# Grafted today



## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

cheryl1 said:


> We feel like the world's best beekeepers!


In fact tht is a very good effort for your first attempt.


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## cheryl1 (Mar 7, 2015)

I would have been happy with ten. Five even. I was pretty surprised to see wax on every cup and nurse bees tending to all of them.


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## Matt903 (Apr 8, 2013)

Are you going to transfer the frame to a queen right finisher? If not, the cell builder might not finish caring for all thirty cells. And congrats on your graft!


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

pics or it didn't happen


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## Bkwoodsbees (Feb 8, 2014)

Congratulations!!!! I have to start soon. It will be my first time as well.


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## cheryl1 (Mar 7, 2015)

Ha  I'm taking my daughter out with me tomorrow and she can take a pic for me then. 

I've got a queenless starter-finisher that I removed the queen from 4 days ago. Yesterday we went through and removed every queen cell. Three mediums, bursting with bees, minimal open brood, and feeding 1:1.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

That will be the reason for your success, lots of bees plus feeding, you are doing it right.

Be aware that although you have removed all rogue queen cells at the 4 day mark when the eggs have hatched, the bees are still capable of making queen cells from new larvae up to 3 days old, and in a strong hive like yours it is likely they will do a few, so you'll need to run through it again for queen cells in say, 4 days from now. Just to make sure nothing they have raised hatches first and attacks your own queen cells.

Another thing, a good starter hive will certainly start 30 cells, but not likely to finish that many to a good standard. If on your next inspection you find they still have 30 cells on the go, if you want them all finished to a good standard it would be best to set up another hive as a finisher hive and give 1/2 the cells to the other hive.

Me, I start up to 64 cells in the starter hive, but then divide them up and give only 16 to each finisher hive.


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## cheryl1 (Mar 7, 2015)

I removed all queen cells Friday, so do it again Tuesday? That would be exactly a week since I pulled the queen. 

When you say "next inspection" to divide up the cell bars, do you mean on my Tuesday inspection (3 days after grafting) or tomorrow (day after grafting)?

Do you finish yours in queen right hives?


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Yes, to be sure there are no more rogue queen cells it will have to be checked again Wednesday or shortly thereafter, not a certainty but pretty likely you will find a few more, that were started from young larvae after you destroyed the first ones.

For me I transfer the cells to finisher hives at either 24 or 48 hours from grafting, although may not hurt too much to leave till 3 days. Yes I finish mine in queenright hives but queenless is also fine long as they don't have too many cells.

Also, although I've given a lot of advice I also feel to some extent I should shut up, as thus far you have been doing fine on your own. Because you clearly have a feel for doing this well, listen to other advice, but end of day do it your way!

And then tell us what it was.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

OT, you have been doing it more than us.
So passing some wise wisdom down to us is perfectly fine.
What I would do is to take a small LED flashlight to check each
cell to see if the larva is still floating on the RJ. They may build wax
around the cups but may not keep the larvae for the long run. If you
have all of them then it is either a lucky shot or you are natural at it. 
Good luck with making the mating nucs for them.


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## Sunday Farmer (Nov 13, 2013)

Congrats! That's awseome.


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## cheryl1 (Mar 7, 2015)

I'll check them with a flashlight. And take pics  I think I am going to leave them in my queenless starter/finisher and see how they do. That was my original plan, and like I said I wil be happy with 5-10 finished queens. Anything more is a bonus, so I'll let this ride out to completion. 

Mating nucs shouldn't be a problem. I have the finisher plus 5 more full size hives I'm breaking up into nucs. The equipment is already in the yard and ready to go. Last year I had 80% mating success, and I have some drone comb in the other hives. Lots of emerging drones at the moment.


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## Sunday Farmer (Nov 13, 2013)

Super cool. 
I drew out a couple hundred mating nuc combs last year but I can't stay on a schedule yet. So catching out of 4 frame nucs. Works fine.  
I just use the same starter/finisher too. Big cells! You got me excited now! Dandelions up here soon!


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## cheryl1 (Mar 7, 2015)

I'm hoping for good queens Next year I might get into keeping queens in mini nucs for sale, but I want a season of evaluating what I'm getting first. These queens will go into nucs that I will build up and overwinter. We'll see.


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## cheryl1 (Mar 7, 2015)

I checked this morning. 4/5 of the first grafts were abandoned. So 26/30 swimming in jelly. I'm still pretty happy. By the time I got the nurse bees blown off a bar they had covered the other bar again lol. I have a picture, just have to figure out how to post it


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## cheryl1 (Mar 7, 2015)




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## marshmasterpat (Jun 26, 2013)

Way to go.


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

That's awesome success for your first time. It would be awesome success for me in my 2nd year of grafting. 

When you check the hive again for rogue queen cells, shake every bee off of every frame to check. If you miss one queen cell, she'll tear down all your work and success.

Only advice I will offer regarding your grafting is that you might put a frame of foundation close to that grafting frame. I had bees build comb on queen cells last year and yours are closer together than mine were. It made it hard to separate the cells.


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## cheryl1 (Mar 7, 2015)

Good idea


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

The bees will follow a set schedule to cap these cells on day 7 assuming
that they use the smallest one day old larvae.
Before they cap the cells you can move them into the individual
mating nuc made ahead of time so to replenish any missing bees that
might fly back to the parent hive. This way they will not build the comb
to cover the entire cell. I use a nectar/pollen deep frame to put these cells on so that
the cells will be feed continuously until they are capped. Got bigger cells this way since
there is no competition for the food available. The result are some big and healthy queens.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Good job, Cheryl, let us know how it all turns out! 
Are you getting a decent flow right now? Mine are adding weight. It's not like June, but there are dripping frames if tipped/shaken at all. Starting to get the outsides frames back to full.
And a couple big ones just starting to lay down some white wax on foundations.


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## cheryl1 (Mar 7, 2015)

Dripping frames, drawing foundation, and small patches of capped honey. Another club member said he caught some maple honey this spring


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Good deal. We had a great chance at putting up some maple honey before mother nature slammed the door shut and froze us out again for another 4-5 weeks. The foundation drawing is just barely starting here, so I suspect you're just a bit ahead of us. We're really close to 90* latitude, pretty much straight west of the northern border of Indiana (for reference).


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## cheryl1 (Mar 7, 2015)

I'm halfway down the state on the Illinois state line.


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

cheryl, post another picture when they get those cells capped!


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## cheryl1 (Mar 7, 2015)

I will now that I know how to post pics here  I have 5 nucs currently requeening themselves too. I'm interested to see how the queens compare to the grafted queens


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

cheryl1 said:


> I will now that I know how to post pics here


Hey, you're ahead of me, all I can do is make a photo thumbnail show up. When you take a break from queenrearing how about tell me how to get a full sized picture to show up. LOL


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Brad Bee said:


> Hey, you're ahead of me, all I can do is make a photo thumbnail show up. When you take a break from queenrearing how about tell me how to get a full sized picture to show up. LOL


Didn't we try this via PM a year ago or so? Or was that someone else...?


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

Since you don't remember for certain I'm going to say it was someone else. :shhhh:


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## cheryl1 (Mar 7, 2015)

Quick peek today to see how many cells were capped. 23/30! I made 17 queenless nucs this evening and I'll make the rest in the morning before placing cells. They did build comb in between two of the cells :/


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## Sunday Farmer (Nov 13, 2013)

cheryl1 said:


> Quick peek today to see how many cells were capped. 23/30! I made 17 queenless nucs this evening and I'll make the rest in the morning before placing cells. They did build comb in between two of the cells :/


Razor blade. Seriously. The husky x-acto knives HD sells, that's my pocket knife. Cuts up in between the cells, and also if for some odd reason you can't get a cup out, blade fits between bar and cell cup and it will pop out. Don't worry about the extra comb, just cut it. Awseome for your graft. Congrats!


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## cheryl1 (Mar 7, 2015)

24/30 ended up being capped. All are now safe in mating nucs and now it's fingers crossed until egg check time


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

How big are your mating nucs, Cheryl?


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## cheryl1 (Mar 7, 2015)

I experimented with mating nucs. 4, 3, and 2 frames. The 4 and 3 frames did fine. Only 1 out of 4 of my two frame mating nucs hatched. I'm guessing not enough bees and they cells weren't kept warm enough. Overall I got 21 hatches out of this round of grafting. I'm happy with it. Now just to get them safely mated!

I have two mated queens coming in the next couple of days, so I'll combine/boost my Unhatched nucs then install those queens.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

I grafted April 13, just got report that one of the guys I gave cells to found eggs in two of the three he put cells in... Anxious to check mine. That's 7 or 8 days post emergence.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Eggs hatch, cells emerge! Learn that one here.
I still have 3 cap cells waiting to be emerge and one
virgin waiting for her mating flight sometime this week.
I'm trying to find the Cordovan that are mite resistant.


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

JRG13 said:


> pics or it didn't happen


You're not going to get many Christmas cards like that...:no:


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## cheryl1 (Mar 7, 2015)

Or you might get interesting ones lol.

I combined my mating nucs that didn't hatch a cell and added mated queens today. I still have 31 queens to get mated this week. 21 from grafts and ten from splits.


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