Tom Many members of the Bee Improvement and Bee Breeders' Association use the Jenter system for obtaining young larvae of known age from a selected colony. Here is Albert Knight's account of how we use it Regards Angus Stokes The Jenter System The system is a method of getting the queen to lay in plastic cells that are in two pieces, the base of the cell, and the rest of it. The base is removable and once it has a tiny larvae in, it is removed and a separate cell top clicked on to it to give a normal looking cell. These number about 100 set in a plastic box with holes to accept these removable bases. Around each of these removable cell bases are static cells that give the whole a normal appearance of comb. The box is set in the middle of a brood frame, sufficient comb being cut out to allow the box to be inserted. It is screwed into the top bar (two "legs stick up from the box) and wire is used to anchor it to the bottom bar. The "comb" in the box is one-sided, the back of the box has a plastic cover that can be removed to gain access to the back of the cells. The front also has a removable cover, but this has queen excluder sized slots in it to let workers into the comb to service the larvae. The removable cells protrude so one can grip them. The whole box is about the same thickness as normal brood comb. When the Jenter is first used it needs to be "primed". That is the comb's plastic foundation needs to drawn out by the bees. The front cover is left off at this stage. Once the comb has been drawn out the unit is ready for use. There may be some honey stored in it, but this will be removed once it is in use. To use it, the front cover is put back on, in the centre of this has a circular removable disc for inserting the queen. With the queen inserted the circular cover is replaced, the queen can now only lay in the box area. By the way the circular disc should have a piece of frame wire attached to it, this can be tied to one of the queen excluder slots, in this way it never gets lost. The frame must be in the centre of the brood nest. Some leave the queen in for 24 hours, but I usually put her in at 8pm and remove her next day at 8am. Of course if she has not laid in the removable cups leave her in for another 12 hours. Queens will tend to lay in all the cells surrounding the removable ones first. Releasing the queen is done by removing the front cover, but this must be replaced. This is to ensure the queen will not go in and lay up any vacant cells. You now have eggs which are of known age to within 12 hours, so you know that they will be tiny larvae on the morning of the 3rd day. You will have made preparations to have colonies ready to receive the larval transfers (queenless strong colonies bursting with bees). The transfer is quite easy and I do this in my car which I get warmed up beforehand. The back cover is removed from the box, and the cells removed one at a time. Cell tops are clicked on to the bases to form a complete cell, these are then pushed into yellow cup holders, which in turn are inserted into the holes of a metal bar which has previously been mounted in an empty frame (no comb or foundation). Each of these bars hold 10 cells and two bars can be mounted in a frame. This is the number (20) I give to a strong queenlees colony to get them started. Obviously you can repeat this several times if you are raising a lot of queens. I use colonies on double brood boxes for getting the cells started. This is done by rearranging the brood frames so that the top box has sealed brood only, plus stores of honey and frames of pollen. A gap is left in the centre of the box to receive the frame of transferred larvae. The frames on either side comprise of one with pollen and one with open stores. The queen is in the bottom box , the queen excluder being on top of this box. A few hours before transfer of larvae takes place the box with the queen in it is moved to a new site in the apiary and any supers are moved with it. The top box is now on a new floor board, a cover and roof being fitted. The flying bees from the box that has been moved away will return to the box that is ready to receive the transfers. The next day the whole unit can be restored by bringing back the box with the queen in, placing it on the floorboard with any supers on top, and the box with the transfers in placed on top. The cells which will be well started will now continue to be raised as queen cells. You will find the larvae are very tiny using this system, it fact if your eyesight is not up to scratch you may think there is nothing in the cells. A gleam of brood food gives the game away though. The system gives very young larvae without the need to touch them with a grafting tool. The queens will be large providing the nursing colonies are strong, and have been well prepared. Obviously the system is designed for use in breeding from the best colony one has. The colonies selected to nurse the transferred larvae can be any quality. .