you’re supposed to remove the box as soon as you see eggs in the cups, then transfer to your builder colony. The system works. This is a simple case of operator error.
Exactly. Nicot have very thorough instructions on their website. If you want detailed instructions you just ask for them, they print them out for you and they send them to your doorstep. Among those instructions, they say that if conditions are right, after 24hrs you can remove the queen from the frame and the frame from the hive. Why did you want to wait until the eggs had hatched is beyond my comprehension.
Maybe they’ve changed the user manual in the last 2 years. Anyway, you’re missing the point, which was to remove the queen within 24hrs, well before the eggs hatch
You really need to make sure you have a fairly strong colony to use these "box" methods (Nicot or Jenter). Give the prepared box to the colony a few days ahead of starting the process, preferably with some honey or syrup splashed inside the box, but exclude the queen by leaving the stopper in place. Then, when you pop the queen inside after a couple of days, she is more ready to lay in the cups. If the colony is a weak one (I saw that you used a nuc hive) she is less likely to make a good job of this anyway, but letting the bees have access beforehand is important and a strong colony helps, too. If all goes well, the queen will pretty much fill the plastic cups in 24 hours because she has nowhere else to lay AND the bees have made the box 'feel' right. You therefore know exactly when the eggs were laid, which takes all the guesswork out of it. Next, just let the queen out of the plastic box and put it back into the hive until the THIRD day, when the eggs will just be hatching - you know this because you know when they were laid. Now is the time to make up your bars of cell cups and introduce them to a VERY STRONG and QUEENLESS bunch of bees with NO other eggs or young larvae. They will then make LOTS of your larvae into queens, because they have no other possibilities. You are definitely right NOT to transfer the cups when they just contain eggs, for all the reasons you state: larvae as young as possible are what you need. Distribute the cells to mating nucs before the first cell hatches, or the first virgin out will kill obviously all her sisters. It really does work, and it's a lot easier than grafting. The tricky part for me is getting the virgins successfully mated; making enough cells is never an problem.
I’ve had great success with NICOT queen kits. I put the queen in the grid, release her after 5 days, and at that time in the brown cells are usually just hatched larvae in a pool of Royal Jelly. I only transfer the larvae that are in a puddle, and transfer the brown cups using the yellow holders into a frame bar, and add the bars to a starter/finisher colony. I’ve gotten 10 good queens per 12 transferred larvae cells in my first year, and those queens are going into winter with good sized colonies. Everyone has their favorite methods. I learned from this video not to transfer eggs, but to wait till the Royal jelly shows up. Even when things don’t work out. We can learn. Thanks for the video.
The "First" step is to spray sugar syrup in the Nicot cage and put it into the hive so the bees will clean it and get it smelling right. Nicot is a French word so the "T" is silent. sounds like "Neco"
I threw the cage away too in the end but you can graft into the cups over and over again and I love their cell cage system, you can bank the cells to mature and even hatch in any hive as long as their is a frame of nurse bee beside them, you can even bank then in the brood chamber with a laying queen.
When the eggs are laid, you're supposed to remove the queen. this will stop the multiple egg laying. I was given the Jetner system by a friend who retired from pollination. It's basically the same thing as the Nicot system. He didn't like it and thought I would like to try it. It took a while but I finally got it to work. After I got it to work I ran into other issues. The other issues were that the frame around the box was drawn but filled with brood so I couldn't take the frame out when I was done. I place it above the excluder and then had honey fill in the frame. Now I had to get the bees to rob it out so I could store it away. I have to say, grafting is so much easier. I just seems to be a waste of time for me personally. If it works for everyone else I'm happy for you.
I've never tried Nicot. I did try grafting and first time was a complete failure....trying again this year...I've researched Nicot and many people trying to push me in that direction, but I'm convinced that grafting is the best way to get this done after I perfect the art of grafting. Your video's are something I never heard of or even thought about but moving eggs....I would have never guessed. Thanks for the videos.
If want more consistent egg laying, put the cupularve into the hive with the front cover off for a couple days to allow the bees to polish them. I even spray it with a little light syrup to encourage them to start cleaning. Also, don't let them build comb adjacent to the cupularve, fill the empty space with wood blocks. This makes the cupularve much more attractive to the workers. The often will move eggs within a frame, but are less likely to move them between frames.
I think after 1 or 2 days you should to release the queen as she layed the eggs. Instead you keep her there forever causing breaking brood cycle, maybe that is reason why it is not working.
Hello Joseph, thanks for the video. I intend to use the Nicot system this year. May I ask: 1.- Why did you not use those cups with eggs as soon as they were laid? Maybe use another hive (queenless) to start them? 2.- Was there maybe a second queen in that hive? (Randy Oliver has encountered as many as 30% of hives with more than one queen in one yard, if I recall correctly what I have read from his website). 3.- Did you leave the Nicot part/frame inside the hive at leat a week before caging the queen, or at least 3 days, in order for the worker bees to clean and prepare the "cells"? Older beekeepers in my area will "prepare" cups by dropping a tiny bit of honey inside. They say it entices the bees to clean the cups and make them ready for brood. 4.- Could it be that the queen was laying drone eggs? Those rounded holes instead of the normal hexagonal cells might have troubled her. Thank you. Regards, Diego.
1. You can't use eggs for queens, they must hatch into larva. Mine never hatched. The workers removed the eggs and moved them to adjacent comb. 2. There was no second queen. I looked several times. I am confident about that. 3. You have to be careful leaving the system in the hive for any length of time. I have experimented with different lengths. They will readily store honey in those cells if left for too long. 4. She was not a drone layer. This was one of my better queens kept in a nuc for ease of handling and finding her when I needed her.
Thanks Jeff. Your comment is correct. I did not mean drone layer in #4.What I meant was: QueenBee talking to herself: "Hey, these cells don't look normal to me, why should I lay normal eggs here?" ;) Anyway, it has been told to me that some queens will not lay at all in there, others will. Cheers.
I don’t use the system because I either grraft or use OTS. My understanding of the system is that you confine the queen to fill the cells and then you release the queen to the colony and use the cups as intended after the release. The queen can lay more cells in a day than the system will allow and the bees know this so that’s why they are moving eggs to others cells in the colony.
I'm kind of late to make a comment but as soon as you see eggs you should take the excluder off the nicot. My biggest problem with this system is that some queens refuse to lay in it. I've gone back to grafting.
So the reason that you graft first instar larvae is that you cant graft eggs. That is the beauty of the Nicot System. You can and should transfer the first day eggs to your starter or starter/ finisher hive. DONT even try to wait until larval stage, of course you will not succeed.
1. Spray your cups with sugarwater. 2. Put that Nicot system in hive for 24hours without queen, so that the bees can work those cups. 3.Now you put your queen in system for 24 hours, not more that 24 hours.
Lost the queen the next day(dead)to hot inside and the plastic make it even hotter.not only the queen but also a good no of bees dead inside the box too
Is it possible by leaving your queen in the system after she laid the cells fun of eggs that, because she ran out of space to lay she began laying again in the same cells doubling up the eggs in the cells and because the cells had two eggs per cell the workers began removing them. If there are more than one egg per cell the bees will remove them. So now the queen has an open cell to lay in again. As soon as you saw cells full of eggs you should have removed the queen and and harvested your cells to go into your cell builder to be drawn out once the eggs hatched. Just my thoughts!
I have tried it several ways. They always seem to remove the eggs when I use it. You can't harvest cells until the eggs hatch. Just giving my experiences with the system.
once you master nicot it is very easy but once you master grafting is even easier. at my begining in queen rearing the cell punch method was the only somewhat succesfull. i took me sometime to learn how to use nicot and much more to do correct grafting.
I grafted 600 cells a day 3 months a year for 30 years. This Nicot system seems like WAY more work than is necessary. Raising queens is NOT this complicated!
I still don't have bees HELLO, watching the film, the first mistake is the nicot box must be inserted into the hive 3 or 4 days before introducing the queen into the nicot box, during which time the bees will clean, disinfect the box and even build more cells, don't smoke the nicot box, I i am from Romania
Question, what part of the country do you live in? And were you trying to do this in early February? Just going to throw this out there........... First, Is it possible that you had 2 queens? Yes, very possible! Second, is it possible that the eggs the queen in the nicot box were laying were not kept warm enough and never progressed to the larvae stage in life?
You should use as little smoke as possible in a starter hive... None would be BETTER unless it gets the yard upset it should only be used enough to keep the bees calm enough not to get riled up start a stinging Frenzy, but you smoke them bees way too much in my opinion you smoked it twice before you went in then you smoked it again once separated, all three boxes smoked, then you smoked it again before the queen was put into the cage lolI don't understand this, where them bees stinging you or something???? You should watch your videos you will pick up on little bad habits that's how I realized I was smoking mine down way too hard also when I first started.
Hi I'm a new sub. I appreciate all your knowledge. I'll be watching more of your videos to learn about raising bees. I want to learn all I can before I venture into keeping my own bees.
I'm going to suggest that you just start keeping now. You can fill your head with all the "book learning" that you want to. It will all go out the window when you actually in a hive.
Look, I have to say having grafted and used this BADLY under supplied with instructions system, once you figure out how it works - its superior (for the person that works it out). "Path of the bee" on RUclips, has possibly the best instructional video's on earth as to how to get Nicot working - the fella got 29/30 cells accepted that's 29 !!, so anyone that says its not the Best system does not know what they are doing or talking about. This Nicot system being French is a failure for most because the instructions are so piss poor. Wonderful product just moronically marketed and documented. So pissed off I bought several Chinese versions in disgust, hell the fits not the best but neither is the original design. The Chinese version works as well as the French for me.
@@joebrown2487 you bet!... I have found im terrific at growing bees, not so much honey, (so you try and do what your better at right?.... and want to start raising queens.... but sure dont want my good queens spending all that time and effort then have them move the eggs out, probably would work if you take the eggs out asap, and bank them to the queenless hive, hatch them into baskets and trans the virgins, but i tried that and had my hive think it was a swarm on her mate flight, almost all the hive took off with her and poof..... so the queen thing for me is almost easier to buy mated queens....
I believe you’re doing it wrong. First of all you’re supposed to put the grid in and allow the workers to polish the cells first. Then introduce the queen to the grid after the polishing has taken place. The queen will be more predisposed to lay in those cells then. My guess is that then you will have eggs 3 days after you have introduced her. Simples. Give it a try next time and let me know.
This is an example of someone not following manufacturers instructions and then posting results and giving advice after the wrongdoing. READ THE MANUAL. !!!
@@KevinsNorthernExposure Right off the bat, he needs to put the nicot system in the hive and allow the bees to clean it up for a few days before putting the queen in it. Dribbling a little honey in the nicot cage helps to get the bees to go into it and clean it all up. It has to be prepared and disinfected by the bees before introducing the queen.
@@joejohnson9796 that's not the reason the bees moved the eggs...many people skip that step in grafting....queens inspection of a cell is all that's needed...she found it acceptable to lay in....have seen plenty of nicot vids with folks skipping that step...including richard noel.
you’re supposed to remove the box as soon as you see eggs in the cups, then transfer to your builder colony. The system works. This is a simple case of operator error.
Exactly. Nicot have very thorough instructions on their website. If you want detailed instructions you just ask for them, they print them out for you and they send them to your doorstep. Among those instructions, they say that if conditions are right, after 24hrs you can remove the queen from the frame and the frame from the hive. Why did you want to wait until the eggs had hatched is beyond my comprehension.
@@soffici1 It seams you did not read the instrucions in the Nicot Page.
They tell the user to remove the hatched larvae aged 6-24 h.
No, you'te supposed to transfer hatched larvae aged 6-24h.
Source: Nicot
Maybe they’ve changed the user manual in the last 2 years.
Anyway, you’re missing the point, which was to remove the queen within 24hrs, well before the eggs hatch
You really need to make sure you have a fairly strong colony to use these "box" methods (Nicot or Jenter). Give the prepared box to the colony a few days ahead of starting the process, preferably with some honey or syrup splashed inside the box, but exclude the queen by leaving the stopper in place. Then, when you pop the queen inside after a couple of days, she is more ready to lay in the cups. If the colony is a weak one (I saw that you used a nuc hive) she is less likely to make a good job of this anyway, but letting the bees have access beforehand is important and a strong colony helps, too. If all goes well, the queen will pretty much fill the plastic cups in 24 hours because she has nowhere else to lay AND the bees have made the box 'feel' right. You therefore know exactly when the eggs were laid, which takes all the guesswork out of it. Next, just let the queen out of the plastic box and put it back into the hive until the THIRD day, when the eggs will just be hatching - you know this because you know when they were laid. Now is the time to make up your bars of cell cups and introduce them to a VERY STRONG and QUEENLESS bunch of bees with NO other eggs or young larvae. They will then make LOTS of your larvae into queens, because they have no other possibilities. You are definitely right NOT to transfer the cups when they just contain eggs, for all the reasons you state: larvae as young as possible are what you need. Distribute the cells to mating nucs before the first cell hatches, or the first virgin out will kill obviously all her sisters. It really does work, and it's a lot easier than grafting. The tricky part for me is getting the virgins successfully mated; making enough cells is never an problem.
I’ve had great success with NICOT queen kits. I put the queen in the grid, release her after 5 days, and at that time in the brown cells are usually just hatched larvae in a pool of Royal Jelly. I only transfer the larvae that are in a puddle, and transfer the brown cups using the yellow holders into a frame bar, and add the bars to a starter/finisher colony. I’ve gotten 10 good queens per 12 transferred larvae cells in my first year, and those queens are going into winter with good sized colonies. Everyone has their favorite methods. I learned from this video not to transfer eggs, but to wait till the Royal jelly shows up. Even when things don’t work out. We can learn. Thanks for the video.
The "First" step is to spray sugar syrup in the Nicot cage and put it into the hive so the bees will clean it and get it smelling right. Nicot is a French word so the "T" is silent. sounds like "Neco"
👍
Your thing is right
I threw the cage away too in the end but you can graft into the cups over and over again and I love their cell cage system, you can bank the cells to mature and even hatch in any hive as long as their is a frame of nurse bee beside them, you can even bank then in the brood chamber with a laying queen.
When the eggs are laid, you're supposed to remove the queen. this will stop the multiple egg laying. I was given the Jetner system by a friend who retired from pollination. It's basically the same thing as the Nicot system. He didn't like it and thought I would like to try it. It took a while but I finally got it to work. After I got it to work I ran into other issues. The other issues were that the frame around the box was drawn but filled with brood so I couldn't take the frame out when I was done. I place it above the excluder and then had honey fill in the frame. Now I had to get the bees to rob it out so I could store it away.
I have to say, grafting is so much easier. I just seems to be a waste of time for me personally. If it works for everyone else I'm happy for you.
I've never tried Nicot. I did try grafting and first time was a complete failure....trying again this year...I've researched Nicot and many people trying to push me in that direction, but I'm convinced that grafting is the best way to get this done after I perfect the art of grafting. Your video's are something I never heard of or even thought about but moving eggs....I would have never guessed. Thanks for the videos.
If want more consistent egg laying, put the cupularve into the hive with the front cover off for a couple days to allow the bees to polish them. I even spray it with a little light syrup to encourage them to start cleaning. Also, don't let them build comb adjacent to the cupularve, fill the empty space with wood blocks. This makes the cupularve much more attractive to the workers. The often will move eggs within a frame, but are less likely to move them between frames.
I think after 1 or 2 days you should to release the queen as she layed the eggs. Instead you keep her there forever causing breaking brood cycle, maybe that is reason why it is not working.
You have 2 Queens in the hive. Workers do not move eggs. Eggs do not magically appear. I use Nicot it fine.
Workers in fact do move or float eggs around when they need/want to.
Michael Scott Harris they do move eggs about sometimes find queen cells above Queen excluder, the crafty little buggers
they do move eggs and depending on resources outside will eat them for protein.
Hello Joseph, thanks for the video. I intend to use the Nicot system this year.
May I ask:
1.- Why did you not use those cups with eggs as soon as they were laid? Maybe use another hive (queenless) to start them?
2.- Was there maybe a second queen in that hive? (Randy Oliver has encountered as many as 30% of hives with more than one queen in one yard, if I recall correctly what I have read from his website).
3.- Did you leave the Nicot part/frame inside the hive at leat a week before caging the queen, or at least 3 days, in order for the worker bees to clean and prepare the "cells"? Older beekeepers in my area will "prepare" cups by dropping a tiny bit of honey inside. They say it entices the bees to clean the cups and make them ready for brood.
4.- Could it be that the queen was laying drone eggs? Those rounded holes instead of the normal hexagonal cells might have troubled her.
Thank you.
Regards, Diego.
1. You can't use eggs for queens, they must hatch into larva. Mine never hatched. The workers removed the eggs and moved them to adjacent comb.
2. There was no second queen. I looked several times. I am confident about that.
3. You have to be careful leaving the system in the hive for any length of time. I have experimented with different lengths. They will readily store honey in those cells if left for too long.
4. She was not a drone layer. This was one of my better queens kept in a nuc for ease of handling and finding her when I needed her.
Thank you.
👍
Thanks Jeff. Your comment is correct. I did not mean drone layer in #4.What I meant was: QueenBee talking to herself: "Hey, these cells don't look normal to me, why should I lay normal eggs here?" ;)
Anyway, it has been told to me that some queens will not lay at all in there, others will.
Cheers.
Why can't you use eggs for queens? Swarm cells all start from eggs?
I don’t use the system because I either grraft or use OTS. My understanding of the system is that you confine the queen to fill the cells and then you release the queen to the colony and use the cups as intended after the release. The queen can lay more cells in a day than the system will allow and the bees know this so that’s why they are moving eggs to others cells in the colony.
Bees don't move eggs.
I'm kind of late to make a comment but as soon as you see eggs you should take the excluder off the nicot. My biggest problem with this system is that some queens refuse to lay in it. I've gone back to grafting.
So the reason that you graft first instar larvae is that you cant graft eggs. That is the beauty of the Nicot System. You can and should transfer the first day eggs to your starter or starter/ finisher hive. DONT even try to wait until larval stage, of course you will not succeed.
Did you do this? Some say, eggs give less good results as larva.
Always best, in my experience, to transfer the cups when the larvae have just hatched. The bees are much more likely to use them then.
@@alx252 Where do you think larva come from?
1. Spray your cups with sugarwater. 2. Put that Nicot system in hive for 24hours without queen, so that the bees can work those cups. 3.Now you put your queen in system for 24 hours, not more that 24 hours.
And for me, they still remove the eggs. Sorry, if it was so great everyone would use it. Most don't and there is a reason.
Lost the queen the next day(dead)to hot inside and the plastic make it even hotter.not only the queen but also a good no of bees dead inside the box too
Is it possible by leaving your queen in the system after she laid the cells fun of eggs that, because she ran out of space to lay she began laying again in the same cells doubling up the eggs in the cells and because the cells had two eggs per cell the workers began removing them. If there are more than one egg per cell the bees will remove them. So now the queen has an open cell to lay in again.
As soon as you saw cells full of eggs you should have removed the queen and and harvested your cells to go into your cell builder to be drawn out once the eggs hatched.
Just my thoughts!
I have tried it several ways. They always seem to remove the eggs when I use it. You can't harvest cells until the eggs hatch. Just giving my experiences with the system.
once you master nicot it is very easy but once you master grafting is even easier. at my begining in queen rearing the cell punch method was the only somewhat succesfull. i took me sometime to learn how to use nicot and much more to do correct grafting.
I grafted 600 cells a day 3 months a year for 30 years. This Nicot system seems like WAY more work than is necessary. Raising queens is NOT this complicated!
I still don't have bees HELLO, watching the film, the first mistake is the nicot box must be inserted into the hive 3 or 4 days before introducing the queen into the nicot box, during which time the bees will clean, disinfect the box and even build more cells, don't smoke the nicot box, I i am from Romania
Question, what part of the country do you live in? And were you trying to do this in early February? Just going to throw this out there........... First, Is it possible that you had 2 queens? Yes, very possible! Second, is it possible that the eggs the queen in the nicot box were laying were not kept warm enough and never progressed to the larvae stage in life?
You should use as little smoke as possible in a starter hive... None would be BETTER unless it gets the yard upset it should only be used enough to keep the bees calm enough not to get riled up start a stinging Frenzy, but you smoke them bees way too much in my opinion you smoked it twice before you went in then you smoked it again once separated, all three boxes smoked, then you smoked it again before the queen was put into the cage lolI don't understand this, where them bees stinging you or something???? You should watch your videos you will pick up on little bad habits that's how I realized I was smoking mine down way too hard also when I first started.
Hi I'm a new sub. I appreciate all your knowledge. I'll be watching more of your videos to learn about raising bees. I want to learn all I can before I venture into keeping my own bees.
I'm going to suggest that you just start keeping now. You can fill your head with all the "book learning" that you want to. It will all go out the window when you actually in a hive.
Look, I have to say having grafted and used this BADLY under supplied with instructions system, once you figure out how it works - its superior (for the person that works it out). "Path of the bee" on RUclips, has possibly the best instructional video's on earth as to how to get Nicot working - the fella got 29/30 cells accepted that's 29 !!, so anyone that says its not the Best system does not know what they are doing or talking about. This Nicot system being French is a failure for most because the instructions are so piss poor. Wonderful product just moronically marketed and documented. So pissed off I bought several Chinese versions in disgust, hell the fits not the best but neither is the original design. The Chinese version works as well as the French for me.
thx for your input
👍Thanks for continued support!!
@@joebrown2487 you bet!... I have found im terrific at growing bees, not so much honey, (so you try and do what your better at right?.... and want to start raising queens.... but sure dont want my good queens spending all that time and effort then have them move the eggs out, probably would work if you take the eggs out asap, and bank them to the queenless hive, hatch them into baskets and trans the virgins, but i tried that and had my hive think it was a swarm on her mate flight, almost all the hive took off with her and poof..... so the queen thing for me is almost easier to buy mated queens....
I believe you’re doing it wrong. First of all you’re supposed to put the grid in and allow the workers to polish the cells first. Then introduce the queen to the grid after the polishing has taken place. The queen will be more predisposed to lay in those cells then. My guess is that then you will have eggs 3 days after you have introduced her. Simples. Give it a try next time and let me know.
British guy's video showed a 40% success rate first try.
This is an example of someone not following manufacturers instructions and then posting results and giving advice after the wrongdoing. READ THE MANUAL. !!!
So which part do you feel he did not follow?
@@KevinsNorthernExposure Right off the bat, he needs to put the nicot system in the hive and allow the bees to clean it up for a few days before putting the queen in it. Dribbling a little honey in the nicot cage helps to get the bees to go into it and clean it all up. It has to be prepared and disinfected by the bees before introducing the queen.
@@joejohnson9796 that's not the reason the bees moved the eggs...many people skip that step in grafting....queens inspection of a cell is all that's needed...she found it acceptable to lay in....have seen plenty of nicot vids with folks skipping that step...including richard noel.
your sound on your video needs Improvement
Alhamdulillah,.
"Nicot" is a french word. It is pronounced "knee co". The 't' is not pronounced, and the 'i' is pronounced as an 'e'.