# Average # of grafts that get accepted



## Fenc'in Bee (Apr 17, 2008)

For those that graft to raise queens, what is the average acceptance rate that you get for your grafts? 
In two tries I have averaged just under 50% success for acceptance. Is that good, OK or needs lots of improvement?

Thanks,
Nevin


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## BigDaddyDS (Aug 28, 2007)

My understanding is that anything over 90% is excellent, which also takes into account the 1-3% probability of sex alleles. 90% capped queen cells are what I personally shoot for. Sometimes I get higher... sometimes I get (substantially) lower. (Usually because of a leaky queen excluder in my finisher colony, or a queenright swarm box. Whoops!)


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## bleta12 (Feb 28, 2007)

Fenc'in Bee said:


> For those that graft to raise queens, what is the average acceptance rate that you get for your grafts?
> In two tries I have averaged just under 50% success for acceptance. Is that good, OK or needs lots of improvement?
> 
> Thanks,
> Nevin


Queen rearing is attention to detail and practice is the difference maker.
If 50% is your first or second time to graft, that is very good.
With practice you should expect much higher % and with time you will know and set your own standards. 

Good luck Gilman


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

I find that nectar/pollen flows and weather play a big part.... My last graft of 26 gave me 12 queen cells and 2 actual good queens... (lousey weather here)


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## Fenc'in Bee (Apr 17, 2008)

Thanks for the replies. I am definitely on a learning curve. I just discovered the first grafts I did, most of the queens never developed after being capped. I am using a cloak board, and I left the cells in the starter/finisher until they were 12 days old. Then I moved them to queen castles. I have had success with the castles with swarm cells. Out of 7 capped cells, it looks like one hatched. I will try to candle the next batch of cells before I put them in castles.

I am going to try a queenless nuc as a starter for the next batch of grafts.

A couple more questions: When you graft, do you prime your cells with royal jelly or distilled water? Or do you graft dry? What is the average # of grafts that are put into a starter hive? Into a Finisher hive?

I am going to graft again this afternoon.

Thanks,
Nevin


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## BEES4U (Oct 10, 2007)

When you graft, do you prime your cells with royal jelly 

I use royal jelly to prime the cells.
I can get 29/30 which is 96.66% with ideal conditions!
Ernie


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

I haven't been priming, but sometimes do if I miss the first larva...

My hatch rate this spring has been simalar, 13-15 capped, only a cpl hatching.... seems they are abondoining them , but its just a hunch... weather issues I think, but hey it may be me..

I normaly put 30 grafts in at a time... 2 rows of 15.


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## BerkeyDavid (Jan 29, 2004)

One of the things I noticed this year is that if you didn't put the queen cell right in the middle of a brood frame in the mating nuc they would not hatch. I believe it was because the nights were so cold. If you just hung the queen cell from the top of the middle frames the cells wouldn't hatch, even though, on inspection of the cell, the queen was fully developed.

Even now we have been getting some very cool nights, last night it was down to 45, so be sure to put your cells in mating nuc with plenty of bees in the middle of the brood so they stay warm!


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

FYI do not reuse cell cups!!!!!!!!!

Got hosed on an order from Dadant (I should have ordered sooner I know)...
So I bioled out the last batch of cell cops all nice and clean!.... 

Looked great.. none accepted... 30 grafts, no queens.... DEFINATLY screws up my plan......


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## fatscher (Apr 18, 2008)

gmcharlie said:


> FYI do not reuse cell cups!!!!!!!!!
> 
> Got hosed on an order from Dadant (I should have ordered sooner I know)...
> So I bioled out the last batch of cell cops all nice and clean!....
> ...


Wow, shoot, that may explain my POOR performance too. I never knew that


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## JThomp (May 6, 2009)

My first season grafting for Queens. Took four tries before I had any decent capped cups and then only 4. Used a nuc this last time to start/finish. Put each cup in a well-preparted nuc (polllen, brood, populated, etc.). In one it appeared as though they cut the cell off the cup and moved and secured it to the left about a half inch. I normally wouldn't believe this but the cell had a recognizable yellowish color at its end, so I'm pretty sure it's the same cell. Anybody ever hear (or see) this? 
All other cells were neatly opened but no queen evident. In fact, numerous queen cells had been created on the facing brood frame that carried some young larvae. 
Most disappointing was a cell opened and all bees gone. 
What's up?

Thanks


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## wfarler (Jul 9, 2003)

JThomp said:


> .... In fact, numerous queen cells had been created on the facing brood frame that carried some young larvae.
> Thanks


There's your sign. Your starter colony needs to be broodless except for the grafted cells you put in. You are exploiting the 'emergency queen response' behavior when you use a queenless nuc or hive. To direct their actions don't have any other eggs, larvae or brood in the nuc.

A queen right starter colony would be exploiting the 'supercedure response' behavior. In this case the cordoned off hive area (above the excluder) which is the area where the queen pherome levels are diminished, needs to be free of eggs and larvae. 

In both cases your grafts should be their only choice.


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## JBJ (Jan 27, 2005)

Two shots of spring cell during a flow









Here is some cells from last week, during a dearth. The bees are dependent on the beekeeper to stimulate them enough to make wax.

We usually get high percentages except for when a rogue virgin goes on a rampage; which can be avoided by careful examination of all brood frames in the cell building ares for rogue cells and queens.


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## JBJ (Jan 27, 2005)

Just thought I would add that we use queen right cell builders most of the year, and I like at least one or two frames eggs and larvae near the fresh grafts. I feel it draws nurse bees (the RJ makers) to the appropriate area. We eliminate rogue cells before and during each graft. Usually the queen right cell builders will start less rogue cells. There are many ways to induce cell production, the simpler the technique the better in my opinion. All one really needs is a strong hive and a queen excluder to pull it off with high percentages.


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## BerkeyDavid (Jan 29, 2004)

Beautiful work John thanks for sharing!


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## Fenc'in Bee (Apr 17, 2008)

Wow, nice pictures. I hope I can get my grafts to be accepted like that. I just tried a queen right hive with an excluder to start cells. The first set of grafts was the best that I have gotten yet. This hive was setup for several days before I grafted. I setup a couple more and grafted within a couple hours, and only one hive out of 3 took some cells. I think that my trouble with having cells accepted is the starter is not setup right. 

I have reused cups, but I put the cups into the hive for a couple days to let the bees clean them. There was no problem with them accepting the grafts.


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

I sometimes reuse JZBZs plastic cell cups, which I use most often. I dip them in molten beeswax with long forceps until all the older wax has melted away and they have a light coating of fresh light wax, then I polish them with Q-tips in a dremel tool, finally I place them into the cell builder hive before grafting. When I use wax cups I don't reuse any.

My graft acceptance rate went way up after I started moving one unsealed cell from an earlier batch onto the cell bar I am preparing to graft, then I steal a dab of royal jelly for each empty cell cup, then I graft into the fresh royal jelly. I believe that many of the grafts that still fail, occur with larva that I have slightly fumbled during the process, while larva that I manipulate the least during the grafting process usually do well. I guess my next step to improve grafting success would be to only keep larva that I can graft without harmful excess manipulation.


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## Fenc'in Bee (Apr 17, 2008)

Question for John: What do you do with the cells after they are capped like your pictures? The reason I ask is because I just grafted 30 cells, 19 were drawn and capped. On day 12 when I went to move them the bees had torn down all but 11. Did the bees tear the cells down because the queen died or should I have moved the cells to queen castles earlier? If the queens died any ideas why they died? I should add that I have been feeding 1:1 to the starter/finisher and it is a queen right hive.

Thanks,
Nevin


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## JBJ (Jan 27, 2005)

I would suspect a virgin hatched and they would have torn them all down in a few more hours. When we look for rogue cells I actually shake all the bees off the frames so they can not hide. You may want to consider building an incubator and pulling the cells as soon as they are capped. Even without the incubator, I would never leave them in past day 10.


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