Hi Bob & all

> Some queens will lay eggs right on new foundation which
> must really build a fire under the workers.

If the workers have adequate access to 'spare' beeswax they can
draw a sheet of foundation in an hour or so.

If they have plenty of honey and nectar they can do prodigious
feats... I had a colony once that drew 20 sides of foundation
(B.S. size), stored stolen (robbed) honey and capped most of it
in a day and a half.

I have also seen eggs in part built comb (hens egg size) from a
swarm of only a couple of hours.

I have seen a reference to fitting pencil sized sausages of
beeswax to top bars that the bees then draw into comb at a very
fast rate.

The various statements about time for cell cleaning and Jenter
box cell cup acclimatization, confuse me a little... Are you
using ordinary colonies to do this work or do you use swarm box
methods with selected young bees ?

I reckon the young bees only take 10 to 20 minutes to clean up
cell cups and any grafted cups that are rejected can be
re-grafted after ten minutes.



 Best Regards & 73s, Dave Cushman... G8MZY
Beekeeping & Bee Breeding Website
Email: [log in to unmask] or  [log in to unmask]
http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman &
http://www.dave-cushman.net

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