# Move QC's 10th or 11th day?



## asd (Jun 10, 2015)

Is it safe to move it on 10th day? I see calendars recommends either one or the other.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

I do the tenth day, the cells usually emerge on the 12th day.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

But sometimes they emerge on day 10-11


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## Adrian Quiney WI (Sep 14, 2007)

Mike, do you find that the weather makes a difference, and if so do you remove them on the 9th day?


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

asd said:


> Is it safe to move it on 10th day? I see calendars recommends either one or the other.


Safe? Of course, with a reasonable amount of care. More specifically day 10 (or 240 hours after grafting) is when they should be removed as my experience is that some may emerge within the next 12 hours, and it only takes one to do a lot of damage. My procedure is to ALWAYS pull at approximately 240 hours and incubate overnight at 89 degrees and its rare to have a hatch. 4 to 5 degrees warmer than that and you may see as many as 5 to 10% hatching.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

I remove cells on day 10. Having a hot summer here and I've had some emerge early...destroyed some cells. Not a common thing to happen here, but it does occasionally


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## asd (Jun 10, 2015)

It happened to me once this year that's why I was asking. It might be because of older aged larvae though I pay attention to this aspect. There were some hot days - above 30 C.

Thank you


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

I take it day 1 is day of grafting. For those of use without special boxes that allow fairly exact aging of larva, would capping time be a more accurate gauge of where they are in their development vs day of grafting? How much variability is there in capping time vs larva development (ie are some larvae capped early regardless of how far along it is)


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

lharder said:


> I take it day 1 is day of grafting. For those of use without special boxes that allow fairly exact aging of larva, would capping time be a more accurate gauge of where they are in their development vs day of grafting? How much variability is there in capping time vs larva development (ie are some larvae capped early regardless of how far along it is)


Yes, the "day thing" can be confusing thats why I referred to hours after grafting. If they were grafted on the 1st then you should remove them no later than the 11th as some may well hatch by the morning of the 12th and the majority (depending a lot on temps) will probably hatch by that evening. If you want to go by capping time then I would say they should be removed 5 days after they are initially capped.


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

On the 10th I make mating nucs and move ripe cell to the mini hives. Reason being if you have taken grafts of some larger larvae (up to 48 h old larvae make perfect queens!), there are sometimes already hatched queens on the 11th. If this happens, I just drop the queen among the slightly moistened bees. Just hatched queens(under 24h) move slowly which for the bees is a reassuring thing.

Plus if there comes heavy rain on the 10th then you have 11th for backup.

Graft day is day 0.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Yes, for me, graft day is day 0 and I move cells on day 10.
If removing queens to get cells drawn instead of grafting, then the day I remove the queen is day 0, and I cut out cells on day 10.


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## DrJeseuss (May 28, 2015)

From carefully watching, I've seen capping to vary a a day or more even between equally aged larvae. I've also seen capping occur all at once even when larva is of several days variance. I personally wouldn't trust anything with cap date.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

Yes, there is always going to be some variation but 5 days should be safe IF you are certain of exactly when it was capped. Bottom line is to always err on the side of early hatching rather than late.


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

Thanks for the clarification. Day 0, Day 10, with one day to buffer for weather. 

I was wondering about the capping times. Could it be that early capping is an indication of an abundance of resources so the cell is provisioned well enough when the larva is still young?

I have a few extra cells on my latest cut cell attempt so I get to do some sampling on cell placement day to see how much royal jelly the cells have left after development.


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## asd (Jun 10, 2015)

That means I moved the cells on day 9. I use Solomon's Parker XLS calendar. The puppae are not in the sensitive stage any more as far as I've read on day 9. Anyway... we'll see what happens cause I haven't taken any special precautions when moving the cells. For the future I might take into consideration also the temperatures on choosing the harvest day.

http://parkerfarms.biz/Documents/QueenCalendar.xlsx


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

I moved the cap cells on day 7 when I don't know the exact
age of the grafted larvae. This is so to compensate for the foragers
flying back to the parent hive. After even out the bees I know exactly how
much bees to put in the mating nucs. It is better to move them earlier. By then
the larvae are already developed into a nice size grub passed the sensitive stage.


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

It doesn't really matter - sooner or later you will have an early hatch that will spoil the whole batch.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

beepro said:


> I moved the cap cells on day 7 when I don't know the exact
> age of the grafted larvae. This is so to compensate for the foragers
> flying back to the parent hive. After even out the bees I know exactly how
> much bees to put in the mating nucs. It is better to move them earlier. By then
> the larvae are already developed into a nice size grub passed the sensitive stage.


Day 7 after grafting is smack dab in the middle of the sensitive stage.

How does moving cells early compensate for foragers returning?


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## wdale (Jun 27, 2014)

The following is my Queen rearing cheat sheet (copyed from my excel program can send to any one who wants) I Start with "DAY 1" at day of egg laying in then used normal egg to hatch day for queen. I have used both "NICOT method and or starting from eggs I have not done any grafting, but in grafting would think you start 3-4 day that have just hatched into larvae


Queen Rearing Calculator	

Sunday, June 5, 2016 Egg Start

Day #	Calender Day Nicot Method & Preparations/Notes
A	Sunday, June 5, 2016 Prepare cell starter for Queen to lay Prepare cell builder colonies.
1	Monday, June 6, 2016 The egg is being laid by the queen mother. 
2	Tuesday, June 7, 2016	Release queen, having confined her yesterday. 
3	Wednesday, June 8, 2016	Transfer "Hatched" larvae and put queen cells in cell
builder colonies. 
***Timing VERY important***	Place on into cell bars
USE THIS DAY FOR GRAFTING ***Be sure of age of larvae***
4	Thursday, June 9, 2016 Transfer "Hatched" larvae and 
put queen cells in cell builder colonies 
Bees should have started to draw out the cells and 
feed the larvae with royal jelly
6	Saturday, June 11, 2016 
7	Sunday, June 12, 2016 
8	Monday, June 13, 2016 Queen cells capped 
9	Tuesday, June 14, 2016 Queen cells capped	CHECK CELLS
10	Wednesday, June 15, 2016 Do not disturb. 
11	Thursday, June 16, 2016 Do not disturb.	Prepare mating nucs.
12	Friday, June 17, 2016 Do not disturb.	Prepare mating nucs.
13	Saturday, June 18, 2016 Do not disturb.	Prepare mating nucs.
14	Sunday, June 19, 2016 Setup mating nucs or dequeen hives to be requeened
**Transfer Queen cells into mating Nucs**	Place
on protector rollers and cap
15	Monday, June 20, 2016 Transfer queen cells into mating nucs 
16	Tuesday, June 21, 2016 Queens emerge in hot weather 
17	Wednesday, June 22, 2016 Queens emerge normally 
18	Thursday, June 23, 2016 Queens emerge in cold weather 
19	Friday, June 24, 2016 Hardening 
20	Saturday, June 25, 2016 Hardening 
21	Sunday, June 26, 2016 Hardening, orientation flights, mating flights	
Queen is sexually mature 
22	Monday, June 27, 2016 Orientation flights, mating flights	
Place on candy stops and place into colonies that 
need Queens (UNMATED)
23	Tuesday, June 28, 2016 Orientation flights, mating flights 
24	Wednesday, June 29, 2016 Mating flights 
25	Thursday, June 30, 2016 Mating flights 
26	Friday, July 1, 2016 Mating flights, queen starts laying 
27	Saturday, July 2, 2016 Mating flights, queen starts laying 
28	Sunday, July 3, 2016 Mating flights, queen starts laying 
29	Monday, July 4, 2016 Look for laying queens in nucs or hive to be requeened.
If found, dequeen hive to be requeened. 
30	Tuesday, July 5, 2016 Transer laying queen to queenless hive to be
requeened.
31	Wednesday, July 6, 2016 
32	Thursday, July 7, 2016 
33	Friday, July 8, 2016 
34	Saturday, July 9, 2016 Check nuc for eggs 
35	Sunday, July 10, 2016 
36	Monday, July 11, 2016 
37	Tuesday, July 12, 2016 
38	Wednesday, July 13, 2016 
39	Thursday, July 14, 2016 
40	Friday, July 15, 2016 Check nuc for larvae 
41	Saturday, July 16, 2016 
42	Sunday, July 17, 2016 Re-queen if no eggs are present. 
43	Monday, July 18, 2016 
44	Tuesday, July 19, 2016 
45	Wednesday, July 20, 2016 
46	Thursday, July 21, 2016 
45	Friday, July 22, 2016 Transer laying queen to queenless hive to be
requeened.	For Sale full laying potential, queen
should not be caged until this date.

Copied from internet Mbush and others 
Notes for use of this Excel sheet 
1 By changing the main date at top left changes all the date in "C"	
2 Colors donot mean anything just my date mile stones	
3If you are grafting look for eggs that have been laid on Day A or 1 for your "Graft Day"


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

JW, I will post some queen pics once they emerged.
I'm testing a method that M palmer mention on his you tube vid.
I graft the youngest larvae I can find that once accepted the plastic cups will be transferred
to the pollen/nectar frames full of bees. The cut out of the cell is like cutting peanut butter with a small
sharp razor blade. So the developing grub is rather large at the cap 7th day full of RJ. Given the chance the
bees will only select the smallest larva. This is already a 2 years experiment I'm trying out with good results.
Once the cells got moved to their mating nucs the accompanying foragers will fly back to the parent hives. This is
the time that I took the opportunity to add more bees to compensate for the missing foragers. You only need
to brush in a frame or 2 of bees to cover the cap broods. That is why the timing is so important!


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

jwcarlson said:


> Day 7 after grafting is smack dab in the middle of the sensitive stage.
> 
> How does moving cells early compensate for foragers returning?


Wondering the same... and all the rest as well...


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## asd (Jun 10, 2015)

He's moving the cells before they are capped. Probably he means 7th day after egg phase . More logical would be to use day 1 as grafting day, putting the user context as a reference.


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## Sunday Farmer (Nov 13, 2013)

David LaFerney said:


> It doesn't really matter - sooner or later you will have an early hatch that will spoil the whole batch.



So poetic. And Yes. 
Day 10. In NC I took day 10 off two years ago to just have a day with my gf. That was expensive....showed up kind of in time to a few virgins running around against the excluder


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

In normal weather 10 days is good. In hot weather 9 days is better. In really hot weather 8 days might be necessary. In cool weather 11 days is probably ok but will be too late in hot weather. 12 is definitely too late. I've done them on day 10 in hot weather and the queens were emerging as I was trying to get the cells in the mating nucs... virgin queens running everywhere...


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

beepro said:


> JW, I will post some queen pics once they emerged.
> I'm testing a method that M palmer mention on his you tube vid.
> I graft the youngest larvae I can find that once accepted the plastic cups will be transferred
> to the pollen/nectar frames full of bees. The cut out of the cell is like cutting peanut butter with a small
> ...


Ok... so to translate... you transfer day 7 after egg laid. Which is about 3-3.5 days after "grafting" typically. Which means they are not quite capped yet usually. And the cap you refer to is not a cap at all... it's a cup. As in the grafting cup that's now full of royal jelly. What big advantage do you think you're getting by using an open queen cell instead of a capped, ripe one?


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

Michael Bush said:


> In normal weather 10 days is good. In hot weather 9 days is better. In really hot weather 8 days might be necessary. In cool weather 11 days is probably ok but will be too late in hot weather. 12 is definitely too late. I've done them on day 10 in hot weather and the queens were emerging as I was trying to get the cells in the mating nucs... virgin queens running everywhere...


Well I've never seen hatched cells 10 days (240 hours) after grafting and my experience is 90% will hatch within the next 24 hours. You are quite right that temps are a great variable
I'm trying to square your post that with the queen calendar posted on your website which I have never quite agreed with:

Hatch 3 1/2 days (sounds about right to me)
Capped at 8 days +/- 1 day
Emerge at 16 days +/- 2 days 

If we can assume that most grafting is done 4 days after the egg is laid then I would submit from a grafting standpoint it should be more like the following (assuming grafting day is day 0):

Capped on days 5 to 6
Hatched on days 11 to 12 

Add 4 days to these numbers if that is the "language" you prefer to speak in.


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## asd (Jun 10, 2015)

So I've moved them on day 9 (grafting being 0) and virgins(some that I've checked) hatched fine(I haven't taken any extra precautions with the QC's). The temps were max. 25 C and min. 8 C during the raising episode. I opened one of the cells and it was white puppae pretty far from being ripped.
So far I've lost almost 2 hives to virgins; I'm saying almost cause in one of them I've managed to find it. I'm not sure if the virgin in cause was hatching from my batch or from another hidden QC.

Thanks Michael Bush for explaining it that clearly.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?328248-Graft-on-Pollen-frames-2-year-results-are-in

Using M Palmer's pollen frame method on you tube vid, I have been trying to develop a powerful method to grow larger cells with the most minimum bee
resources needed while preserving the original production hive with the most minimum work and time involved. After 2 years of test grafting I came up with the all pollen frames cell raising method. The advantages are: 1) Minimum time and hive resources used. 2) Bigger well fed developed cells. 3) The easy selection and removal of these plastic cap cells. 4) Pollen/nectar frame with the cap cells moved to the mating nuc hive. 5) Finisher hive quickly converted back to a production hive like before. 6) Less bees needed
to house the mating nucs. 7) Mating nucs all share the heat to keep each others warm. 8) The MIA virgin queen mating nuc quickly combine with the now mated queen right nuc hive once the divider is removed. 9) Faster hive build up for overwintering and maybe to capture the Autumn flow too. 10) Housing more mated queens for a fast Spring expansion the next season, etc.
This is my ultimate goal to grow my bee operation here. If the other poster know about my method then he can grow his 40 hives in a season or more. I spent a lots of time perfecting this method just like my other little bee experiment. What more can you ask for when the developing cells are right on the pollen/nectar frames and be transferred (the entire frame) or cut out individual cell after they are cap to the mating nucs? And these are not the small cap cells either but often over 1" full of RJ either before or after they are cap. I have often wonder why are the queens from the commercial bee farms so tiny compare to my own graft from the same bought queen? Perhaps they use a method that doesn't involve using the pollen/nectar frames like I did?
For example: I grafted 31 cells on July 4th. Then moved all the accepted cells to the all pollen/nectar finisher hive on the next day. <<==This is the key! No cap or open broods involved in the finisher except for one open brood frame until they are removed for the accepted cells put in. Lots of bees feeding these developing cells. On that Sunday 7/10 counting the 4th, I saw all the cells got cap full of RJ and about 1" + in length on the pollen/nectar frames. So my conclusion was they cap the cells on day 7th. These are the tiniest larvae less than pin size I can find to graft with a magnifying glass to start. When they got cap on day 7th the developing rather large grub is still eating the RJ inside and has not turn its head around toward the cell tip yet. My conclusion was these are going to be the well fed developing queens later on. I would encourage you to take my all pollen/nectar frames finisher method a try for the developing cells to the final cap stage. Share with us your final findings to see if they will grow bigger cells every time even through the summer dearth like we have now.


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