# Queen grafting question



## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

My cell building came to an end at the end of July. My last graft was 4 cell builders with 45 cells in each. My last grafts were accepted at the same rate as usual...42 or 43 out of the 45. They are often the nicest cells of the year. I've never tried to raise cells this late, as winter is just around the corner. I finished catching the last queens yesterday. My nucs are all made up by the first week in August, and the mating nucs have been expanded to 8 frames. What queens I have left (17) will be used to requeen 4 frame nucs, whose queens aren't performing well.


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## Dan Williamson (Apr 6, 2004)

I only did 40 cells on my last batch and they started laying last week so I don't have the date in front of me but that gives you a rough idea. That was my last batch for the season and will be used for requeening hives.

This last batch was my best take of the season. 

I had trouble earlier in the year getting good takes after having good success last year. I switched to a new grafting tool which helped and then started leaving them queenless for 48hrs with no larvae, eggs or open brood present. I also added more nurse bees. My take went from 50% earlier to 95% later in the season.

I can't say I've seen a time of year impact me... I had the exact opposite experience you've had as far as timing this year and % takes. It seemed to be resolved with a new tool, adding more bees, and leaving them queenless for longer. 

Just my experience this year.


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## Chef Isaac (Jul 26, 2004)

Are you feeding pollen patties and syrup when you place the grafts in and prior?


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## BjornBee (Feb 7, 2003)

Thanks MP.

Dan, I had the same problems/take as you earlier. Really bad takes in early spring no matter what I did. I know I had problems with one breeder queen that I mentioned earlier. But things improved to good takes later in the spring and summer.

But now, back to crap. So I'm thinking that no matter what one does, enviroment and seasonal timing must effect the graft take rate more than I had thought. I thought that doing all the feeding, prep with nurse bees, etc., would of offset this, but I am either missing something or thats just the way it goes.


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## BjornBee (Feb 7, 2003)

Chef, Yes.

I had hivetop feeders on for more than a week prior. I had pollen patties on, but I can't say that did much. They were bringing in so much and have frames packed. They didn't eat to much of the pollen sub patties.

I can't say it was lack of resources. My rate was cut down like hitting brick wall.


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## REDTRACTOR1 (Dec 10, 2003)

Bjorn,
I have had the same problem all year. And right now i have very few drones and i have been feeding for the last month. I have just put in several drone frames to see if that will help the situation. I guess time will tell.
Dwight


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## JBJ (Jan 27, 2005)

Bjorn, I have also noticed getting a high take is more challenging this time of year. We went from a take of 95+% to around 50%. I subsequently switched to queenright cell builders, boosted feeding and the amount of nurse bees. Things seem now to be back to normal. We have a dearth this time of year so it is challenging to keep robbing at bay and ample nurse bees, however it is very possible. We had to feed every colony in the cell building yard to provide cover enough to be able to feed and work the cell builders. Our last graft was great, and one batch of cells under way now. To me it seems like more nurse bees than normal, and more feeding have rectified the situation. The reason I switched to queenright cell builders is two fold. One, being the donor hives of nurse bees are not recovering as fast from each brood pilfer, and two; the cell builders are now generating more of their own brood and seem to be functioning in a more cohesive manner.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

>They didn't eat to much of the pollen sub patties.<

You feed your cell builders pollen substitute? Why not feed them pollen? Collect it when pollen is plentiful, and freeze. Then, pour it onto a nice dark worker comb, and rub it onto the comb with the ball of your hand...until the comb is full. Then you know the cell builder has enough good pollen where it is needed.


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## BjornBee (Feb 7, 2003)

>>>You feed your cell builders pollen substitute? 

Yeah, I tried that. I try everything once. Although I have not trapped my own pollen to hand fill comb. Maybe another day perhaps.

I feed my bees with a hivetop feeder. And guess what, I don't fill the thing with honey! I fill it with sugar syrup. Imagine that. Not any more un-natural as it is for someone to feed pollen sub now is it?

The thing with pollen sub is I know whats in it. I don't know what in natural pollen. I realize I'm in an area with diversity of pollens, and its probably very healthy for them. But I don't think my pollen sub is any less healthy. I do build the bees on it in early spring prior to natural pollen, and those bees seem just fine, using it to build the spring cluster.

Anyhow, I don't think thats the answer or the information I'm looking for. But thank you.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>It seems the last month, my numbers for queen cells are down. Although I do everything the way it should be done, I can't seem to get good percentages. I do not remember having much problems in years past, and the weather was just as bad last year with drought, etc.

It seems like the spring was a bad start with that "Palm Sunday" freeze, then it was too wet, then it was too dry, then it was too hot, then it was too wet again. It's been a poor year for queens here.

>Do others see a natural drop in the number of queens cells based on time of the year and as it gets later in the summer?

Yes. Feeding seems to help some, but it's not a cure all.

>They know they are queenless. But no matter what I do (feeding, adding nurse bees, etc.), it seems that I can't get the numbers very high for the past several weeks.

Me neither and it's now dropped off to pretty much nothing or one or two queen cells.

>Is this natural? Is there anything else to be done later in the year that you didn't do earlier in the summer/spring?

I think feeding is helpful, but a good fall flow would help too.


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## BjornBee (Feb 7, 2003)

I'm always leery getting on a site and fessin up to having problems as a queen breeder. You never know how someone might take it.

Thanks MB. My last graft that I pulled on Sunday had 5 cells. And thats doing everything I know how to do. Right now, I'd be happy with the 50% some are getting.

It started slow, was great in the middle, and now were back to nothing.


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## JBJ (Jan 27, 2005)

The other thing I have found to help for late season queens is to start some totally fresh cell builders. We just caught some queens out of a couple of very strong hives for requeening. So far they are extremely eager to build cells, almost more so than our regular cell builders.


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## adamf (Jan 28, 2006)

I'm South of BjornBee by ~100 miles bit in similar habitat. I too have had a drastic decrease in cell acceptance, even while utilizing all the excellent input in this thread so far. The cells look nice, but there aren't many of them. The Fall flow is starting here, and grafting another batch to see how they were accepted with this change would be interesting: can someone help me get 30-32 hours out of a 24 hour day?

Adam Finkelstein


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## sierrabees (Jul 7, 2006)

<can someone help me get 30-32 hours out of a 24 hour day?>

Thats easy. Just work faster and harder, sleep less, and make sure you find out which hospitals near you have the best cardiac response teams on staff.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

I am curious as to whether apparently good cells are going bad 4+ days after grafting or if they are simply not accepted from the time they are put in. There can be nothing more fickle than cell builders. Any little problem with a hive will always show up as a major problem when you are trying to raise cells. My first thought is a seasonal thing but you, I am sure, are experienced with what does and dosen't work in your area this time of year. Of the major problems I have had or have heard of others having. #1 Coumophous is the kiss of death, nuff said #2 Any other bee disease that may barely be noticable in the brood. #3 Some type of spray residue in the area. #4 Poison pollen such as the dreaded yellow jasmine and I have to believe there are many others. I have seen this cause havoc in cell production yet be barely noticable to the general health of the hive. The most frustrating thing of all is that you may never know what the problem is, it can go away as quickly as it comes. Good luck and believe me you are not alone, anyone who does this has problems occasionaly most just won't admit it. 
Jim


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

I just expanded the last group of mating nucs from 4 to 8 mini-combs. I do this by catching one of the queens on one side of the movable division board feeder, moving the feeder over to the sidewall, and allowing the second queen to have all 8 combs. I usually move the feeder over after a couple hours, or sometimes the next day. This group was delayed due to funeral of an old friend. The feeders were moved after 4 days. 

I removed what emergency cells had been started. What I found interesting was that about 1/3 of the nucs failed to start cells. Some had cups that were dry, but no cells with larvae. Those that started cells had only one, and a few had two. At the height of the queen rearing season, these nucs would have started several cells. 

I think this fits in with the discussion in this thread. We certainly have a good flow of nectar/pollen from Goldenrod here, so food supply isn't the problem. This isn't about cell builders failing to raise cells. This is about colony survival. The nucs that failed to start cells would surely become queenless, and die off. 

So, to me, the moral of that, and this thread, is...

The bees know best. They know it's the end of the season...whether because of diminishing daylight hours, or whatever. Those who are having difficulties raising late season queen cells should take note. You've discovered the time limits to your cell building efforts. Next year, finish your cell building earlier. If you need more queens, start more cell builders/mating nucs, and get the work done before you reach the deadline you've just discovered.

Thinking..."Bees make better beekeepers than beekeepers make bees."


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## adamf (Jan 28, 2006)

Michael Palmer said:


> Thinking..."Bees make better beekeepers than beekeepers make bees."


Heh heh heh,
you should see my pollen baskets...

I think my baseline pollen levels were really low--and I needed to make the cells for several orders--I just made more grafts and "it "was all good".

Adam Finkelstein
[email protected]


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## JBJ (Jan 27, 2005)

Further, it is still possible to grow great cells. One may have to make some adjustment for the season. As long as there are still plenty drones it will be very possible to grow great queens, its just that what works in April may not work in September.


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## JBJ (Jan 27, 2005)

Just checked the first graft in two fresh cell builders, its like spring again. Looks to be about 95% take. I'll try to post some pics after they are capped.


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## tecumseh (Apr 26, 2005)

just a small question oldsol... do you feed at all levels (hives from which starters are shaken, swarm box, breeder hive and finishers) of your queen rearing process?


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## JBJ (Jan 27, 2005)

It depends on several variables. I keep protein on the cell builders at all times and feed if there is not a strong flow on. Lately the challenge has been to feed the other hives in the cell building yard to keep them busy so I have cover to work the cell builders without robbing. I usually feed honey frames by scratching open a couple of frames prior to a graft. If this is not an option I use a light syrup. I do not use a swarm box. We use either a queenless starter/finisher or a queenright starter/ finisher. At the very beginning of the year the cell builders are established with 20 lbs of bees each + brood. Cell builders are maintained by brood additions to keep the number of nurse bees high. If the cells are not large and well formed then there is a variable that is off, so population and feeding need to be adjusted, or there is a rogue queen somewhere you do not want. The breeder Queen hives that the grafts are taken from usually are so robust that feeding is overkill. It is all I can do to keep them a manageable size for selecting larvae. They usually need to be split three or four times throughout the season so you don't have to sort through too many boxes. If things slow down in the later part of the season I will stimulate them with protein, but they are such voracious pollen hoarders it is rarely necessary until we start our almond prep, which we are doing now.


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## tecumseh (Apr 26, 2005)

thanks for the detail john.


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## LEAD PIPE (May 22, 2005)

Sorry if this is dumb but can/do people graft eggs of is it just newly hatched larva?


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

LEAD PIPE said:


> Sorry if this is dumb but can/do people graft eggs of is it just newly hatched larva?


Grafting eggs is a highly unlikely technique. The natural glue that attaches the delicate egg by one end to the bottom of the cell would need to be released and then somehow the egg would need to be reattached well enough so that suspended upside down in a queen cell cup, it would not fall out. All this without disrupting its development nor damaging its extremely fragile outer membrane. *Good luck.*


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Of course it would be very difficult with the Doolittle method, but with the Alley, Better Queens, or Jenter method it's quite easy to transfer eggs. However, it does not work well. I've never gotten them to take an egg where they usually accept just hatched larvae.


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## JBJ (Jan 27, 2005)

Steve Tabor was able to do this with limited success. He even developed a special tool for it. The challenge would be to know the exact age of each egg. It is very easy to differentiate the age of larvae, but the eggs all look the same even if laid 48 hours apart. It is relatively easy to pick up and transfer an egg.


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

JBJ said:


> Steve Tabor was able to do this with limited success. He even developed a special tool for it. The challenge would be to know the exact age of each egg. It is very easy to differentiate the age of larvae, but the eggs all look the same even if laid 48 hours apart. It is relatively easy to pick up and transfer an egg.


So the actual ability to graft/transfer an egg is doable and there are systems that make egg transfer easy without touching it, but having the egg accepted for growing into a queen by the bees is a real problem, as well as knowing the age of the egg in order to manage the developmental time-line.


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## tecumseh (Apr 26, 2005)

mr clemens sezs:
So the actual ability to graft/transfer an egg is doable and there are systems that make egg transfer easy without touching it, but having the egg accepted for growing into a queen by the bees is a real problem, as well as knowing the age of the egg in order to manage the developmental time-line.

tecumseh replies:
jay smith developed a process for using eggs to produced queencells. there are any number of alternatives to this process but all that I am aware of purposefully skip the process of grafting. as an extension of smith work, other folks have developed process to supply the properly aged egg/larvae transition phase to maintain the time line required for growing out queen cells thru mated queen. the problem (if that is how you might wish to look at it) is that most 'non grafting processes' has some limitation which make it difficult to apply when you to desire to grow out commericial quantities of queen cells.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>jay smith developed a process for using eggs to produced queencells. 

Actually Joseph M. Brooks published the method of doing this with new comb (just like Smith did later) in Gleanings in Bee Culture, August, 1880. Alley Alley published the same basic method using old brood comb in 1883. Isaac Hopkins published Joseph Brooks' method in 1886. This "new comb" Alley method was published by Jay Smith in his "Better Queens" in 1949, 69 years after Brooks published it in Bee Culture. Smith, however, was using Larvae, not eggs. Alley and Hopkins seem a bit ambiguous on this point.

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

All of these methods, in the author's original words, (except Brooks is in Hopkins words) are here:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesqueenrearingmethods.htm


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## BWrangler (Aug 14, 2002)

Hi Guys,

I've experimented by grafting both eggs and different aged larva. I've also replicated Taber's tool.

At the same time, I tried both rapping and water extraction for harvesting eggs en mass thinking it would facilitate a very fast commercial approach to queen rearing.

But I got the same results as Taber when using eggs. The resulting production loss and extra culling efforts offset any possible gain in queen quality.

My little tests, with different aged larva, indicate the largest queens and cells are obtained when the youngest larva are grafted. With a Chinese grafting tool, it's very easy to graft a larva just a few hours old. That's very hard, to impossible, with any other kind of tool without damaging the larva. See http://bwrangler.litarium.com/grafting-tools/

These larva are very easy to spot. They will look just like an egg that is drooping to one side surrounding by a wet looking spot, the first royal jelly feeding. These very young larva are also very fragile. So grafting/starting conditions must be optimum or the take will be reduced.

Larva a half day older are much more robust. They aren't much bigger than an egg, will have a slight curl, and are surrounded by a small amount white royal jelly.

On another note, I've also experimented with differing sugar levels in the royal jelly used to prime the cups. It resulted in lots of intermorphs, much like grafting with eggs does.

Regards
Dennis


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