate with all queens. Now varroa have vanished these totally. - thanks to varroa. It is my friend! Those dark Gemans were worse than varroa!  (killer bees somethimes)
Title: Queen Rearing
Post by: Jay on January 10, 2005, 09:46:17 pm
At least they were good for something, huh Finman? :lol:
Title: Queen Rearing
Post by: Robo on January 11, 2005, 10:21:37 am
I use the Nicot system and here is my method
http://robo.bushkillfarms.com/beekeeping/queen-rearing (http://robo.bushkillfarms.com/beekeeping/queen-rearing)
Title: Queen Rearing
Post by: beemaster on January 11, 2005, 10:32:40 am
Happy New Year Robo :)
Title: Queen Rearing
Post by: Lesli on January 11, 2005, 01:32:47 pm
You can see a little filament in the arse of queen after mating trip.

OK, I laughed at this. Maybe because a server emergency kept me up all night (ah, the exciting life of a sysadmin!).

Anyway, the books call it "mating sign," which is a pretty mild way of saying the drone's sexual organ and a bit more.
Title: Nicot
Post by: danno1800 on August 03, 2006, 12:13:32 pm
I have raised queens several times using the Nicot system. I have never used the Jenter system. I have found the Nicot system very easy to use with one caveat: if you use it during a strong honey flow, the workers will store some honey in the plastic cells. They are DIFFICULT to clean out if they are stuffed with unripened honey. Other than that, they work very well. I hope this helps you decide. I strongly encourage you to try raising some queens.
Title: Re: Queen Rearing
Post by: CWBees on August 12, 2007, 10:47:20 pm
I have used the Nicot system. Today I tried grafting and will have to see how it goes.
Title: Re: Queen Rearing
Post by: bolkar on May 13, 2009, 09:25:56 am
hello i am bolkar  i living turkey

i read this page nicot system and i don't know this system

please tell me  this system and details...
Title: Re: Queen Rearing
Post by: Robo on May 13, 2009, 09:48:44 am
hello i am bolkar  i living turkey

i read this page nicot system and i don't know this system

please tell me  this system and details...

Details here -> http://www.betterbee.com/products.asp?dept=631
Title: Re: Queen Rearing
Post by: bolkar on May 13, 2009, 10:09:57 am
thanks a lot...
Title: Re: Queen Rearing
Post by: Acebird on January 14, 2011, 02:41:57 pm
Does it make any sense to raise your own queens if you only intend to have a couple of hives?
Title: Re: Queen Rearing
Post by: Michael Bush on January 15, 2011, 12:38:10 am
>Does it make any sense to raise your own queens if you only intend to have a couple of hives?

Why rear your own queens?
o  Cost. A typical queen costs the beekeeper about $20 counting shipping and may cost considerably more.

o  Time. In an emergency you order a queen and it takes several days to make arrangements and get the queen. Often you need a queen yesterday. If you have some in mating nucs, on hand, then you already have a queen.

o  Availability. Often when you need a queen there are none available from suppliers. Again, if you have one on hand availability is not a problem.

o  AHB. Southern raised queens are more and more from Africanized Honey Bee areas. In order to keep AHB out of the North we should stop importing queens from those areas.

o  Acclimatized bees. It's unreasonable to expect bees bred in the deep South to winter well in the far North. Local feral stock is acclimatized to our local climate. Even breeding from commercial stock, you can breed from the ones that winter well here.

o  Mite and disease resistance. Tracheal mite resistance is an easy trait to breed for. Just don't treat and you'll get resistant bees. Hygienic behavior, which is helpful to avoid AFB (American Foulbrood) and other brood diseases as well as Varroa mite problems, is also easy to breed for by testing for hygienic behavior in our breeder queens. And yet hardly any queen breeders are breeding for these traits. The genetics of our queens if far too important to be left to people who don't have a stake in their success. People selling queens and bees actually make more money selling replacement queens and bees when the bees fail. Now I'm not saying they are purposely trying to raise queens that fail, but I am saying they have no financial incentive to produce queens that don't. Basically to cash in on the benefits of not treating, you need to be rearing your own queens.

o  Quality. Nothing is more important to success in beekeeping than the queen. The quality of your queens can often surpass that of a queen breeder. You have the time to spend to do things that a commercial breeder cannot afford to do. For instance, research has shown that a queen that is allowed to lay up until it's 21 days will be a better queen with better developed ovarioles than one that is banked sooner. A longer wait will help even more, but that first 21 days is much more critical. A commercial queen producer typically looks for eggs at two weeks and if there are any it is banked and eventually shipped. You can let yours develop better by spending more time.

http://bushfarms.com/beesqueenrearing.htm (http://bushfarms.com/beesqueenrearing.htm)

If you just want to rear a few, here's a simple plan:


http://bushfarms.com/beesafewgoodqueens.htm (http://bushfarms.com/beesafewgoodqueens.htm)
Title: Re: Queen Rearing
Post by: Acebird on January 15, 2011, 10:19:31 am
Quote
If you just want to rear a few, here's a simple plan:

Thank you, thank you, thank you, this is more like it for the jamoke that really doesn’t know what he is doing.

In my mind what I am seeing is these mating nucs are just miniature hives.  There are two things that I don’t comprehend about this process:

1. What encourages the queen to go back to this little hive and start laying eggs after going off tramping in the woods on her maiden flight with the neighborhood boys?
2. How long can she stay in this mating nuc before she says, the heck with this I want a bigger house with a new front porch and off she goes.

If I had two hives to start with am I not going to end up with six hives when all is said and done?  I think six hives will raise attention in our little oasis and send up a red flag that bans us from having any hives.  I don’t want to go there.
Title: Re: Queen Rearing
Post by: Michael Bush on January 15, 2011, 11:35:40 pm
>1. What encourages the queen to go back to this little hive and start laying eggs after going off tramping in the woods on her maiden flight with the neighborhood boys?

Instinct.

>2. How long can she stay in this mating nuc before she says, the heck with this I want a bigger house with a new front porch and off she goes.

Until it gets crowded and they start to backfill the brood cells with honey.  A turnover of brood is 21 days, so it will take at least that long or longer AFTER she starts laying which is usually two weeks after she emerges.

>If I had two hives to start with am I not going to end up with six hives when all is said and done?

Or two hives and four or so nucs.

>  I think six hives will raise attention in our little oasis and send up a red flag that bans us from having any hives.  I don’t want to go there.

Having spare queens in nucs is a plus.  You can always pick a young prolific queen and keep her and remove an old one and combine as many as you like.  Good times to combine are just before the flow (so they have more bees) and going into winter to boost a smaller hive.
Title: Re: Queen Rearing
Post by: Acebird on January 16, 2011, 09:35:23 am
Michael, I did a lot of reading on your site which I think will be very helpful to me in the future.  It has great organization making it easy to find something you are looking for.  Thanks.

I got to tell you this story.  Last year as a new beek we had a lot of mishaps with our first hive.  Not knowing that you can’t move a hive a short distance we nearly had a catastrophe.  Now thinking about that and creating these nucs within the same bee yard as the hive why don’t the bees that go along with the brood that you pull from the hive just go back to the original hive when they come back from the field?

Title: Re: Queen Rearing
Post by: Michael Bush on January 16, 2011, 09:48:00 am
My mating nucs are a frame of brood with bees, a frame of honey with bees and maybe the bees shaken off another frame of brood.  The brood anchors them pretty well and the extra shake of bees is enough to make up for what returns to the old hive.
Title: Re: Queen Rearing
Post by: BBees on January 16, 2011, 12:01:05 pm
Hi Ace,
>Now thinking about that and creating these nucs within the same bee yard as the hive why don’t the bees that go along with the brood that you pull from the hive just go back to the original hive when they come back from the field?<

Those that forage do.

During the first 3 weeks of a worker bee's life she's a "house" bee, staying in the hive. Roughly, the first week is spent as a nurse bee. That's when her hypopharyngeal glands are developed allowing her to produce that all important royal jelly and feed the queen and larva. The second week is when she's capable of producing wax and building comb. The third week is when the poison glands develop and her main duty is being a guard bee. Basically,  during her first three weeks of life, she'll stay with the brood and won't fly away. After that first three weeks, her wing muscles are developed enough, she gets her pilots license and assumes her next role as a foraging bee, flying out of the hive and returning to her original hive location with her load of nectar, pollen, water, or propolis.

That being said, when we try to rear queens, it's really important to transfer frames with very young bees to our nucs with the capacity to feed and fill the queen cells with royal jelly.

In setting up nucs in the same bee yard as the donor hive, since these 0-3 week old bees don't really fly off to forage, these non-flying bees stay where you put the frames or where you shake them (in the nuc.) The older, foraging bees, will fly out to forage and return to the original location of the donor hive, (unless this nuc is moved a couple of miles so they can't "find" the original donor hive location.)

We can use this behavior of foragers returning to the location of the donor hive to our advantage if we move the donor hive from the original hive stand and place the nuc on the original hive stand. It really boosts the population of bees in that nuc as those foragers return to that original donor hive location. Can also be used for other methods of strengthening weak hives, splits, divides, and making increase because foragers returning to the original location (whether it's their original hive or not) with a load of nectar or pollen are usually welcomed without fighting.

Sorry if it's a bit long winded, but hope this helps. Winter bee biology is a little different, best left for another thread.
Title: Re: Queen Rearing
Post by: Acebird on January 16, 2011, 02:02:46 pm
This is absolutely great info.

Is it a correct assumption that if a brood frame is covered with bees these bees will be the nurse bees or will it be a mix of bees?

What would the acceptable distance be between the nuc hive and the original hive if they were placed in the same yard?  I don't think the wife is going to be agreeable to moving the original hive.  We both don't feel comfortable about bringing the trap out bees from the barn in Vernon to our bee yard just yet if they should survive the winter.

BBees, Maybe you could help me with the trap out in Vernon seeing as how we are close?
Title: Re: Queen Rearing
Post by: BBees on January 16, 2011, 11:33:02 pm
>Is it a correct assumption that if a brood frame is covered with bees these bees will be the nurse bees or will it be a mix of bees?<

The more open brood, the more nurse bees.

>What would the acceptable distance be between the nuc hive and the original hive if they were placed in the same yard?<

Depends on the purpose of the nuc and if you want the foragers to stay with the nuc.

>Maybe you could help me with the trap out in Vernon seeing as how we are close?<

Sure, just wait until you can steal a frame of eggs from your hive at home to assure success. Read the following link if you haven't already on trap-outs;   

http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php/topic,20301.0.html (http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php/topic,20301.0.html)
Title: Re: Queen Rearing
Post by: Michael Bush on January 17, 2011, 12:09:18 am
>Is it a correct assumption that if a brood frame is covered with bees these bees will be the nurse bees or will it be a mix of bees?

Mostly nurse bees.  Always a mix.  When doing a split I always figure I want to shake in bees from brood frames until I have twice as many bees as I want and half will return.

>What would the acceptable distance be between the nuc hive and the original hive if they were placed in the same yard?

Minimum of on inch... ;)  I usually have them right next to the original hive.  Distance is irrelevant unless you get at least a mile away or more.
Title: Re: Queen Rearing
Post by: Acebird on January 17, 2011, 09:04:52 am
Quote
The more open brood, the more nurse bees.

Ah, that's the ticket, open brood.  I didn't catch that at first.  I am assuming capped brood is not a problem or is it?

Quote
Distance is irrelevant unless you get at least a mile away or more.

That is what I was thinking but I wasn't sure.
Title: Re: Queen Rearing
Post by: Humanbeeing on February 17, 2011, 03:04:45 pm
For a small beek, just needing a few queens, I think Donald Kuchenmeister (Fat Beeman)suggests the best method. They say swarm cells are the best, so in the spring, take a hive or two or three, condense them down into one box, feed like crazy, and when you have some nice swarm cells, cut them out, split them and add the cells to the queenless nucs or to all of them, or whatever you want to do.
 
As Lawrence John Conner says, "You only graft what you can't see." My over 50 eyeball syndrome makes me well aware of that fact, so, the Hopkins method is my numero uno plan, for the second round of queens for overwintering nucs.
Title: Re: Queen Rearing
Post by: showme714 on March 05, 2011, 08:39:50 pm
Quote from: TwT
hey jerry this site has alot of info on queen rearing

http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman/breeding.html (http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman/breeding.html)

AWFULL SITES! Beekeeping book is squeezed in some sencences.

The way "most do so and so" is no value, it  is not value following if you want to be good. Sorry..

I agree it is an awful site even for 2005 design standards. I'm a web designer and could hardly stand to look at much less read it with no pictures.
Title: Re: Queen Rearing
Post by: TwT on March 07, 2011, 07:01:21 pm
sorry guy's, hard to find those pretty info sites for you to read, there are many sites out there and if you stumble across one that could help other's, Please post it here! 
Title: Re: Queen Rearing
Post by: Humanbeeing on March 07, 2011, 09:38:11 pm
Just go here:

http://www.pdf-searcher.com/ (http://www.pdf-searcher.com/)

And type in Grafting Larve, Queen Rearing, No Graft Queen Raising, or what ever you want to read about. You can only read so much, til you have to do it. Just do it. So what could go wrong? Every thing?...then you will know what not to do and you may accidentally rear some queens. Go for it.
Title: Re: Queen Rearing
Post by: hardwood on March 07, 2011, 11:06:31 pm
The only big secret to grafting queens is eyesight :) The first time I tried grafting was with a store-bought tool using store-bought plastic cups fresh out of the bag. I only grafted 6 or so cups and ended up with maybe 3 cells. Not a great percentage but not a really bad one either.

The next time I tried I first sprayed the cups with sugar water and placed the bars in a hive for 24hrs before grafting. I got a little better take on that one but I wanted to see if I could do better so kept experimenting with the variables. I went to home dipped wax cups, grafting larvae of various ages, grafting at different times of the year and during different flow periods and even messed with lunar cycles for a bit.

The things that probably made the biggest difference for me were:
1) Using natural wax cups (I still run trials between wax and plastic and wax beats plastic every time. Maybe not by much, but wax always wins.)
2) Homemade grafting tools. The ones that you buy for $10 or so are great for mutilating larvae. I can show you how to make a better one from a paper clip.
3) Using the right larvae. In theory any larva the is still being fed royal jelly should work (1-4 days from the egg) but in practice I find a better take from younger larvae (can barely see them in a pool of royal jelly) and you can estimate the new queen's emergence a little better if they are all about the same age.
4) The more young bees you have to build the cells the better. Something I learned not long ago, well maybe 2 years ?, from Alan Bukley was that you can start cells in a small queenless AND broodless nuc. Makes a lot of sense when you think about it if no brood the nurse bees have nothing to do but raise your grafts. Young bees is key.
5) Feed them whether during a flow or not. The more you convince them that they should multiply (swarm) the better.

We'll be going over this stuff at Bud's again this year with hands-on demos.

Scott

Title: Re: Queen Rearing
Post by: Philipgard on August 18, 2011, 12:01:58 pm
 I have a new mated queen but she has not started laying eggs yet. It's been two weeks so what should I do? We did have an infestation of hive beetles but have pretty much eradicated that problem.  We have fed them sugar solution 1:1 infused with Bee Max to help stimulate egg laying but no go so far...?
Title: Re: Queen Rearing
Post by: beequeensro on January 15, 2012, 01:41:07 am
Maybe that queen needs more time to begin laying eggs, some queens are "laizy", or maybe your queen have an anatomic malformation that prevents laying (abnormal ovaries, etc.). I'm curious what happend with that queen, from august. It started or not laying eggs?
Title: Re: Queen Rearing
Post by: The Bix on February 08, 2012, 02:49:00 pm

2) Homemade grafting tools. The ones that you buy for $10 or so are great for mutilating larvae. I can show you how to make a better one from a paper clip.


Scott,

Any chance you could post a picture of your homebrew grafting tool?

Thanks!

--John
Title: Re: Queen Rearing
Post by: hardwood on February 09, 2012, 01:32:26 pm
(http://i871.photobucket.com/albums/ab277/hardwood01/graftingtools001.jpg)
Title: Re: Queen Rearing
Post by: hardwood on February 09, 2012, 02:02:51 pm
John, these are the ones I use most of the time. I buy old dental tools for $1 at a surplus store and modify them with a simple propane torch and hammer. I've made them using everything from toothpicks to paper clips and ss welding wire.

I'll have a bunch at Bud4 in April if you happen to head over. Maybe another raffle item??

Scott
Title: Re: Queen Rearing
Post by: BlueBee on February 09, 2012, 04:04:52 pm
No cavities at my last checkup, but seeing dental tools give me the willies. :evil:
Title: Re: Queen Rearing
Post by: The Bix on February 09, 2012, 11:33:03 pm
Scott,

Oddly enough, I went to the dentist today (was scheduled 6 months ago), yes, I picked up an old dental tool that they were going to recycle--it was free...thanks for the heads up.  I would have had to wait another 6 months to score one of those things.  Now I just need to reshape it. :)

--John
Title: Re: Queen Rearing
Post by: Keeperwannabe on February 10, 2012, 06:35:04 pm
Hopkins method makes sense for just a few queens, or Allen or Miller methods. Grafting is just too much work for a few queens.
Title: Re: Queen Rearing
Post by: hardwood on February 10, 2012, 08:08:23 pm
Keeper, we'll be grafting for 1500 splits starting next week.

I often graft 1 bar (18 cells) just to have a few on hand.

Scott
Title: Re: Queen Rearing
Post by: beekeeper7777 on January 06, 2023, 02:15:25 pm
I plan on getting ready this year to make my own queens for 2006, has anyone ever use the Jenter or Nicot systems, I would rather choose one of these two so i dont have to graft. I just would like to hear what you all think so I know witch would be the best for me. has anyone in here tried to raise there own queens :?:

The Jenter and Nicot systems are both methods of queen rearing that do not require grafting. Both systems involve using a special type of cell cup that allows the bees to raise their own queen cells, rather than having to graft larvae into artificial cell cups.

The Jenter system involves using a specialized piece of equipment called a Jenter kit, which consists of a series of cell cups that are placed in a frame. The bees are then allowed to build their own queen cells in the cell cups. Once the cells are capped, they can be transferred to a new hive, where they will hatch and emerge as queens.

The Nicot system is similar to the Jenter system, but it uses a different type of cell cup and a different method of transferring the cells to a new hive. In the Nicot system, the cell cups are placed in a frame that is inserted into the hive, and the bees are allowed to build their own queen cells in the cups. Once the cells are capped, the frame is removed from the hive and placed in a special incubator, where the cells are allowed to hatch and emerge as queens.

Both the Jenter and Nicot systems have their own set of advantages and disadvantages, and it's ultimately up to you to decide which method is best for you. Some beekeepers prefer the Jenter system because it is relatively simple to use and does not require a lot of specialized equipment. Others prefer the Nicot system because it allows for more precise control over the temperature and humidity in the incubator, which can help to improve the success rate of the cells.
Title: Re: Queen Rearing
Post by: The15thMember on January 06, 2023, 02:35:24 pm
I plan on getting ready this year to make my own queens for 2006, has anyone ever use the Jenter or Nicot systems, I would rather choose one of these two so i dont have to graft. I just would like to hear what you all think so I know witch would be the best for me. has anyone in here tried to raise there own queens :?:

The Jenter and Nicot systems are both methods of queen rearing that do not require grafting. Both systems involve using a special type of cell cup that allows the bees to raise their own queen cells, rather than having to graft larvae into artificial cell cups.

The Jenter system involves using a specialized piece of equipment called a Jenter kit, which consists of a series of cell cups that are placed in a frame. The bees are then allowed to build their own queen cells in the cell cups. Once the cells are capped, they can be transferred to a new hive, where they will hatch and emerge as queens.

The Nicot system is similar to the Jenter system, but it uses a different type of cell cup and a different method of transferring the cells to a new hive. In the Nicot system, the cell cups are placed in a frame that is inserted into the hive, and the bees are allowed to build their own queen cells in the cups. Once the cells are capped, the frame is removed from the hive and placed in a special incubator, where the cells are allowed to hatch and emerge as queens.

Both the Jenter and Nicot systems have their own set of advantages and disadvantages, and it's ultimately up to you to decide which method is best for you. Some beekeepers prefer the Jenter system because it is relatively simple to use and does not require a lot of specialized equipment. Others prefer the Nicot system because it allows for more precise control over the temperature and humidity in the incubator, which can help to improve the success rate of the cells.
Welcome to Beemaster, beekeeper7777!  :happy:
Title: Re: Queen Rearing
Post by: BeeMaster2 on January 06, 2023, 04:23:33 pm
7777,
Welcome to Beemaster.
I have a Nicot System. It requires you to install the board in the hive for a day?s worth of cleaning and then go back in the hive the next day and find and put the queen in it. If you cannot find a queen in a large hive it does not work.
Jim Altmiller
Title: Re: Queen Rearing
Post by: Ben Framed on January 07, 2023, 12:26:20 am
Welcome beekeeper7777

Phillip
Title: Re: Queen Rearing
Post by: Michael Bush on January 07, 2023, 09:41:15 am
The main significant difference between a Jenter/Nicot system is the number of trips to the hive.  Ignoring the things that are the same with grafting like setting up starters and finishers and mating nucs, the initial steps for the Jenter/Nicot is 1 trip to the hive to put it in the brood nest and let them clean it up and prepare it. 1 trip to find and confine the queen (and I have to find the queen). 1 trip to release the queen 24 hours later (so she doesn't lay a bunch of double and triple eggs).  1 trip to get the right age larvae and transfer the plug with the larvae to the queen cell cup and put it on the cell bar.  1 trip to put the cell bar in the starter. So from when I started to when I have cells for the starter it's 5 trips to the bee yard and one time I have to find a queen.  With grafting I just make 1 trip, find the right age larvae and 1 trip to put the cell bar in the starter.  And I don't have to find the queen at all.  that's 5 trips and finding the queen vs 2 trips and no need to find the queen.  It's just less work to graft.  But you need the eyesight to do it.

Jenter vs Nicot.  I'm not sure anyone is selling the Jenter equipment now.  They may be.  I think it's a superior system, mostly because the queen has more cells to lay in with Jenter.  You can only transfer every other one, but the queen is more likely to lay in it.  The Nicot has fake capped cells where you don't transfer them so there are like 1/4 as many cells for her to lay in and they are not all open like the Jenter.  This means she is less likely to lay in it.  Otherwise they are quite similar.  I do like the hair curler cages better on the Nicot than the ones that come with the Jenter.  But you can buy Nicot hair curler cages and put them on the Jenter if you want to.