Virgin queens..... I place JZBZ cells (wide base) in either a nursery
frame (like the one shown in the recent Bee Culture article by Larry
Connor), or they fit in the California style queen cages (where you push
in the candy tube). Then I just place them back in the queenless hive
to emerge. After they emerge they can be caged and shipped just like a
mated queen. I do like them to be a minimum of 24 hours old before
shipping so they are 'hardened off'. You always loose a few queens
though. They either don't get fed, or go back in their cell head first
and seem to get stuck.
You can pretty much do the same in an incubator, though they will need
fed shortly after they emerge. A drop of honey on the cage will
work. I don't know how long they will last in the incubator this way
however. They will likely need caged with attendance or moved to a
hive fairly soon.
For controlling temperature I use a digital temperature controller
(ETC-111000-000) because I can see the current temperature and set it to
within 1 degree. In my larger incubator I also use a fan to keep the
temperature even. For humidity it just has an open pan of water to keep
the humidity up. I've never seen anyone use anything fancier than that
for humidity control. It seems to work quite well in my experience.
-Tim
***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html
Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at:
http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm