# What's the oldest a larva can be to make a quality queen?



## Ted n Ms (Apr 25, 2008)

What's the oldest a larva can be to make a quality queen?


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## beesohappy (Jun 3, 2009)

Great question. We grafted yesterday for the first time ever and after researching we went with the smallest hatched we could see with a magnified jewelers glasses. Just to see what would happen I put 3 older larvae in cups also. These weren't huge, fill the bottom of the cup larvae but they were easy to see with the naked eye. I'll have a look at them either today or tomorrow to see what the bees think.


My wife read that when a hive has to make a emergency queen they use the oldest larvae they have. This might be a larvae that hasn't had as much of the royal jelly as they should have.


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## AR Beekeeper (Sep 25, 2008)

I think there is agreement that the younger the larva the better the resulting queen will be. There is a problem grafting very young larva, less than 12 hours after hatch, and having them accepted, at least in my limited experience. I have better acceptance with larva 18 to 24 hours. I always try to get the larva as close to 18 hours as I can. I think after 24 hours the queen the larva will produce drops in quality, and I would never use a larva that is 30-36 hours old.


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## Agis Apiaries (Jul 22, 2014)

I was at a class with Michael Palmer this weekend and as I recall, he said that he doesn't like to use larvae more than three days old.


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## rbees (Jun 25, 2012)

one to two day old larvae are fine. Indistinguishable in quality IMHO. That said..for the most part, I believe you will get better quality queens if you simply allow the bees to raise their own...they know what they're doing. Sure you'll get a dinky queen from time to time, but the same is true with grafting. However, if you're grating for a particular trait...then by all means keep as much control as possible


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

I have a more difficult time getting all the way to mated and laying well with larva that are already in the "C" shape. I don't use the very tiniest, but the smallest that I can find with Royal Jelly, which tend to be just slightly larger. Seems to happen right about 80 to 90 hours since I isolate the breeder queen in a "Queen Jail box" made of wood and queen excluder material. I rarely stay awake long enough to work grubs beyond 85 hours, as I usually isolate a breeder in the morning, then 3 1/2 days later graft in the afternoon.

Definitely make up several grafting frames and try different sizes to see how YOU do best! You may be doing something different that affects your % well-mated.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

I will pick the larvae that are between the oldest (not fit to graft) larvae and the eggs. This tiny band of
young larvae is usually the ones that the bees like to keep. But there are the human errors too like
flipping the larvae, etc. So I will graft more than what I needed so that my acceptance rate will be higher.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

Agis Apiaries said:


> I was at a class with Michael Palmer this weekend and as I recall, he said that he doesn't like to use larvae more than three days old.


What I said was that I use larvae as close to the egg as I can graft, That would be about 12 hours.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I'd say my goal is 12 hours. Can a 24 hour larvae work? Yes. 36 hours? I wouldn't graft them but they might be ok.

There is an old story about three guys who were applying for a job as a stage coach driver. One of the interview questions was "There is one place on the route with a steep drop off and the road is only 10 feet wide at that spot. How close can you get to the edge without losing the coach?" The first one said "I can get within 2 inches", the second one said "I can get within 1 inch!" The third one scratched his head and said "I don't know... I'll be hugging the other side of the road..." Guess which one got hired.

Maybe the right question is, "how young of a larvae can I get?"


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## BWrangler (Aug 14, 2002)

Hi Guys

While looking at different queen rearing possibilities, I did a little test grafting using vertical eggs through 4 day old larva.



 eggs - poor acceptance, inter-morphs, very hard to graft without Taber's special tweasers. 
youngest larva - great acceptance, larva more fragile, harder to graft except with Chinese tool, larger cells. 
24hr old larva - good acceptance, easy to graft. 
older larva - poor acceptance, larva very robust, some inter-morphs, very easy to graft, shorter cells, less royal jelly, smaller queens. 
48 hour old larva are a waste of time. 

For me, the optimum age is less up to 12 hours. I like to use a Chinese grafting tool and get them just after the egg hatches. That is, the larva is the same size as an egg and the bees have just feed it. The royal jelly will look clear.

-dm


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