Some queen breeders advocate having brood frames in the finisher box. It ensures more nurse bees to feed these larvae. I think the idea plausible. Also, in the method I'm using, to ensure I get nurse bees in the cell starter, there ends up being one or two brood frames in the finisher. I know that I've read this and heard it in lectures, one must check all brood frames for queen cells. Michael Palmer said it in one of his lectures like five times. Ian won't have any brood frames in his finishers. I forgot. I'll bet every queen breeder forgets at least once. Had some cells started last week, went in to put on cages and they're all torn down. Sure enough, on a brood frame was an open queen cell. Missed it from the previous set of grafts. And although it's a controversal subject, I do believe that bees can move eggs so even with the queen excluder they could still raise a queen above it. So yes it's important to check all of the frames for cells. I only lost five queens, would hate to lose 10-30. So I had a rouge virgin running around in the top box. Looked but couldn't find her. Took a chance and shook everything down to the lower boxes, did another set of grafts and on day two, of eight grafts, I have five cups of royal jelly. I know there is the potential of this rouge virgin killing the current queen. Might not be so bad, she's a year and a half old and they're not the nicest group. It certainly could be worse and better both. Due to my current resources I'm limited in what I can do. I like the idea of a finisher box with no brood, just shake in some bees each week or so. But I don't have those resources. Will certainly check for cells diligently in the future. Failures are indeed the best teachers.
