# Is there any scientific evidence that grafted queens are inferior?



## Ryan Williamson (Feb 28, 2012)

I went to a talk by Gunther Hauk in Charlottesville VA recently and was a bit surprised by some of the blanket statements that he made about modern beekeeping. One that really caught me off guard was that grafted queens are inferior and have lead to many of the problems that bees are facing. I have played around with lots of different styles of queen rearing from moving swarm cells, MDA splitter method, Alley Method, Miller method, Smith method, walk away splits, and grafting and not noticed any difference in the quality of the queens as long as the cell raising hive was strong and well fed. I prefer grafting overall. So I am perplexed how grafting could be so bad if done in the correct conditions. I can't say that I buy his explanation. 

Here is a quote from his blog:
"In case of the honeybees: they have a weakened immune system due to all the poisons in nature, the reduced diversity of food supply and, of course, all the nasty things we have invented to get more honey. The most serious impact on the colony's health is the way queens are bred commercially from worker larvae. In Rudolf Steiner's bee lectures it becomes clear that the queen is closely connected to the sun-forces due to her short gestation time (16 days). The workers have fallen out of that sun-influence to some degree; the drones are fully earthly beings (hey, they are males!). By breeding queens from worker larvae over 100 years, we have reduced this pure 'sun-being' to have more and more earthly qualities. The manipulated queen has a lowered (spiritual) light-emittence which negatively influences the health and vitality of the entire colony. Therefore these parasitic forces of darkness have better access to the bees. Varroa mites, tracheal mites, small African hive beetle, and now flies!? "
----- Gunther Hauk
http://spikenardhoneybeesanctuary.blogspot.com/

What do you all think?


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

Ryan Williamson said:


> The manipulated queen has a lowered (spiritual) light-emittence which negatively influences the health and vitality of the entire colony. Therefore these parasitic forces of darkness have better access to the bees.


Yeah...I'm gonna hang my hat on this guy's sermon all right


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

Back to that old theory if its in the net it must be true!........

There are lots of ideas out here, some good, some bad. If that one were fully credible it would have already been tested and proven. I belive that nutrition of the hive and feeding of the queen during her development is the most critical factor in her longevity and production.....


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## Rader Sidetrack (Nov 30, 2011)

> that grafted queens are inferior and ...

Nowhere in the quote from Gunther Hauk above in post #1 is the word "_graft_" used. Why do you believe the quote is relevant to grafting?


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Ryan - Indeed an appropriate question to call for *scientific* studies! Also that you bring up "if done in the correct conditions", which greatly closes the gap between the average grafted queen as inferior to [Henry Alley / Jay Smith Method(s), the Cell Punch Method, Mel Disselkoen's MDA Splitter Method, natural swarm and/or supercedure] - produced queens (the latter group tending to often display better % mating and longevity than less-than-ideally grafted queens).

The same tendency shows up when discussing queen banking and instrumental insemination of honeybee queens as "inferior", when conditions are greatly deviated from "ideal", where feeding interruption and artificial delays before mating are both very important factors.

For a wonderful essay comparing, contrasting, and evaluating many studies on Instrumentally Inseminated Queens (IIQ's) vs. Naturally-Mated Queens (NMQ's), log onto Dr. Susan Cobey's website, 

www.honeybee.breeding.com,

click on "About I.I." and read the short article all the way to the bottom, then click on the left side of the last line for a 21-page report that delves into the conditions that have a lot more to do with the end results than the methods of mating. THERE IS MUCH USEFUL INFORMATION REGARDING QUEEN REARING CONDITIONS IN THIS REPORT, as well as numerous of scientific studies to which one may refer. It is, perhaps one of the best reads out there for a queen breeder, whether or not using I.I. (BTW, a big, fat THANK YOU, Dr. Cobey , and the many other scientist/beekeepers involved!) You may wish to print the report and laminate it.

Another of Dr. Cobey's articles that is of great use is, "The Cloake Board Method of Queen Rearing and Queen Banking", which also helps a great deal in producing better quality queens.


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## Ryan Williamson (Feb 28, 2012)

Quite true Rader Sidetrack, I should have mentioned that during the talk he spoke about grafting and "breeding queens from worker larvae" as if they were the same thing. I think that we can call agree that while grafting is not the only way, it is the most commonly used method to produce queens from worker larvae. I pulled the quote as an example of his thinking assuming that "breeding queens from worker larvae" meant grafting like he said in his talk. But even if we are not talking about grafting I still can't see how using under 24hour worker larva that is laid in a horizontal cell is inferior to eggs laid vertical queen cells. 
I just found this article the he wrote which should provide good fun reading for those who want to spend the time:

http://www.spikenardfarm.org/pdf/IsTheQueenStillRoyal.pdf

To me it is the conditions of the hive that matter rather than how the larva ended up in a vertical cell. Grafting just happens to be an easy way to do it that many if not most queen breeders use. I know that in my operation I can't just wait for a hive to swarm to provide nucs to my customers. 





Rader Sidetrack said:


> > that grafted queens are inferior and ...
> 
> Nowhere in the quote from Gunther Hauk above in post #1 is the word "_graft_" used. Why do you believe the quote is relevant to grafting?


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

After about 33 years of grafting and 40 years of queen rearing, and writing one of the most successful books on grafting, Jay Smith wrote this:

The object of Better Queens is to be helpful to all who rear queens and not to criticize those who use the grafting system. After all, I am criticizing the method I taught in Queen Rearing Simplified, so it is perfectly legitimate to criticize oneself! Many who now are using the grafting system and who want to rear better queens will want the two systems compared. As most beekeepers know, by the grafting method we mean the method in which the larva from a worker cell is transferred to an artificial queen cell. We used that system for 33 years. Not one of those years did we get the fine large cells which are necessary to produce full developed queens throughout the whole season. We found that when there was a light honey flow with plenty of pollen coming in, and if we kept the cell builders up to great strength, we could get a very high percentage of good queens. Even at its best we had to cull cells and virgins and frequently to discard laying queens that were not fully developed. Even then a few inferior queens would get by us which we had to replace. This never happens with our present system. We never have thrown away a cell for being too small, for all are alike. With the present system we have yet to see an undersized virgin. When using the grafting system, when there was no flow, it was well-nigh impossible to get good cells even though we fed sugar by the ton. Not one of those 33 years passed in which I did not long for a system with which I could produce those fine large cells which I had observed in colonies preparing to swarm, a system by which I could produce cells in quantities throughout the entire season. 

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesbetterqueens.htm#The Grafting Method


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## Ryan Williamson (Feb 28, 2012)

Now I am regretting using the term grafting in my OP when I should have used the broader term of "worker larvae" that Gunther Hauk uses in his writing. I just used grafting as he mentioned it in his talk and as it is the most common way to raise queens from worker larvae. As I understand his argument he would still criticize the Jay Smith method as it still uses worker larvae and eggs that were laid in an horizontal position and then moved to a vertical position. That is the part I can't understand.

Michael can I ask which method you use these days?

http://www.spikenardfarm.org/pdf/IsT...StillRoyal.pdf




Michael Bush said:


> After about 33 years of grafting and 40 years of queen rearing, and writing one of the most successful books on grafting, Jay Smith wrote this:
> 
> The object of Better Queens is to be helpful to all who rear queens and not to criticize those who use the grafting system. After all, I am criticizing the method I taught in Queen Rearing Simplified, so it is perfectly legitimate to criticize oneself! Many who now are using the grafting system and who want to rear better queens will want the two systems compared. As most beekeepers know, by the grafting method we mean the method in which the larva from a worker cell is transferred to an artificial queen cell. We used that system for 33 years. Not one of those years did we get the fine large cells which are necessary to produce full developed queens throughout the whole season. We found that when there was a light honey flow with plenty of pollen coming in, and if we kept the cell builders up to great strength, we could get a very high percentage of good queens. Even at its best we had to cull cells and virgins and frequently to discard laying queens that were not fully developed. Even then a few inferior queens would get by us which we had to replace. This never happens with our present system. We never have thrown away a cell for being too small, for all are alike. With the present system we have yet to see an undersized virgin. When using the grafting system, when there was no flow, it was well-nigh impossible to get good cells even though we fed sugar by the ton. Not one of those 33 years passed in which I did not long for a system with which I could produce those fine large cells which I had observed in colonies preparing to swarm, a system by which I could produce cells in quantities throughout the entire season.
> 
> http://www.bushfarms.com/beesbetterqueens.htm#The Grafting Method


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Michael can I ask which method you use?

Mostly I graft. I also use a Jenter box and I have done, and may do more, of the Hopkins method. I don't think anyone can tell the difference between a queen raised from an egg laid in the horizontal position or the vertical position. The real question is how old a larva can be and not make any difference in the quality. That and if we do any harm to a larvae when grafting. Smith would probably say part of the issue is also how long they are without/short of food while we are grafting them.


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Michael Bush said:


> After about 33 years of grafting and 40 years of queen rearing, and writing one of the most successful books on grafting, Jay Smith wrote this:
> 
> The object of Better Queens is to be helpful to all who rear queens and not to criticize those who use the grafting system. After all, I am criticizing the method I taught in Queen Rearing Simplified, so it is perfectly legitimate to criticize oneself! Many who now are using the grafting system and who want to rear better queens will want the two systems compared. As most beekeepers know, by the grafting method we mean the method in which the larva from a worker cell is transferred to an artificial queen cell. We used that system for 33 years. Not one of those years did we get the fine large cells which are necessary to produce full developed queens throughout the whole season. We found that when there was a light honey flow with plenty of pollen coming in, and if we kept the cell builders up to great strength, we could get a very high percentage of good queens. Even at its best we had to cull cells and virgins and frequently to discard laying queens that were not fully developed. Even then a few inferior queens would get by us which we had to replace. This never happens with our present system. We never have thrown away a cell for being too small, for all are alike. With the present system we have yet to see an undersized virgin. When using the grafting system, when there was no flow, it was well-nigh impossible to get good cells even though we fed sugar by the ton. Not one of those 33 years passed in which I did not long for a system with which I could produce those fine large cells which I had observed in colonies preparing to swarm, a system by which I could produce cells in quantities throughout the entire season.
> 
> http://www.bushfarms.com/beesbetterqueens.htm#The Grafting Method


Jay Smith is not presenting his statement as a scientific study, but the numbers sure speak volumes, don't they? Thanks for posting this, MB :applause:


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## jrbbees (Apr 4, 2010)

Ryan Williamson said:


> The manipulated queen has a lowered (spiritual) light-emittence which negatively influences the health and vitality of the entire colony. Therefore these parasitic forces of darkness have better access to the bees.


I have to confess that when I read terms like the "(spiritual) light-emittence" and "these parasitic forces of darkness" being applied to bugs, I fail to see the light. I wonder what that says about my darkness?


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

kilocharlie said:


> Jay Smith is not presenting his statement as a scientific study, but the numbers sure speak volumes, don't they?


What numbers? 33 years raising queens?


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

Michael Bush said:


> The object of Better Queens is to be helpful to all who rear queens and not to criticize those who use the grafting system. After all, I am criticizing the method I taught in Queen Rearing Simplified, so it is perfectly legitimate to criticize oneself! Many who now are using the grafting system and who want to rear better queens will want the two systems compared. As most beekeepers know, by the grafting method we mean the method in which the larva from a worker cell is transferred to an artificial queen cell. We used that system for 33 years. Not one of those years did we get the fine large cells which are necessary to produce full developed queens throughout the whole season. We found that when there was a light honey flow with plenty of pollen coming in, and if we kept the cell builders up to great strength, we could get a very high percentage of good queens. Even at its best we had to cull cells and virgins and frequently to discard laying queens that were not fully developed. Even then a few inferior queens would get by us which we had to replace. This never happens with our present system. We never have thrown away a cell for being too small, for all are alike. With the present system we have yet to see an undersized virgin. When using the grafting system, when there was no flow, it was well-nigh impossible to get good cells even though we fed sugar by the ton. Not one of those 33 years passed in which I did not long for a system with which I could produce those fine large cells which I had observed in colonies preparing to swarm, a system by which I could produce cells in quantities throughout the entire season.


Well, I have to disagree. I haven't raised queens for 33 years or 40 years, but I raise quality queens, and in my opinion...Inferior cells come from inferior cell builders, poor grafting techniques, and/or poor flow conditions. To say that non-grafting techniques used during poor flow conditions will yield quality cells is wrong. Bee don't graft, and they don't raise cells under dearth conditions unless they are forced to... emergency queens. 

Why do you think?


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

I don't raise queens and certainly don't know as much about queen rearing as do most of the rest of you, but, all other things being equal, isn't the proof of the queen in how successfully mated she was? Isn't it a well produced virgin queen which gets mated w/ by a sufficient number of drones which produces a quality queen?


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## Daniel Y (Sep 12, 2011)

I have no idea what this Sun creature and Earthly being thing is supposed to be about. Although it all sounds hokey to me I do suspect there is something specific that defines this difference. he can call it whatever he likes.

I do get a general idea that he thinks that there is a difference between worker larva and queen larva. I suspect he believes this difference is present from the moment the egg is layed?

I have asked questions in regard to this myself. All responses have been that all eggs are treated the same up to day three after hatching. I then saw one claim that the jelly fed to queens is different form the moment of hatching.

So far I am undecided on this three day factor and just what is being fed. after that there is no question a queen larva is treated differently.

In all I see some merit in this thinking that a larvae that spent 1 day or even one moment on a food intended for a worker bee will influence the quality of a queen produced from that larva.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

There should be only a minute amount of difference since both queens and eggs come from the same source of fertilized eggs and if a worker larvae is grafted at the optimum time it hasn't had the opportunity to consume very much brood food before it is put into a queen cup and then into a colony which feeds it what it needs to grow.

Michael, help me out here?


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

Michael Palmer said:


> Inferior cells come from inferior cell builders, poor grafting techniques, and/or poor flow conditions. To say that non-grafting techniques used during poor flow conditions will yield quality cells is wrong. Bee don't graft, and they don't raise cells under dearth conditions unless they are forced to... emergency queens.
> Why do you think?


I couldn't agree more. I think a good grafter is using larvae less than 6 hours old. I have trouble believing the bees are doing much better than that and if they are that it could really make much of a difference. A good builder will raise uniformly large cells which tells me that the 5 minute old larvae is developing almost identically to the 5 hour old one. From that point raising quality virgins relates to using optimal builders in optimal conditions and not to overtax those builders.


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## Daniel Y (Sep 12, 2011)

Mark I woudl tend to agree except you are talking about something that is fed 1500 times a day. that is on average once every minute or less. and a creature that will grow some 5000 times it's original size in 18 days??? I am not sure on that number. at any rate it is an extremely accelerated rate in which 24 hours is comparable to a year for us. Could you expect to feed an infant inadequate food for a year and have it develop correctly? I am also not looking at does it work which obviously it does. the method supplies the world with queens. But are the best of queens damaged goods regardless. That is a lot harder to evaluate.

So for the sake of discussion and contemplating. lets say there is a difference in the jelly fed to workers and that fed to queen larva. And that each two hours the larva remains on that worker jelly is like an human infant spending one month on poor quality formula.

Michael already has helped in this regard with this comment above about quality breeders giving attention to their methods. Or that is my way of saying what I understand he is saying.

Some queens are reared by someone take a frame of open brood and searching for young larva. In this method there is no real way to know the age of the larva and I woudl consider it a lower quality method of obtaining larva. other breeders take measures to know the oldest possible age of the larva and graft them on a day of known age. maybe not to the hour. but if pressed I bet they could take a fair stab at estimating it.

So could a breeder control the laying of eggs in cells to the degree they could insure no larva was more than 6 hours old at the time of grafting? Comparable to 3 months of poor nutrition for an infant. Could they insure no more than 12 hour old larva? Should they? this is not an issue of no nutrition and I suspect few quality breeders are grafting larvae much older than 24 hours. All of the that I have read their comment take some measures to know the age of the larvae.

And finally is it even true there is a difference. if ti is how much of a difference? so in the end is it something big enough to even worry about. it is something so important it could be causing problems in the bees overall. For me the issue starts getting some pretty big shoes to fill. It starts loosing readability the more things I add for it to be responsible for. Okay so maybe we have some slightly mal nourished queens. That is not genetic and will not be carried on and compounded. So the next generation gets grafted at one hour and you scrub the slate clean.

Overall I am not seeing my own argument holding up will over time. random poor queens maybe. decline of the honey bee. I don't think it is even possible over an issue of nutrition. starvation does not alter genetics. only the transmission of those genetics. A starved poor health queen still carries the same genes they are not altered one bit.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

It's not hard to recognize and pass over 24 hour old larvae. The newly hatched larvae are in very close proximity to eggs. if you are taking more than a few hundred out of a hive and if they are getting too easy to see then you are probably grafting overly mature larvae.


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## Joel (Mar 3, 2005)

I don't pretent to think we can do anything as good or better than nature. If we look at early raised spring queens the percentage of them which are supersceded is much higher than we see in mid season queens raised under ideal conditions. We've learned from recent studies naturally mated queens produce more phermones and thus are more successful than artificially insemintated queens. Does that outweigh the advantages of genetics in the long run? Walter Kelly made the statement he never purchased an artificially mated breeder queen that showed him anything better than an open mated queen. Having said that, I find our queen rearing (now done with EZI) mimics what we find in a natural setting as "naturally raised" queens and is directly related to the conditions the cells are raised in. We inevitably due to the mangement we use, have hives that move into swarm mode at the same time we are raising our queens and we see cells of different sizes within the same hive. We see swarm queens that can be inferior just as grafted/transferred queens can. I don't think as Mr. Hauk states the bees are "asking" us anything. I think they respond to conditions in a uniform and predictable manner and always do the best they can under the given conditions, thus surviving for millenia. Consistently the best queens and some of our most successful hives have artifically raised queens raised and bred during ideal conditions.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I think one of the reasons that there probably is no scientific study on the subject is that there are too many variables that contribute to the quality of a queen. I do not believe that any of those are the angle at which the egg was laid, nor do I believe that there are eggs that were destined from the beginning to be queens by some difference in the egg (the idea that the egg in a queen cell was any different than an egg in a worker cell was purported by Schirach and proven by Huber in the late 1700s.)

I think of all the factors involved, feeding is the biggest. It is related to the age of the larvae in that feeding of a worker or a queen is identical for some time, but changes somewhere in the first 36 hours or so and many suspect that some of those changes are less than 36 hours, if not in quantity, perhaps in quality. I try to graft when they are just a speck on a drop of royal jelly. Feeding has a lot to do with flows, how crowded the hive is with bees etc.

The next issue is how well they are mated. A queen that is poorly mated never does as well. The main issue here is plenty of mature drones flying and good flying weather.

The next issue, which is important, but I would put it after those other two, is genetics. You do need good genetics of bees that do well in your environment.

It is the combination of these issues that makes a good or poor queen.

Back to Jay Smith's observation. I think he is basing it on that time lag of when the larvae is not being fed because of the time to pull the frame, graft the larvae and get it back in the colony. With any graftless method the larvae is still in a pool of royal jelly while all this takes place which helps some. But the Chinese grafting tool tends to pick up that pool pretty well. Even doing the Better Queens method there is a time delay of cutting the combs and waxing them on and destroying the in between larvae to make room to separate the cells. All of this takes time. So I think we are back to them staying in that pool of jelly being the difference he is counting on.


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

My understanding is that the Larve is feeding from that pool? do you guys think that the bees are actually feeding that super tiny larve by mouth???
I thought that was part of the point of double grafting? 

Maybe i am missing something.


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## Joel (Mar 3, 2005)

Michael - In your work have you done comparisons between queens raised, having used a grafting tool vs queens raised with Jenter which are not mechanically detached using a grafting tool from a cell for movement into a cell cup. I'd be interested to hear about any results as well as your reasons for going to Jenter.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

It is virtually impossible, at least in my mind, to directly tie the quality of a queen directly with how it was fed because the quality of the mating itself is at least as important as any other factor. I am not convinced that there is any actual evidence that a larger cell is real proof that the virgin was any better fed than a somewhat smaller one. It could be that they only have a capacity to consume a finite amount of jelly and the resulting cell size relates more to a seperate dynamic within the builder. Personally I look for uniformity of cell size as the benchmark of a well fed virgin. A somewhat longer cell can often bee a sign that the larvae has fallen away from contact with the royal jelly.


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

Michael Bush said:


> .... (the idea that the egg in a queen cell was any different than an egg in a worker cell was purported by Schirach and proven by Huber in the late 1700s.)


Would you please clarify this statement? Are you saying that Huber proved that an egg in a queen cell is different than that in a worker?


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

jim lyon said:


> It could be that they only have a capacity to consume a finite amount of jelly and the resulting cell size relates more to a seperate dynamic within the builder.


I agree. Quite often when cells are well fed, the remaining cell will still have residual royal jelly in it after the queen has emerged.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>My understanding is that the Larve is feeding from that pool? do you guys think that the bees are actually feeding that super tiny larve by mouth???

No but they constantly (as every few minutes at most) renewing that pool, not just adding to it, but removing and adding to it.

>I thought that was part of the point of double grafting?

Yes. It is the point of double grafting. Yet I've never seen any noticeable difference with that.

>Michael - In your work have you done comparisons between queens raised, having used a grafting tool vs queens raised with Jenter which are not mechanically detached using a grafting tool from a cell for movement into a cell cup. I'd be interested to hear about any results as well as your reasons for going to Jenter. 

I haven't done any scientific measurements, but I see no difference by simple observation. Both make good queens when you set up the right conditions and both make poor queens if you don't.

>It is virtually impossible, at least in my mind, to directly tie the quality of a queen directly with how it was fed because the quality of the mating itself is at least as important as any other factor.

I agree. There are too many other factors and IF there is any difference, it is insignificant compared to all those other factors.

> I am not convinced that there is any actual evidence that a larger cell is real proof that the virgin was any better fed than a somewhat smaller one.

I agree. I think the amount of left over jelly is a better measurement that the size of the cell.

>>.... (the idea that the egg in a queen cell was any different than an egg in a worker cell was purported by Schirach and proven by Huber in the late 1700s.)
>Would you please clarify this statement? Are you saying that Huber proved that an egg in a queen cell is different than that in a worker?

Quite the opposite. The prevailing theory of the day was that there were three kinds of eggs: drones, workers and queens. Schirach had questioned that and fairly well proved that bees could make a queen when they had no queen cell and no queen, but some still argued that perhaps the queen randomly laid queen eggs in worker cells and one of those was converted, rather than removed as they might have been had they not needed the queen. Huber was the one who laid all that to rest.

>I agree. Quite often when cells are well fed, the remaining cell will still have residual royal jelly in it after the queen has emerged. 

And I think that is the best measurement. Did they run out of food...


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## Gino45 (Apr 6, 2012)

AstroBee said:


> I agree. Quite often when cells are well fed, the remaining cell will still have residual royal jelly in it after the queen has emerged.


Nothing scientific here; however, it does seem that 'grafted' queens are often superseded fairly soon. My opinion, however, is that the problem lies with the food received by the queen larvae.

Most of the queen breeders and package dealers certainly feed their bees. And the stuff they feed is HFCS and pollen supplements. IMO, these artificial feeds are lower quality food and produce lower quality queens. I do not believe that the queens being started from young worker larvae is the problem.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

I've seen that the queens first meal is to turn around and eat the remaining royal jelly in the cell she emerged from. A well fed cell is one that supplies the queen royal jelly left over so she has a large first meal.


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## arrowwood (Apr 11, 2012)

back to the original point of the thread - i have read many differing theories of "organic" agriculture. i even wrote for one of the big organic publications for a while. most of the opinions are very much evidence-based. rudolf steiner's bio-dynamic theory is the big exception. steiner was incoherent and his acolytes are bat**** crazy!
(full disclosure - i haven't actually tried filling a cow's horn with poop, burying it beneath a fulll moon and dancing around it naked to collect magical space energy)



Daniel Y said:


> And finally is it even true there is a difference. if ti is how much of a difference? so in the end is it something big enough to even worry about. it is something so important it could be causing problems in the bees overall. For me the issue starts getting some pretty big shoes to fill. It starts loosing readability the more things I add for it to be responsible for. Okay so maybe we have some slightly mal nourished queens. That is not genetic and will not be carried on and compounded. So the next generation gets grafted at one hour and you scrub the slate clean.
> 
> Overall I am not seeing my own argument holding up will over time. random poor queens maybe. decline of the honey bee. I don't think it is even possible over an issue of nutrition. starvation does not alter genetics. only the transmission of those genetics. A starved poor health queen still carries the same genes they are not altered one bit.


i do have to disagree with daniel, however. we have pretty good evidence that starvation does alter genetics, or at least the expression of those genetics. whether that is compounded over generations or the slate is wiped clean remains to be seen.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Nothing scientific here; however, it does seem that 'grafted' queens are often superseded fairly soon.

While I agree a lot of the commercial queens out there seem to be superseded quickly, I graft a lot of queens and I don't see them superseded in several years... so I think it has more to do with raising them too early and banking them too quickly after they start to lay, not with grafting itself


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>And the stuff they feed is HFCS and pollen supplements. IMO, these artificial feeds are lower quality food and produce lower quality queens.

There is plenty of evidence that pollen substitute makes short lived bees. I'm sure it also makes short lived queens.


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## jhr81064 (Mar 7, 2013)

Do we know why eggs positioned in a queen cell artificially by man is rejected by the bees?...since we know that the bees will naturally lay eggs into cell cups on the combs in preparation for swarming.....
Thanks Jim


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## jhr81064 (Mar 7, 2013)

It seems the next big advancement in queen rearing would be figuring out how to get the bees to accept eggs within cell cups .....natural or artificial....if it is generally accepted that queens reared under the swarming instinct result in the best queens & these queens always come from eggs placed into cell cups by the queen or bees themselves...how do we replicate those conditions in order get the bees to accept eggs placed into cups by man?

Thanks Jim


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

Daniel Y said:


> Mark I woudl tend to agree except you are talking about something that is fed 1500 times a day.


sorry...doesn't pass the smell test. There are 1440 minutes in a day. young brood is constantly eating...it is laying in a pool of food.

has anyone observed larvae being "fed" once a minute? i've grafted larvae onto microscope slides (with food...using a chinese grafting tool) and recorded video of it under the microscope....larvae appear to "swallow" once every few seconds.

i'm still in arizona, but can probably post a video in a few days. i've done this "live" at our conference in Leominster, and I've shown video at several club meetings....I've been amazed that some of the top academic bee researchers seem to have never done this, and are captivated. it seems like about the most obvious thing to do to me.

deknow

deknow

deknow


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

Some of Gunther's writings (his book, "towards saving the honeybee") are beautiful to read...especially his description of the comb precipitating out of the cluster as bones precipitate out of a developing fetus comes to mind.

Ramona went to one of his workshops when he was still at the Pfeiffer Institute...it is where we first learned about foundationless comb (before we had ever heard of enlarged cell size).

deknow


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

jhr81064 said:


> It seems the next big advancement in queen rearing would be figuring out how to get the bees to accept eggs within cell cups


you can crowd the bees (don the fatbeeman talks about this)...there are many ways to induce the building of swarm cells.

deknow


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

deknow said:


> sorry...doesn't pass the smell test. There are 1440 minutes in a day. young brood is constantly eating...it is laying in a pool of food.
> 
> has anyone observed larvae being "fed" once a minute? i've grafted larvae onto microscope slides (with food...using a chinese grafting tool) and recorded video of it under the microscope....larvae appear to "swallow" once every few seconds.


The actions of bees and larvae concerning a larva grafted onto a microscope slide are the same as undisturbed larvae and bees within a hive? No, of course not. 

According to Morse...I think it was he...larvae are "visited" some 10,000 times between egg hatch and cell sealing. Visits, I believe, means topping off the pussle of jelly, and not actually "feeding" the larva. The nurse bees don't actually feed the larva, she does it herself.

At least, that's my take on the matter.


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

Ryan Williamson said:


> "In case of the honeybees: they have a weakened immune system due to all the poisons in nature, the reduced diversity of food supply and, of course, all the nasty things we have invented to get more honey. The most serious impact on the colony's health is the way queens are bred commercially from worker larvae. In Rudolf Steiner's bee lectures it becomes clear that the queen is closely connected to the sun-forces due to her short gestation time (16 days). The workers have fallen out of that sun-influence to some degree; the drones are fully earthly beings (hey, they are males!). By breeding queens from worker larvae over 100 years, we have reduced this pure 'sun-being' to have more and more earthly qualities. The manipulated queen has a lowered (spiritual) light-emittence which negatively influences the health and vitality of the entire colony. Therefore these parasitic forces of darkness have better access to the bees. Varroa mites, tracheal mites, small African hive beetle, and now flies!? "
> ----- Gunther Hauk


With all due respect to anyone's sensibilities, what a load of pseudo-spiritual nonsense. And I only say that because I'm not allowed to use a stronger word than 'nonsense' here on *B*ee_*S*_ource.

While I do not like the idea of hundreds of queens being created from one as it is detrimental to the gene pool, humans have spent hundreds of years figuring out the best ways to make new queens. One thing that people can do that bees can't is make sure absolutely everything is in the proper place to get the best quality queens possible. Certainly not much inferior to naturally raised queens, if at all.

Poisons in nature are important, but what about the poisons beekeepers put in the hive?


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

Solomon Parker said:


> With all due respect to anyone's sensibilities, what a load of pseudo-spiritual nonsense. And I only say that because I'm not allowed to use a stronger word than 'nonsense' here on *B*ee_*S*_ource.
> 
> While I do not like the idea of hundreds of queens being created from one as it is detrimental to the gene pool, humans have spent hundreds of years figuring out the best ways to make new queens. One thing that people can do that bees can't is make sure absolutely everything is in the proper place to get the best quality queens possible. Certainly not much inferior to naturally raised queens, if at all.
> 
> Poisons in nature are important, but what about the poisons beekeepers put in the hive?


Bravo Sol, we agree on this one (even the part about the poisons in the hive) All queen raisers are really doing is channeling the natural instincts of bees to suit the beekeepers purposes and ideally you are doing it at a time when bees will readily cooperate.


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## Daniel Y (Sep 12, 2011)

deknow said:


> sorry...doesn't pass the smell test. There are 1440 minutes in a day. young brood is constantly eating...it is laying in a pool of food.
> 
> deknow


I said it was fed 1500 times a day. Nothing about how often it eats. I am not sure the number of minutes in a day has anything to do with that. It works out to every so many seconds.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Daniel,
I don't see how that can be so. Wouldn't you expect to see bees w/ thheir heads in brood cells all the time? I know I am not as observant as others, but I have never seen what I thought was a bee feeding, putting food in a cell occupied by an egg or larvae.


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## Daniel Y (Sep 12, 2011)

Mark, I cannot recall where I read the 1500. But regardless of the number. If bees are not placing the jelly in the cell. Where is it coming from? Does it require a bee place their head into the cell in order to feed a larva? The undisturbed brood I have seen is usually covered in bees to the point you cannot see brood at all.


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## jonathan (Nov 3, 2009)

There are a lot of myths around queen rearing and as a couple of people have pointed out, that Steiner stuff (anthroposcopy) is quasi religious esoteric stuff and in my view has no place in beekeeping.
Steiner wrote about bees and sun cycles but I don't think he was actually ever a bee keeper himself.

I do a lot of grafting and I agree with almost every point Michael Bush has made on this thread.
If there is dried up royal jelly at the base of a cell from which a queen has emerged, she was not short of food in the crucial 4 and a bit days days before the cell was capped over.

Re. queens getting superseded, there is research to show that a queen introduced to a colony just a few days after she has started to lay is quite likely to be superseded.
Ideally, a queen should be laying for about a month before being introduced.
I think the problem with early introduction and subsequent supersedure is something to do with lack of queen pheromone.

Some people also believe that queens which mate from mini nucs or Apideas are inferior in some way but I have not found this to be the case either.

Rubbish in, rubbish out applies and if you start with bad genetics don't expect to produce good queens.
Same applies to your local drone population.
The other critical factor with open mated queens is the weather.
In an ideal world you would get several good flying days 8-12 days after the queen has emerged.
Last season our weather was so bad at times virgin queens were unable to fly for up to 3 weeks.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Daniel Y said:


> Mark, I cannot recall where I read the 1500. But regardless of the number. If bees are not placing the jelly in the cell. Where is it coming from? Does it require a bee place their head into the cell in order to feed a larva? The undisturbed brood I have seen is usually covered in bees to the point you cannot see brood at all.


Of course bees put the food into the cell so the larvae can eat it. But 1500 times a day? Not that nit picking frequency is all that important. I too see bees covering brood, just ahven't seen the feeding being done. Not saying it isn't done. I'd just like to see it happen.


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

I've made two separate observations:

1. If you put a larvae on a microscope slide and watch it, it simply eats the pool of food around it.

2. It does not seem (if one watches a frame of brood in an observation hive) that the bees are adding food to the cell once a minute.

When you see them with their heads in a cell with brood, they are there for several seconds at least.

Have you ever taken a frame of brood out during an inspection and watched it for at least a minute? It does not appear (at least to me) that the brood is being "fed" (or that food is being added to the cell) once every minute. Ditto for an observation hive where the bees are not being disturbed.

I know what numbers are cited (I don't recall at the moment...we may have even put a similar number in our book)....but it's always useful to doubt accepted facts, especially if you do some math and some observation and it doesn't jibe.

I have an idea of how to run some more detailed observations (and record them) this spring, and I hope that I don't get too overwhelmed with other things so that I can do this.

deknow


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

The worms can only eat so fast. I don't see where 1500 visits a day needs to happen. One visit per day to drop off RJ for the worm would be enough, if a days supply was given at that time huh? I have no idea how many times the worm is visited myself, It may be once, it may be 1500 times, it may be more or less. Is it important to know?


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

I do believe that this thread has brought up particulars concerning the feeding of queen larva, not larva in general. If you've ever raised a bar of queen cells, and observed them at almost any time before they were sealed, it is easy to see where nurse bees would be adding food to the cell at least 1500 times per day. Every time I pull a bar of open cells to view their progress, many of them have nurse bees in them, with only the tips of their abdomen showing. I can't see what they're doing in there, but I usually assume they're in there adding more royal jelly to the pool.

I've manipulated conditions, and had the bees produce some very large cells, with large reserves of royal jelly. When I move cells to emerge into California mini cages, if it hasn't already been done by the bees, I gently remove some of the wax from the tips of the cells, exposing the cocoon. In doing this, I have observed that, despite how large the outer beeswax shell of the queen cell is, the space the queen cocoon occupies generally is only so big, and no bigger. Though cells can be underdeveloped and very small. thus affording the queen even less space for her cocoon, than she may utilize in a more spacious wax shell . I also consider, especially in my region, which quite regularly has very low relative humidity and high temperatures; that a reserve of royal jelly may have other, beneficial effects on developing queens, than its nutritional value.


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## olympic (Aug 20, 2006)

Do you think that it is important that they bees in a nuc eat the remains of the jelly in the queen cell. Some sort of effect on pheromones between the bees and the new queen?


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## Daniel Y (Sep 12, 2011)

The issue of frequency of feeding is about disruption of that frequency during grafting. You will have to decide for yourself if that matters. I know it is common to read that larva handled to long die. But I am sure that right up to the point of death. they where not being harmed at all.


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## BeeCurious (Aug 7, 2007)

Daniel Y said:


> But I am sure that right up to the point of death. they where not being harmed at all.


That seems illogical to me.


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

On the other hand, I've heard a queen producer or two accidentally leaving a batch of larvae untended for several days and they still survive. Developmentally delayed a bit if I remember correctly, but viable.


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