# Stressful grafting and queen rearing attempt



## cristianNiculae

I tried my first grafting yesterday and gave up when realising that I cannot do it. I've been using chinese grafting tool and mangnifying head lamp...haha... 
The cells wall were too tall on that specific frame and while inserting the tool inside I didn't have the angle to still see the larva.
However I quickly changed the strategy: took a new frame with fresh egs and done it by the Oldtimer's method. I haven't looked inside yet.
For the cell builder I used Kirk Webster's method via Michael Palmer. It worked nice. I've been on the brink of disaster though as I asked myself wether to use the shaker box or not  and luckily I used it. The first frame I took from the brood box to shake into the cell builder had the queen on it but I didn't see it. After I shook the frame I saw the queen above the queen excluder ; I took it and put it back into the box. So for the future *the shaker box* will be a very useful tool for me.

I will try to train myself from time to time to try to master this technique as I find it very economical and acurate in timing. It's important for me to have the day when I form the nucs on Saturday so I don't have to take a free day out of my vacation.

Questions:

1. Can I make the nucs and give them the cells on the same day? If yes what's the timing for introducing the cells?
2. If the nucs are too strong will they accept the cells? (I know feeding is very important on this)
3. Do you think it's a good idea to move the old queen to a nuc and leave the cell builder with one or two cells? (I'm thinking to do some sort of cutdown split before the main flow)
4. How about doing cutdown splits on all my hives? - take the old queen and a couple of brood frames away and then give the old hive a cell instead...I guess the chances of acceptance(on the other hives) are smaller but if I can make it happen I could reduce swarming chances to almost zero.
5. I find queen finding very difficult in a hive that's thriving. I'm thinking on using the shaker box instead to do the cutdown split. Shake most of the bees through or shake until I find the queen. Thoughts?

In theory everything is simple but when coming to practice I find this pretty dificult.

Thanks,
Cristian


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## Michael Bush

> 1. Can I make the nucs and give them the cells on the same day?

Yes. Accepance will be slightly better if you wait until the next day, or should I say, you make them up the day before...

> If yes what's the timing for introducing the cells?

I do whatever is convenient for me. I may put a frame of brood, a frame of honey and a queen cell in and close them up. Or I might set them all up and as soon as I'm done, go back and put the cells in.

>2. If the nucs are too strong will they accept the cells? (I know feeding is very important on this)

How big are the nucs? I don't see that it matters how strong they are as far as accepting cells.

> 3. Do you think it's a good idea to move the old queen to a nuc and leave the cell builder with one or two cells? (I'm thinking to do some sort of cutdown split before the main flow)

That works fine. Mine are usually queenless and that is what I usually do if I'm not breaking it down for mating nucs...

> 4. How about doing cutdown splits on all my hives? - take the old queen and a couple of brood frames away and then give the old hive a cell instead...I guess the chances of acceptance(on the other hives) are smaller but if I can make it happen I could reduce swarming chances to almost zero.

If the purpose is a to get more honey you are missing some of the elements. You make it queenless to purposefully have a gap in brood rearing to make for more foragers. So letting them raise their own queen times this better than giving them a cell. Also, you want to compress them (to get them into the supers) and you want to free them from the responsibilities of all the open brood. So you take at LEAST a full box of brood off, and probably a full box of honey as well. You leave the old location with only one brood box and all the capped brood.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beessplits.htm#cutdown

> 5. I find queen finding very difficult in a hive that's thriving. I'm thinking on using the shaker box instead to do the cutdown split. Shake most of the bees through or shake until I find the queen. Thoughts?

In my opinion, WAY too much work. If you can't find the queen, then just pull all the open brood and honey and move it to the new location and don't worry about where the queen is. If you keep an eye out for her you may see her anyway. You still get the advantage of no brood to care for, a lot of emerging brood and the entire field force at the old location. Just don't do it too soon or they will swarm. You might want to wait until one week before the flow or right on the main flow if you do this without finding the queen. Another solution if you are planning ahead is to put an excluder between each brood box four days before the split and then you'll know what box the queen is in (the one with eggs) and you can take that box to the new location without even looking for her, and then grab the open brood and honey from the rest.


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## cristianNiculae

Thank you very much! 

God bless you Mr. Bush!


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## cristianNiculae

Final result: total failure.

None of the methods worked. The bees started the queen cells but the egs didn't hatch. I think I kept them for too long outside the hive although it was in my kitchen were was pretty warm. However I shouldn't have tried to raise queens so early and in such weather circumstances. Having a mild winter resulted in a cold and wet spring. It's been raining for a month almost on daily basis. I've been feeding syrup from time to time.
I guess I'm too nervous about not letting my bees(money) swarm. Ridiculous!
By the way, a question came up in my mind:

Can it happen that the old queen fly away with some of the field bees during the queen building session? I mean we created a similar situation as in reproductive swarming.


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## Oldtimer

Hi Cristian sorry it did not work out.

Sometimes when the bees don't finish the queen cells it is because there was a queen you did not know about in the hive with the cells. here is a simple method to make a cell raising hive out of a 2 brood box hive without finding the queen. - Put a queen excluder between the 2 brood boxes. 5 days later have a look at the combs. The box that has eggs in it has the queen. Move this box to a new bottom board a few meters away and put a lid on it. The other box is queenless you can put your new queen cells in it and the bees will raise them. A few days later join the hives back together, put the box with the queen on the bottom, then a queen excluder, then the queenless box with the queen cells on top. No newspaper is needed the bees will remember each other, and they will still care for the queen cells.

About the grafting, I find it really difficult to use a Chinese grafting tool also, I use a 000 paintbrush, much easier. If possible, I also cut the cell walls down to the foundation with a sharp knife which makes things easier also.


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## cristianNiculae

Thanks so much OT!

Here is what I did:

1. Put the excluder
2. After 5 days moved the box with the queen just nearby with the entrance facing oposite side. The box with no queen contained mostly capped brood, honey and pollen, shooked the core through an excluder(the queen was on the excluder and I moved it back)

My mistakes wich I'm aware off just that I've thought it would work that way too:
- didn't let them queenless too long - only 1 hour.
- *kept the frame with egs too long outside the hive* As I've said the eggs didn't hatch at all in the end.
- ?reunited the whole colony(used QE of course) after ~36 hours - by that time the cells were too small.

I'm sure there was no queen in that hive... the bees acted like so.

I put both the cell bar and the frame from wich I have cut the rows of cells. Both were just started but as the eggs didn't hatch... stopped.

I didn't know the eggs dry too. I thought only larvae has this problem.

Anyway... I will train for grafting cause it's much more neat than other methods.


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## Tim B

"started queen cells but the eggs didn't hatch" You should be grafting young larva, not eggs. The should be not much larger than egg and not quite a "c" shape. I identify areas where there is good larva, tear down cell walls to get a better look and angle, lift the larva and place her in the cup. You also have to make sure you are grafting worker larva and not drone larva. Make sure you have a strong nectar flow or are feeding the cell starter hive when you place the grafts or they may not work them.


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## WBVC

cristianNiculae said:


> I tried my first grafting yesterday and gave up when realising that I cannot do it. I've been using chinese grafting tool and mangnifying head lamp...haha...
> The cells wall were too tall on that specific frame and while inserting the tool inside I didn't have the angle to still see the larva.
> However I quickly changed the strategy: took a new frame with fresh egs and done it by the Oldtimer's method. I haven't looked inside yet.
> For the cell builder I used Kirk Webster's method via Michael Palmer. It worked nice. I've been on the brink of disaster though as I asked myself wether to use the shaker box or not  and luckily I used it. The first frame I took from the brood box to shake into the cell builder had the queen on it but I didn't see it. After I shook the frame I saw the queen above the queen excluder ; I took it and put it back into the box. So for the future *the shaker box* will be a very useful tool for me.
> 
> I will try to train myself from time to time to try to master this technique as I find it very economical and acurate in timing. It's important for me to have the day when I form the nucs on Saturday so I don't have to take a free day out of my vacation.
> 
> Questions:
> 
> 1. Can I make the nucs and give them the cells on the same day? If yes what's the timing for introducing the cells?
> 2. If the nucs are too strong will they accept the cells? (I know feeding is very important on this)
> 3. Do you think it's a good idea to move the old queen to a nuc and leave the cell builder with one or two cells? (I'm thinking to do some sort of cutdown split before the main flow)
> 4. How about doing cutdown splits on all my hives? - take the old queen and a couple of brood frames away and then give the old hive a cell instead...I guess the chances of acceptance(on the other hives) are smaller but if I can make it happen I could reduce swarming chances to almost zero.
> 5. I find queen finding very difficult in a hive that's thriving. I'm thinking on using the shaker box instead to do the cutdown split. Shake most of the bees through or shake until I find the queen. Thoughts?
> 
> In theory everything is simple but when coming to practice I find this pretty dificult.
> 
> Thanks,
> Cristian


What is old timers method?


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## Oldtimer

He probably means this http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?249478-Raising-Queen-Cells-Without-Grafting

Yes agree with Tim, best to use young larvae less than 24 hours since hatch from the egg. Even with the cut cell method if you use eggs the bees will often reject a lot of them. Weird, but true.

Sounds like you set up your cell starter right. Just, if the cell starter has brood, it takes longer for the bees to get into a real good queenless cell raising state. If there is no brood & the bees are put on different comb then a couple of hours is fine. But if they are on the same comb plus they have brood then leaving them queenless 24 hours before giving the cells is best. I think if you try again do that, plus use young larvae not eggs, and it will work.


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## CtyAcres

OT- Thanks for the link to cut cell method. Very good pics. I'm trying to duplicate Jay Smith's method exactly,
complete with his style of breeder frames. Extra pics always helps, his are fuzzy , but he does explain things well.
As you both stated, his mating rate is high, because of his strong queens. Thanks again, Tom.


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## cristianNiculae

I haven't grafted the eggs. I'm stupid but not that much )

...and yes eggs dry too. I should have just use Jay Smith method on just putting the fresh layed new frame inside the starter - no fuss, no muss

Anyway, I've made myself a copper grafting tool (FatBeeMan style) and adjusted it using a real built frame. It should work nice and I'll try it as soon as the weather permits. I will also build a nice swarm box today and shall do it "by the book" next time. I don't like the idea of waiting: put the QE and wait 7 days, put a new foundation/built frame inside the brood nest and wait 4 days etc.

At first it looked to me that the classical starter/finisher method is too complicated but now I can see it's advantages.

*By using grafting and starter/finisher you can start the QC building process 4 hours after you made the decision that you need some queens.*

I just have another question regarding the pollen frame; I know M. Palmer uses that artificially made one. Is it really necessary? How much pollen should be on that frame?

Thanks,
Cristian


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## Daniel Y

I built up my hives via checker boarding since February. they all started as a deep and a medium 10 frame. nearly all of them managed to build up to 4 to 5 boxes tall. This build up was intended to be my mating nuc stock.

I started by grafting 45 larva via instructions by Micheal Palmer and the sustainable queen rearing method. Starter finisher all in one. This created a monster colony packed with bees 2 deeps and 5 mediums tall.

I am lucky and don't have a lot of issues with grafting. I will second OT's suggestion on the brush. The tool does not work for me either.

I also had the issue that swarm season was setting in and I have these overgrown colonies. Not a good combination as I learned last year. I first attempted to catch bees in preparation for swarming. Yeah right, ever tried a frame by frame search of 12 large hives every two days? I don't suggest you try it. This idea resulted in the loss of two swarms. Enough for me. 

I then started making every hive queenless. Do you have any idea what happens in a strong hive in the middle of swarm season when you make it queenless? The make cells and they make lots of cells. One hive made 42, another 55. I think to myself, great we are all working together now. I was able to remove all the cells after they where capped by searching the hive only twice. Once 5 days after making them queenless then again 10 days after. It is amazing what desperate bees will attempt to make queen cells from. But bees can still have open queen cells after 10 days being queenless. no idea how but many of them did.

Harvesting wild queen cells I do not recommend either. far to many losses in the cell. early 26% for us.

We first moved the queens to 5 frame deep nucs with a medium on top of it. they all ended p having weak bee populations. when I discovered this i then gave each queen two medium ten frame boxes with plenty of bees. I do not want to restrict their production while I am rearing their daughters.

The queenless bees are now being broken down into two frame mating compartments and virgin queens are being added as they emerge.

So far we have gotten 280 cells from 10 hives. This includes our initial 32 grafted cells. of those we have 63 in mating compartments. 30 have been sold as virgins. we have a hand full we introduced directly to 5 frame nucs. and the rest where lost prior to emerging. Some where around 80 cells lost at my last count.

I have not tried placing cells in nucs. but if bees have been queenless for three to four days they pretty much accept anything.

We are now waiting for the confirmation of our first quens having mated. it is driving me nuts. We check them after two weeks but I know that many will not be mated by then. so far 2 out of 10 compartments have produced mated queens in two weeks. no sign of queens in the other 8. So of course this has me concerned. I woudl swear those with no sign of a queen act queenless. until I saw a virgin running across the frame acting just as frantic as the rest of the bees.

My greatest concern right now is my choice in mating compartments. I am using 10 frame deeps divided into 4 compartements each holding 2 frames.

These are placed on a stand with three shelves each shelf hold 5 of these castles. This makes 60 queens all in a space 8 feet long and 5 feet tall. Migration during mating flights is my biggest concern.

Second is that it seems to me we lose a lot of bees due to the breaking down and transferring process. Maybe it is just my worry. I do not see dead bees anywhere but It seems like we put bees in a compartment and when we come back there does not seem to be nearly as many.

My concern is that I am decimating the population of my apiary attempting to mate queens that are doing nothing but getting lost. I woudl be better off slowing it all down. spreading the bees out in 5 frame nucs and getting them mated 40 at a time.


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## Michael Bush

>None of the methods worked. The bees started the queen cells but the egs didn't hatch.

I've tried transferring eggs with graftless systems (don't know how to graft them) and the bees just remove them. You need larvae.

> I think I kept them for too long outside the hive although it was in my kitchen were was pretty warm. However I shouldn't have tried to raise queens so early and in such weather circumstances.

I never start until I see drones flying. Earlier has never been productive.

> Having a mild winter resulted in a cold and wet spring. It's been raining for a month almost on daily basis. I've been feeding syrup from time to time.
I guess I'm too nervous about not letting my bees(money) swarm. Ridiculous!

Sometimes they do swarm...

> Can it happen that the old queen fly away with some of the field bees during the queen building session?
I mean we created a similar situation as in reproductive swarming. 

Of course. If you crowd them enough and the old queen is still there...


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## cristianNiculae

> I've tried transferring eggs with graftless systems (don't know how to graft them) and the bees just remove them. You need larvae.


Poor larvae. They'll have a tough life for some time until I properly learn how to graft.

Do you see any reason on having detachable bottom board on swarm box? I remember seeing on the web a swarm box on top of the finisher.

Do you think it's a good idea to just put the swarm box uppon the finisher above a QE? It looks easier than shaking the bees back.


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## deknow

A couple of 'tricks' that were discussed on Bee-l about a year ago...

1. Practice grafting onto a flat surface first...getting the larvae off the tool in the cell can be a bit intimidating, especially because you can't see inside so well. A microscope slide is perfect, and if you have a microscope handy you can look at the graft eating and breathing.

2. Put the frame you are going to graft from into the cell builder for a few hours before grafting...all those nurse bees will feed the heck out of the larva and they will be sitting in big pools of jelly.

deknow


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## Daniel Y

deknow said:


> A couple of 'tricks' that were discussed on Bee-l about a year ago...
> 
> 
> 
> 2. Put the frame you are going to graft from into the cell builder for a few hours before grafting...all those nurse bees will feed the heck out of the larva and they will be sitting in big pools of jelly.
> 
> deknow


Nice tip.


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## cristianNiculae

Yes indeed but for me there will be no more starter started until I'm sure I can do the grafting. Hopefully today I can do some exercises as the weather turned into a fine one.


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## Michael Bush

>Do you see any reason on having detachable bottom board on swarm box? 

No, but it needs to be well ventilated, so a screen is good and some kind of legs to hold it up (a strip of wood at each end will do) so air can get under it.


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## CtyAcres

Christian- How many queens do you want?


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## cristianNiculae

Is this enough ventilation? D. Cushman style with holes. We are around 60 F max. temp.... so not hot at all. We've just had a fresh snow on the mountains these days.














This is my grafting tool. I just tried it and works fine. I'm planning a tuesday session after I come back from work so that I make the nucs on saturday.








How many? About 10 this session although I prepared 30 wax cups. Let's call this a training session.


Thanks for help.


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## deknow

cristianNiculae said:


> Yes indeed but for me there will be no more starter started until I'm sure I can do the grafting. Hopefully today I can do some exercises as the weather turned into a fine one.


The more food the larva is floating in/on, the easier the grafting will be. If you setup a starter and put the frame to be grafted from in there for a few hours before grafting, you will have an easier time grafting and have better success.

If you don't want to devote a lot of resources towards a starter, set up one of your hives as in the 'cloake board method'....queen, capped brood, empty comb below an excluder, open brood and eggs above. Keep maniupulating the colony to be like this once a week or so, and when you want a starter, just lift up the top box, put a board over the excluder and put the top box back down (or use a cloake board to do this without lifting the box).

deknow


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## cristianNiculae

> The more food the larva is floating in/on, the easier the grafting will be.


I've just noticed that. Poorly nurished larvae. I will feed them a bit and yes I will put that frame in the starter. Can I put right at the moment when I form the starter and take it to graft after 2 hours?


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## Oldtimer

Hi Cristian, you asked if your starter box has enough ventilation, personally I don't think so. It may work this time but longer term you should add more.

Thing is, you are working with bees that are trapped in there. they think it is very important to find a way out. Bees do not understand mesh, so they will cram into those holes trying to force their way out & can cause a complete blockage and suffocate the box.

Also, mesh on the bottom gets blocked by dead bees and easily blocked by live ones, the best method for a starter box is to have a strip of mesh along the bottom of each side. A common size is strip 4 inches high along the length of each box, at the bottom of each side.

With temperatures at 60 it may be OK this time although it is a risk. If the bees get hot they will not build the queen cells and if they are still alive when you open the starter you may not know why they didn't.


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## WBVC

When attempting to graft:

How long can you keep brood on the original frame out of the hive?
Do you have to keep them both humid and warm? If so someone mentioned wrapping in a warm towel yet that will cool very quickly and cooled and damp is cold.

Same question re the recipient graft.

I don't expect cold, dehydrated larvae fair well.

As far as "priming" the cells with a drop of water. This will also cool quickly. How warm is the water one uses? Must it be distilled water? Do you use a 25g needle or smaller to get a tiny drop...what gage needle do you use.

I like the idea of putting the donor frame in the builder to get a bit more jelly.

It is amazing how anxious I get at the thought of doing a graft when surgery and manual dexterity is a routine part of my life

The Mannlake Queen rearing kit came last week...the grafting stuff was on back order. Perhaps that is a hint


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## cristianNiculae

Thanks very much Oldtimer, I will do it as you prescribed. 

No more questions. I hope I'll come with some good results after all this theory and preparations. I've read so much that I have tons of bees in my dreams at nights )

As I've said, the copper wire manually built graft tool works like a charm although the cells were not having an abundance of royall jelly. It works even without tearing the cells. The magnifying head lamp only complicates things and I just use a small flashlight.



> How long can you keep brood on the original frame out of the hive?


I guess it's time to just go along with it:



> On July 2nd 2013 I was involved in filming for a couple of beekeeping teaching videos. It was a boiling hot day with little breeze. I demonstrated grafting, including transferring larvae into cut away cell cups. It took over *2 hours* to complete the whole bar of 10. As it was done for the camera I didn't intend to use them, but I had another colony where we filmed it with a queen, then removed the queen and filmed it again 2 hours later to see the difference in behaviour. Just to see what happened I put the cell bar in this colony. When I checked the next morning there were *8 acceptances*!


http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/grafting.html

I have so little time . I depend on starting the larvae on thursday in order to have a full saturday to form the nucs and add the queen cells to them.


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## Michael Bush

The nicest thing about graftless systems is it eliminates the grafting issues and lets you master the other issues of queen rearing. Once those other issues are mastered (timing, cell starters etc.) then you can focus on mastering grafting without wondering if it is your grafting or your cell starter or your timing or some other thing that is the problem There are many FREE graftless methods that require no expense or special equipment at all. Probably the simplest with the least equipment is the Hopkins method. Next is the Miller method. The Better Queens, Alley and Hopkins original method are simple enough but require cell bars and wax melting etc. All of these books are available here:

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesoldbooks.htm

After you can raise queens without grafting, you will know if your issues are with your grafting or something else.


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## cristianNiculae

I did the grafting yesterday. That was the easy part. The tough one was the shaking of bees into the starter without a funnel. I kept shaking, they kept comming out. I'm not sure of how much I've put in. I had a delimiter on 2'' as Dave Cushman suggests and I'm not sure of the amount of bees. There were about 2 frames with polen and honey and bees and another 6 frames of shaken bees. I've also added a frame with water.
I can't wait to see the results this evening when I move the bar frame to the finisher hive. I've grafted about 25 cups. I don't need that much but I put more as I'm at my first experience of this kind and I need a margin for error.

Hehe... I can now see/feel the difference between theory and practice. You have to be very organized in order to make these things happen and I thought I was, until now. 

Thanks for support,
Cristian


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## deknow

The only reason a funnel is a good idea is if it has a queen excluder built in (so you don't shake the queen or the other queen into the cell builder). This is important if you are on a tight production schedule or if you have problems finding queens.

Otherwise, simply remove a few frames from the "target" box and shake the frames in the gap created by the missing frames. A frame of open brood will help hold the bees in the box. Snaking the free absolutely vertical helps also.


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## cristianNiculae

First timers are always stressful to me. I shook them vertically, no brood frames just stores. I probably haven't sprayed them enough.

Conclusions: need a better veil, better smoker... (got some bees under the veil.. had to stop... one sting in the head, lost things through the yard)

What do you guys do if it rains on day 10? Use umbrellas? Leave the queen cells in God's hands?


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## deknow

For shaking nurse bees, I've never sprayed the bees with anything...you may just need to get used to the process.

Raising queens is the point in beekeeping where convenience and weather get ignored..


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## cristianNiculae

deknow said:


> Raising queens is the point in beekeeping where convenience and weather get ignored..


Nice one.


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## deknow

To clarify, the shaking should happen with the frame 3/4 of the way IN the box you are shaking into...not over the box. A frame of open brood will hold bees in the box.


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## Michael Bush

>>What do you guys do if it rains on day 10? Use umbrellas? Leave the queen cells in God's hands? 
>Raising queens is the point in beekeeping where convenience and weather get ignored.. 

That's one of the things that just goes with queen rearing. What I have to do today, I HAVE to do today... the queens wait for no man...


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## deknow

Michael Bush said:


> ... the queens wait for no man...


In my experience, this is true of humans as well... it is usually the man that is waiting for the queen.


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## Oldtimer

If you are shaking bees into a starter box, you will probably have at least 2 combs in the box for clustering and food. During the shaking put one on each side of the box. As the shaken bees run up the side of the box they get to the frame and pause a bit on the comb. If you have the box you are shaking from set up so you can quickly get frames out and in you will get the job done no worries. Speed is the essence. Like you say, some experience helps you will now be thinking about what you can do better, and next time you will improve.


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## cristianNiculae

Well... seems like I have towards 100% acceptance of the cells(much more then I need). I've just moved them to the finisher together with all the bees from the starter.



























Thanks again for all the input given. It really payed.

Cristian


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## Lauri

Cheap umbrella and a weighted stand are handy in ugly weather when opening a hive for queen rearing is necessary. It's easy to move around and easy to store closed up until the next time. (Makes nice shade too) Look for weighted stands at garage sales. This umbrella was on sale at Rite aid for $19.99.


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## Oldtimer

Nice work Cristian you have done thorough research and it has paid off! 

Please keep the thread updated with progress.


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## cristianNiculae

> Well... seems like I have towards 100% acceptance of the cells


Well... it seems that the fish isn't that fat and long . I've just opened the hive a few minutes ago and saw 15 or 16 QC's out of 25 wich means 60% acceptance.
Fine with me.


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## cristianNiculae

About queen castles:

I need some advice regarding the quantity of bees in the queen castles. I was thinking on *1 frame brood + 1 frame stores with the bees on them*.

We still can have down to 45 F during nights and in the upper 60's during the day.

Thanks.


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## Oldtimer

If your nights are that cold you will need quite a few bees in there to keep the brood covered. Because you are making up the nucs from hives and the brood, at first at least, may not be the best shape for the design of the nuc, you'll need the bees that are on the combs when you make them, plus maybe a shake from another comb. Later in the season when things are warmer you need not be quite so fussy.

What I do is gauge it by the brood comb, a comb with only a small circular patch of brood will not need as many bees as one with a full comb of brood.


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## cristianNiculae

So I should aim for brood coverage. I have different boxes configurations: 3x3, 2x5 and 2x2.

Let's take the 2x2 configuration:

1 frame brood + bees
1 frame stores + bees
1 shaken frame of bees

Is it correct?

I could also make them more strong(that would mean dissolving some colonies - which I'm going to do anyway later in the season) and then later in the season further divide them. Do you think this would be a better strategy?(I would still like to have 3 strong colonies in order to take advantage on the black locust flow)

http://www.meteoblue.com/en/romania/weather-racoviţa-27585/14-days

I'm so unsure on how to do it having so few resources


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## Sasha

cristianNiculae said:


> First timers are always stressful to me...
> What do you guys do if it rains on day 10? Use umbrellas? Leave the queen cells in God's hands?


Queen rearing you do, no matter if rain, sun of snow. It is on a tight schedule.


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## Oldtimer

cristianNiculae said:


> 1 frame brood + bees
> 1 frame stores + bees
> 1 shaken frame of bees(


That should be right for your situation. However it's also a judgement call, things I factor in are how far the brood is away from hatching & what the weather forecast is for the next few days, if the nucs will be near enough to the parent colony for any drift to happen, and after that I just eyeball how many bees seem right in that nuc.

I never make them too strong either that has it's own set of problems. But initially and in your current weather pattern go with what looks like a good solid amount of bees if clustered tightly on the brood and still cover all of it.


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## cristianNiculae

OK. Thanks Oldtimer. We all need some education.


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## cristianNiculae

I just transfered the QC's to mating nucs. The pupae are still white on day 10 after grafting. Could it be because of the bad weather we had? (I opened one of them)







How do they look? I have no idea if they are good or not 

A couple of them were completely engulfed in wax including the head. Are these still good?

They are suppose to hatch on Tuesday.

Thanks


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## Oldtimer

Nice work Cristian.

Yes some can still be white on day 10, should at least have purple eyes though, my theory is if they were not immediately well fed after grafting they can be delayed but not totally sure if that is really why someone else may know. The lack of any nectar in the comb shows the bees had nothing much coming in & the cells usually are a bit slower when that happens.

looking forward to seeing the pics of some mated queens!


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## cristianNiculae

The weather was definetely not in favour but the next week looks promising in the weather forecast. I kept feeding sugar syrup 2 days before starter til the queen cells were capped. The finisher took about a gallon.


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## Dave1958

cristianNiculae said:


> I just transfered the QC's to mating nucs. The pupae are still white on day 10 after grafting. Could it be because of the bad weather we had? (I opened one of them)
> View attachment 10891
> 
> How do they look? I have no idea if they are good or not
> 
> A couple of them were completely engulfed in wax including the head. Are these still good?
> 
> They are suppose to hatch on Tuesday.
> 
> Thanks


Were the cells engulfed in the wax comb good or did the bees just draw it?


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## cristianNiculae

> Were the cells engulfed in the wax comb good or did the bees just draw it?


The bees draw it. Weird to me... how would those queens get out of all that wax?


I think I have *robbing* on some of the nucs. It's hard to tell as there is no fighting... too much activity though and the syrup is sucked too soon(200 ml in less than 12 hours and all nucs are 2 deep frames). I closed entrances today on the suspect ones.

About the nucs population: I also noticed 2 of them (I opened some with less activity on the entrance) having few bees left.

These things are so delicate and I really feel helpless . I know I don't have to disturb them in this phase. The cells should emerge starting from tomorow. Should I shake some more bees into some of them when I get back home or should I leave them alone until the cells hatch?

I don't know wether this stuff is suitable for people that don't have the time to be in the apiary during the day also. I'm curious to see what I get in the end. So far the odds doesn't look favourable.


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## Oldtimer

Feeding syrup to brand new nucs can be a mistake unless the beekeeper is experienced how to do it.

What happens is you make the nucs, they do not have a queen you give them a queen cell. So all the older bees who know their way home return to the original hive. But they will often return to the nuc to rob it. The nuc only has young bees left of not flying age, which means they are not guard duty age. They do not defend the nuc. Also, the robber bees smell the same cos they are from the same hive, they just walk right in. With all this happening, if you also feed syrup, the situation can be hopeless.

So, what to do about it. If you make nucs and have them in the same yard as the parent colony, they should be started with about twice as many bees as you want to end up with because a lot of them will return to the parent hive. the entrance should be tiny, just one or two bees wide. After a week some of the bees will be older and can do guard duty so the entrance can be opened wider at that time. Do not feed syrup this is very important, give them enough honey in the comb to last a couple of weeks, after that they can be fed syrup provided there is no robbing.

Cristian for your nucs at the moment, not a good plan to add more bees it can just cause more robbing. Best to remove any syrup you are feeding, make the entrances really small, and wait to see if they can get the robbing under control. If they have been completely robbed out and have nothing, late evening pour 1/2 a cup of sugar syrup over the bees so they can consume it, they should eat it all and leave none to attract robbers the next day, if they cannot eat it give them less. Do this every evening till robbing subsides & the bees take control of their own hive, should take a week or two. After that you can carefully feed them some syrup in the normal way, but carefully.


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## cristianNiculae

Thank you so much.
This are really useful advices. Feeding nucs is very dangerous stuff indeed.


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## Orje

You can also try to move the nucs to another location within the bee yard. Do this in the evening then no robber bees are flying. 50 meters may be enough.


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## Orje

One way to prevent robbing of nucs is to place the nuc close to the mother beehive then you set it up. In the evening or next day then all the field bees has flown back to the origin hive its safe to move it to any location.
My experience is that field bees never start robbing nucs that stand close to the mother beehive.


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## cristianNiculae

I've made a quick inspection in some of the nucs and united 4 of them into 2; found some hatched queens 

About grafting in general: I think it's more suitable for queen rearing operations and doesn't worth the effort if you don't need so many queens. I think M. Bush has made this very clear on his site.

I'm glad that I did it but now bees have made it easier for me as they started swarm preparations in 3 of my hives. I've made 2 nucs with the old queens and I'm planning some more splits using the new queen cells.
Since the best time for rearing queens is when they start naturally, I will just take advantage of their work.


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## cristianNiculae

Orje said:


> One way to prevent robbing of nucs is to place the nuc close to the mother beehive then you set it up. In the evening or next day then all the field bees has flown back to the origin hive its safe to move it to any location.
> My experience is that field bees never start robbing nucs that stand close to the mother beehive.


Thanks for the tip. Now I really don't know wich nuc came from what hive :scratch: mixing up frames from 5 hives. I don't know if I ever will be more organized.


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## Oldtimer

cristianNiculae said:


> doesn't worth the effort if you don't need so many queens.


Cristian, you have made all the rookie mistakes and found the going tough, and have sounded frustrated at times. But you have learned a lot, next time you graft you will likely get good results, and next time you set up nucs you may do a better job.

Trust me, once a person knows what they are doing, all this is pretty simple. Going through the initial mistakes and losses is hard, in terms of work, time spent, resources and emotional involvement. But once a person gets to the point od experience where they can go into this pretty much knowing what results to expect and not making mistakes, it gets fairly simple and quite rewarding. I think you are at the stage now where you know most of the things that can go wrong and will find it easier next time.

Making nucs and putting them in the same site is always a gamble, me, I always move them somewhere else, makes life a lot easier.


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## beedeetee

I have had bees entomb queen cells before. They always left the tip of the queen cell uncovered so she could get out. It wasn't easy for me (I cut between the cells with a knife and attached the comb in the mating nucs), but I could see that the queens would not be stuck in the comb.

Now I use frames with narrower top bars. The bees draw much less comb than with the normal width top bars that I started with.


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## Oldtimer

beedeetee said:


> Now I use frames with narrower top bars. The bees draw much less comb than with the normal width top bars that I started with.


That's something I've wondered about Beedeetee and may try. Do you have any problems with the bees attaching the cells to the combs on the side?


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## deknow

I usually pick the comb away with my fingers if I'm going to put it in an incubator, cutting between them first.

Kirk Webster uses narrow frames (basically frames without the Hoffman style spacers in the end bars), and says this is the reason. I keep telling myself I'm going to try it, but haven't gotten around to it.

deknow


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## beedeetee

Oldtimer said:


> ...Do you have any problems with the bees attaching the cells to the combs on the side?


I'm not sure I follow you. Are you talking about bridging comb from the queen cells to the comb on the frame either side of the cell bar frame? If so, no it hasn't happened. This frame was actually sent to me by mistake several years ago with an order and they told me to keep it. It is painted purple on the top and is quite narrow. I used to use the Jenter system which used a normal width top bar. Many of my cells bars looked like the attached picture above. Yeah, I cut and tore comb away from the cells as best I could. After I started grafting I started using the narrow bar and I have much less comb attached to the cells.


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## PeterP

I have been following this thread closely as I also decided to raise a few queens for the first time. I am a hobbyist with 6 hives. I followed Randy Oliver's technique. Scraping a space on a pollen frame and pressing the grafted cups into the space. The grafting went better then I expected. I had 9 of 10 accepted. I lost one more during the maturing period, however, the bees also started a rogue q Cell with a larvae I didn't know was on the pollen frame. Tomorrow I move them into nucs for mating.

I have discovered it takes a lot of bees to raise 10 queens. I reduced two of my 6 hives severely to load up the starter finisher (4 frame nuc). I am using 8 four frame nucs (plus the starter/finisher) for mating and these are using a lot of bees as well. Once I get them mated, I will be happy with 5 mated queens, I will double queen my hives to get them back to production levels and then think about doing it again. I would like to end the season with 6 production hives and 4 nucs going into the winter. 

I get three honey flows/crops each year and may miss out on the first flow because the hives will not have recovered in time. Raspberry, star thistle, goldenrod. In the summer 8 queen cells are worth about $80. My raspberry honey flow is worth $300-$400. 

If I was able to start over I would wait until latter in the season to start. The hives I rob for bees would be stronger and less concern about cold weather. Next year I am planning on using the over wintered nucs to maintain my production hives and raising the queens latter in the year. 

Regards PeterP


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## cristianNiculae

> I followed Randy Oliver's technique. Scraping a space on a pollen frame and pressing the grafted cups into the space.


I read Randy's site a lot but I don't really understand this technique. What's the advantage over the standard cell bar? Cells closer to the pollen? I guees it's related to making pollen more available... and plastic cups are a must in this case. In my opinion it's not any easier to do.



Oldtimer said:


> Making nucs and putting them in the same site is always a gamble, me, I always move them somewhere else, makes life a lot easier.


Thanks so much Oldtimer. I need to find a mating yard for the future.

Do you think that Jay Smith solution on keeping the nucs closed for 3 days would work better? Did you try it?

I also started to use narrow frames with spacers. It was simpler for me to build and you can fit 11 frames in a box - will see what comes out of it.


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## Oldtimer

Been a while since I read Jay Smith, cannot remember why he locked nucs up for 3 days. Commercial breeders often lock nucs up for 3 days so the bees are not released until after the queen cell has hatched. If the nuc is close to the parent colony, locking the bees in for 3 days will not help much with drifting once the bees are released, even though some books tell you it does.


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## mbc

Oldtimer said:


> If the nuc is close to the parent colony, locking the bees in for 3 days will not help much with drifting once the bees are released, even though some books tell you it does.


One trick to stop bees drifting back to a parent hive on the same site is to make them queenless a while (ideally, about a week or more) before splitting them, when they are then split up and put into different boxes in slightly different positions they seem to have much less inclination to drift back than if they'd been split while queenright.


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## PeterP

cristianNiculae said:


> What's the advantage over the standard cell bar? Cells closer to the pollen?


Cristian, I think Randy sees scraping out a frame as eliminating one piece of special equipment. He has provided a very simplified description of the minimum needed to raise a few good queens. He is trying to encourage people to raise their own local queens. Not needing a bar means not having one more excuse for not giving it a try. 

Regards Peter


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## cristianNiculae

mbc said:


> One trick to stop bees drifting back to a parent hive on the same site is to make them queenless a while (ideally, about a week or more) before splitting them, when they are then split up and put into different boxes in slightly different positions they seem to have much less inclination to drift back than if they'd been split while queenright.


I just left 3 hives queenless as I've made 3 nucs with the old queens. I did that because they started QC's. I looked yesterday and they had not so many cells started  so I started a new batch of grafts in order to have proper queens raised in a powerfull colony. I will tear down all cells and when the new cells are riped I will make some more nucs out of these queenless colonies.
So thanks for the tip.

A very clear description regarding the care for the mating nucs:
http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/twoframenuc.html



> ...
> If you are leaving the nuc in the same apiary, or moving it within flying distance, then some of the bees will fly home. I don't trust the methods of blocking up the entrance or putting straw or branches in front of the hive. I either shake a couple of frames of bees from unsealed brood into the box, or put a sloping board up in front of the box as if you were hiving a swarm and shake several combs of bees onto the bottom of the board. The flyers will go home and the young bees will crawl up the board and go into the box. These bees can be from several colonies if you wish as it is only young bees that will enter the nuc box and they won't fight. This is a good way of weakening other colonies that can afford losing a few bees.
> ...


...and on requeening using QC:
http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/queencelluse.html



> The safest way of introducing a queen cell is to make the colony queenless for 8-9 days, then remove all emergency cells and introduce your Q/C. This might appear excessive, but I have found that colonies can sometimes "hold back" a few larvae and still make viable emergency cells.


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## cristianNiculae

Hehe... 16 acceptances on new grafts out of 20 I think. The hives that remained queenless dissapointed me.
In conclusion *queen starter + finisher + grafting rules*. At least in my experience.

The nucs are a failure. I've only seen 3 virgins in them. The other seems queenless. All of them had QC's started. I think the cells might have been not so well fed as OT suggested. The weather was a nightmare and they only had sugar syrup and some pollen in the combs. What's odd is that all QC's given to the nucs looked like they hatched normally and not torn by the bees. Maybe the robber killed them or who knows... maybe I haven't been able to see them all.

I'm optimistic right now as the weather turned fine and we finally have a flow.


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## cristianNiculae

So my leassons learned as a newbie:

1. Don't raise queens untill bees do, or at least when there is a flow
2. Carefull with feeding the nucs(it's very easy to just pour sugar syrup into the frames and on the bees when it's the case)
3. I found that grafting itself is very easy
4. The breeder frame inside the starter really helped in grafting afterwards
5. Put all the frames to be shaken in the starter at hand so you only put the lid on, once, when you're done shaking
6. I think putting the nuc nearby the donor colony before moving further away helped in preventing the robbing though here I'm not that sure as in my case the robbing was caused by rude feeding
7. Make nucs 7-8 days before giving them the cells (tear all their cells before introducing yours)

Best regards,
Cristian


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## PeterP

Cristian, hope you don't mind if I add my lessons learned as well.



> 1. Don't raise queens untill bees do, or at least when there is a flow


 Agree, plus wait until you have enough bees. Raising 10 queens with a free flying queenless nuc uses a lot of bees. Plus the mating nucs.


> 2. Carefull with feeding the nucs(it's very easy to just pour sugar syrup into the frames and on the bees when it's the case)


 I didn't feed


> 3. I found that grafting itself is very easy


 agree


> 4. The breeder frame inside the starter really helped in grafting afterwards


 I plan to try this next time. The "wetter" larvae the easier to graft. 


> 5. Put all the frames to be shaken in the starter at hand so you only put the lid on, once, when you're done shaking


 I just shook frames of bees into my 5 frame starter box and let the foragers fly home. The nurse bees stay. I did it during the afternoon with a flow on so had no robbing issues. 


> 6. I think putting the nuc nearby the donor colony before moving further away helped in preventing the robbing though here I'm not that sure as in my case the robbing was caused by rude feeding


 I had no robbing issues, no feeding and a flow.


> 7. Make nucs 7-8 days before giving them the cells (tear all their cells before introducing yours)


 I made up mating nucs 24 hours before transfer and didn't check for cells. My mating nucs were a frame of honey, open feed, small patch of open brood, emerging brood. No issues yet.

The eye opener for me was not anticipating impact on donor hives. The starter nuc took all the nurse bees from 2 of my six hives. The 8 nucs took a frame with open brood and a frame of emerging brood each = 16 frames. The honey and open feed came from dead outs. I plan to look at 4x2 mating nuc for next time. Plus not so early in season to avoid cool weather which is why I couldn't make 2 frame nucs in 5 frame boxes.

Best regards,
Peter


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## snl

Read up on the Cloake board......use one hive as starter and finisher........


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## Daniel Y

on the use of a lot of bees issue. I used Walts checker boarding and nectar management methods since February to build up 12 production colonies. If nothing else it makes a whole lot of bees. one 5 frame nuc building up to 40 fraems of bees. All 12 of the colonies building up to 50 to 60 frames of bees. In addition I built a cell builder in the midst of this. On a side not I noticed an interesting side effect of taking brood from any queen to supply a cell builder. It takes a frame from that queen but supplies her with new space to lay. the burden of rearing that first frame of brood off the colony and places it on the cell builder. The result is 10 frames removed from the apiary as a whole is also 10 new empty fraems of brood produced. In effect out get 20 frames of brood produced where you otherwise woudl only have had 10.

Sorry if that last bit is confusing. I tend to see through the obvious and easily see the intricate and complex. I suspect few people would make this observation of 10 additional fraems produced. it is obvious to me.

Anyway I started my grafting and queen rearing with no where near anything like a shortage of bees. We then proceeded to split p these bees into 2 frame compartments. 192 frames of bees to queen castles alone. More to 5 frame nucs. and quite a few went with the parent colonies to an outyard. in total we had produced nearly 500 frames of bees from 12 colonies and 10 overwintered nucs.

By now you must be wondering, Where is this loss of bees thing he started to talk about"? So here it is. Of the 192 frames of bees we placed in queen castles. we have only retrieved 50. A significant number of those have converted to laying workers. And we have not been getting the mated queens expected to help restore this loss of bees. Our original hives are fine. they are queenright and in an outyard working on making honey. Our queen rearing yard has been decimated. At least temporarily. we are starting to see signs we will make the turn around. get the queens needed and start restoring this loss of bees.

My overall imprecision is I don't see how anyone does it with average populations. We currently have 35 confirmed mated queens in all. with an additional 13 yet to be confirmed. I have no idea how many are still in mating compartments but we took tremendous losses of virgin queens. 100% there for a while. That has dropped to about 75% or so in the past few days which is better than nothing.


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## jim lyon

Guess I have always been a minority here on Beesource in that I am an advocate of simplicity for those starting out raising queens. My preference is to use, for queen raising, what you primarily use for your outfit as a whole. A deep with a divider down the middle and 2 frames of brood and bees on each side may not be the most efficient use of bees and brood per queen raised but give you a very high probability of success, lots of room for feed (you can even use an in hive feeder in a pinch) and brood and the option of either caging and re-celling or letting it grow into a full 4 comb nuc for later use or sale. We often do hundreds of these when we run long on brood and have always had extremely high success rates.


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## Daniel Y

Jim, I may have to agree with you on the success issue. It is still to soon and I have not had time to let the fog clear.

What I do see an issue with is this. and I will apply it to myself. If I where to take your advice and practice rearing queens in divided ten frame boxes. what have I accomplished? I have learned how to rear queens in a manner that has no value to me next year. I may have produced increase but am no better suited to manage it than when I started.

For me it is clear that if my goal is to produce massive numbers of queens then I am restricted to methods that achieve that goal. difficult as it may be. It is not nor has it ever been my goal to achieve easy beekeeping. I fully intend to achieve exceptional beekeeping. you do not reach exceptional by taking easy roads. It may be that I fail but when I do I will fail big. that is because you only loose big when you lay it all on the line. and I keep it all on the line every day. I would consider 2 queens reared in divided super a failure. Simply because I know that that same equipment is capable of producing 4 queens in the same period of time. And if it is at all possible I will figure out how to make it 10.


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## jim lyon

Daniel Y said:


> Jim, I may have to agree with you on the success issue. It is still to soon and I have not had time to let the fog clear.
> 
> What I do see an issue with is this. and I will apply it to myself. If I where to take your advice and practice rearing queens in divided ten frame boxes. what have I accomplished? I have learned how to rear queens in a manner that has no value to me next year. I may have produced increase but am no better suited to manage it than when I started.
> 
> For me it is clear that if my goal is to produce massive numbers of queens then I am restricted to methods that achieve that goal. difficult as it may be. It is not nor has it ever been my goal to achieve easy beekeeping. I fully intend to achieve exceptional beekeeping. you do not reach exceptional bys taking easy roads. It may be that I fail but when I do I will fail big. that is because you only loose big when you lay it all on the line. and I keep it all on the line every day. I would consider 2 queens reared in divided super a failure. Simply because I know that that same equipment is capable of producing 4 queens in the same period of time. And if it is at all possible I will figure out how to make it 10.


Then do it in a divided medium. My point is the smaller the unit, the greater the difficulty in maintaining a sustainable size because of the lack of brood rearing area for the newly raised queen. I also believe a case can be made that the longer a queen is allowed to lay before caging, the higher probability that she will become an exceptional queen. Personally I don't want to ever cage them, just keep them going in a nuc and transfer them when they grow out of their space. Such nucs are quite valuable in their own right. Certainly queens can be raised in very small units, and typically are, by large commercial queen producers but they also have to have extra hives in reserve for bulk bee boosting of the units that dwindle in size. My point is just that beginners may be better served by keeping things simple until they become more familiar with the whole process of queen rearing. 
This isn't a criticism, Daniel, I admire your ambition, it's just my point of view based on my experiences and requirements.


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## Oldtimer

Daniel Y said:


> It is not nor has it ever been my goal to achieve easy beekeeping.


Essentially I disagree with that concept. Me, I do everything the easiest way possible, and doing things the hard way will lead to failure.


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## cristianNiculae

I was wondering whether to put this or not on the not to do list for the future and you guys have added it.

I don't like divided small boxes especially 2 by 2 in 5 frame nuc... covers bending in the sun creating bee space above dividers(on 3 x 2 in standard box), not enough space for maneuvering the frames etc. I'm sure it fits the needs on larger queen operations but I won't use them again.

At first I thought I would not have enough boxes for the bees that's why I divided them. Another reason was that I really had no idea how bees really multiply in the Spring. So in conclusion I could have used standard boxes from the beginning, placing them on their final stands.

...
I'm thinking on using Michael Palmer/Kirk Webster/Peter Edwards/Cloake board/and who knows who else method of combined starter/finisher. I had some dramatic experiences forming the starter. As I don't have a bee suit and can't stand heat I've been stung a lot and I would better not do it again .
I read Joseph Clemens method also.
...

My personal conclusion after reading all the above: *I still stick with the classical method*. The only problems I need to solve to make it work more smoothly is better protection for myself + queen marking.

I will try to make some pictures with my new bee yard with lots of queenless nucs and hives ... and not to mention the chickens standing upon the more inactive ones :lpf:

Thanks a lot.


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## beedeetee

beedeetee said:


> I have had bees entomb queen cells before. They always left the tip of the queen cell uncovered so she could get out. It wasn't easy for me (I cut between the cells with a knife and attached the comb in the mating nucs), but I could see that the queens would not be stuck in the comb.
> 
> Now I use frames with narrower top bars. The bees draw much less comb than with the normal width top bars that I started with.


Well, I just went out to transfer my queen cells into mating nucs from the narrow bar and found it full of comb. So, I guess it depends on the hive. For the past couple of years I haven't noticed as much comb between the queen cells with the narrow bar. But this bunch of bees didn't mind it at all. The burr comb was easy to cut out although they were starting to fill it with honey. Our flow is starting and I had forced a large hive into a single deep for a queenless starter/finisher. I think they ran out of places to put honey.


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## cristianNiculae

Some pics with my nuc yard, started out, probably, in the cheapest posible way:





















I want to try some minis(with cells) also when the cells are ripped. I already prepared them and they sit on the circular saw table. I know my bee yard and everything are messy but I can live with it. I simply don't have the time to put things in order and I concentrate on the essence - the bees.

Have a nice Sunday,
Cristian at 7 AM EEST


Forgot to say that I'm going to paint all white after noticing the difference in temperature btw. the white boxes and the green darker ones, wich can be also measured by the numbers of fanners at the entrance.


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## cristianNiculae

Hello again,

I've got at least 6 mated queens from the first round(out of 12 nucs). I'll make some pictures when the weather will be better. They all have alternating black and orange on their abdomen.

On the second round (most of the cells just hatched yesterday) I got some problem - two or three of the nucs have _uncovered capped brood_.

The weather didn't permit any operation as it rained starting from Friday and still cold and rainy today. I guess I have to accept some losses.

_Q: At what temperature uncovered capped brood dies?_


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## cristianNiculae

I have 17 mated queens so far, all laying nice. No more problems nor questions. I worked a lot and it really worth it.





















Thanks guys and thank God!


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## Oldtimer

Nice work Cristian it's good when it all comes together.

What are you going to do with these bees and what will you do with all the honey?


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## kilocharlie

Cristian - Excellent stick-to-it-ivness! And how excellent of those who stuck by you and advised from experience. Fine team work, everyone. :applause: 

After reading this thread, I have the one missing link for more success - move my nuc's 10 miles away and keep them closed for 3 days after planting QC's. Looking back, I have always had more success when I moved the nuc's away from the queen yard. By now, that should be automatic! It's NEVER too late to learn...

That decides it for me - there is still nectar flow time for a limited run of queens, and the bee resources have increased some. I will check total frames of brood and see if all things are go. I just got some more feeders, frames, and foundation, so will give it a go to make nucs-for-sale, if everything looks right.

MB - Thanks for the link to your old books section.

So, from now on, when making up my nuc's, the boxes will get built directly on the trailer, already bolted down in place, ready for loading up frames, going queenless over night, planting the queen cells, closing them up, and DRIVING TO THE OUTYARD, where they will stay for at least a month.

I'm definitely starting to think about making up more 6-frame, vented nucleus boxes and stocking 5 frames + a 1-frame sized feeder inside the box. Like Jim Lyon and Michael Bush have both said, keep it simple and master the rest of queen rearing before getting too fussy about any one technique or detail.

Thank you, everyone, great thread!


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## cristianNiculae

Oldtimer said:


> Nice work Cristian it's good when it all comes together.
> 
> What are you going to do with these bees and what will you do with all the honey?


The honey from the production colonies(1 ) already given to nucs. I still have to make another round of queens in order to replace the old ones and probably make more nucs until late July, depending on how fast the existing buildup. The truth is that if I had some drawn combs at hand I could increase a lot more but I don't want to risk buying because of the diseases - safer without them.

I'm planning to start a queen rearing operation + sell overwintered nucs in early Spring. I want to give up my life as a computer programmer or at least reduce it to a minimum. Life at the office sucks. I like working in plain sun without a roof above me.


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