# Queens emerging early...



## Beezly (Jun 25, 2011)

The last two times i grafted the queens have emerged early. the first time time only a day or so. This time this is how it went... I grafted very young larvae a week ago yesterday. today i went to move the cells into mating nucs and 2 of them had emerged. It should be day twelve since egg laid. I am reasonably sure that the larvae i grafted were indeed 24 hours or less old. very small, just in white jelly stage. by everything i have read, i should not have had emergence at this stage. Our temps have been 102, 105, 107, 105, for the last 4 days, is this the issue? Or am i missing something? I am still working on the jzsbzs cup still having royal jelly when emerging. They seem to be empty, but the queens i am producing are large and fat. and they once mated lay well! I am looking for consistency. 
Thanks,
mike


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## Ben Franklin (May 3, 2011)

I just read a post that had a link to Micheal Bush's Bee Math, he stated that heat (hot weather) does make a difference. While we are not as high as your temps, we too have a heat wave. I am checking my hives every two days for queens to hatch.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

In REALLY hot weather I have seen them emerge two days early. In hot weather they typically emerge one day early. In cold weather I have seen them as much as three days late.


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## canoemaker (Feb 19, 2011)

My grafts have been emerging one day early for the past three weeks The first time caught me off guard, but now I just expect it.


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## Beezly (Jun 25, 2011)

Thanks for the replies ya'll. I would understand 1-2 days early, but grafting on a sunday, (day 4), and going in the next sunday (day 11) and finding them already emerging i must be doing something wrong. the first batch was just 1-2 days early, got it, but 4-5 early? Hmmmm. Of course i did go to school in the south, so maybe somethings wrong with my cyphering 
Thanks again, 
mike


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

If you can see the larvae they are too old...maybe they were a day or two old?


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## sfisher (Sep 22, 2009)

I made a split on Sunday june 24th at 8 am. I inspected the hive today at 11 am to make a split with cells, and one of the queens was hatching. It is in the upper 90's here. That hatch is a full two days early, made with larve that the bees selected.


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## Moon (May 7, 2011)

Michael Bush said:


> If you can see the larvae they are too old...maybe they were a day or two old?


Why would you be able to see eggs and not freshly hatched larva? If you can't see the larva how are you suppose to graft them? I know the last time I grafted all the ones I grafted were way to old, but grafting invisible larva seems pretty tricky.


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## Beezly (Jun 25, 2011)

Michael Bush said:


> If you can see the larvae they are too old...maybe they were a day or two old?


Maybe. Very small, had to use magnifier to see them. They were in milk stage and the smaller ones had no jelly with them. I tried to graft the smaller ones but could not get them off the grafter. I still have problems using the stainless type. I do worry about damaging the larvae when pushing it off with the chinese type. 
thanks


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## fish_stix (May 17, 2009)

That's exactly the reason people use Royal jelly or yogurt to prime the cells-it makes transferring the larva much easier as they just slide off the needle into the jelly.


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