# oldest larva they can make a queen from.



## ScubaMark (Jan 6, 2009)

Since you pulled a frame of brood and eggs from a calm hive, just knock down any queen cells on the frames that are from the original mean hive after four days. Anything after that is pretty safe. When I have a mean hive and have performed the hive tool test on the queen, I usually drop in a frame of eggs from a calm hive and after four days, I knock down any queen cells on the original frames. (Best luck is achieved if you drop the frame from the calm hive right into the center of the brood sphere already formed in the hive.


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## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

I had to split them up in order to find the queen, otherwise that is exactly what I would have done. Thanks


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## Moon (May 7, 2011)

Harley,

Have you done any grafting before? You're obviously knowledgeable enough to do it with good success, why bother with the guess work on whether or not they're raising queens from the larvae you want and just graft from the gentle hive and produce queens?


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## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

I have not tried grafting yet, I don't tend to excel at precision work I shake too bad and having smashed my hands and dislocating my thumb to many times my manual dexterity sux. I do plan to give it a try once I have some hives built up, I plan to utilize a cloake board and the OTS system in june to requeen some packages I'm getting.

also in this case, I didn't want a bunch of splits as I don't plan on pinching the queen right away and plan on using her for a brood factory in the nuc to make up for lost time while that colony re-queens itself when frames are capped I'll put them in the bigger hive so there is minor loss of production for my flow coming up. I know this will prolong how long I have to deal with a hot hive, but I gotta get some honey this yr to get the wife off my back lol


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

The question should be what's the oldest a larva can be to make a quality queen. The answers are different.


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## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

Michael Palmer said:


> The question should be what's the oldest a larva can be to make a quality queen. The answers are different.


no, I don't want them to try to raise a queen at all from their own brood. I tried requeening last yr and swore their was no eggs and positive no larva that they qould make a queen with, they started cells on my frame from my calm hive and and tore them down from the side and I found one hatched from some eggs I missed. So that tells me they tore them down before the queen from their brood hatched. I don't want them trying the same thing this time.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

My beekeeping tends to fall into week increments because it's done on the weekend. So I figure one week is a sure thing. In 9 days they are all capped. In 7 they are too old for sure. I don't know how much you can cheat it down from there and know they won't attempt it.


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## jonathan (Nov 3, 2009)

ScubaMark said:


> Since you pulled a frame of brood and eggs from a calm hive, just knock down any queen cells on the frames that are from the original mean hive after four days. Anything after that is pretty safe.


4 days is definitely not enough to stop them making a queen cell from an egg laid just before the split.
6 days is pretty safe.


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## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

jonathan said:


> 4 days is definitely not enough to stop them making a queen cell from an egg laid just before the split.
> 6 days is pretty safe.



thank you this is what I was looking for.


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

On the fourth day after separation from the queen, the last eggs laid would then be one day old larvae. On day five, two day old larvae, day 6, 3 day old larvae which could still give a viable queen. The bees will still feed royal jelly and raise caste queens from older larvae than that if they are hopelessly queenless. The resulting queens would not be desirable but they still might try, but likely _will not_ if they and the brood are combined with a queenright colony.

I will be doing a manoeuver with similar possibilities this summer and think I would go with M. Bush's one week time frame to be sure of eliminating the genetics of the old queen.

According to Snelgrove, some bees will insist on using their own oldish but related larvae rather than another colonies one day old larvae.


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