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Plastic Queen Rearing Bits

There are many types of plastic Queen Rearing Gadgets. Some of them are illustrated here. Other information may be found under Cell Plug Boxes.

The JZ / BZ cell cup is a useful addition to anyone's queen rearing kit.

They Are available in many colours (so that you can colour code the larvae source for record purposes). Or you can use colour to identify batches made on successive days.

Another useful feature is that they can be boiled to clean and sterilise them. However, recent evidence from the Hope Valley queen rearing group suggests that acceptance is highest, of used cups that have only been cleaned by the bees themselves.

The mouth at, 9 mm, is a little wide for my current thinking. However if you can find any that have a strongly saturated colouring dye... They have a smaller radius to the bottom.

If you allow virgins to emerge into an incubator or buy them in from another source. They need a release system to stop them being killed.

This artificial queen cell can be covered with a strip of foundation to allow controlled release, or see my page on re-introduction of instrumentally inseminated queens for another method that is capable of being calibrated for timed release.

Whilst originally designed for holding the Jenter cell cage two part cell plugs, for cell starting and finishing, these plug sets are versatile and can be used for ordinary grafting.

They are particularly useful if fitted in several rows in the lid of a swarm box future link as acceptance can assessed easily and re-grafting performed if required
(this tip came from Angus Stokes).

They can also be used in the Cell Space system by inserting them into specially machined plywood blocks.

These brown plastic nipples as shown at right, can be pinned to swivel bars to form a conventional cell frame or pinned to blocks from the cellspace system.

They accept the cell cup holders illustrated below or they will take "hair roller" cages for queen banking. They will also accept special cups that will hold "natural" queencells.

This adaptor item shown at left, will fit onto a Nicot nipple and will hold a double ended hair roller cage or a queencell protector.

The cell protector device itself is shown at left with a representation at lower right, of it in use, fixed on a nipple using an adaptor.

The narrow end of the cell protector will fit into the mouth of a single ended hair roller cage.

In addition to this it will also fit the smaller end of the double ended hair roller cage.

Here, at left, is another sort of plastic queencell protector, but I have yet to find any other bits that it is compatible with.

It is show at the same scale as the Nicot item above.

There are two types of JZ/BZ protectors... The one with prongs that allow them to be pushed into the face of a comb as shown at right.

whilst the other type (at left) ledges across two top bars and hangs in the space between them.

The device shown left does a similar job for the Nicot Cell Cups, as the yellow plugs from the Jenter System.

The mouth of this Nicot cell cup is 8.5 mm dia. It can be used in the Cupkit cell cage or grafted direct. The plastic adaptor (far left) fits onto the Nicot nipple and then this small cup fits into the adaptor.

The device illustrated right will hold a plug of candy or marshmallow or even a plug of scrunched up paper tissue, and will fit into the single ended hair roller cage or the narrow end of the double ended cage.

The Jenter Cell Plug System has the cell base only on the removable plug.

The parts are made by injection moulding from a dark brown plastic material that is not very transparent. The cross section is indicated by the blue portions of the drawings.

The cell is formed by fitting the plug into one of two types of collar. The one illustrated at right, is the old profile which is smaller internally. The mouth is 8.5 mm diameter.

The second type of collar has three "wings" which make it easier to handle. The internal profile is more parallel sided than the smaller version and its mouth is 9.5 mm diameter. I am concerned that this alteration in shape and size is a further manifestation of continuous cellsize enlargement.

The plug and cup (right) form a complete cell unit that then fits into the mouth of either of the yellow plugs illustrated further up the page.

The two drawings above show a type of plastic cellcup that mounts into an aluminium channel with a twisting motion. The channels that I have are 320 mm long and 23 mm wide. The cups are available in many colours.

I believe that this type originates in New Zealand.

Other hair roller types to come.

Written... Autumn 2000, Revised... 29 January 2002, Revised... 18/19 January 2003,