Which to buy - Jenter or Nicot

[Philbee 4,675]

On 10/13/2017 at 8:11 AM, Happy said:

Neither, get some cell cups and a grafting tool and do it when you want to. Don’t be trapped in some hellish self imposed timetable where one variable can ruin weeks of preparation ?

Just a note on the cell bars here

Ive found it a good idea to use a (20mm x 10mm) or (20mm x 20mm) strip of timber (base spacer) on each Aluminium bar as a stiffener.

The screw is screwed into the end grain of the bar instead of the Aluminium tab.

I use small screws or gun staple to hold the Aluminium to the timber backer.

The reason for this is that often the cell cups end up very tight on the bar and a rigid bar makes the whole thing more stable when removing Cups

 

[Alastair 8,627]

Have attached a back and front pic of the jenter I'm using atm. What is surprising is that although being left out of the hive for sometimes days, many of these larvae survive and go on to hatch normally.

 

Have drawn a red line through a row of plugs to highlight cup placement, most plug cells empty because I remove them for queen making.

 

 

Edited October 22, 2017 by Alastair

[Alastair 8,627]

 

Once the flow is on the bees have an annoying habit of filling the back of the cell plugs with honey, they even cap them .

[BeSusie 9]

Alastair, how did you attach the plastic legs of the Jenter frame to the top of the plastic frame?  I haven't done any Queen rearing for a couple of years but previously we hung the Jenter cage from a wooden frame.  Also do you insert the cups into the yellow cup holders, and then what type of cell bar do you use to hang them?  We thought it would be difficult to extricate the finished queen cell through the holes in a wooden bar, so used a different cup holder that twisted onto a metal cell bar.  Even so it was a mission to twist them back out (using pliers) as the bees always built some burr comb around the cells.  Do you think that maybe that could have been because we left them in a little too long?

Thanks for any advice.

[Alastair 8,627]

Easy to attach, I just drilled a couple small holes through both the frame and the jenter and screwed in some self tapping screws. Re the yellow cup holders I don't use them they are just too big and clunky, have attached a pic of a cell bar I made, with one failed cell still in it. The larval plugs just go straight in. As you mentioned, getting them out after the cells are finished is tricky, so I made the tool pictured. It's a hole punch available from Bunnings or probably any hardware outlet, and with an electric grinder I took out a bit of the bottom lip, so it can slide around the plastic plug, then squeeze and gently push the cell out of the hole in the bar.

 

 

Edited November 25, 2017 by Alastair

[Alastair 8,627]

Oh should have mentioned, the cell bars are a bit time consuming to make, but I have a drill press, what I did was make them out of some bigger pieces of wood, drill down through 50 mm timber, then rip them down into bars on the bench saw so I didn't have to hassle with drilling massive numbers of holes. 

[BeSusie 9]

Alastair, how did you attach the plastic legs of the Jenter frame to the top of the plastic frame?  I haven't done any Queen rearing for a couple of years but previously we hung the Jenter cage from a wooden frame.  Also do you insert the cups into the yellow cup holders, and then what type of cell bar do you use to hang them?  We thought it would be difficult to extricate the finished queen cell through the holes in a wooden bar, so used a different cup holder that twisted onto a metal cell bar.  Even so it was a mission to twist them back out (using pliers) as the bees always built some burr comb around the cells.  Do you think that maybe that could have been because we left them in a little too long?

Thanks for any advice.

[BeSusie 9]

Thanks for all that info, Alistair.  Very helpful. May give it another go next year.