Checking in on my 48 hrs queen cells

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:01]Welcome back to Handsbury Honeybees. It is May 7th at about 7:00, 2026.

[00:00:09]And I'm just going to get into a couple of my mating nukes that I installed 48-hour cells into a couple weeks ago.

[00:00:18]In case you're wondering what a 48-hour cell is, I graft my queens, I put them in my cell builder, and at 48 hours, I gently take them out and I put them in a queenless nuke.

[00:00:34]A strong nuke will finish a 48-hour cell perfectly.

[00:00:39]And most of the time, they accept the 48-hour cell better than they actually accept the regular cell, the capped cell. I'm not really sure why.

[00:00:53]The only downside I found with the 48-hour cell is if you put a cell in and they happen to tear it down, from them building one to you grafting one, there's only a few days difference, and you might not be able to tell if they built they killed your cell and built a new one, or if your cell if they took your cell.

[00:01:17]Now, what I did is after I knew they were should be emerged, even though people say don't do it, don't do what I do, I actually did get in here and all but one uh I could see the flap was on the the grafted cell that I put in. So, they should be laying some.

[00:01:38]I lose track of time when I actually put the graft in, but uh we're just going to see together if the cell if the virgin went out and got mated and if she's laying.

[00:01:49]And I have smoke over there, but I really don't want the queens to be running all over the place, so I'm going to try to do it without smoke.

[00:01:58]Hopefully, I don't run away screaming like a little girl.

[00:02:18]Okay, this frame has some capped honey and pollen.

[00:02:25]They could draw it out a little more, but uh they haven't.

[00:02:29]So, when I put it back in, I'll probably reverse it, even though the pollen is on the other side. I think they'll be fine.

[00:02:36]I really like the I'm not sure what I'm going to sell yet, but I want if I sell it, I do want that drawn out.

[00:02:47]And I always let my queens lay for 21-ish days because I want to see what they're really doing.

[00:02:57]And like this one here, I won't sell that because uh beekeeper, you see that's a medium frame.

[00:03:08]Nothing in those cells.

[00:03:17]Nothing in there.

[00:03:33]Okay, there is capped brood and actually some larvae in here.

[00:03:39]They're a little runny.

[00:03:41]I mean, the bees are running more than I like.

[00:03:54]It's laid up pretty good. You can just see where she's laid a little, you know, laid here this day, laid there a couple days later.

[00:04:02]And I'll show you that frame. I'm just going to see if I can find her.

[00:04:11]Okay, that is a lot of milk brood in there.

[00:04:19]See how they're a little runny?

[00:04:21]I really don't like that.

[00:04:31]I don't see her.

[00:04:34]I'm guessing I missed her. She's on those two frames there or one of the other frames.

[00:04:43]See, that's another medium frame.

[00:04:50]Okay, well, there she is.

[00:04:54]She's actually looking over somewhere to lay.

[00:04:57]Oops.

[00:05:00]Where did you go?

[00:05:03]How can she just like disappear so fast?

[00:05:07]There she is right here.

[00:05:25]So, if I have a white pen, which I should, green.

[00:05:34]Worst part about not wearing gloves, it's hard to pick her up when you got propolis and sticky all over your hands.

[00:05:44]Oh. Dropped her.

[00:05:47]The sun's in my face. I can't see her.

[00:06:00]Her egg.

[00:06:14]That sun playing tricks on me right now with the Okay, she's got a little red white dot on her.

[00:06:24]There she goes back.

[00:06:29]Make sure she goes to the inside of the frame. You don't want to do all that for nothing and squash her.

[00:06:36]You know over there.

[00:06:41]No.

[00:06:47]Okay.

[00:06:58]I'm not sure if the camera will pick all this up or not.

[00:07:39]I can't see if it is. Sorry, guys.

[00:07:44]There you go. I think you can see it there.

[00:07:53]So before if I sell this, yes, I'll replace those mediums with deeps.

[00:08:16]Okay, we'll do one more maybe, maybe two.

[00:08:29]Let's take you and zoom unzoom you.

[00:08:38]I think in this yard I have 40 to check.

[00:08:40]I don't think anybody wants to hang out with me for to inspect 40.

[00:08:59]This one's a little smaller than the other one.

[00:09:12]There's honey and nectar.

[00:09:25]They're I didn't order yellow, but Acorn sent me yellow.

[00:09:30]I ordered black, but Acorn sent me yellow.

[00:09:38]I don't like it as much.

[00:09:51]Okay, it does have some milk brood in here.

[00:10:06]Just looking for the queen since I got it out.

[00:10:28]This side here I'm looking at right now is is honey. Oh, there she is, too.

[00:10:36]On a uh honey frame.

[00:10:42]Basically Hopefully see her there.

[00:10:54]Got about 3 in over from each side right now.

[00:11:00]So, I'm going to have to put some more comb in here where you she can actually lay.

[00:11:08]And this time before I mark her, I'm going to put the sun to my back, so I got propolis all over me.

[00:11:26]The way about it is when they're this young, they're they're still a little flighty, they're still little nervous.

[00:11:35]You know, if if you set off an alert pheromone and she walks through it, uh she's dead.

[00:11:43]They're going to kill her.

[00:11:52]Just a little dot.

[00:11:58]And I know it's better to pick up on the three legs, but I crushed this wrist years ago and I just don't have the the uh what's the word? The the sensitivity of my fingertips very much and I'm left-handed and if I try to pick her up any other way, I'd yeah, it wouldn't be good.

[00:12:19]So, I just do what I do and I've had good luck.

[00:12:27]Okay, so put her in.

[00:12:36]Tomorrow I'll Tomorrow I'll have to get a frame in here where she can lay.

[00:12:45]So, that's good.

[00:12:48]Only 57 more whatever to inspect yet.

[00:12:51]Now, let's see if I got some smoke.

[00:12:53]I want to look at a big hive here. It was a big virgin swarm.

[00:13:06]Maybe I got a little smoke left in it.

[00:13:14]So, two for two. This is when you just want to quit.

[00:13:23]So, the other day I had a swarm in this pine tree and it was a full 10 framer.

[00:13:34]So, I shook them in this box and guess what? That's still where they're at.

[00:13:42]I don't have much. Let me put some of this wet grass in here just so it has a little bit of something here to burn.

[00:13:51]All I'm really wanting to do is see if she's laying if she went on a mating flight.

[00:13:57]Now, what did I do with my dang hive tool? Cheese and crackers.

[00:14:02]All right. Hold that thought while I go look for my hive tool.

[00:14:07]My wife just pulled up. She'll probably holler at me. Not in a negative way, just like, "What are you doing?"

[00:14:13]And then I want to go, "What do you think I'm doing?"

[00:14:18]She asked me a really silly question this morning. She said, "What are you doing after work?"

[00:14:22]See, now she's honking at me.

[00:14:26]And I want to go, "What do you think I'm doing after work?"

[00:14:33]So, I put them in a deep box and just for giggles, I would put a 10 frame box of cut comb on them because they like to draw wax.

[00:14:42]But they also had a draw comb down here on this 10 frame deep. So, I don't really know if they're drawing wax or not. But this that's a big negative.

[00:14:59]But I mean, if they do, they do. No, there's nothing. They're not doing anything.

[00:15:15]All right. So, I'd say nine frames of bees. They're maybe not on this outside, but you can see four frames of new comb.

[00:15:28]We'll see if it's drawn out.

[00:15:37]It's pretty well drawn out.

[00:15:39]They actually got nectar in their cap and just a little bit of it here.

[00:15:45]This is drawn out. This has been my guess a week and a half. I'd have to go back and look.

[00:15:53]Days just run together.

[00:16:00]Nectar honey in here.

[00:16:07]Little bit of open comb.

[00:16:18]Completely drawn out. I wouldn't say completely drawn out. Most of the way drawn out.

[00:16:24]But I don't see any eggs at all.

[00:16:31]No queen.

[00:16:47]More. Looks like they polished some comb.

[00:16:50]Couple bees here doing the waggle dance.

[00:17:03]Nothing in those open cells.

[00:17:11]It's hard to believe this 10 frames of bees and only had a virgin.

[00:17:17]I don't know I have all these mating nukes. I don't know if they, you know, a virgin went out and other bees joined her.

[00:17:25]And they just landed. I'm not really sure.

[00:17:33]Okay.

[00:17:34]Nothing's in that frame.

[00:17:38]And with these temperatures, you know, we've had temperatures in the low 40s.

[00:17:43]And I guess there's always a chance she didn't get mated yet.

[00:17:48]You know, they normally go out in between sunny and 68 and 70°, but they're really relaxed.

[00:17:59]Till you blow on them.

[00:18:03]Let me make sure that's still recording.

[00:18:05]Do all this talking for nothing.

[00:18:09]Oh, yeah, perfect.

[00:18:17]Kind of thought they would be she'd have some laid though.

[00:18:27]Well, I'm starting to not think this is going good.

[00:18:31]Still no eggs.

[00:18:34]No queen.

[00:18:38]This might be a bust.

[00:18:53]Nope. No eggs.

[00:19:09]I I think she's in here because they're just too relaxed, too quiet.

[00:19:29]Nope, nothing.

[00:19:33]Don't make a liar out of me.

[00:20:07]Well, I do see a a miscellaneous egg here and there.

[00:20:13]But nothing nothing much.

[00:20:39]Okay, here she is.

[00:20:41]So, looks like she's mated.

[00:20:45]She's kind of going through there like a battling battling rim.

[00:20:49]But she's still ain't very big.

[00:20:57]Right Ow, you son of a Right there.

[00:21:05]Oh, sorry about that.

[00:21:17]I don't know where she go.

[00:21:23]Let me get a little closer so I can see here. Oh, here she's over here on this side of the Son of a There she is. You can see her. She's right in the center of the screen.

[00:21:34]Pushing her way through.

[00:21:47]All right, give me just a second. Okay, I'm back. I'm going to just gently put her back in here because she's really jittery.

[00:21:56]I don't want her to fly off.

[00:22:00]I was going to try to take a picture of her, but uh not going to happen.

[00:22:13]Put this frame back in.

[00:22:21]Maybe they'll draw some out if we get more flow coming.

[00:22:25]Say a prayer that Jesus gives us more rain.

[00:22:28]Or uh sorry, better weather and better blooms.

[00:22:31]Okay, well we did a couple inspections.

[00:22:34]I'll probably say that's it for now. And I would just want to say thanks for watching. If you like the video, please subscribe. Give me the thumbs up. And I hope you have a great Thursday night.