# Cell cup color



## Duranthas (Mar 17, 2012)

What is your favorite cell cup color and why? Before I jump into it I'd like to hear some thoughts and reasons.
Thanks.


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## marshmasterpat (Jun 26, 2013)

I like blue cause I got them cheapest. Heehehe, honestly don't have a clue, but sure hope bees don't hate blue. Curious to hear what the guys with experience say.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

The bees don't care but beekeepers might. The amber ones are hardest to see the larvae in. Smoke the best. We usually use different colors to designate different breeders.


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## tefer2 (Sep 13, 2009)

We like the smoke colored cause you can see the royal jelly amount.


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## KevinR (Apr 30, 2010)

I've bought smoke, blue, amber, green.... I primarily use the smoke, as list above. It's translucent enough that you can see the royal jelly, and I like the contrast between the larva on the color of the bottom of the cup.

But, it really doesn't matter from the bee's stand point.


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

I like using a mixture of colors, on each cell bar. I also enjoy looking at bright colors, in patterns. I assemble my cell bars, with repeating patterns of two or three colors, on each bar. It just looks nice, to me, and is easier to remember, which cell I last deposited a larva in, when I'm grafting.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

I use dark colors because it's easier to see the larvae. I use two colors on each bar...ala webster. Every fifth cup is a different color than the rest. Helps me remember where I am.


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## Kamon A. Reynolds (Apr 15, 2012)

before I switched to making my own wax cups I used the smoke color primarily. Once again nice to be able to see the royal jelly and larvae.


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

Definitely the darkest color (smoke) is the easiest. Grafting into the yellow and red is harder than smoke. I utilize the different colors as a way to keep track of the donor mothers. I'll sometimes have grafts from three mother queens in one cell builder and use the cell cup colors to keep track.


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## JBJ (Jan 27, 2005)

We use whatever is abundant and cheap. To color code particular breeders we mark the cups with a paint pen after candling. If you have a lot of breeders you are grafting from, sometimes it takes a two-color color code for a particular breeder. This makes it easy to see trends in the mating nucs.


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## NY_BLUES (May 14, 2009)

I like the dark colored JZBZ cups, ie smoke, blue and green, for the ease of seeing the larve and royal jelly. I also like to use wax cups that I make, cheaper and I know where the wax came from. I have used wax cups from Rossmans which I also liked. 

I find that the amber cups are hardest to see the larve. I use multiple colors when grafting from multiple breeders, a different colored cup for each breeder. Allows me to graft a small number of cells from a number of different breeders and use 1 cell builder and not get confused as to which cell came from which mother.


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