First Hatch

[Bush84]

I've kept both carni and Italian bees. I have never kept carnis indoors as I have done with my Italians. I am getting carni packages this may. In my experience the carnis do keep a smaller cluster. Italians will have no problems eating more honey than you anticipate lol.

 

[Bush84]

So that's not spot on but I suppose it could be worse. At least I get to add some onto my number because so far it's been a struggle to keep it up. That should get easier once it warms up.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

Sodium Chloride (salt) at 56F is 76% RH. If that's after 4 hours and your hygrometer reading is 66% then you will always add 10% to any readings. Easy calibration isn't it?

This morning my reading (after calibration) was 36%. Been looking around for a container that will fit that's inbetween one and two sherry glasses. Not finding anything yet so have taken out one glass for now. And as I predicted the temp went down some now that the metal wafer has softened up being run for 3 days. Knew it was low as the off reading cigar box gauge read 96F when it should be 97!

Honestly, who needs expensive equipment that's spot on. You just need to calibrate the cheap stuff and write it down on masking tape stuck to incubator so you don't forget.

http://www.omega.com/temperature/z/pdf/z103.pdf

That link is PDF of saturated salts RH. It's amazing how stable table salt is.

 

[Bush84]

Honestly I let it sit overnight. At about 4 hours it said 64 but I didn't see the harm in letting it sit overnight.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

OK, all the kinks are out of my incubator now. Wafer has finally settled in and I'm averaging 99.4F. Also found some old depression era salt and pepper shakers on a shelf in mud room. Got one that is perfect size. My humidity is 29-30% RH. I'm exactly where I want to be in temp and humidity. Nothing to do but fill shaker every other day (hold more water than a shot glass) and candle day 7 or 10 depending when I get to it. You don't have a cheap styro incubator but a good tip for those with fan is to arrange the eggs link a doughnut on the egg turner. Air circulates better, down through doughnut hole and up the corners.

When I candle I'll try and get pictures if they come out. Will be totally dark room and flashlight so don't know photo quality of that. Never tried before.

 

[Bush84]

Did some candling tonight. Saw some actual vasculature! The welsummers were to dark to see anything but I definitely have some legbars developing. I didn't candle them all. Just a few and shut the lid.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

Excellent. Now you know you live in a decent zone for postal eggs.

It takes a lot of lumen to see into dark eggs. If your flashlight isn't up to snuff you may have a halide light or some other seriously bright light that you can put a cardboard box over with a cut hole to candle eggs over. Before flashlights with incredible lumen were sold I'd use my 500W construction light and a cardboard box. A few years ago I thought the 500 lumen flashlights were awesome. Duracell and few other names have 1000 and more lumen flashlights out now.

 

[Bush84]

I made a makeshift candler out of scrap wood and a bright light but I need to buy a strong led light as this light gives off heat. I initially bought a candler for $12 at the local fleet but it's junk. I have found that using both of them together works quite well, but not well enough for the welsummers lol. I need to make a run to fleet for some feed maybe that'd be a good time for a led bulb and strong led flashlight.

 

[Bush84]

So if I have to add 10% this looks pretty good.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

That looks really good. You'll know for sure when candling. I candled this morning to see the air cells look perfect. The problem is every egg I was randomly picking up was clear! So I candled them all to find only three viable chicks growing. What a bummer. Just finishing off eggs on toast (no, not incubator eggs). I took one egg from front of skelter stand and one at back. Sure enough, the old egg was infertile and new fertile. I'll have to eat more later to confirm but pretty sure I had a first eggs fertility issue. 11 month old flock that just came into lay. Assumed fertile and first eggs were of size being older birds- big Mediums to small Large. I did check an egg prior to collecting but that was from the only bird that had been laying a month already.

I'm collecting again to set this weekend. Will do a staggered hatch. 14 days in turner is enough. Just have to figure out how to pull some rails off without breaking them to have the few viable eggs laying flat and ones I'm putting in this Saturday in turner.

Here's another model of air cell growth to check your eggs with when you candle. Remember it's just a reference and not exacting. Most of mine were spot on, few smaller, few larger: