> Juanse, Brother Adams wrote the following:
> "I have found that a queen which emerges in an incubator is never as good
> as
> one who spends her first few hours in her normal environment...
As a general rule I agree.
I have found it is not wise to use the word never describing bee behavior.
Few commercial beeks which use an incubator let the queens hatch before
using
Although virgin cages are sold. One very large beek who's name all would
recognize is so convinced he trashes virgins if things go wrong and virgins
hatch in the G.O.F. incubator.
Placing a single cell has worked best for me. After destroying all cells the
bees have started.
I do however have a area beek acquaintance which does use virgins and also
sells virgins. He uses mated queens for his early nucs he sells ( mainly as
mature drones are not available then). I have never used his virgins so not
sure of his success rate. He mainly sells to hobby beeks. Although he is
within 60 miles of me and runs around 1200 hives he does not attend our bee
meetings and has never called me. I should give the beek a call but have
never had a reason so I have not. He advertizes in our newsletter.
Having tried both a new jenter system without drawn cells and a jenter with
the fully drawn comb we always get a better take with the( as per jenter
directions) fully drawn queen area.
However most queens will lay eggs in the area between the plugs. We always
hand graft these which is easy for even old eyes.
different strokes for different folks and many different methods to keeping
bees. I think information on BEE-L is best when newbees can see the
different methods used and decide which method they want to pursue. Not
really one way to keep bees which is best under all circumstances.
Try each as see which works best for your operation is what I recommend.
bob
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