Question re: Hopkins Method Comb Size

[Hethen57]

Will the bees make a queen if the frame of fresh drawn comb (foundationless) that you use for the eggs is drone size comb?  Will the queen only lay drone eggs in those cells?  Just curious because I used an empty frame to hold my queen cage for queen intro and they have drawn out some really nice comb on it which is empty, but it looks like larger cells.  I was thinking of saving it to see if I could rear some queens next spring.

[Michael Bush]

>Will the bees make a queen if the frame of fresh drawn comb (foundationless) that you use for the eggs is drone size comb?

No.

> Will the queen only lay drone eggs in those cells?

Yes.

> Just curious because I used an empty frame to hold my queen cage for queen intro and they have drawn out some really nice comb on it which is empty, but it looks like larger cells.  I was thinking of saving it to see if I could rear some queens next spring.

The queen only lays workers in worker cells and drones in drone cells.  You need the queen to lay worker eggs in a new comb of worker cells to do the Hopkins method.

[Hethen57]

Thanks MB, I'll have to see exactly what size it is.  It was such beautiful comb, I think I will try going foundationless on this hive and see how it works.  My other nuc didn't build anything on the same frame during the same time period...but I think it was a little lighter on bees.