# Confessions of a first time grafter



## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

way to go brad. like you my first attempts were very awkward and clumsy. it's definitely a 'feel' thing and it does get more comfortable with experience. chalk it up to lessons learned, you are a better beekeeper this evening than you were this morning.


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

Thanks sp. Do you use the Chinese tool? It seemed to work really well, but I think it would work better if it were more narrow.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Why not graft again tomorrow? You'll have royal jelly to prime your new cups, your best queen might have some better candidates too. Is it really too late or do you guys have a really long dearth?


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

Brad Bee said:


> Thanks sp. Do you use the Chinese tool?


yes, it took some tries to get the hang of it. i expect to have to relearn it when i graft on friday.


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

Well, I hadn't thought about doing that jw. Sounds like a good idea. I guess I could pull the grafted frames and see how many takes I have and redo the ones that didn't take. I could put the hair roller tubes over the cells after they are capped to keep an early one from killing the others. It's not too late yet, but if I don't get it done now it will be by the time I have time to try again. 

Yes, we have a dearth pretty much all summer. I live in cattle country and it's a sin to have a weed in your pasture. Within a few weeks, we'll be waiting on Goldenrod which has been pretty much a bust the past 2 years.


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

squarepeg said:


> yes, it took some tries to get the hang of it. i expect to have to relearn it when i graft on friday.


One more question.  Do you cut down the cell wall or graft from full depth cells?


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

full depth. it's about coming in at the right angle and giving the right amount of push. it works perfectly when you that right.


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

squarepeg said:


> full depth. it's about coming in at the right angle and giving the right amount of push. it works perfectly when you that right.


If I was going to be in town Friday, you might have an unannouced vistor.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

Brad Bee said:


> If I was going to be in town Friday, you might have an unannouced vistor.


you know you are always welcome brad. i think flatrockboy and his wife might be coming as well.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Good for you Brad, and yes do try again in a couple of days when royal jelly production has increased in your best queens hive.

I find it to be easier in in a brightly lit room, even with a lighted head strap magnifier. I like having a bright LED bulb or spotlight shining straight down right onto the comb I'm grafting from. Other than that, I have done it out in the sunlight if the day is not too over hot and/or windy.

If it is taking you an hour to graft, then may I suggest a warm water spray bottle or a warm damp cloth to keep the grafts moist.

Keep a notepad of which cell cups you re-graft to keep emergence dates straight, and to keep the genetics of each cell logged. The roller cages over capped cells is a good idea.

Good luck and keep us posted on results!


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

squarepeg said:


> you know you are always welcome brad. i think flatrockboy and his wife might be coming as well.


Yes, and the same goes here. I will be with the inlaws, so I ASSURE you, I'd rather be up your way. LOL


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

Thanks Ray and I think I will give re-grafting the cells that don't take a shot. After putting the pollen sub in my best queens nuc this morning and putting syrup on them in the morning, I might give it a go on Tuesday.

I took a hot, wet towel with me this afternoon to cover each cup with as I grafted, but it was wet and cool by the time I finished.


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

Keep at it and you will make rapid improvement.

I'm not really very good at grafting - I've never done it in enough volume to get very good at it. So, I make up for that by making it as easy as possible - and I get pretty good results by doing so. For what it's worth..

The best light is open shade outside on a bright sunny day - by far. Next best is really good interior lighting. The light in your visor can be helpful, but if you are relying on it then the main lighting is too dim.

Put your grafting material in the cell builder hive the day before and they will make it nice and wet. If that isn't possible and they are dry or sticky a light spritz of plain clean water is very helpful and doesn't seem to hurt the take. If the grafting is going on for an hour even the best fed larvae are going to dry out.

It takes a light touch and a razor sharp knife - or an actual razor - to cut down old hard brood comb. But it's well worth the effort. If you don't have a knife that sharp then just break down the sides of the cells one at a time with a nail or something.

But it's easy easy easy to scrape white wax off of plastic foundation that has never had brood in it before - the larva will be fully exposed in the indentations of the plastic. Grafting doesn't get any easier. So LOOK for the frame with virgin wax - or go to the trouble of moving it down to the brood nest 4-5 days before the big event. I repeat - it is well worth the effort. The bees will fix it all up good as new in a day or two.

Now here's the big secret - you can get a good take, big cells, and very good queens without using the teeniest tinyest barely-out-of-the-egg larva. In fact the original book on this method called for 36 hour or younger larva if I remember correctly. I don't even know what 36 hour larva look like exactly, but I'm pretty sure they are a lot bigger than those tiny ones that everyone thinks you have to use. I'm not saying to use the ones that are big enough to thread on a fish hook - but just a little bit bigger makes it go much faster and easier at first. Making it go faster makes a big difference in the take just because the larvae are returned to the cell builder quicker. Then when you figure it all out work on perfecting everything - including smaller younger larva if you want.

Trust me you can get good results if you try. I do and I'm pretty bad at it.


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

Thanks for the reply David. Oh, I guarantee I will get good at it. I've only ever let one thing whip me and that was golf. I showed it, I quit playing. I'm not going to quit this. LOL

I may try a single edge razor blade tomorrow.

Fresh comb on Ritecell would be fantastic to use for grafting. I will have some soon. I have the Ritecell in hives already and I'm going to pick a few out of some hive and store them for next year when they get them drawn out.


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## Dave1958 (Mar 25, 2013)

I grafted for the first time last year. Here's what I learned. I went to hobby lobby and bought a table top magnifying glass. Table top so I don't have to hold it. Then look for age appropriate larvae, usually there are several in one area. Then take 3/4 of the depth of the wall of the wax away. Bees can repair the wax later, but it's easier to hold an instrument at 45- 60 degrees than at 90 degrees and your instrument in the way so you can't see. I'm a dentist so I'm used to working in small areas but grafting last year was challenging. I didn't know flipping larvae would cause them to die. Ill know later this week if I learned something


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## Duncan MacLeod (Jul 24, 2014)

I grafted for my first time today, too! 30 cells, and it was quite the learning process. I did have fresh comb on Ritecell, so advantage me. I'm not sure I love the chinese grafting tool, but its what I had....will try a couple of different designs, I think, in the future. My plan is to check tomorrow to see what kind of acceptance we go as we transfer to the cell builder, and I am prepared to graft again tomorrow to make use of the starter colony, since it's stocked up and ready to roll.

Definitely found I could work on smaller sized larvae after the first few...each time it was like, "No, can't go smaller than that...." And then, the next one was smaller still. We grafted dry into blue cups, under a partly cloudy sky. Didn't take to long to do 30 cells. Loved it!


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

I agree David,
24-36 hour larva is sooo much easier to graft! Those 12 hour or younger larva are just not big enough to pick up. And, I've read also, back when I first started grafting, to look for larva that are 12-36 hours old. I find 24 hr larva are just right. I don't know why the writings have changed, I hear a lot recently to get the youngest larva possible, under 12 hours if you can, and that just is not what used to be taught 20 years ago.


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

Thanks for all the replies. I'm about to head to the shop to work a while then I'll check out my "takes" this afternoon. I figure that I will find something to the effect of no takes from the first queens larvae, then about half or better takes from the 2nd queen. Once I started grafting larvae that had adequate royal jelly in the cells it was much easier. Weather permitting, I will update tonight.


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## WBVC (Apr 25, 2013)

I just started as well. At first I pinched one side of the cell off with my finger nail but find I don't need to with the Chinese graft tool.
I have found that if I place the frame to be grafted into the starter for 3-4 hours before grafting they lay on the royal jelly which makes transfer easier. I also find it easier if I slip the graft tool under the back of the c shape and leave the 2 ends hanging off the graft tool.
As I mentioned earlier for my second attempt I tried misting the cells with warm distiller water before grafting. Someone mentioned it facilitates grafting and keeps the larvae moist. Apparently my larvae did not know how to swim

On the Queen side I had one that returned from mating and one that remains tiny and I am suspicious she will be a drone layer. She could slip through any Queen excluder she is so slim I expect she will be my first pinched Queen.


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

Well I thought I was bad at grafting, but I'm worse than I thought. LOL Out of 24 cells, I had 4 cells started. I should have gotten better as I went but I only had 3 of 8 on the last (top) bar that I did, and that's still not too good.

The middle bar had no cells started, so I removed the bar, grabbed a different frame of larvae from my best queens nuc, and tried it again. This time I sat in my truck seat and had a small flashlight. The flashlight made all the difference in the world. I took a razor blade out to cut the comb down but found that I could get the larvae without cutting the cells down. I figured out that if you put the tool in the cell the correct way, I didn't have to see the larvae slip onto it, it still does. I was comfortable enough with what I did today that I removed a couple of larvae that I didn't think were right and replaced them. 

There still wasn't enough royal jelly in the donor cells to suit me. If nothing else I have learned a valuable lesson on split making. If there aren't enough bees and feed present then all larvae get shorted on royal jelly.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

good deal brad, hopefully more of today's grafts will 'take'.


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

squarepeg said:


> good deal brad, hopefully more of today's grafts will 'take'.


If they don't I'm ordering a Nicot system.


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## IBJake (May 15, 2015)

The best description I found was here. http://scientificbeekeeping.com/queens-for-pennies/

The large scale drawings and photos really helped me out


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## Margot1d (Jun 23, 2012)

I can definitely relate Brad Bee. I grafted for the first time Saturday and I was almost certain it was a total fail. So many things were going wrong. Of course the queen didn't lay in the frame I gave her. It didn't seem like I had the resources to pack my starter box with bees. I forgot to let the bees wax the cells over night. It was cool and windy, like 70. And grafting, that was crazy. They are so small! I could pick them up but how do you get them off the tool! I was shocked when I pulled out about seven cells started. That's a little over half of the total. I'm glad I did it for the learning experience but I don't plan on doing it again any time soon!


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## Tim B (Apr 16, 2009)

When I am grafting from old comb I just pick a spot and break down cell wall on one side to get a better view and angle. Once I start in I keep breaking them in the same direction. The bees don't have a problem repairing.


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## Tim B (Apr 16, 2009)

Don't give up on grafting. In the end, grafting will serve you better. The key is the starter hive. It has to have a lot of bees and be well fed. That said, any queenless hive can build four or five cells and from time to time I will take advantage of that when I need a few cells but don't have a starter hive set up.


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## HarryVanderpool (Apr 11, 2005)

My first suggestion is to be proactive about what kind of frame you want to graft from.
Forget old, dark, deep brood frames. Why do you want to graft from a mine shaft?









Here is an ideal frame to graft from.
Brand new wax on black plastic foundation. The bees have just started drawing it out.
Now, you need to isolate the queen to that frame for 84 hours and you will have a field day grafting!!










This is a picture of my queen isolation cage.










It has a lid that you open and place a frame inside.










So. You pick out the hive that you want to graft from.
Go to that hive and find the queen. Place her in a queen catcher. (clamshell)
Then remove a couple of frames and place the isolation cage in the middle of the brood nest.
Open the lid and insert that PERFECT frame.
Now drop the queen inside of the Isolation cage and close the door.

When it is time to graft, gently remove the frame and release the queen back into the general population.
Remove the cage.
Now the frame that you have has larva of THE PERFECT AGE to graft.
In fact, because you know how many hours have elapsed, you are safe to graft THE LARGEST larva that is on the frame.
No worries about if the larva are too old.

This is a pro-active grafting procedure where you are way more in control and grafting is 1000 times easier than hunting and pecking on old frames.
Make sense?


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

Shoot we all started somewhere. grafting is taking your beekeeping to a whole new level. Once you get it (and you will) you will be so thankful you hung in there. I don't even want to talk about my first several attempts.


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

HarryVanderpool said:


> This is a picture of my queen isolation cage.
> 
> Where do we buy one of those?


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

Thanks for the replies and encouragement. Like odfrank asked, where did you get that queen isolation cage?


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## HarryVanderpool (Apr 11, 2005)

I made it myself.
I have a Weller solder gun with tips for welding and cutting plastic.
It took 2 Dadant plastic queen excluders to make this one.
But you could also make one from metal.
Its worth the time.


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

So Harry, when will you have my cage built?


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## zhiv9 (Aug 3, 2012)

Brad, you mentioned it took about hour for your grafts? I am wondering if the early ones dried out? I am still fairly slow at it, so I leave the grafting frame in the cell builder and graft a bar at a time. After each bar is finished I put it in the cell builder before starting the next bar. I keep the frame I am grafting from mostly covered in a damp towel.


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## Duncan MacLeod (Jul 24, 2014)

Well, transferred from the cell starter to the cell builder yesterday, and it looks like we got 19-20 takes on a 30 cell attempt. We did three rows of 10, and the cells at the top of the frame had the highest rate of acceptance, while those at the bottom were lowest. Does location on the frame make much of a difference in your opinion?

Anyway, the builder is off and running now, loaded with bees and resources. Stoked to do another round of grafting in about a week, with a queen whose genetics I'm anxious to reproduce. But got to get those queen castles ready in the meantime!


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## zhiv9 (Aug 3, 2012)

Duncan MacLeod said:


> Does location on the frame make much of a difference in your opinion?


I have noticed both fewer starts and smaller cells closer to the bottom and furthest out to the sides.


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

HarryVanderpool said:


> I made it myself.
> I have a Weller solder gun with tips for welding and cutting plastic.
> It took 2 Dadant plastic queen excluders to make this one.
> But you could also make one from metal.
> Its worth the time.


It looks professional made - good job. I have an excluder frame that I made to keep the queen from moving laterally in the hive but it doesn't work if there is a super in place. You should try to take pictures every 12 hours or so for 36 hours after eggs start to hatch just to get a really good measured graphical example of what 12-24-36 hour larvae look like. I for one really don't know. I've never seen a good picture of it.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

David LaFerney said:


> It looks professional made - good job. I have an excluder frame that I made to keep the queen from moving laterally in the hive but it doesn't work if there is a super in place. You should try to take pictures every 12 hours or so for 36 hours after eggs start to hatch just to get a really good measured graphical example of what 12-24-36 hour larvae look like. I for one really don't know. I've never seen a good picture of it.


Michael Palmer had good closeup pictures in his Queen Rearing talk @ The National Honey Show (look on YouTube). I don't know if they were taken by him or not, there might have been a photo credit. Of course I don't know if they were "stop watch accurate" as far as well they hatched to when picture was taken.

https://youtu.be/R7tinVIuBJ8?t=2011 Link should go to 33:30 seconds.


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

Success! I would never have thought about grafting again if jwcarlson hadn't suggested it. I am thankful that he did. As I posted yesterday there were no accepted cells on the middle bar of the frame so I took it out and grafted it again. I only put 8 jzbz cups on each bar since I wasn't going for a lot of queens. I checked it at lunch and I had 7 out of 8 cells accepted. The only cell not taken was the first one I did. I still don't like the Chinese tool. It seems pretty harsh on the larvae if you have to use the plunger to push the larvae off it.

Many, many thanks for all the helpful advice and replies. You folks may make a beekeeper out of me yet. 

With only 11 cells to raise, I am somewhat hesitant to combine the hive with a queen right hive, for simplicity sake. What do you guys think, should I put it over and excluder on a queenright hive? Will they raise better quality queens if I do so?


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Awesome, Brad! Glad I could... Ah... "help".


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

way to go man.


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

Have you tried the german grafting tool. Consistent and much more dependable.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Brad Bee said:


> Many, many thanks for all the helpful advice and replies. You folks may make a beekeeper out of me yet.


I think you already are a beekeeper!

I put pollen sub and feeder on while they build cells, until they are capped. Seems like 11 should do OK that way. But since you are experimenting and learning to be a beekeeper  Why not stick them over an excluder on top of the supers of a nice strong hive and see what happens?

Best of luck, you're doing great.


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

Thanks guys. I will go ahead and put them above and excluder. I have a hive that I am going to dismantle to make splits with that I will put them over. That hive is only a deep brood box and one super tall. They are split material anyway.

None of the nurse bees came from that hive, should I put newspaper on the excluder to let the pheromones mix before they combine?


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## Dubhe (Jul 19, 2007)

I just tack a cloth "apron" onto the front entrance and shake the cell starter bees onto it. The cranky foragers fly off and the nurse bees march right into the hive and are immediately welcomed by the rest of the hive.

Congratulations on the successful graft.


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

Thanks for the idea.


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