# Oh the joys no one mentions



## johng (Nov 24, 2009)

Everyone always talks about how much fun it is to raise your own queens and don't get me wrong it is a very rewarding part of bee keeping. But, it's 50 degrees F today and I've got to move cells from the starter into the finisher. It's gonna be cool, cloudy, and windy most of the day. Once you commit to grafting unless you scrape the whole round of cells you have to stay on schedule rain or shine. I normally start around Valentines day but, the weather has been mild so far this year so I thought I would try grafting a week early to get a head start. It's predicted we will have several nights down into the 20's but, right now it looks like the day I will need to move cells into nucs may make it into the low 60's so I'm gonna stay the course and see how it shakes out. Your either a hero or a zero when you try to jump the gun on old mother nature. :lookout:


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## drlonzo (Apr 15, 2014)

johng said:


> Your either a hero or a zero when you try to jump the gun on old mother nature. :lookout:


Yeah and if she hasn't been taking her prozac, you just don't know how a day will end up either. Could start great in your neck of the woods and end up with a typhoon breathing down your neck by the end of the day. Up here all i have to worry about is the polar vortex taking me out. lol


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

I hear ya. I was open feeding pollen sub last week. Bees were taking it like crazy. Now it looks like a we're headed back into the teens overnight.

Hope it works out for you!


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## JohnNY78 (Oct 25, 2013)

Typhoons and Polar Vortexes ! Sounds scary ! :ws:


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## JohnNY78 (Oct 25, 2013)

On a more serious note. I was a little overly aggressive with my splitting last season . i failed miserably. 22 nucs left out of 45 and winter doesnt end till the middle, to late april. All is not lost though. Now i have hundreds of drawn comb. Winter came too early for me


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## Honey-4-All (Dec 19, 2008)

incubators can buy you time BTW. Not weeks but sometime a few hours and days make all the difference in the world. Purchase yourself a little insurance...


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## drlonzo (Apr 15, 2014)

Honey-4-All said:


> incubators can buy you time BTW. Not weeks but sometime a few hours and days make all the difference in the world. Purchase yourself a little insurance...


Very good point!


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

On the subject of moving queen cells in the cold - use a styrofoam box with a damp towel (water heated to about 94 degrees F) in a Ziploc bag, then a dry towel over it. I made a little nesting box to keep the queen cells separate and cushioned with cotton.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

So much for the early grafting, eh.
How's the drone population going? Any going to the DCAs?


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## B-Rant (Nov 8, 2012)

I made the same bet this past weekend, when the 10 forecast looked great for Houston. Now, I'm looking at a high of 46 next Wednesday, 10 days from grafting. Any concerns with moving them to nucs a day early, before the cold front rolls through, other than not banging them around while still developing?


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## johng (Nov 24, 2009)

I have moved them a day early on several occasions but, I handle the cells very gently. I make sure I already have the nucs set where they are going to be staying before I move the cells. I couldn't tell any difference it the take v/s moving them on the next day.


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## texanbelchers (Aug 4, 2014)

B-Rant said:


> when the 10 forecast looked great for Houston. Now, I'm looking at a high of 46 next Wednesday, 10 days from grafting.


I've been planning a split and decided to let them build a couple more weeks. We have quite a buffer in the city, but it still is "winter".


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## B-Rant (Nov 8, 2012)

Ok, an update. I grafted on 2/8, so 10 days from grafting is today. When I went to get the 13 cells, it looked like 3 were open, 2 were torn down, and 8 still capped. I actually found 3 virgins above the excluder of my queenright finisher, two of them on the same frame. To be safe, I had to move my prize queen to a nuc to make sure any of the 2 unaccounted-for queens didn't kill her. Why did my queens emerge early? 

It has been cold (for Houston) the past 2 days and today it finally rose above 60 degrees. The next few days will tell if the 8 capped cells are still viable.


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## AR Beekeeper (Sep 25, 2008)

The usual reason for early emergence is grafting larva that is older than the larvae you put into the other cell cups. What method do you use to know the age of the larvae you graft?


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## B-Rant (Nov 8, 2012)

I used the "Pick the ones that look about the same size as an egg and not curled into a C" method. That would mean that some of the larvae I grafted were 2 to 3 days old on graft day? I thought 2 or 3 day old larvae would be rejected by my starter or finisher. This throws a wrench into what is otherwise my most successful graft yet, by using a queenless starter and a queenright finisher. Last year, I tried a queenless starter/finisher and never yielded more than 3 of 20 grafts.


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## B-Rant (Nov 8, 2012)

I need to mention so everyone doesn't think I'm completely insane, that this early we have had good conditions to start grafting. We've had a good span of days with highs above 60. Bees are bringing in pollen and nectar (not sure from what) and I have one hive that has 8 solid frames of brood, 2 of which were drones. I didn't plan on starting this early this year, but I figured this would be a good way to keep my boomer hive busy so they don't swarm at the first opportunity. I also used the time where I was in the hive to start opening up the sides of the broodnest. I understand that most of you probably still have snow on the ground, so I'm sure you think I'm jumping the gun.


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## AR Beekeeper (Sep 25, 2008)

Do you have a good drone population this early? It takes about 2 weeks after a drone emerges for him to be mature enough to mate.

When I start to graft I keep my breeder queen in a box that is sectioned off by pieces of queen excluder. The section that has the queen has only 3 frames of comb, two with pollen and honey and one for the queen to lay in. The other sections have frames of brood/bees/food and frames of foundation and a feeder.

When I want to graft I use a frame of Pierco plastic that has new comb drawn, but has never been used for brood rearing, so it has no cocoons in the cells. I put this frame in the section that does not have the queen so that the bees can clean and prepare the cells, if you lightly spray it with thin syrup they start as soon as you put it in. When the comb is prepared and ready for the queen to lay in I remove the comb the queen is working on and put in the grafting comb. I do this first thing in the morning. At noon I check the comb for eggs, if there are none, I check again at 3 and again at 6 (I am retired, so I can waste time like this, you will have to work on your schedule). When I find eggs the clock starts, and if there are enough eggs for my grafts the frame is taken away from the queen and put in the section with brood for the bees to care for them. The eggs for the graft will be removed from the BQ's nuc before the eggs hatch.

I will have built the cell builder colony two weeks before I put in the grafting frame in the BQ's nuc, so it is ready as far as food/nurse bees. It is still queen-right and she is in the bottom box. On the 3rd day, before the eggs are due to hatch on the 4th day, I remove the queen from the cell builder and finish getting it ready for the grafts. I remove the frame with eggs from the breeder queen nuc and put them in the slot where the grafts will be put. The queen-less/brood-less bees will care for the eggs, and when the eggs start to hatch, will feed the new larvae. They will also choose larva that they wish to make into queens and will lavishly feed those larvae. None of the larvae should be older than 12-18 hours and will be well fed but the chosen ones will be obvious because of the amount of food. Because there are no cocoons in the cells the comb can easily be removed from the plastic foundation without moving the larvae and they will be easy to reach with the grafting tool.

By checking for eggs and removing the comb when found you will know the larvae age and will not have the problem of getting older larvae. High temperatures can cause early emergence, as can difference in genetic emergence age, but the variation is not great enough to bother if you move cells into nucs on the tenth day after grafting.


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## B-Rant (Nov 8, 2012)

Thank you for the detailed method! I will try something similar on my next batch. I don't want to weaken my existing colonies populating more mating nucs this early, so I'll give it another shot once our tallow flow begins.


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