# grafting



## Dave1958 (Mar 25, 2013)

I attempted to graft last weekend. I used a Chinese grafting tool, and by the end I thought I was doing real good. I grafted 30 cells hoping to get 15-20. Well I opened the cell builder and had no drawn out grafts. Is there a video showing larvae being grafted. I have a cell punch and am thinking about that. How do you attach the cell punch to the frames. Suggestions on how you do this as I have waiting all year to make queens, and now Im making a mess of this


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Unless you flipped every one upside down, or mangled the larvae (unlikely with the Chinese tool) I don't see how you messed up the grafting. The most important things to get right to get them to draw cells:

1) don't start before there are drones flying
2) the starter needs to be overflowing with bees. literally. If it is not, compress it. Remove all the supers. Remove any boxes of honey. If you have to shake all the bees off of the next box and give it to some strong hive. Keep compressing them until they don't all fit.
3) the starter needs to be queenless


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Grafting:
(continued off what Michael said...)
4) Make DANG CERTAIN that there are NO OTHER QUEEN CELLS in the Cell Starter Colony. Make sure they have been queenless for 2 hours.

5) Keep a damp towel to cover your grafts so they don't dry out. A spray bottle and/or a spray bar also helps.

6) Graft only one bar at a time, place the frame into the Cell Starter, graft the nest bar, add it to the QC frame, slip it back into the Cell Starter, graft the 3rd bar, add it to the QC frame, float it down next to the pollen frame, and close it up with a mason jar feeder top.

7) Trimming down the honeycomb to just above the larvae with a sharp knife makes things a lot easier.

8) Do not flip the larva over. She will drown.

I think Fat Bee Man has a grafting video, there are others. Try a Hook, a Chinese tool, a #000 sable paint brush.


Cell Punch:
Hot wax is used to attach them...er, well, liquid wax...just barely hot enough to stay fluid. it will kill the grub on the bottom, but not the top. Use a wax tube - bent flat (almost closed) on one end just big enough to cover with your thumb on the other.


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

I've never seen a video showing what you really want to see, close up of the tool going under and picking up and then depositing the larva. Plenty of long shots with someone sitting there. Very few showing what the larva should look like, small, hatched and in a pool of jelly.

All you video buffs; here is the 2nd request.


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## Stephenpbird (May 22, 2011)

Dave1958 said:


> Is there a video showing larvae being grafted.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRN9LeVBq6Y&list=PLJpM6MZOfgAl0d1_ws_qneYD3axpM8hfk


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## Velbert (Mar 19, 2006)

Her is a link to an microsoft Access chart that i put to gather, for those who might want to keep record of raising queens and grafting. You will need Microsoft Access to open this. your computer may show a warning sign but it is safe 
you might have to enable some of the content

https://app.box.com/shared/cre2fy6fo4


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## tefer2 (Sep 13, 2009)

Stephen, that's the best video of grafting I've ever seen. Thanks for posting!:thumbsup:


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

Stephen,
Thanks, most should be called "someone sitting at a bench." Saving this one.


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## Beetastic (Apr 12, 2011)

Did my first grafts yesterday too. It wasn't the smoothest operation, but I only had a little slice of time so I went for it. The only thing I am concerned with is that I did not leave them queenless for a few hours. I just had to shake all my nurse bees in and about a half hour later, plop in the graft. I know I botched a few, and I think I put a few that were too big in, but if I can get 50% I will be happy for now. 

I've been putting this off for far too long. In reality, it wasn't that hard and I am looking forward to the results, whatever they may be. Kinda feels like shooting film again, and waiting for it to be processed 

Question: The pollen frame next to the graft - is that so the nurse bees have the protein to make ample amounts of royal jelly?


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

Beetastic said:


> . . . Question: The pollen frame next to the graft - is that so the nurse bees have the protein to make ample amounts of royal jelly?


Yes, I also try to ensure all my cell growing colonies are also supplemented with pollen sub patties. Can't have too much royal jelly food.


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## Stephenpbird (May 22, 2011)

Velbert said:


> Her is a link to an microsoft Access chart that i put to gather, for those who might want to keep record of raising queens and grafting.
> https://app.box.com/shared/cre2fy6fo4


Do you have a link for the instructions doc?


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## Velbert (Mar 19, 2006)

Instruction doc link

https://app.box.com/shared/rm81halgk0


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## Stephenpbird (May 22, 2011)

Velbert said:


> Instruction doc link
> 
> https://app.box.com/shared/rm81halgk0


Thank you, I'll try your chart out. Thanks for sharing.:thumbsup:


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## WBVC (Apr 25, 2013)

Stephenpbird said:


> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRN9LeVBq6Y&list=PLJpM6MZOfgAl0d1_ws_qneYD3axpM8hfk


Great..even without English. I was surprised how little jelly moves with them. Do they quickly cool. Dry out?


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## WBVC (Apr 25, 2013)

Velbert said:


> Her is a link to an microsoft Access chart that i put to gather, for those who might want to keep record of raising queens and grafting. You will need Microsoft Access to open this. your computer may show a warning sign but it is safe
> you might have to enable some of the content
> 
> https://app.box.com/shared/cre2fy6fo4


I was not able to open this document. Got it..but just the info...can't view a working table


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## Velbert (Mar 19, 2006)

when I down load it, it shows the hive and labels on the left and at top left it has a security warning and it says ENABLE CONTENT CLICK IT


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Just to put into words what you want to see in the video - you want to select the larva that are both clear and "too small to see". I use a 7x magnifying loupe. These larva are about 80 hours old since they were laid as an egg by Mama Queen, that's about 8 hours after the chorion (egg shell) has dissolved. Any larva up to about 100 hours since egg-lay can make a queen, but most often, the best grafted queens are made from those between 6 and 10 hours after becoming a larva (78 to 82 hours since egg-lay).

Chinese grafting tool - Order about 5 of them and expect one to work considerably better than the others. The flexible "tongue" slides under the larva and blob of royal jelly. It flexes as it goes down into the "inverted pyramid" at the bottom of the wax cell, scooping under as much RJ as possible. Try to lift out the RJ + larva mass without touching the cell wall (I mentioned above that cutting the comb down to just above the grubs with a sharp knife helps out considerably. Try it!) Place the "tongue" of the grafting tool into the artificial queen cell cup from slightly off-center, that is, closer to the cell wall nearest you with the blob of RJ + larva facing away from you, touch bottom flexing the tongue over the center, and depress the button while sliding the tongue backwards across the center of the bottom of the cell cup. The larva should be face up, and still in the middle of the RJ.

Grafting hook - it is better to first prime the queen cell cup with RJ, then graft. Use a syringe when priming. Place the hook under the middle of the larva. Some RJ will make her a bit sticky, but don't rely on this. Balance her on the middle of the hook. Place her in the middle of the prime of RJ with a downward, plunging action, pulling the hook out backwards, not sweeping to the side. This way you are unlikely to flip her upside down.

Paint brush - The #000 artist's sable paint brush works a lot like the Chinese grafting tool, flexing as it goes under the larva and getting some royal jelly in the process, except you "roll" her off the brush sideways with about 1/4 turn of the brush. Perhaps the easiest of all the tools to graft with, and you could prime the Queen cell cups with RJ as well.

Try them all - everybody is different. Larva CAN and DO dry out in the time it takes to graft 32 to 48 queen cell cups. Cover them with a warm, damp cloth as you go, and keep a spray bottle of warm, purified water handy. Do one bar at a time, placing the frame back into the Cell Starter colony after each bar is grafted. Graft the next QC bar, take out the QC frame and add the newly grafted bar, float it down into the slot next to the pollen. Graft the 3rd bar (if using a deep) in the same manner, pull the QC frame out, add the 3rd bar, float it down into the slot, close the hive up and fill the feeder jar.

BTW - If you are priming your queen cell cups with a syringe of royal jelly, the composition of royal jelly changes from Day One to Day 5 of a queen larva's feeding. More sugars are used early on, and more protein is added later. GET THE ROYAL JELLY FROM ONE-DAY-OLD QUEEN CELLS!


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## WBVC (Apr 25, 2013)

kilocharlie said:


> Just to put into words what you want to see in the video - you want to select the larva that are both clear and "too small to see". I use a 7x magnifying loupe. These larva are about 80 hours old since they were laid as an egg by Mama Queen, that's about 8 hours after the chorion (egg shell) has dissolved. Any larva up to about 100 hours since egg-lay can make a queen, but most often, the best grafted queens are made from those between 6 and 10 hours after becoming a larva (78 to 82 hours since egg-lay).
> 
> Chinese grafting tool - Order about 5 of them and expect one to work considerably better than the others. The flexible "tongue" slides under the larva and blob of royal jelly. It flexes as it goes down into the "inverted pyramid" at the bottom of the wax cell, scooping under as much RJ as possible. Try to lift out the RJ + larva mass without touching the cell wall (I mentioned above that cutting the comb down to just above the grubs with a sharp knife helps out considerably. Try it!) Place the "tongue" of the grafting tool into the artificial queen cell cup from slightly off-center, that is, closer to the cell wall nearest you with the blob of RJ + larva facing away from you, touch bottom flexing the tongue over the center, and depress the button while sliding the tongue backwards across the center of the bottom of the cell cup. The larva should be face up, and still in the middle of the RJ.
> 
> ...


Some mentioned using water to prime. For those who don't have QC royal jelly will that work?


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Remember - your goal is queen quality. The queen candidate larvae need *ROYAL JELLY*, not water. I'm not saying that you can't make a queen that way, but I bet you'd make a far better queen using RJ, especially first-day RJ. 

Run a full frame of 48 cell cups grafted for RJ at 9 am and pull it out for harvesting RJ with a syringe when you graft for queens at 3 PM. If you merely replace the 9 AM larvae with 3 PM larvae, this method is known as double grafting. I just use the 9 AM frame to harvest RJ with the syringe. I do this when using a grafting hook, or when I think the queen cell cups don't look like they have enough RJ when using the brush.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

How big does the syringe needle has to be to suck up some RJ? I am thinking at the
arm store they have bigger needle for the syringe. But I am not sure how big the needle
has to be for this application? 
Also, is it possible to inject some more RJ into a developing larvae before she is being capped?


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## cristianNiculae (Jul 2, 2013)

A very nice one on grafting:

http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/grafting.html


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Insulin needles are easy to obtain. Rinse them thoroughly in warm water 3 times, dry them out. Make sure water passes through the needle. They only hold 9 or 10 cc, but you can prime a 48-cell frame with that much. It only takes a drop the size of a larva to prime a cell cup. A well-prepared Cell Starter colony (75,000 bees) will make up any difference in about 5 minutes, but then again mine are 4 boxes tall (I newspaper combine to make a strong colony if necessary), and I add about 10 frames of capped brood 10 days before grafting. On grafting day (Day 11), they get crowded down to 3 boxes with all same number of bees. This arrangement will start 2 frames of 48 cells each, but I prefer to put them into separate Cell Finisher colonies, each at least 2 boxes tall, better 3 boxes tall if you have the bee resources for it.

A larger diameter needle might indeed be easier with which to harvest royal jelly...I'll definitely try it. Maybe you know a good phlebotomist whom could supply you a variety of needle sizes to try???

As far as injecting a cell that has been capped...why? You risk killing the queen, and they have had 5 1/2 days to feed her all they think is enough. The critical part is 1,600 RJ feeding visits on the first day, when the sugar content is very high, and the second day, when the protein level content comes up. Disturbance of this critical time period has been shown to cause less average ovariole growth on a queen bee's ovaries. This is why many extra, very well-fed nurse bees help to feed the selected queen larva. It is also the reasoning behind Harry Cloake's method (less disturbance of the Cell Starter colony during the critical period). I don't know if injecting is _possible_, but I really doubt it is a good idea.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

How do you reduce them back into 3 hives? Shake or brush them in?
I am going to try bigger cell cups to see if they will make bigger better queens.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>I am going to try bigger cell cups to see if they will make bigger better queens. 

It doesn't work that way. The diameter of the cup really only affects how well accepted the cup is. Ideal would be 5/16". The queen has lots of room in a queen cell and how big a cell is had little if anything to do with how big the queen is. It's not like drones and workers which grow to fill the cell.

"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

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesqueenrearingsimplified.htm#DippingCells


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

I usually split up the cell builder for nucs. I crowded them and made them queenless, they made queens for me and the bee club, now give them a new queen! They earned it.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

According to my finding, the quote has some variation in that "cells larger than 5/16" or 0.3125" are not readily accepted." I will try the cell size at .39" to see. This is 0.0775" bigger than the 5/16" size. My thinking is a larger cell cup will hold more RJ .: Making the queen larvae more well fed. I am sure the workers will accommodate her accordingly.
With 1,000 larger plastic cell cups .39" coming we will see the result later on. Thanks for the education though. I will keep on learning and adjust accordingly to my experience.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>My thinking is a larger cell cup will hold more RJ .

It's simply not true though. They make the cell deeper and fill it with more royal jelly than the queen can ever eat. Sometimes they make a cell ridiculously long so there is no real limit to the amount of royal jelly they can fit in a cell. The queen is still the same size. The diameter is not related to this. Food supply and density of nurse bees is how you get more royal jelly. The larger diameter will only lessen acceptance. It will not change the amount of food, nor the size of the queen. People have been experimenting with this since Doolittle's time...


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

I am sure you have some validity here. But in beekeeping one can only
experiment to see the results as one's experience is different from 
the other. I am taking a quote from one of the members here 'and one thing I have learned in beekeeping if ya really want to know if something works or not just try then you know.' 
Under the ideal condition as you outlined already, I am sure I will have some exceptional queens. If the 1000 larger plastic cell cups do not make bigger and better queens when enough food supply and nurse bees density is present then I will ask for a refund or an exchange from the seller. I will say this is false advertisement and a bad product. I am sure the manufacturer had made extensive tests before putting them on the market to be sold. I don't see why under the ideal condition why a bigger cell cup will not hold more RJ for the queen to grow on. Either way a well fed queen (big or small) is a good laying queen. I am shooting for better genetic improvement this time. Thanks for the infos though.


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## challenger (May 27, 2009)

beepro said:


> How do you reduce them back into 3 hives? Shake or brush them in?
> I am going to try bigger cell cups to see if they will make bigger better queens.


You are a fairly new beekeeper which is not a bad thing but why try to run before walking? I see this ALL THE TIME with people new to beekeeping and, for the life of me, I cannot understand this. There is nothing wrong with trying new ideas but why not use some proven methods and get some success before tweaking or reinventing? 
You will find all the help you need here to be successful but it is hard to focus on providing help when the posts include disjointed questions and ideas.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

I like a challenge to see what I can invent with beekeeping. Many times it is back to 
square one again. Then I know my ideas do not work. And found out that the old proven method is better. 
This makes beekeeping more fun. My bees are not dying compared to the first year. I make better queens now and have not give
them any kind of chemical treatment. When they continue to grow I know that my experiments have not fail me yet.
Don't you think it is a lot of fun to experiment a little? This is how I learned from my own mistakes as well as others too. It is an
ongoing learning for me because I am still too new.


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Beepro - all my learning and experience say that crowding nurse bees into the cell builder and feeding them have almost everything to do with queen size, and queen cell cup size has little to do with it, but your idea to experiment with a small variation could yield a positive result. The trick is to keep ALL OTHER THINGS EQUAL in your control group, and CONDUCT ENOUGH EXPERIMENTS (>500) TO YIELD SIGNIFICANT RESULTS. That would require considerable bee resources, and you might as well get it funded and publish the results (more effort), but I am not discouraging you. Science loves having old experiments being confirmed as well as new experiments.


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