# Struggling with queen cells...



## JohnBruceLeonard (Jul 7, 2015)

Greetings, all,

I would like some suggestions on any possible reasons for my (latest) failure at producing queen cells. Potentially relevant facts as follows:

1. I removed the queen from a strong colony overflowing with (Italian) bees, and placed a modified shallow super frame with thirty cups, each containing larva, into the center of the brood chamber, between two frames of open brood.

2. The larvae, all one or two days old, were grafted into these cups _without _royal jelly.

3. The cups were made by hand from this year's wax. Each cup measured slightly less than 8mm (about 5/16 inch) in diameter.

4. The queen rearing frame was installed only two hours after the hive was rendered queenless.

5. I was forced to perform all these operations at the end of the main flow of the year, in a period when my colonies are slowing down for the doldrums of late summer.

The colony in question did produce some seven or eight emergency cells from its own larvae on various of its own frames, strongly suggesting some mistake on my part. This is, as noted, not my first failed attempt at producing queen cells; it is merely the one that seemed to me most promising. If anyone could help me get to the root of my bungling, I would be grateful.


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## Tenbears (May 15, 2012)

You need to make up a queen rearing nuc. place honey pollen bees in the nuc. Them place your grafted frame in. In that way all the bees can make queens from is what you offer them.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

A flow helps a lot. The most reliable way to start cells is a "swarm box" or "starter box".

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesalleymethod.htm#what_colonies_to_select
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesbetterqueens.htm#The Starter Hive
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesqueenrearingsimplified.htm#TheSwarmBox


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

The primary sources of your problems were:

1) cell building colony had too many options with existing larvae.
2) building cells in or near a dearth is much harder than during a flow. 

The approach you used can work, but you need to leave it queenless longer and then remove all wild cells that get started before you give them your grafts. Also, feeding a cell builder is usually a very good thing. A source of 1:1 and pollen patty can really help. This is essential when making cells during a dearth.


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## crocodilu911 (Apr 17, 2015)

2. when you graft, make sure you do not hurt the larvae. very important. they will clean them out. 
4. I think there is where you made the mistake. your hive needs to feel orphan, before they go into build cell mode. I would leave it 3 days or 4 before I do this step.
5. even if the flow is over, you can still do it. I would recommend feeding, not too much, maybe 1 gal for a strong hive, even less for a small 5 frame nuc. 

after you remove the queen, or make a queen cell nuc, let them build some cells off their frames, and 3 days later, or 4. I would do 4. go in there and kill all those queen cells. they will not work your graft if they have queen cells on their frames. or at least the chance they do is slim. 

other that that, good luck with your bees




JohnBruceLeonard said:


> Greetings, all,
> 
> I would like some suggestions on any possible reasons for my (latest) failure at producing queen cells. Potentially relevant facts as follows:
> 
> ...


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## crocodilu911 (Apr 17, 2015)

http://www.mielemeloni.com/ va parlare con loro. forse ti possono ajurare. I always recommend you go talk to professionals and see if they can show you or teach you how to do it. it helps getting a jump start from someone. 

ciao


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## JohnBruceLeonard (Jul 7, 2015)

Michael Bush said:


> The most reliable way to start cells is a "swarm box" or "starter box".


Truth be told, I had even found this information on your very site some months ago, before I was seriously planning on trying to produce queens. I did not set myself to studying it as I ought to have, however, as there were many more pressing (which is to say, fundamental) things to learn about beekeeping at the time. Thank you for recalling this idea to my attention...


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## JohnBruceLeonard (Jul 7, 2015)

AstroBee said:


> The primary sources of your problems were:
> 
> 1) cell building colony had too many options with existing larvae.


I had not considered this at all, and it makes right good sense. How long would you recommend I wait before putting in the grafted cups? I've seen my bees start making emergency cells - obviously very poor ones - even four or five days after losing their queen. Would it suffice to eliminate the first generation of wild cells, do you think?

As for feeding, I had considered sugar water, but not the pollen patty, which would in this case perhaps be even more essential, given the importance of royal jelly in the development of a new queen. Thank you for your suggestions!


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## JohnBruceLeonard (Jul 7, 2015)

crocodilu911 said:


> 2. when you graft, make sure you do not hurt the larvae. very important. they will clean them out.


I certainly would not be surprised if, in the ineptitude of my inexperience, I damaged some portion of the larvae I grafted - but I should I hope I was not so clumsy as to injure all thirty! I must also say, however, that I tried to take them as small as possible in the interest of producing a hardy queen, though they must be much more delicate at the earliest stages of their development. Do you think it is better to err on the side of slightly larger larvae, such as might be more easily handled?



crocodilu911 said:


> 4. I think there is where you made the mistake. your hive needs to feel orphan, before they go into build cell mode. I would leave it 3 days or 4 before I do this step.
> 
> after you remove the queen, or make a queen cell nuc, let them build some cells off their frames, and 3 days later, or 4. I would do 4. go in there and kill all those queen cells. they will not work your graft if they have queen cells on their frames. or at least the chance they do is slim.
> 
> other that that, good luck with your bees


This strikes me as very good advice. (But then waiting only two hours was a _touch_ hasty on my part, no?) Thank you kindly for your suggestions. They have been very helpful indeed!


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## crocodilu911 (Apr 17, 2015)

John, I graft 2-3 day larvae. they are larger, and easy to graft. depends who you talk to they will advice different. I do not know if it makes any difference, some say it does. I try to graft all uniform aged larvae. that way I know my hatch day, and do not get a surprise with a queen hatching 1 or 2 days before term, and killing all my other cells. for this I would recommend queen cell protectors. 

I am sure you will do just great next time you try.


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## JohnBruceLeonard (Jul 7, 2015)

crocodilu911 said:


> http://www.mielemeloni.com/ va parlare con loro. forse ti possono ajurare. I always recommend you go talk to professionals and see if they can show you or teach you how to do it. it helps getting a jump start from someone.
> 
> ciao


Grazie mille! Gentilissimo davvero. 

The website you sent seems promising, and I will make a point of visiting the Melonis soon. Unfortunately, the society of beekeepers here in Sardinia is somewhat closed. Sadly, many beekeepers here will even give false or incomplete information, even intentionally bad advice, in order to limit their competition or to protect what they consider their professional secrets. So some caution is needed. You are nonetheless absolutely correct that there is no substitute to learning directly from professionals. I'll see if the beekeepers you've directed me to don't prove an exception to the rule.


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## Flyer Jim (Apr 22, 2004)

JohnBruceLeonard said:


> 3. The cups were made by hand from this year's wax. Each cup measured slightly less than 8mm (about 5/16 inch) in diameter.


Did you use soapy water to release the cups from the molds? If so the soap will leave an smell in the cups and the bees will not take to them.If you can get them try jz bz cell cups or make new molds and soak them in plane water for 24 hours. Try again and good luck. :thumbsup:


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

JohnBruceLeonard said:


> How long would you recommend I wait before putting in the grafted cups?


I've had luck waiting 4 days, some do it earlier. Later seems to produce better results. To be 100%, 6 to 7 days would be fine. The math is: 3.5 days as an egg + 2 to 3 days.


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## Stephenpbird (May 22, 2011)

JohnBruceLeonard said:


> 3. The cups were made by hand from this year's wax. Each cup measured slightly less than 8mm (about 5/16 inch) in diameter.


I thought 9mm was the right size (it is here in Germany), I wonder if that would make a difference.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Here's Jay Smith's take on size:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesqueenrearingsimplified.htm#DippingCells

"Many beekeepers make a mistake in believing that the most important feature for successful cell acceptance is the grafting of the larvae into the cells cups; but a far more important feature is that of making cells of the proper shape and size. The ideal cell would be as the bees build them, large inside, with a small mouth; but it is not possible, or at least practical for the beekeeper to make cells of this shape. Upon several occasions, I have given cells that had been accepted and slightly built out in the swarm box to a colony for finishing, when by accident it contained a virgin queen. Of course, the larvae and jelly were both quickly cleaned out. I have given one bar of such cells to a swarm box and two bars of our dipped cells. The bees seemed to concentrate all their efforts on the cells already worked on by the bees and neglected my dipped cells. The bees prefer to make the mouth of the cell just large enough for a worker bee to crawl into, and it is frequently noticed that sometimes in the workers haste to back out of a queen-cell when smoke is blown into the hive, it is caught and has to do considerable scrambling and kicking before it can get out. I find the best cell for practical purposes is one whose size is between that of the inside of a natural queen-cell at it's largest place and the mouth of the cell, this being five-sixteenths of an inch as given above. In our early experience, many of us, enthusiastic in rearing larger queens, sought to accomplish this by making larger cells; but being large at the mouth, the bees were loath to accept them, and it took considerable work on their part to build them over to the size they should be. When the bees get to work on the cells they mold them into the shape they want, regardless of the size and shape the beekeeper has made them. The smaller cells will give better acceptance than the larger ones; but do not for a moment imagine this cramps the larva and produces an inferior queen, for the bees enlarge the cell to suit their own fancy. For experimental purposes I have dipped queen-cells the size of a worker-cell, and excellent results were obtained. Cells larger than five-sixteenths of an inch are not accepted so readily as those of this size or smaller."--Jay Smith, Queen Rearing Simplified, Chapter V

It is followed by more advice on dipping cells that you may find useful.


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## JohnBruceLeonard (Jul 7, 2015)

Flyer Jim said:


> Did you use soapy water to release the cups from the molds? If so the soap will leave an smell in the cups and the bees will not take to them.If you can get them try jz bz cell cups or make new molds and soak them in plane water for 24 hours. Try again and good luck. :thumbsup:


Thanks, Flyer Jim, but I didn't use soap. I made the tool for producing cups from a wooden dowel, and I found no trouble in detaching the cups from it, so long as I wet the dowel (just with water) each time before dipping it in the wax.


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## crocodilu911 (Apr 17, 2015)

JohnBruceLeonard said:


> Grazie mille! Gentilissimo davvero.
> 
> The website you sent seems promising, and I will make a point of visiting the Melonis soon. Unfortunately, the society of beekeepers here in Sardinia is somewhat closed. Sadly, many beekeepers here will even give false or incomplete information, even intentionally bad advice, in order to limit their competition or to protect what they consider their professional secrets. So some caution is needed. You are nonetheless absolutely correct that there is no substitute to learning directly from professionals. I'll see if the beekeepers you've directed me to don't prove an exception to the rule.


cerca di comprare qualcosa da loro. flattery always works. maybe make several visits, and make sure they know you are just curious. 
i met so many of those people in my life it's not even funny. france, germany, italy, spain, romania, austria and hungary. the UK and the benelux guys were a bit more opened to talking, but the rest they all knew it better. 
i used to give presentations to many beekeeping conventions over the years , and they would all explain to me how they did it better and how good they are. 
i would always tell them, that actually people that do it better and make money, don;t really attend these meetings  i actually had a fight with a guy in Milano because of that ) he was very upset that i , a kid was explaining him how to do certain things. he had been a beekeeper for 35 years, and had over 300 hives  i was running 4000 at the time ) but anyways, be as diplomatic as you can be. small island beekeepers are very closed. it's the same with the guys in Corsica , or here in Hawaii. they won't say much, because they are afraid you'll steel their business. 

if you were on the mainland, closer to northern italy, i would send you to France to see a friend of mine. in fact this would be a perfect time, they are finishing up their lavander harvest right now, and working on the hive bodies. you would learn a lot. 

take care
Radu


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## JohnBruceLeonard (Jul 7, 2015)

Stephenpbird said:


> I thought 9mm was the right size (it is here in Germany), I wonder if that would make a difference.


Stephenbird, just this morning I measured an artificial plastic cup that I recovered from one of my hives, and it was 9mm as well; for which, I imagine 9mm is standard here in Sardinia as well. In one of my earlier attempts at queen rearing, I used cups of about that size; then I found the information that Michael Bush has directed us to on his website regarding cup size, and decided to reduce the size down to about 8mm. But as beekeepers in my area (and yours) have had success with 9mm, perhaps it is a good idea to try larger again, together with the pointers that have been here offered. I do suppose that the best size would depend on the bees in question.


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## JohnBruceLeonard (Jul 7, 2015)

Michael Bush said:


> Here's Jay Smith's take on size:
> http://www.bushfarms.com/beesqueenrearingsimplified.htm#DippingCells
> 
> "Many beekeepers make a mistake in believing that the most important feature for successful cell acceptance is the grafting of the larvae into the cells cups; but a far more important feature is that of making cells of the proper shape and size. The ideal cell would be as the bees build them, large inside, with a small mouth; but it is not possible, or at least practical for the beekeeper to make cells of this shape. Upon several occasions, I have given cells that had been accepted and slightly built out in the swarm box to a colony for finishing, when by accident it contained a virgin queen. Of course, the larvae and jelly were both quickly cleaned out. I have given one bar of such cells to a swarm box and two bars of our dipped cells. The bees seemed to concentrate all their efforts on the cells already worked on by the bees and neglected my dipped cells. The bees prefer to make the mouth of the cell just large enough for a worker bee to crawl into, and it is frequently noticed that sometimes in the workers haste to back out of a queen-cell when smoke is blown into the hive, it is caught and has to do considerable scrambling and kicking before it can get out. I find the best cell for practical purposes is one whose size is between that of the inside of a natural queen-cell at it's largest place and the mouth of the cell, this being five-sixteenths of an inch as given above. In our early experience, many of us, enthusiastic in rearing larger queens, sought to accomplish this by making larger cells; but being large at the mouth, the bees were loath to accept them, and it took considerable work on their part to build them over to the size they should be. When the bees get to work on the cells they mold them into the shape they want, regardless of the size and shape the beekeeper has made them. The smaller cells will give better acceptance than the larger ones; but do not for a moment imagine this cramps the larva and produces an inferior queen, for the bees enlarge the cell to suit their own fancy. For experimental purposes I have dipped queen-cells the size of a worker-cell, and excellent results were obtained. Cells larger than five-sixteenths of an inch are not accepted so readily as those of this size or smaller."--Jay Smith, Queen Rearing Simplified, Chapter V
> ...


Mr. Bush, I've been considering the discrepancy between Jay Smith's observations and the use of larger queen cups such as Stephenbird and I have seen here in Europe. I was wondering if it might have something to do with a difference in bee size, due to the later incorporation of large cell foundation? I have but a loose idea of the history of foundation, and I was wondering if Jay Smith might have performed his experiments before the widespread adoption of large cell foundation. The latest publication of his book was in 1923, which seems late, and I find that Jay Smith mentions foundation at several points in his book, though I could not find mention anywhere of the size. Could he have been working with smaller bees? And might be a possible explanation for the fact that he found it difficult to get his bees to accept anything larger than 8mm, or 5/16 inch?


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## WilliamsHoneyBees (Feb 17, 2010)

AstroBee said:


> The primary sources of your problems were:
> 
> 1) cell building colony had too many options with existing larvae.
> 2) building cells in or near a dearth is much harder than during a flow.
> ...


What he said!


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

John - 
I, too am with Astrobee. Get rid of the open brood when you add the grafts. 30 grafts is way too many in August, after all the flows. Try 16 or less. Be elated about 8 drawn out, making only 4 nucs.

This small number can easily be done in a nuc' starter. They can go into a strong, queenright finisher colony above an excluder with the queen below it the next day, and you can start another batch in the starter in as little as 4 or 5 days. I'd limit a finisher colony to 20 cells this late in the year. You can take them out of the finisher colony 10 days after grafting and put the individual queen cells into small jars to hatch in an incubator, or into nuc colonies. We usually take a peek into the finisher 9 days after grafting and go make up that many nuc's. I build these right on the trailer. On the morning of Day 10, I cut the cells, plant 2 queen cells 1 1/2 " down from the top of the cluster in the middle frame of each nuc', closing each nuc' up with folded screen as I go, thendrive off and place the mating nuc's in a yard 10 miles away, near a known DCA (Drone Congregating Area).

As far as cell cup size, I make forming sticks from 3/8 inch hardwood dowel. Place one end into the pencil sharpener - the long-pointing kind, not the golf course pencil sharpener kind - and grind it down to 1/4". Poke this through a drafting circle template - the 9/32 hole, and mark the bottom of the template with a sharp pencil. sand down to the line, cut the other end at 3". Place the blunt point down into the chuck of a drill press, turn on the drill and round off the edge with 320 grit sand paper.

Make up a late-season rack of only 12 sticks, with all the points ending in a perfect line. It should look like an old wooden rake. Dip them in soapy water. Dip them in the wax at 1/4" deep 3 to 7 times, depending on the wall thickness you're getting. Cool wax 4 dips, hot wax 7 dips. I use 2 little stands to get the depth right. I would make up a frame with only 2 of these 12 cell bars for this time of year. You might only graft 8 in each, just 16 grafts. This is how to get fatter, longer queen cells late in the season.

Using a 3/4" metal tube cut about 9" long, but at a 45 degree angle, and flattened almost closed along the angle, dip this into the molten wax, then trap it in by placing your thumb over the 90 degree end. Pour this onto the bottom of your queen cell frame bar, then attach the 12 queen cell cups, still mounted on the "wooden rake" of forming sticks. Secure them with more hot wax from the wax tube - I of ten use 3 or 4 layers of attaching wax. Allow it to cool. Using gentle, even pressure, pull the forming stick rack away from the cell bar. Wash out the soap thoroughly.

Read David Laferney's threads here on Beesource regarding Joseph Clemen's method. David has come a long, long way at learning to make larger queen cells, a few at a time, all year long since 2011. He learns something new every week. That's why I've gone to his system for late season. I can combine it with a Cloake Board, or with Michael Palmer / Brother Adam's method during the peak of the Spring nectar & pollen flow.

I hope this helps. Good luck to you!


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

John - I really hate to oppose what others have said in their posts, but I'd strongly suggest *NOT* grafting 2- to 3-day old larvae into queen cell cups. You'll see no long term success doing that. 

The larvae that are the correct age for grafting are the very smallest you can find. That's the problem. They are hard to find. But they do make far better queens, so use a lighted magnifying loupe. They are slightly bent, not making a "C", just barely longer than an egg, and not gleaming white, but usually still quite clear. Choose the ones that have some royal jelly in the cell. The dry ones tend to have a higher rejection rate.

The bees accept them and make more accepted queen cells. They get fed better because they are identified as queens earlier in life. A higher percent of these will mate successfully, and the colonies they lead will be relatively stronger. 

The flip side is that, while a few queens from older larvae may make it through mating a start a colony, their ovaries won't have sufficient development of the egg-making ovarioles. The workers in that colony may eventually realize that the queen is not performing good enough and missing a critical period of the main Spring nectar flow. The whole colony could die out that next winter as a result. They'll probably supercede her, but it could be too late. If they do supercede her in a timely fashion, and the superceding queen is mated well and performs up to the colony's needs - they'll probably make it, but valuable time (and honey and pollen reserves) has been lost as opportunity cost.

So, graft the young ones. I re-learned that one again this last season. I gave in to slightly larger grub worms, and the Starter colony rejected every one of them, removing the too-old larvae from the queen cell cups and threw them out the front. They left a yellow Post-It note for me that read: "Younger larvae, please. You should know better than that!"

The other main factors in getting them properly fed are crowding the heck out of them into the ventilated Starter Nuc / Swarm Box. Commercial beekeepers crowd (cram?) 6 lbs ( that's about a 5-gallon bucket of 5- to 15-day old nurse bees) into that 5-frame box. You'll definitely be crushing a bunch of bees when you close the lid! This is why I prefer a 6-frame box, 12" tall, with screen along the bottom for ventilation, and a ventilated feeder rim and vented, mason jar-lid feeder top.

So crowding is one, the other is feeding. The top should have a feeder rim with holes covered with 1/2" mesh hardware cloth, onto which I'd put MegaBee patties or UltraBee patties. That 1/2" hardware cloth allows the bees to get all over it. The lid should be the flat kind, but with a jar feeder hole that tightly fits the drilled mason jar lid, plus at least 2 vents covered with #8 hardware cloth. The frame of pollen you place beside the grafts can be made up from an empty comb frame into which you shake fresh pollen from a pollen trap. If yo get some of this early in the season and freeze it, you have only to thaw it out and shake it into a frame.

In the mason jar, I feed them thin syrup made of 1/2 a jar of C&H pure cane sugar, purified water, 3 tablespoons of honey, a cap-full of HBH, and a few drops of lemon juice or apple cider vinegar. 

*The idea of a STARTER is that there are WAY too many nurse bees with NOTHING to do but EAT and FEED QUEEN CELLS.* The entrance should have a robber screen over it, and the colony should be quite a distance from the larger colonies in your yard. Beekeepers think it's a queen cell starter, robbing bees think its a free feeding station, and rob it out dead or die trying. I again refer you to the first sentence of this paragraph.


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## JohnBruceLeonard (Jul 7, 2015)

Kilocharlie - many thanks for such extremely detailed information! It is extremely useful to me.

I had a few questions (and will surely have more as I begin to put these ideas into practice). You said that from eight drawn cells I can make four nucs, from which I infer that for every nuc you install two cells. Is this correct? What is the reasoning behind this? Is it to double the probability that a viable queen is born to each nuc? Or is there some other motive that I am missing?

As far as the age of the larvae goes, I was indeed trying to get the smallest larvae possible in my previous attempts, and did not have too much trouble getting even such as you described. I was worried more than anything about damaging such small larvae, as they are presumably more delicate on account of their small dimensions and their tender age. Have you had much trouble with that?

I was curious finally about the syrup that you suggested, as I have never seen such a mix recommended before. What is the effect of the lemon juice or apple cider vinegar? And - please forgive my ignorance - what is HBH?

Thank you again for your response, Kilocharlie. I am making another attempt this week, and will put the information you have given into practice as well as I am able.

John


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

JohnBruceLeonard said:


> Kilocharlie - many thanks for such extremely detailed information! It is extremely useful to me.
> 
> I had a few questions (and will surely have more as I begin to put these ideas into practice). You said that from eight drawn cells I can make four nucs, from which I infer that for every nuc you install two cells. Is this correct? What is the reasoning behind this? Is it to double the probability that a viable queen is born to each nuc? Or is there some other motive that I am missing?


Correct - I plant 2 queen cells in each nuc, and immediately move them 10 miles to a mating yard about a mile from a know DCA (Drone Congregating Area). They almost always work that way. Before I did it like this, I had a fairly low percent of grafts-to-happy nuc's. If I planted only one queen cell and she didn't hatch, it would be a week before I knew about it.



JohnBruceLeonard said:


> As far as the age of the larvae goes, I was indeed trying to get the smallest larvae possible in my previous attempts, and did not have too much trouble getting even such as you described. I was worried more than anything about damaging such small larvae, as they are presumably more delicate on account of their small dimensions and their tender age. Have you had much trouble with that?


Yes, I am sometimes clumsy. If I flip one, she dies. If I crush one, they reject her. I am notoriously bad my first set of grafts for the season, almost without fail (er, almost without _success_, is that?  ). By the 3rd frame, I'm getting a much higher acceptance rate. I learned first with chopsticks, and probably crushed every larva I ever tried that way, but my teacher sure had it down perfect!
I find that correct magnification and lighting help A WHOLE, WHOPPING LOT! Almost as much help is *to graft from comb drawn on black plastic foundation* - they really show up a lot better against a dark background! Another trick passed along to us by the great New Zealander, Oldtimer, is to cut the hexagon cell walls down with a sharp knife to just above the larvae. It speeds up the process to about 1/3 of the time, and reduces "OOPS! factor" to almost nil.



JohnBruceLeonard said:


> I was curious finally about the syrup that you suggested, as I have never seen such a mix recommended before. What is the effect of the lemon juice or apple cider vinegar? And - please forgive my ignorance - what is HBH?


My mentor says that his bees just burn through plain sugar water and don't put on any weight onto the hive. He thinks they have to have some fructose, or no weight gain is achieved. Me, having no schedule 77 high fructose corn syrup available, substituted a little bit of honey into the mix. The few drops of lemon or apple cider vinegar retards spoilage and helps "invert" the sugar, which means it breaks the double sugar, sucrose (C&H pure cane sugar), down into fructose and glucose. 

The last thing I add is HBH - a product called Honey-B-Healthy. Most beekeepers use it. It was discovered that bees get far fewer diseases if essential oils are added to their feed, so the inventor of HBH came up with a good mix, and it works very well. HBH seems to reduce stress - the bees often behave much better after being fed HBH in their food. The bees just love my mix, and even a 2-frame swarm goes through a quart in 3 hours.

Incidentally, I also add real pollen to my pollen substitute patties. The bees like it better. I've begun using Megabee from Dadant, and Ultrabee from Mann Lake, and I add pollen to that. Good quality patties = lots of healthy bees and good queen performance, feed them McSoybean patties and you expect good results? Fooey.

Are we developing bees that DEPEND on feeding and essential oils? Yes we are, but at least I have bees, and they build up through the winter and are ready to pollinate almonds in February. 

As my apiary grows, half of them are moved into treatment-free status, but this is after much breeding in some decent traits from excellent, highly productive stock with mite tolerance and a lot of self-sustaining qualities. After a few generations, the resulting breeding stock is "timed in synch" with the local environment and nectar / pollen flows. 

To do this "cold turkey" to wuss bees that have survived on good feed, medications, etc., that haven't overwintered locally for more than 3 years, can't fight mites, and don't know the local flora would be cruelty to animals, like Satanists sacrificing neighborhood cats. They'll just starve to death in great numbers, until the whole colony is just too low on labor force to do anything well, so it dies.

So I am "easing " my bees from IPM (an Integrated Pest Management system) into treatment-free status as the traits are improved. You could start out reading about IPM on Randy Oliver's website, www.scientificbeekeeping.com Randy does a lot of this out of his own pocketbook, and donations sure help him. Check it out, I think you'll love his website.

Again, good luck, and keep on trying and getting better. This is a "learning curve" thing.


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## JohnBruceLeonard (Jul 7, 2015)

kilocharlie said:


> Correct - I plant 2 queen cells in each nuc, and immediately move them 10 miles to a mating yard about a mile from a know DCA (Drone Congregating Area). They almost always work that way. Before I did it like this, I had a fairly low percent of grafts-to-happy nuc's. If I planted only one queen cell and she didn't hatch, it would be a week before I knew about it.


That makes good sense, Kilocharlie. But now, another question! What is a Drone Congregating Area, and how the devil does one find it?



kilocharlie said:


> Another trick passed along to us by the great New Zealander, Oldtimer, is to cut the hexagon cell walls down with a sharp knife to just above the larvae. It speeds up the process to about 1/3 of the time, and reduces "OOPS! factor" to almost nil.


Fantastic idea.

As for feeding, I'll be trying the same mix that you recommend (supposing I can find Honey-B-Healthy here in Sardinia). I had a final question about your feeding mix. You recommend cane sugar, which I have been quite tempted to use, since I myself dislike white sugar. It seems odd then to give my bees something that I wouldn't consume myself. Yet I've read - I can't even remember where now, but in several places - that white sugar is better for them, that cane sugar can even hurt them. I've found this difficult to believe: but then, the digestive system of a bee is certainly not that of a human, and for a lack of better information I've been proceeding with caution. Any thoughts on white sugar versus cane sugar?

Thanks again, Kilocharlie, for the excellent advice you've given me. I'm off this very morning to give another shot at making some queens, so much of this is going to find its first (doubtless awkward) implementation immediately. Thanks also for sketching out your pest management, and your transition into treatment free. My goal is also to achieve treatment free bees in as short a time as possible - but, as you yourself have done, without needlessly endangering the bees or subjecting them to excessive stresses. From all you've written, it seems you have a well-conceived and well-organized operation. My compliments!

Incidentally, I've been chuckling since yesterday at the idea of using chopsticks to graft larvae.

John


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Easy question first. Use cane sugar. I buy C&H brand pure cane sugar. Other white sugar may come from beats. Supposedly identical, but my bees get sick a lot more often if I feed it. My mentor uses schedule 77 corn syrup (thicker than schedule 55 corn syrup) in place of honey in his recipe, but me being smaller scale than he, I can afford the honey, so I spend it on them.


A Drone Congregating Area, "DCA" for short, is a place where bees mate. 

We humans do not yet entirely know how they pick these locations, the bees sure seem to!

The theory is that drones sit around and ask for food most of the day, except from maybe 11 AM to 2:30 PM or there about. That's when they go patrol for virgin queens. They don't go far from home - my SWAG (Scientific Wild-A$$ed Guess) is about a half-mile - but they tend to all go to the same place, no matter which hive they came from.

The queens tend to go farther than the drones to the NEXT DCA - nature avoiding inbreeding, it seems.

Finding DCA's involves several patient beekeepers and/or science students, girlfriends, beer buddies, etc. *with GOOD EYESIGHT* (a pair of 6x35 or 7x50 binoculars can help), with cars and helium balloons attached to fishing rods, and a bunch of good local maps. You'll also need a caged virgin queen.

Throw a pizza party to have the kickoff meeting, introduce the concept that bees mate in specific areas that beekeepers usually don't know about, but can find them. Show them the maps, divided into rectangles of areas that a group of 2 or 3 people can cover in about an hour. The project will require several weeks of journeys, and coordination so that different groups do not cover the same ground, and results get plotted on the (bee club's) main project map.

The goal is to check every half-mile in a grid on each map sector, floating the virgin queen in the cage up to 30 to 100 feet above ground, powered by helium balloons. Watch for "DRONE COMETS" following the virgin in the cage. Often 50 to 300 drones come gathering around the virgin queen in the cage. That's a DCA!

On the first trip to the field, the entire group should go, and hopefully, they all see their first "drone comet". 

It helps to pair an older beekeeper with a younger pair of eyes to spot the drones forming a "comet" shape usually downwind of the queen cage. Both may want to use binoculars, but usually one does and the other does not use the binocs. It depends on the team's eyesight and skill with the binoculars. A set of binoc's with an extra wide field of view is what you'd want for this. They rally help when the VQ is up at 100 feet.

The balloon goes up for 5 minutes and no drones show up, time to move on to the next spot. Realistically it should not take 5 minutes, but if it does, the DCA is nearby, maybe a few hundred yards off. Parking and hiking is sometimes a challenge. Good footwear and fresh socks are in order. Bring drinks and snacks if going out on longer 2-, 3-, or 4-hour searches. Get permission instead of trespassing - honey and/or mead gets permission most of the time 

Once the DCA's in your county (island in your case) are identified, one has 2 different strategies to choose from. If you are open mating and just want to mate your queens, wild stock is OK, then place your mating nucleus colonies 1/2 to 1 mile from the DCA.

After you have gotten your apiary up to, say 100 strong colonies, you change strategies entirely.* Try to find the area FARTHEST from any wild colonies and especially DCA's! Flood that area with your best drone stock.* 

Your drone colonies should have better-than-average traits, have prolific drone mother queens, and represent the best bees in your yard except from the queen breeding (female bloodline) colonies. Either naturally-drawn large cells from foundationless frames, or Pierco's green plastic drone foundation is given to Drone mother colonies. Drone colonies must be fed pollen substitute patties often - as often as every 4 days throughout the breeding season. Once the nectar / pollen flows end, stop feeding the drone colonies and put the robbing screens on.

You'll be placing your mating nuc's with your queen cells planted in them 1/2 to 1 mile from the drone colonies.

This second strategy, Drone Flooding, allows a small degree of control over matings. I try to pay attention to the number of drones available to mate the queens. 1 drone colony can't mate thousands of queens! I prefer 1 drone colony to 4 or 5 mating nuc's, but I do not yet have that large an apiary, so 1 drone colony for 8 mating nucs is what I do now.

The guy that first taught me grafting had been eating rice with chopsticks all his life, and it made perfect sense to him, and he could graft faster than a 1970 Boss Mustang goes past a finish line. He usually got 95% takes on his queens. I've seen him fill 9 queen frames (48 queen cells per frame) in 20 minutes. I do not even hope to ever get that fast.

I made up a set of teriyaki skewers like he used, but I really do not have his delicate touch. A flattened, bent, and polished paperclip works a lot better for me, and I'm getting the hang of the Chinese grafting tool. I sometimes use an artist's #000 sable paintbrush if I've primed the cells with royal jelly. Be sure to keep the brush wet.


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## JohnBruceLeonard (Jul 7, 2015)

Kilocharlie, thanks once again for such detailed information!

This DCA business is one of those apparently incredible facts of bee life and beekeeping, for which I so adore this work. When it is possible, I'll gather a group of friends to make an expedition to find one.

I've begun my latest attempt at queen rearing, following many of the suggestions on this post. Wish me luck, as no doubt I'll need it.


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

HaHa! My uncle used to say that *dumb luck* can beat good looks, a PhD, a red sports car, a pocketful of money, a hot girlfriend, and an attorney (but not 4 aces, nor a Smith & Wesson!) 7 days out of 7! (I'll advise to keep your eye on the attorney, though - he'll be back after you tomorrow).

Honestly, while I do wish you the best of luck, I hope that your learning curve is a pleasant one, and that the season brings you enough nectar flow to pull it off.

August can be mean to us in the queen biz, and mid-August is Miticide Hell Week if you do the IPM thing, which generally shuts down queen rearing for the season. I like to have several nuc's up and laying before August 15th, the day I lay the harshest varroa mite treatment of the year on the bees. That way, I can combine a nuc to any hive whose queen does not survive the treatment.


If you do have success, remember to treat the nuc's 19 days after planting the queen cells. That's just a perfect day when the mites have no place to hide, so give them the Oxalic Acid dribble (www.scientificbeekeeping.com) and start those nuc's off clean.

Buon giorno, and very, very good luck to you.


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