OTS /queen rearing/ On The Spot

www.mdasplitter.com Has anybody tried this method . thank you . Brian

The spam alert alarms went off first but having found the document on the website the method described sounds very interesting. Its the PDF document on the left of the web page.

In brief, the method is to protect a small number of cells on a normal frame of open brood and kill off all the rest of the brood by dusting it with flour, which bungs up the larva.

The remaining cells then have the lower part of the cell wall cut back to the base and the bees will then respond and treat these as queen cells.

It is a bit like the Miller method but the comb is not cut into a zig-zag, trimming back the cells achieves the same end.

"The spam alert alarms went off first"

i thought that too, especially as there have been 2 posts.

admin - is the OP in WI or maine?

re the method - the flour seems a faff. why not make a tool with nails on which allows you to "stamp" the comb leaving every 3rd cell undamaged. much simpler and quicker.

That zig zag is good. But you should use a comb which has layed in couple days ago in the hive, which descendants you are going to rear.

As you see in pictures, queen cells are emergecy cells and not very good quality.

It happened to me that I had those slices and I got 15 queens.
But when I extracted that comb, I found 3 more queen cells aunder the cells.

They had continued comb building and covered 3 cells inside cells. Queen is able to come out from there.

I prefer to use swarm cells in queen rearing. They are perfect and I do not miss other systems.