Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Melt some wax in the bain-marie and remove from the heat.
Take the dowel rod from the water, shake the water off it and briefly dip it into the
melted wax up to the mark.
Remove from the wax and plunge into the water.
Repeat this process about five or six times.
Carefully rotate the wax off the dowel. You will now have a queen cup.
Make about 30 of these.
Run some molten wax along the underside of the cell bar(s).
Place a blob of molten wax about 25-50 mm (1-2 in) along a cell bar and, before
it dries, place a queen cell on this.
If you are using Langstroth frames, you can place 12 cells on each cell bar. If you use
British Standard frames, you can place 8-10 cells. The more you space them out, the
easier it is to remove them. You have now prepared your queen cells (see Figure 28).
Fig. 28.
Cell bars with plastic cells (queen cups) hanging downwards. The
yellow ones are used for Italian queens and the black ones for Carniolans.
