# 6 cups grafted. Killed over 20 in the process.



## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

I'm working on a homemade non-graft frame now with
the queen bee already inside pending for her to lay.
If this little bee experiment is successful I will not need to do
anymore grafting from now on. 
Try to cut down the cell walls so that the larvae are exposed.
Then use a miner's LED light to see better.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Put a frame of eggs/young larva in next to the cells so that there's something to show for the efforts here in a week and a half. Just in case.


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## Richard Cryberg (May 24, 2013)

Practice. By the time you have grafted 1000 you will kill few. Go out each day and pull a frame and graft a dozen and throw them away then think about what worked and what did not work afterwards. In a week things will start to work better. You just need to train in some muscle memory. No different than throwing free throws with a basket ball. Your first 20 throws you missed every one. By the time you threw 1000 you started to hit them pretty good.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Of the 4 seasons that I've been grafting I don't believe that I had killed up to 1000
larvae yet. Maybe in the 100s maybe. It is such a wasted of bee resource when there is
a better alternative method to accomplish the same task.


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## Richard Cryberg (May 24, 2013)

beepro said:


> Of the 4 seasons that I've been grafting I don't believe that I had killed up to 1000
> larvae yet. Maybe in the 100s maybe. It is such a wasted of bee resource when there is
> a better alternative method to accomplish the same task.


I thought I wrote in English. Show me where I said you needed to kill 1000? Please do not make up things I did not say. Besides, even killing 1000 would not be a measureable waste of resources. So why worry about it? You are the one who routinely is still killing queens because you can not follow directions. The OP asked a simple question that has a simple answer and I hope he can follow directions a lot better than you follow them and he will be fine.


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

I have found that when using the Chinese grafting tool you may try many before you find one that works very well. The tip of the quill needs to be soft and flexible to be able to bend and slip under the royal jelly and larvae, if your quill is not soft enough you can use 400 grit wet or dry finishing paper and while working it wet thin out the end of the quill so that it bends easily, Once you get your grafting tool perfect take good care of it as I have used mine now for four seasons.
Johno


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

However you think about it grafting 1000 and throwing them away to
think about it afterward is an experimental procedure. Yes, I got queen lost because
I've been experimenting on them. Out of ignorant again and again to further
refined my queen rearing process I had killed many. It has nothing to do with
following standard queen release procedures that I'm fully aware of but rather more 
on the experimental route. Then posting my mishaps for all to see here so they will not repeat my
situation again. If in doubt they have all my findings to back it up. Save these
posts for a future reference if you will. There will be days that I will not take these
steps anymore to shorten the queen's life. It is getting better every time now!


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## Daniel Y (Sep 12, 2011)

beepro said:


> However you think about it grafting 1000 and throwing them away to
> think about it afterward is an experimental procedure. Yes, I got queen lost because
> I've been experimenting on them. Out of ignorant again and again to further
> refined my queen rearing process I had killed many. It has nothing to do with
> ...


BeePro, you are the only one saying to practice with 1000 grafts. Richard suggested a dozen or so per day. Now unless you are going to practice for 90 days straight I don't see how that amounts to 1000. Richard said that in a week things will get batter. my math education says that is about 84 tossed grafts. The 1000 graft comments was simply that after making 1000 grafts you will kill few. Having produced over 700 virgin queens a couple of years ago I am not so sure I agree. It does get better but we still had poor acceptance rates. What better method are you referring to?


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

I think he thinks Richard is suggesting growing out 1000 grafts and chucking them when they're capped. Otherwise there is next to no resources wasted grafting less than 12 hour old larva.


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## Daniel Y (Sep 12, 2011)

I think Richard is suggesting exactly what he suggested. Practicing with about a dozen grafts a day for about a week to improve his ability to transfer larva. BeePro can make up anything he likes. I did see another thread posted By BeePro in regards to his "Better Idea" Not sure just how many larva he has killed in the process of keeping a queen confined for days with no laying at all. But at a rate of 2200 eggs per day for three days I estimate that to be about 6600 larva. Take the similar confine the queen systems that already exist. A queen is to be confined on a board with 110 cells to lay in for 24 hours. and from what evidence I see she may lay 10. Now if having been left undisturbed she would have laid as many as 2200 eggs in that same period of time I say as many as 2190 larva where lost. When did this concern for the loss of 1000 larva suddenly happen? And how is it applicable to one situation but not the other? But Bee Pro I am sure will still stand by the claim he has never destroyed 1000 larva. he is correct he destroys them by the multiples of thousands.


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## JConnolly (Feb 21, 2015)

It looks like only one of the six took, bees are starting to build it out. I grafted eight more yesterday. Not much better on the kill rate, but it didn't take me as long. 

Thank you Johno for the tip on sanding the tool down. I'm going to try that. 

I also have a section of wax foundation that has just laid eggs on it. I'm going to try and cut a couple of strips from it and try OldTimer's method again. 

So far I've been putting all of these in the same queenless cell starter hive. I hope that is a good idea. 

My cell starter is a five frame nuc with a swarm box below it (8" box that has screened sides and screened bottom with a water source in it). Its got two frames of partially capped honey, a bit of pollen, a frame of brood, and my grafting frame.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

If you've tried the cut strips and still had issues getting any takes I'd be more inclined to think the problem points to your cell starter/builder than your grafting technique.


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## Richard Cryberg (May 24, 2013)

jwcarlson said:


> If you've tried the cut strips and still had issues getting any takes I'd be more inclined to think the problem points to your cell starter/builder than your grafting technique.


Right on the mark. Grafting is the easy part. Larva are pretty tough critters. I can not tell you how many times I have had grafts that looked wonderful at two or three or four days and were torn down before ten. Then getting them mated can be a problem. Out of my first dozen queens this year I got two laying, probably due to cold and rain. Two weeks later I was getting 90% mated.


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## JConnolly (Feb 21, 2015)

Thanks for the tips guys. This is new territory for me but I'm trying to have a go at being sustainable instead of buying new queens every other year. 

And to think that originally I never thought I'd venture into queen rearing and overwintering nucs. I was content to be a three or four hives at a time beek for a while, but here I am, set up to overwinter as many as 8 nucs. Makes me wonder what is next.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Swarm control is your next adventure! Try to figure out how to do that
on a growing apiary the next season. 

I resort back to grafting again because the non-graft frame needs more refinement. And time
is running out too for the new queens to get mated.
This time I will use a full size drawn out wax foundation frame for the graft. The green plastic
cells lined inside with the real bee wax I already put in for the bees to clean out last night. A fragile cell is hard
to move it around and remove from the pollen frame but a plastic cell is more sturdy. They like the wax lined cells so the
acceptance rate should be better from these polished cells.
Tonight I took out 20 or so well polished green plastic cells from the hive all ready to put the graft larvae in.
I plan to graft 30 or more cells to see how many will take. Then the entire frame will be return to the hive for
the rest of the larvae to develop. This way not many bee resources are lost during this grafting process. I value the
developing larvae too. Again all these cells once took will be placed on the pollen/bee bread frames crowded with well fed young nurse bees along with Lauri's fly back method used. I have consistent return mated queens follow by large thick milky eggs indicating a healthy queen using this pollen frames method.


Wax lined plastic cells:


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

JConnolly said:


> Thanks for the tips guys. This is new territory for me but I'm trying to have a go at being sustainable instead of buying new queens every other year.
> 
> And to think that originally I never thought I'd venture into queen rearing and overwintering nucs. I was content to be a three or four hives at a time beek for a while, but here I am, set up to overwinter as many as 8 nucs. Makes me wonder what is next.


There's nothing wrong with dropping a frame of eggs/young larva in while you're getting the hang of it. Get *something* out of your efforts. Last year when I first tried grafting/queen rearing I was reluctant to hedge my bets. Grafting failed and I got a little discouraged. It put all my plans behind. All I had to do was drop in a frame I'd normally graft from... maybe even notch it.

It's silly to put all your eggs in one basket until you get the hang of things.

Richard is right above... Grafting success is 90% cell builder, 10% grafter. I'm a slow grafter and the larva seem no worse for the wear. Or at least not worse enough that I can perceive a difference. I dump hot water in the cups, shake the water out, then blow in them all so that just a trace of water remains. Cover the grafts as I go with a wet towel (starts out hot but ends up cold before I'm done). I think larva can take cooling off pretty well... I'm more worried about keeping them moist than keeping them warm.


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

JConnolly said:


> Thanks for the tips guys. This is new territory for me but I'm trying to have a go at being sustainable instead of buying new queens every other year.
> 
> And to think that originally I never thought I'd venture into queen rearing and overwintering nucs. I was content to be a three or four hives at a time beek for a while, but here I am, set up to overwinter as many as 8 nucs. Makes me wonder what is next.


Trying to raise most of your own queens and be sustainable is the right road to take for a few reasons. I don't know what you do for swarm control in the spring, but another possibility is the use of snelgrove boards to do vertical splits and get a few nice queens out of the deal. Not that you should give up on grafting, but it would take the pressure off if you had some new queens on the go already. JW is right. Don't put all your eggs in one basket, a central principle in beekeeping in my opinion.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

lharder said:


> Not that you should give up on grafting, but it would take the pressure off if you had some new queens on the go already.


That's my thoughts exactly. 

JConnolly, can you tell us about your cell builder?


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## JConnolly (Feb 21, 2015)

Woot. I've got two cells started. 

OK, yeah. That's a pathetic rate. But I'm stoked about initial success, even if it is pitiful. 

Using Old Timer's method I did cut some strips of comb with eggs in it and add it to the cell starter. The bees are very interested in them. If I got the lay date right, those eggs will hatch tomorrow. I'm crossing my fingers to get more cells started. 

So I should have laying queens by the end of the month. There are still plenty of drones around, hopefully there will be by then. I did see drone brood on my inspection last week, lets hope there are enough. Also there are three other backyard beeks that I know about within a 500 yard radius, so I'm not too worried.

(edited here to clarify - this is the cell finisher hive, not the queenless cell starter nuc)

My cell builder (finisher) hive has three boxes of brood. The queen is sequestered to the two lowest brood boxes below a queen excluder as of two days ago. Bottom box has lots of pollen stored with brood. There are three full and 80% capped supers on top of the hive. It has upper and lower entrances. In the brood box above the excluder all the brood is capped. Bees are backfilling it with honey, uncapped so far, as the top is full. I was planning on putting my cell frame in this box for finishing. Or should I put it higher up?

Just before hatching I'm planning to move each cell to a mating/overwintering nuc. These will be a 10 frame lower with a divider, and two 4-frame nuc tops, like Micheal Palmer does. If I have an odd number I'll use a five frame nuc.


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## WilliamsHoneyBees (Feb 17, 2010)

A little practice and you will have it. I buy about 10 to 20 grafting tools a year from different places. Normally I use one or two that work well. Try a different grafting tool from another supplier and you may have better success. 

-Dan Williams


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## rookie2531 (Jul 28, 2014)

For some reason, I cannot see post number 21. It will not go to page 2. , but, as someone suggested sanding your tip, here is another tip. I use the Chinese tool also and they are cheap and some are just no good at all. Buy a small 10 pack and find one that really works well. I bend it with my mouth as needed. If it's too straight and don't curl well, I just bend it a little with my teeth..


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Queenright starter then? That's probably a portion of the issue.


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## JConnolly (Feb 21, 2015)

Sorry for the confusion JW. 

The starter is NOT queenright. The starter is a 5 frame queenless nuc. I built an 8" high box to go under the nuc that is screened on the sides and bottom and has a watersource in it, but the bees can't get out until I open the entrance a couple of days later. Then I filled it with four full frames of mostly nurse bees. My starter is similar to the one in this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sq5fFhWo-mY&feature=youtu.be



As currently planned, the cell finisher is queenright. After the cells are capped I'll recombine until just before they hatch, then split out the mating nucs.


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## Sunday Farmer (Nov 13, 2013)

JConnolly said:


> I have a Chinese grafting tool. To graft six cups I smashed three to four times as many. I'm not even sure about the success of all six.
> 
> Any tips?


Keep practicing dude. Assuming this is your first time? 20 cups is too little to judge your skills yet. You're not going to need Gladwells 10000 hours, but just keep going.


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## JConnolly (Feb 21, 2015)

An update. 

All of my grafts failed, they abandoned the one they started to build out. But all is not lost.

At the same time as my second graft, I placed the frame I grafted from in the cell starter, and the bees built three queen cells on that frame. Its a plastic frame with plastic foundation, so I'm not sure if I'll be able to isolate those cells to mating nucs. Perhaps I'll see if I can get a needle pin cage. All those are capped now. Two of the queen cells are close enough that they are fused. I don't know if they can be separated, and I probably wont try since it risks killing both, I'll let nature settle it.

I used Old Timer's cut strip method and the bees produced three more queen cells. By my calendar, those should be capped. I didn't get a chance to look yesterday. This evening I'm moving it all to the cell finisher.

I will try grafting again next year. It is getting too late in the year to try again.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

I've cut cells from plastic, but they were good sized cells. If they're dinks I'd be reluctant to do so. You could cage as you mention. 

Let us know how it all turns out. And there's always next year!


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## JConnolly (Feb 21, 2015)

Update #2.

I didn't get to check the cell starter nuc yesterday because of rain.

After I got home from work today I checked the cell starter nuc and the cells from the cut strip (Old Timer's Method) are capped. Right on schedule. 

However, remember that frame that I grafted from and then put in the nuc as my just in case... the one that had the three previously capped queen cells that were about three days ahead of the cut strip, those cells are being torn down by the bees. One is completely torn down, larva cleaned out, the other two are about half torn down and the queen larva are obviously dead. Sigh. 

I'm not sure why they would tear them down unless the bees decided those cells were inferior to the other ones. Do they do that?

I went ahead and moved it all to my cell finisher hive. This weekend I'll be assembling my starter nucs, and Sunday or Monday I'll split out the bees.

So no way will I reach sustainability this next spring even if they all make it, I'll be purchasing at least one queen if I want to replace the by then three year olds.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Was there anything in the cells they were in the process of tearing down?


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## minz (Jan 15, 2011)

JConnolly said:


> An update.
> 
> I used Old Timer's cut strip method and the bees produced three more queen cells. By my calendar, those should be capped. I didn't get a chance to look yesterday. This evening I'm moving it all to the cell finisher.
> 
> I will try grafting again next year. It is getting too late in the year to try again.


Could you post a link to the old timers thread for the method that you used? I did see the fat bee man doing a cut strip method, is it the same?


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## JConnolly (Feb 21, 2015)

jwcarlson said:


> Was there anything in the cells they were in the process of tearing down?


One of the cells was nearly torn down and had already been cleaned out. It had a larva in it before it was capped. For the other two cells the bees had not yet removed the larva but they had torn open the cells and exposed the larva, which were dead. I don't know if the larva died before, or if it died because of the tear down. I'm sure by now those two are torn down too, but I haven't been to the apiary today.






minz said:


> Could you post a link to the old timers thread for the method that you used? I did see the fat bee man doing a cut strip method, is it the same?


Here is the link: http://beesource.com/resources/elem...queen-cells-without-grafting-cut-cell-method/

If you loose it then you can navigate back to it from the front page, cick Resources, then Elements of Bee Keeping, then Raising Queen Cells Without Grafting – Cut Cell Method


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Dead as in brown?


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## JConnolly (Feb 21, 2015)

They were dried out, light tan colored, only half developed. I should have snapped a picture, too late now.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

I have use the proven method of raising a small batch of cells.
When the timing is critical because of a short season or something else, 
the pollen frames raised cells method will work for you. I have experimented
enough over the last 4 years to come up with a good method. 100s of cells can
be raised at the same time using only minimum bee resources. Maybe next year you
can try my pollen frames raised cell method too. See my latest updated on the pollen frames graft post.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

I have use the proven method of raising a small batch of cells.
When the time is critical because of a short season or something else, 
the pollen frames raised cells method will work for you. I have experimented
enough over the last 4 years to come up with a good method. 100s of cells can
be raised at the same time using only minimum bee resources. Maybe next year you
can try my pollen frames raised cell method too. See my latest updated on the pollen frames graft post.


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

beepro said:


> I have use the proven method of raising a small batch of cells.
> When the time is critical because of a short season or something else,
> the pollen frames raised cells method will work for you. I have experimented
> enough over the last 4 years to come up with a good method. 100s of cells can
> ...


Yeah but when you do that you get those big headed queens and er'body knows the small headed queens are best.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Brad, does that means your queen is the inferior type since they
have the bigger head compare to the commercial ones? Don't say that
all of your queens have the smaller head size too. Haa, try to prove that one!
So can you duplicate my bigger head size queens success? The proof is in the visual.


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