# Queen rearing using grafting



## Chef Isaac (Jul 26, 2004)

I think you just need to practice more. That is all. 

Did your cell builder have a lot of bees versus density? They need a lot of bees, young bees. Did you feed them? How about pollen? Is there a dearth?


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

I make sure my cell builders are packed full of bees, with lots of young ones. The flow has slowed, but even now it is still going. I place the cell bars between combs of honey and combs of pollen.


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## adamf (Jan 28, 2006)

Yes. Shaking bees from open brood frames (eggs, larva, capped brood) into your cell builder will help you get better acceptance. I'm always amazed at how many frames of bees described above, I can shake into a cell builder before introducing a graft. The more one shakes or adds in, the better the acceptance--starting cells.
Adam Finkelstein
www.vpqueenbees.com


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

This afternoon I reworked my cell starter/builder colony. Initially it was two 8-frame medium depth supers with combs of honey and pollen. Stuffed with nurse bees from several other colonies. I took two full frames of honey and placed them near the sides of a 5-frame Nuc, then two frames of pollen inside those, then in the center I placed my top bar of twenty grafted plastic cells. 

This is how I did my grafts:
I gave my mother queen hive some empty comb a few days ago. One was a nice new foundationless comb. Once it was full of eggs I checked it every morning to see when the eggs had hatched, this morning most of the eggs had hatched, it probably happened sometime last night. I took this frame to graft from into my grafting room (in my recliner, between my knees, with a lamp below shining up through the comb), with the cell bar laying atop the comb. I primed the cell cups with a tiny drop of royal jelly harvested from rouge cells in the cell builder colony. Then, using a Chinese grafting tool I carefully moved newly hatched larvae from the comb to the primed cell cups. I then returned the donor comb to its Nuc and the cell bar was gently placed in the center of its 5-frame cell starter/builder Nuc. Tomorrow, just before dark I will give a quick peek to see how many take.


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## IndianaHoney (Jun 5, 2006)

A friend of mine gives them a frame with black plastic foundation. He said that by the time the queen has laid the eggs, and then they hatch, the frame is drawn, but its drawn to a shallow depth. He said that makes it easier and faster to graft. He also covers the grafted larva with a wet towel to keep them from drying out. He does use a chinese grafting tool as well.

Also when he grafts, he drops some fresh pollen in the cell builder colony.


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## tecumseh (Apr 26, 2005)

question(s) for joseph...

by chance are you doing the grafting in ac space or where the humidity of the air is extremely low?


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

Joseph Clemens said:


> I then returned the donor comb to its Nuc and the cell bar was gently placed in the center of its 5-frame cell starter/builder Nuc.


Maybe the problem is the cell builder. How did you set that up? Personally, I wouldn't use a 5 frame nuc for cell building. Was it overflowing with nurse bees? Was it queenless? Were there any other larvae in the cell builder?


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

IndianaHoney said:


> A friend of mine gives them a frame with black plastic foundation. He said that by the time the queen has laid the eggs, and then they hatch, the frame is drawn, but its drawn to a shallow depth. He said that makes it easier and faster to graft. He also covers the grafted larva with a wet towel to keep them from drying out. He does use a chinese grafting tool as well.
> 
> Also when he grafts, he drops some fresh pollen in the cell builder colony.


I did get a few of those black plastic foundations to use just like you mentioned. They are all built out now, so it will probably be easier if I purchase more of them. They did make it easier to graft from, the comb I most recently grafted from I had to be careful or the cell bottoms would collapse. I will try using fresh pollen too. The grafts I did just prior to this set was five of the same plastic cell cups and I got all five to develop into nice queen cells, but my problem later was acceptance of the virgin queens. None made it to adult mated queen.


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

tecumseh said:


> question(s) for joseph...
> 
> by chance are you doing the grafting in ac space or where the humidity of the air is extremely low?


Though I had been keeping wet paper towels covering my larvae donor combs and the grafted cells in transit, I'm afraid that the ambient humidity during my earlier grafts (was usually in single digit) may have been a factor, even though I graft in my home and we use evaporative cooling which boosts the outside humidity level (it may still have only been around 15% R.H.), only these past two weeks has the rain and cloudiness caused an increase in humidity where our evaporative cooler has given us an indoor humidity level near 80% R.H. I also realized during this grafting session I need to use something to keep track of which cell I am on so I don't skip any while grafting. Once I crowd twenty cells onto the bar I'm afraid I may have skipped one or two near the middle of the bar. Though I checked each cell with a jeweler's loupe to be sure it contained a grafted larvae, I could avoid this unnecessary exposure time if I kept track, like pulling a damp paper towel over them as they are grafted, or sliding them into a damp cardboard tube as I go.


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

Michael Palmer said:


> Maybe the problem is the cell builder. How did you set that up? Personally, I wouldn't use a 5 frame nuc for cell building. Was it overflowing with nurse bees? Was it queenless? Were there any other larvae in the cell builder?


I started with the same cell builder I had been using these past three weeks. It was in two 8-frame medium supers. Mostly frames of honey and pollen, a few frames of emerging brood, recently added, the emerging brood was added along with copious amounts of nurse bees shaken from two other colonies. I shake them onto the cover of my cell builder hive so older bees fly off and return to their respective hives. After a sizeable cluster of young bees forms on the cover, I slide it back to create an entrance for them to enter the hive, then they usually do so in a few minutes. This time I had boosted their nurse population in this way just the afternoon before, and both supers were quite crowded with young bees, one of the frames of emerging brood must have had a few hatching eggs in it, as they had built about six queen cells overnight that I harvested royal jelly from to use to prime my cell cups. I decided to try crowding all these young bees into a 5-frame Nuc to further increase their density. After I did that, this is how that Nuc looked:
1) both frames on the outside edges are full of sealed honey with a core of recently collected pollen.
2) the next frames in on both sides are mostly pollen with some emerging brood.
3) the bottom is 1/2" styrofoam with a large inset piece of #8 hardware cloth for ventilation, the Nuc body is made of bamboo flooring, the cover is 2" thick styrofoam and is pulled back from one end about 1/4" to form their only entrance. After I crowded the bees into this Nuc there was a solid wall of bees clustered between the two sets of frames, where the cell bar would go a few minutes later.
4) they are still queenless, as the queen cell I had left with them, thinking I would let them raise themselves a queen, and start another cell starter/builder colony, was a dud (didn't emerge), so I boosted their population of nurse bees and am recycling them into use.
5) I believe the queen cells they built on the one frame of emerging brood were the only larvae remaining in the cell builder colony. I added no new frames of emerging brood, other than those I had already recently placed and on further inspection saw no other larvae.


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

All this wonderful and supportive input is greatly appreciated. I believe we may already have identified some of the factors affecting my grafting process. Climate, hive population density, and feeding. I think I may be on top of solving the last two, and I have some ideas I can try to help with the first, climate - specifically heat and humidity, especially the latter.


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

Okay, I just finished a quick peek at my grafted cell bar (20 JZsBZs blue plastic cell cups). So far it looks better than some earlier attempts - thirteen out of twenty are beginning to look like queen cells attached to the plastic cell cups. I will peek again in about five days, tomorrow morning I will slip in a pollen patty and a quart feeder.


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## Patrick Scannell (Jul 3, 2004)

Did you leave the plastic cell cups in the builder overnight for cleaning and scenting?

I used to graft indoors with lamps and magnifiers, but now I find I have better luck grafting hive-side. 

I use a chinese tool, don't prime, don't worry about skipping a cell, never see the larvae (mostly), only takes a few minutes, and have been pleased with the success. The speed might help in your climatic situation.


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

Patrick Scannell said:


> Did you leave the plastic cell cups in the builder overnight for cleaning and scenting?
> 
> I used to graft indoors with lamps and magnifiers, but now I find I have better luck grafting hive-side.
> 
> I use a chinese tool, don't prime, don't worry about skipping a cell, never see the larvae (mostly), only takes a few minutes, and have been pleased with the success. The speed might help in your climatic situation.


Nope, leaving them to be scented, cleaned and polished, I haven't done that, yet. I will try that on my next batch.


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## BigDaddyDS (Aug 28, 2007)

I haven't found any greater acceptance or more success by letting them clean, polish and scent the cups overnight. I experimented both ways with the JZ BZ queen cups.

DS


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

I put a drop of honey in each empty cell cup on the cell bar the day before and put it in the cell builder. They clean out the honey and do what they do to the cells in prep for laying, is got the shiny coating on the bottom. The next day I pull out the cell bar to graft into. Seems to work ok for me.


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## Patrick Scannell (Jul 3, 2004)

> I haven't found any greater acceptance or more success by letting them clean, polish and scent the cups overnight. 

Thanks for that. Eliminating steps is always good. Perhaps the polishing only helps noticeably if other conditions are marginal.


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

Finally, eleven finished cells out of twenty grafts. I'm going to try another round of grafts this morning. Here is a pic taken last night.

Queen Cells


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## Chef Isaac (Jul 26, 2004)

Joseph:

That is great about your cells! Getting them properly mated is another task. Yikes!


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

Yeah, I had to eliminate another drone-laying golden Cordovan queen and replace her with a ripe cell containing one of her sisters. It may be that extremely high temperatures, like rain, or cold weather, inhibit successful mating flights.

I really feel bad dropping those vigorous young queens (of the wrong genetics), into my little alcohol bottle of queens. But it seems that I will soon accomplish my goals of rearing open mated Cordovan Italian queens and getting all my hives headed by golden Cordovan queens that are, at least, homozygous for the Cordovan trait.

I just harvested four 8-frame medium supers of honey from one colony headed by one of these open-mated Cordovan Italian queens. They were successfully requeened late in the Mesquite honey-flow. After taking off the supers of honey and then the entrance shim and queen excluder, I did a quick exam of the upper of the two 8-frame, medium supers reserved for the brood nest. Seven of the eight frames in this super were nearly solid with either capped or open brood. As a guess, about 20% of the worker brood were also homozygous for the Cordovan Italian trait. Though this hive was extremely gentle and easy to work, they did exhibit more of a nervous, running on the frames behavior than I generally appreciate. Once I have all my local hives converted to queens homozygous for Cordovan color, I'll start selecting for less nervous behavior, though, since this behavior apparently comes from open mating with drones from feral hives or hives of other beekeepers in my area (neither are under my control). I may not be able to entirely eliminate this behavior - since this behavior seems to frequently show in hives with open mated Cordovan Italian queens, where a large proportion of the workers of these queens are not homozygous for the Cordovan trait, though many of these hives are calm and do not exhibit nervous behavior.


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

Update on my progress:

Yesterday morning, Monday, I grafted one cell bar using plain yogurt as the primer and another without priming at all - the one using yogurt, only one was successful, while six took with no priming at all. To help keep track of things I have begun using the same number of cell cups on each bar I now use (15). My cell bars are simple - single grooved top bars, with the JZs BZs plastic cell cups that have a pin that pushes into the top bar groove, holding them in place.

Since I determined to become more proficient at grafting, I have tried grafting more frequently, and I have used a wider variety of techniques. For instance yogurt priming (I may try it once more, my first time was a flop). Grafting next to the hives, in the early morning sun (I can see the larvae even without magnification - wow, light is good). Using my German stainless steel grafting tool, I find that I can acquire the larvae more easily and without harming them if I slide the spoon of the grafting tool from the middle of their backside, like this [ ->C ], and I no longer struggle and struggle to do so with the Chinese grafting tool. 

- - - - - - - - - - -

Late, yesterday afternoon, I decided to do some grafting from a different mother queen, she's a granddaughter of a Cordovan Italian queen obtained from Koehnen's several years ago, she's homozygous for the Cordovan trait and 90% of her workers are also. First I had to remove their five honey supers, as I did so I shook each honey frame onto the cover of my queen cell starter/builder Nuc (the younger bees would cluster there and start moving into the hive, while the older bees would fly back to their hive). 


As I worked through this process I noticed that the bees were trying to give this queen more space to lay (the central four frames in each of the bottom two supers were configured as if they were part of the brood nest - band of pollen, band of honey), though there was no brood, only empty cells, where brood would usually be. Then came the entrance rim, the queen excluder, and the first brood super. The outer frames on each side were sealed drone brood, these were intentionally drone comb, so this was okay. The six central frames were a nice solid pattern of worker brood in various stages, the queen was there, on the fourth frame in. Though there were lots of eggs, open brood, sealed brood, and emerging brood in this top brood super, there were very few grafting age larvae, so I moved the top super off and began checking the bottom brood super. Here I found the first, side frame, composed of solid sealed brood, with emerging beginning on the inner side. The next frame was my jackpot, one side had a few cells still emerging and the remainder solid with eggs, its opposite side were all just hatching/hatched larvae, so I used some of these larvae and grafted two bars of cell cups.
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Next I wished to find some royal jelly to harvest (to use later as primer), I opened the hive that recently I had removed a drone laying queen from. I had replaced her with a sealed queen cell, but they were building about six queen cells of their own. I removed the larvae from these and scooped the royal jelly into empty plastic cell cups for transport. Once back at the house I picked up an insulin syringe from my diabetic supplies, cut off the needle, then drilled a 1/64" hole in the end, used the syringe to suck the royal jelly from the cell cup. I squeezed all the air out of the syringe and capped the syringe and put it in the refrigerator. I plan to use it later as an easy way to prime cell cups.

What really surprised me happened later, as I began in my usual garb: shorts, long-sleeved T-shirt, veil draped over my head. But once I got busy grafting I couldn't see well enough with the veil, so I took it off, then forgot to put it back on. Here I was in the midst of my primary apiary, fifteen full-size colonies, and three Nucs, several hives wide open, but not a single sting, left my veil off, smoker went out and I expected to, at least, be bothered by a bee or two, especially since we're between flows, though I expect our recent Summer rains will soon bring one on.


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## HVH (Feb 20, 2008)

Humidity - A small humidifier in the grafting room helps when RH is low. Also, I have found that placing the grafting bars between two damp towels, which in turn are between a propagation mat set at 95F and some insulation, about an hour before grafting, puts a very fine mist in the cups. After grafting one bar, it is placed between the towels again until all three bars can be placed in the frame and transported to the swarm box. I usually get about 80-90% of the grafts accepted when the cups are polished and the cells are prewarmed under a warm towel for about an hour. The times I forgot to add the cell cups to the colony for polishing, the yields were lower.
Cup polishing - I have read conflicting statements in this forum regarding polishing. I don't have the answer, but have noticed a trend that suggests under my conditions there is a benefit to polishing. Maybe wax cups benefit more than plastic from polishing.
Priming - I can't prove it, but I have a suspicion that priming merely prevents desiccation of the larvae when humidity isn't provided by another method. 
Virgin acceptance - Like others, this is where my focus is currently. I have observed much this season and am convinced that virgin queens are extremely vulnerable and need the attention of other bees.


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

HVH,
Our R.H. has been elevated much of the past few weeks as our Summer rains have been coming in and outside the temp is close to 95F as soon as the sun comes up, but, just in case, I have a fog machine, that produces a large volume of predominantly 10 micron water droplets using a 1000 PSI pump. 

This morning I moved four cells that were started out of sixteen (so, I guess, those that didn't take were cleaned and polished by the bees), then I filled out that bar with a total of fourteen JZs BZs plastic cell cups and dry grafted into them from my alternate mother queen hive. I also had an empty space in the cell starter/builder Nuc for another cell bar, but only had two additional cell cups ready, so I put them in the center of a cell bar and grafted into them. I just returned from a quick peek, at this point - twelve of fourteen on the one cell bar already are being extended into queen cells, two of two on the other cell bar have similarly been accepted.

I should explain that with my sporadic graft acceptance, I don't coordinate and distribute ripe queen cells to mating Nucs or waiting colonies knowing they are due to emerge within a day or two. My production schedule is much more haphazard than that. I focus my efforts on moving whatever sealed queen cells I produce, into mating Nucs and/or needy colonies before they emerge. My focus is to improve my grafting success. I believe I am starting to make progress at learning a grafting technique that works for me. Certainly no worries that the mating Nucs won't be able to maintain sufficient environmental conditions for the incubating virgin queens - my mating Nucs are located underneath a Mesquite tree that keeps them from getting hotter than ambient temps and night temps are quite warm.


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## HVH (Feb 20, 2008)

Joseph,

I wish you the best. My experience has been that grafting was the easy part. After the queens emerge is where I pull my hair out. I can usually get 90% of my grafts to take, but keeping the emerged queens alive and healthy is another story. I like the challenge, though, and have no doubt that success is right around the corner. When I used to add queen cells to nucs, the survival rate was a little higher, but I like to inspect the queens as they emerge and mark them before introduction. I just don't think that virgins can withstand time away from nurse bees after they emerge and banking post emergence in a hive should reduce their mortality rate. 

Good luck with the grafting,

Chris


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

HVH,
Along similar lines, discovering queens, especially virgins, in a colony is easy --- just add a carefully nurtured queen cell.

You're the guy that incubates your queen cells until they emerge into cages, carefully selects them, then works at introducing them to a suitable mating environment. I have also thought of trying such a strategy. I have a styrofoam bird egg incubator that I could easily adapt to incubate queen cells. I think I shall move a dozen or so queen cells into the incubator as soon as they are sealed. I am just about finished assembling some JZs BZs queen cages with cell protectors attached so as the queens emerge they will be confined in their own individual cages, where they can be observed and then introduced to a mating Nuc if their appearance and energy warrant it, or culled if that seems more appropriate. Or, perhaps, I will set up another Nuc, just to incubate the queen cells until they emerge (a cell finisher colony), then they can be fed and nurtured by nurse bees without having to fend for themselves or be subject to attack by other queens or hostile adult bees.


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## HVH (Feb 20, 2008)

Joseph,

My impression so far is that the incubator is OK as long as the queens have some food with carbs/protein/secretions. I have read that queen cells should still have royal jelly in them even after the queen emerges, but I have never seen this. My guess is that my queens are without a protein source as soon as they emerge and need to be fed a balanced diet with carbs, protein, and probably some secretions. I also lose some queen if they get any sticky sugar/fondant/honey on their wings. They have a tendency to get trapped in the narrow cylinder on the end of JZ BZ cages if their wings ever get sticky for any reason and they seem to struggle until they are completely exhausted. I have read that incubators should have a RH of around 50%, but I will never follow this advice again as long as the cages have any sugar source and there is a surface for the wings to trap the queen - I lost a lot of queens doing this once. Also, feeding newly emerged queens a little honey can be disastrous if they get any on their wings. So it appears that feeding queens in an incubator must be well thought out.
One other thing - I agree that introduction of queen cells works pretty well, but a small percentage often times don't emerge, leaving nucs queenless. So far, my best successes have been where I mark a queen after it emerges in the incubator and then immediately introduce her to a nuc made a day or two in advance. If the nuc is free of flying bees, the remaining bees seem to accept the virgin immediately. In fact, if you drop the virgin in the middle of a frame of young brood with nurse bees, the queen is usually fed as soon as the bees take notice of her. This has worked every time. The only time bees were aggressive, was when I made the nuc up at the same time as the introduction or where a queen that I missed was already in the nuc prior to adding the virgin. So this approach provides me with nucs with marked queens (not caged) that have all been accepted and are free to roam or mate. This leaves mating as the only chance event left. I still need to discover a method that allows for longer storage because we can't always be guaranteed the time to make the nucs up in advance and have everything ready at the exact time needed.


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

*I learned another lesson today*

Just about a week ago, I removed and replaced queens with sealed queen cells. Today I began checking on these queen cells only to discover that most of them had been torn down prior to emergence, and the bees had built their own queen cells. I have plastic queen cell protectors, but I didn't use them. I won't make that mistake again.


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## HVH (Feb 20, 2008)

Joseph,

Is it possible that the bees began building queen cells a little earlier than you think and a queen hatched out and destroyed your cells? I have had one batch of cells torn down in a finishing colony, but assumed that I had a rogue queen. I shook all the bees onto the front entrance and added a second batch of grafted queens. The second batch was not torn down. This does not prove that I had a rogue queen but it is consistent with it. Since I didn't have time to confine the mother queen to a frame to insure the ages of all larvae, it is likely that my timing was a little off and one queen hatched before I opened the colony and found the damage. 

Does anyone have empirical evidence that workers will tear down queen cells without the presence of a queen - and, if so, under what conditions?


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

HVH said:


> Joseph,
> 
> Is it possible that the bees began building queen cells a little earlier than you think and a queen hatched out and destroyed your cells? I have had one batch of cells torn down in a finishing colony, but assumed that I had a rogue queen. I shook all the bees onto the front entrance and added a second batch of grafted queens. The second batch was not torn down. This does not prove that I had a rogue queen but it is consistent with it. Since I didn't have time to confine the mother queen to a frame to insure the ages of all larvae, it is likely that my timing was a little off and one queen hatched before I opened the colony and found the damage.
> 
> Does anyone have empirical evidence that workers will tear down queen cells without the presence of a queen - and, if so, under what conditions?


That may have happened with some of them, though not too likely, I had eleven sealed queen cells, six were set into the top of a central comb in 5-frame medium Nucs (what I use for mating Nucs), immediately after I had searched for queens, removed and caged those I found, while at the same time I shook the frames and did a thorough search for queen cells, any found I destroyed.

Just anecdotal, but I believe that when I am attempting requeening of potentially somewhat AHB contaminated colonies that they may even kill some of my Cordovan Italian virgin queens after the queen emerges from her ripe cell which had been placed in their hive. This is anecdotal, because many mating Nucs appear queenless several weeks after they should have been mated and laying, and though, it is possible that some of my virgin queens were not up-to-par, and that inspired them to not be accepted - I've seen several hives balling their new Cordovan Italian virgin soon after emergence, yet could find no sign of any other queen or queen cell in those hives.


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## HVH (Feb 20, 2008)

Joseph,

I wonder what would have happened if the nucs were moved to a new spot in the yard a day before adding the queens. If the workers are responsible for tearing down queen cells, maybe the loss of the field bees would improve acceptance. I thought that I would be really smart one day and moved strong colonies to one side and placed nuc boxes in their place. I then took frames from the hive set aside and proceeded to make up the nucs. The idea was to boost the nuc population with the returning field bees. It worked great - very strong nucs. The only problem is that the queens were not accepted (the bees were more aggressive than a couple of frames of nurse bees). This is also anecdotal and could be explained by nectar flow and such. I have, however, noticed many times that nucs made a day or two in advance and placed in a previously unoccupied location will normally accept a newly emerged virgin without any caging. This is a huge advantage because I no longer find queens dead in their cages. It is still a little early for me to claim success because the nucs need to be observed with a laying queen with numbers greater than the cage method.


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

HVH,
That sounds like a very good idea. Most of my Nucs are well established, so they have large populations of older field bees, which could explain why I have had a large percentage reject my grafted queens and queen cells. Since I have about twenty Nucs and they are all under the shade of a large Mesquite tree, I will need to work out a plan so I can move those I will be placing queen cells into where they can dodge their field force, then back again once the new queens start laying. I'm thinking that I can take mated, laying queens from the Nucs, move the Nucs to alternate locations, insert ripe queen cells or introduce pre-emerged and selected virgins. Then, once those queens are mated and laying, repeat the process - harvest finished queens, move the Nucs to alternate locations, insert cells or introduce virgin queens. I just need to keep track that I don't move any queenless Nucs into a recently vacated location or too near the same.


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## HVH (Feb 20, 2008)

Joseph,

Let us know how that works out. Even though it is a pain, maybe leaving a few colonies at their old location for a control might be more informative. If you have 20 queens, placing 10 into nucs that have been moved and 10 in nucs that haven't, would make a comparison more meaningful. I like to approach my bee work this way when possible so I can rule out other variables like nectar flow, weather, queen batch variation, etc. In reality, though, a hot day in a bee suit can ruin many good intentions. 

Good Luck


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

A focused effort to investigate the effects of ditching Nuc field forces before installing and finishing new virgin queens, will have to wait. Right now my focus is producing enough homozygous Cordovan Italian queens so that my entire home apiary is entirely queened with them. Then it should be easier to select for other traits.

*Progress* at last. This morning I had eleven sealed queen cells needing homes of their own. Four I installed in JZs BZs cages with cell protectors glued into the hole - I placed these into a frame designed to hold them, then put them back into my cell starter/builder colony which will be like an incubator for them. The other seven I installed in hives and Nucs wherever they were still needed. Sometimes I searched out the old queens and dispatched her, then inserted the cells onto the comb using JZs BZs cell protectors. Some hives I had to leave for the next batch of queen cells, their queens were too wily for me, I'll have to sneak up on them later.
----

Yesterday morning I moved my cell starter/builder/finisher bees into a set of 10-frame equipment I had lying idle. A screened bottom board/slatted rack combination and two medium supers with slatted racks on each side (taking up the space of a frame). I set this on the same location they had already occupied in the Nuc boxes. Then I consolidated all the actively growing queen cells onto one bar, to make room for two, eight cell bars that I had just grafted. I primed the cell cups with royal jelly using a 1.0 ml insulin syringe I had pulled the needle from and drilled a 1/64" hole for dispensing the royal jelly through. It worked very well - I would depress the plunger until a small droplet formed at the end of the syringe, then push it gently into the cell cup, then withdraw. The initial take on the two 8-cell bars, is 7 of 8 and 5 of 8. I then placed fresh patties of Tucson Bee Diet on the top bars between supers and closed them up.


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## danwyns (Nov 11, 2007)

Joseph,

good to see your results are improving. I scanned the thread and didnt see any mention of feeding, maybe I missed it but this is what we do. The Breeder hive gets fed ~1 day before grafting, after the empty comb is laid out we give about 1L of syrup. This seems to result in larvae with a little more jelly under it making it easier to slide a grafting tool underneath without damaging it. The cell builders get fed ~1L of diluted syrup when the graft is inserted, which helps the size and success rate of cell building. This supplemental feeding is probably less critical during strong flows, but we do it throughout the season. 

dw


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

danwyns,
Thank you for your input. I have been giving them frames of nectar/honey and pollen substitute (Tucson Bee Diet), perhaps feeding of a small amount of sugar syrup as you suggest wouldn't hurt, and may help improve my finished queens. I have read that many queen breeders feed in similar fashion, I just hadn't followed through and done it yet, though I intended to.


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

*Oops.*

This morning I checked on my cell starter/builder/finisher hive, as usual.

The night before I did what I thought would make it possible to recycle JZs BZs queen cell cups. After soaking them overnight in soapy water, I rinsed them, then shook and blotted them dry. I then mounted a dozen on a cell bar and then cut some Q-tips in half, then mounted one in my dremmel tool and gently polished out each cell cup. I had to replace the tips regularly, but it seemed to work well. Once I believe I pressed too hard, creating an irregularity in the bottom of one cell. 
- - - - 

Now, for the oops. Yesterday as I was replacing old queens with my finished queen cells. I located one of the undesirable queens and moved her, frame and all to an empty Nuc box, then put her replacement, the queen cell, into her hive. But later when I went to collect her, I found that she was no longer in the Nuc box. This morning as I was moving frames in my cell builder colony to avoid my pollen substitute patties, oops, there she was - she'd moved into my cell builder colony. Three days from now I'm going to need to carefully check for rogue cells. 

This was a good example of how a queen's priorities can change. If this unexpected queen visitor had been a virgin, I would expect to find my queen cells ravaged, but this mated and laying queen seemed only interested in laying eggs, not a single queen cell had been damaged.


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## seamuswildhoney (Jul 24, 2008)

*queens*

I am new to this queen rearing . I just got some beeswax caps today from Rossman in Georgia. Can I use the caps waxed to a frame without grafting, will the queen lay eggs in the caps?


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Naw, I think you'll have to graft. The workers might get the queen to lay in cells for superceedure or swarming purposes, but they get her to lay in cellcups they have made in the comb.


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

seamuswildhoney,
I've made and used beeswax cell cups that I've made myself. Though it might be possible to induce the queen to lay in these cups, strategically that seems like it would be a very problematic accomplishment. There is always grafting or you could use some of the graft-free queen cell producing systems.


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

Here is an update:
I seem to be having much better success with grafting - now regularly get a better than 75% take.

<Cell Cups - I use some homemade wax cell cups and, more often, JZsBZs plastic cell cups.

<Polishing - I've taken to using cotton swabs in my dremmel tool to clean and polish them just prior to use.

<Priming - I use a 1.0 ml insulin syringe, with the needle cut off and a 1/64" hole drilled where the needle had been. I load the syringe with about 0.3-0.4 ml of royal jelly, then I gently squeeze a small drop of jelly from the syringe and gently dab it into the cell cup - repeat for each cell cup.

<Selecting - I use a comb of brood from the donor hive that has hatching eggs. I choose those larvae that have just hatched.

<Transfer - Using a German-made stainless steel grafting needle I scoop under and lift the larvae from its home cell, then with a dipping motion I touch the larvae to the priming jelly and slide it off of the grafting needle. During this process I am careful not to flip the larvae over.

<Light - I have taken to grafting outside, in early morning sunlight. My sight isn't as good as when I was younger - in the early morning sunlight I can move the comb until I can clearly see the larvae and affect successful grafts quicker than even when using artificial light and magnifying equipment. I believe the rapidity of the process is important to my increased success.


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## stangardener (Mar 8, 2005)

Joseph Clemens said:


> Here is an update:
> I seem to be having much better success with grafting - now regularly get a better than 75% take.
> 
> -i consistently got eight of twelve-66%
> ...


-i use the dining room table with a wally world head light and a flip down magnifying visor. those three things make it very easy and comfortable for me.

i would like to thank you for chronicleing your seasons project for us.
i grafted between may 15th to august 1st this year and am now consolidating mating nucs for fall/winter.


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## seamuswildhoney (Jul 24, 2008)

*queens*

Thanks for the info. I really enjoy reading the threads between you old timers.


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

Well, my cell starter/builder/finisher was good for quite a while, until just recently when one of my nicest batches of queen cells, suddenly were all torn down. I discovered an emerged queen cell up against the inside edge of a frame end bar. That happened three days ago, today I searched out and removed this virgin queen (unfortunately she was not a daughter of any of my mother queens), then added more nurse bees, some Tucson Bee Diet patties, and another bar of grafted JZs BZs cell cups. I like having a dozen or so ripe queen cells available on a regular basis as I continuously use them to replace non-optimal queens in my mating Nucs.


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

So this morning I checked on the one bar of fifteen cell cups I had grafted yesterday -- they had begun to build cell walls on the JZs BZs plastic cups, but alas all fifteen cups were now empty. I proceeded to again graft this bar of, now bee-polished cells, another bar of nine cell cups and one of four. 

Fast forward four hours - I am anxious to know how the acceptance is on my newest grafts. First I pull out the fifteen-cup cell bar, looks like at least twelve have been accepted. Next, I pull the frame with nine-cups where they are randomly spaced on the bar (those cups that remain on the bar after only six of fifteen had taken on an earlier run), about the middle of the bar, guess what I see - a virgin queen's abdomen protruding from the cell cup, where I can only assume she is destroying the larva there. I quickly snatch her by the wings and remove her from the hive - permanently. She was not of my chosen genetics. I was so distracted I even forgot to check the four-cup bar. Tomorrow morning I may need to do another round of grafts.

Virgin queens can certainly inspire a range of emotions: , , and .


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