# Vsh grafting this time....



## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Hi, All!

Been busy thinking about how to put this newly acquired vsh genetics to work
in my apiary. So got busy and grafted 25 cells just to see what they will look like.
They all come from the newly bought tf vsh Italians queen through the mail 5 days ago.
Many eggs have not hatch yet but still got some larvae that are at the right age thanks to my
expanded Laidlaw cage for a fast queen introduction.
Anxious to see what the daughters will look like this time. Wonder how many cells will
take on this adventure. Will combining the allogrooming and the vsh genetics create some
real mite fighting bees for me?


Grafted cells:


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Remember that VSH traits only help a bit. Mite mauling trait helps a bit. Brood breaks help a lot. Combining both with IPM program should actually boost your survival rates.

I'm thinking about trying out some over-sized deep Dadant hives set up for 14 narrow, 11-1/2" deep frames, with an adapter board and 8-frame mediums above it for honey.

Fusion-power (Darrell Jones) just converted over to them. He has been running 11 frames of small cell in a 10-frame Langstroth hive for years. He believes that the bees populate up about 2 weeks earlier than with 10 frames of 5.4 mm foundation in the Spring with the 11-frame setup.

Charles and Camille Pierre Dadant experimented with different hive body sizes and found that the 11-1/2" deep frames (16-7/8 x 10-5/8" foundation) had a distinct advantage in both total hive population and growth rate.

By combining these features, I may have a better management system. It will require a few years to work out all of the glitches, but the bees populating up faster and larger should help fight the mites, especially when combined with VSH and mite mauling traits, and with the SBB and regular sugar dusting.

Powerful hives should reduce robbing losses to feral bee colonies, and to other insects.

The boxes are quite heavy. I am trying some made out of 2" x 12" material. I had to make a joint to get the full 11-5/8" depth for the boxes. 

These should last quite well. I'm going to dip them in hot wax, then linseed oil them a year or 2 later. The wax penetrates deep, but the surface appears weathered in a few years. The boiled linseed oil does not penetrate as deep, but leaves a hard outer surface that lasts longer. After it is all dried, I'll primer and paint them.

The bees should fare quite well in these large-broodnest hives, after I get all the routine figured out. It should give me a lot more strong colonies from which to rear queens.

Note also that Randy Oliver had great success with a cross of a (if I recall correctly) VSH with a Minnesota Hygenic bloodline. I'll search his website for the exact quote and report back.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

The MH and vsh already been developed by other breeders. But the local
bees will have a different mix when applied these genetics. Let's see who has the best
bees around. 
What if you can hot boil the linseed oil to soak in first then hot wax them later to give it
a protective layer. Or you can do multiple layer with the linseed oil too. Here I use waterproof sealant
first then linseed oil next. Then waterproof again after the linseed dry up in a few days. Then use exterior
house paint and finally a couple layers of the stain finisher on the outside. 4 years now and the boxes are in
good condition. Once a year or when needed to apply another layer of the linseed oil. 
I would imagine using the longer frames will be too time consuming and tiresome on a hive inspection say trying
to find the marked queen. So you have to have another way to test for queen less hives. These frames are heavy
for a hive inspection. Imagine pulling the longer frames out of the hives. If it is feasible and efficient then the trend
should be continuing until this day. Must be the heavy nature of it. I would rather use a standard deep frame type 
of a TBH using the 55 gal. plastic barrel. 22 frames in each barrel. Each frame is not heavy to lift and easy on the
queen inspection too. I like to find the queen because each summer the queen like to disappear on me. But use whatever
that fits your operation. It is true that a larger hive will give off an early start in the season. I simply combine 2 deeps with a strong mated overwinter 6 months queen on a flow.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

An update:

Looks like I may have to do another round of grafting.
This batch only has 6 cells that took. It is good enough for keeping a few
queens I think. I'm thinking to use a non-graft frame to collect the young larva
without the need to graft. Going to test this method in a few days.


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## Rolande (Aug 23, 2010)

beepro said:


> I would imagine using the longer frames will be too time consuming and tiresome on a hive inspection say trying
> to find the marked queen. So you have to have another way to test for queen less hives. These frames are heavy
> for a hive inspection. Imagine pulling the longer frames out of the hives. If it is feasible and efficient then the trend
> should be continuing until this day. Must be the heavy nature of it.


No problem finding queens on these dadant depth combs, you just need to refocus -no different to looking for a queen on a standard deep comb after spending the day looking at mediums. 

I've never noticed that the extra couple of inches depth make any difference when it comes to pulling the frames from the boxes.


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## rniles (Oct 10, 2012)

Nice Beepro!!


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Another update:

Inspected these cells again. Now I only have 5 left in development.
The larvae are still small inside the cells. Already they are full of RJ pass
the plastic of the cell cup. This is a good sign. But I'm a bit greedy this time
and want those big fat juicy well fed queens. Because the commercial operation
queen is so small for some reason. Though they do lay a good pattern with big eggs too.
So I moved the 5 cells to 3 frames with each cell on one side of the frame. Removed the other 2
frames to make it a 3 frame nuc with crowded bees. They have mixed bees from foragers
to newly emerged ones. Will check back either on Sunday to see what the cells will look like.
I want those big and long healthy cells!


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## Daniel Y (Sep 12, 2011)

Did you already have a cell builder prepped? In my imagination you have the allogrooming and the VSH in the same yard??? if so I would not expect a cross of the two lines since drones and queens mate a differing ranges. You may get some crosses but the rate would not be all that high I would think. My cell acceptance rates where all over the map and never really figured out any definite causes for that.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Actually, in my area the drones from all nearby hives would go to the local DCAs.
Who knows probably a few miles away from my apiary. 
When the virgin queens take their mating flights while stumbling in to this area then
they will find the drones including mine waiting there. So it is like a big melting pot
of mixed drones. This I don't have much control over. And not even have to worry about how
my drones or someone else's drones got there in the first place. All I know is that the cells need to be well fed while
in development. Whatever happens next is up to mother nature and the luck of the virgin queens. 
So far I have made strong queens that returned from their mating flights. Only after the first
brood cycle emerged that I know what the queen had mated with in my local area. Is it my vsh or
allogrooming drones, I don't really know. But when the mites are all in check in the hives then I
will know for sure. There is a lighter color to the vsh bees because the queen is lighter yellow.
I plan to make the vsh drones then let them mate with the allogrooming queens. Right now I
don't have anymore mites in all of my hives to test out my homemade oav gadget. Maybe later
in the season I will have some mites to carry out my oav experiment again.
For a small operation, I have to be a bit creative and flexible to make the cell builder.
I don't make the bee bomb like the pros do here. Instead, after the cells are
grafted, I made some frames adjustment. From a 6-10 frames hive after the queen is removed, the bees are brushed off
onto 3-4 remaining frames. Then the bee less frames are donated to another queen right hive.
This will condensed the cell builder and allow the bees to accept the grafted cells better. Imagine all 3-4 frames full
of bees trying to feed 6 accepted cells. The one that took and drawn out will be the healthy and
well fed queens later on. Very often the cells are about 1.5" long with RJ extended beyond the extra wide and
tall plastic cell cup. I also gave them a pound of the homemade patty subs and on occasion a small jar of honey water.
What do you think of my queen rearing strategy?
My next step is to make a non-graft frame for the queen to lay in so that I don't have to do a graft anymore to increase the larva acceptance rate. Can you imagine what such a non-graft frame would be like?


Some crowded cell builder frames:


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

An update:

Today is the day for a hive check.
Found one small cell and one larger cell.
The small cell will be the smaller queen I would assume. And the
larger cell would be the larger queen also. Not sure if the cup full of RJ
will help the smaller cell though. What do you think?


Larger cell:


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Hope the VSH queens turn out well, and you get all kinds of crosses!

Oh, just to mention, it seems that the hot wax penetrates farther into the pine wood than cold boiled linseed oil does, so I intend to use wax first, let it dry outdoors over a year, then linseed oil it. Boiled linseed oil tends to give a harder surface.

Over the years, most wood cracks start at the end grain, especially in the finger joints. Wax and oil are both fatty acids saturating the end grain. The wax tends to stay in the wood, but it looses some near the surface of the wood over time. This allows us to follow up with boiled linseed oil.

I do expect that good primer and paint over the wax and linseed should extend the life even more.


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## rniles (Oct 10, 2012)

That queen cell is looking good!


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

I'm not satisfy with this low turn out as I know these home made
queens can be bigger than the farm bought one. I have no idea why 
they are smaller than my home reared queens though all of them are on
the small cells. So my project is to make a non-graft frame for the queen to
lay in directly. No need to do anymore grafting. This will greatly increase the
success rate better than flipping the larvae on grafting time.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Final update:

That good looking cell got tore up in the upper 3/4 way when I 
did a hive check tonight. I got the hunch that I will damage it should I
move this frame with the q cell at the outer edge of the box wall on the
right side. Realized my mistakes too late after installing the frame. This is the last remaining vsh queen cell from this batch. 
After 4 hours later I open up the hive again to check on the torn out cell. My first
thought was they should of already taken care of cleaning out the cell by now. From the
many torn out cell experience I had the workers will suck the juice out of the larva like they did
to the other exposed developing worker cells. But since the queen is due to emerge in another 2 days or 
so they did not kill her this time. Instead they were hovering all over her trying to keep her warm. 
I can see the well formed queen still alive with a big abdomen and a light whitish yellow color. This is typical of the Italians genetics. The RJ is still 3/4 full in the plastic cup. Now I have the option to let her die or try to save her. Since this is the last live queen, I decided to test out my man made aluminum foil cast wax cell cover. So I took some new comb that I have saved up and a piece of thin aluminum foil to make a cast. 
First I melted the comb on the stove and then poured it out into an aluminum foil shape like a big U.
After tilting the melted wax side-by-side a few times over the foil it started to take shape. And since the new wax is
so brittle there is a chance that the bees might chew it out. So lined the inside with a piece of thin aluminum foil
to further reinforced it. The result is a malleable piece of wax on aluminum foil. Then trimmed it down to the
size of the cell leaving a 1/4" on the tip so that the queen can get out. I tried to picture how long the cell is and
trim the wax and aluminum cup down to that size with a scissors. Then took the artificial cast cup to the queen frame and installed it over the existing q cell.
To my surprise the bees all lined up on the side to watch me repairing the q cell. On a normal day they all would of clinging
and biting over my gloves. This time as if it was magical they all leave my hand alone until I've finished installing the fake
cup. And put a piece of broken but still connected tooth pick over the cup to further secure it down. 
Then they all hovering over the cell again to keep it warm. 
If my allogrooming bees are smart by tomorrow they would of completely sealed in the edges of the q cell cover with the new wax.
I've seen queens that did not emerge and died while inside the cell before. Do you think she will survive to emerge in another 2 days or? Are there any negative side effect on her mating ability and her ability to head of this colony in the future?


Fabricated q cup:


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

So your hoping that your allogrooming (washboarding) drones will breed with the VSH queens so the bees will clean the frames and take out the trash?


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

How many colonies do you have, beepro?


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Jw, it is hard to say right now. 
If things are growing like it is now by the end of the
season I should have close to 20 hives. It depends on how successful the next
batch of graft will be. I asked for the timing of the grafted cells that emerge to match
the time of the emerging workers. Gotta get that timing down for better increases. 
One thing for sure I needed more hive boxes for these increases. Lucky for me I already made
up 22 frames with starter strips (small cells.) But realized that it is never enough. 
Yes Brad, my intention is to mix the wash boarding allogrooming drones with the vsh queens.
The allogrooming has the Russians genetics and the vsh queen has the Italians lighter color that I like.
This is another step toward my tf operation. I'm almost there!

So do you think they will sealed the artificial man made cell cup cover?


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

beepro said:


> Jw, it is hard to say right now.


How is it hard to say if you currently have less than 20? You've got that many fingers and toes, right? :scratch:
Or do you mean 20,000?


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

beepro, I sincerely say this without any malice or ill intent. You really need to educate yourself on the difference between washboarding and mite removing allogrooming. You seem to be convinced that your bees have some special mite removing grooming genetic trait that they DO NOT have, or at least you have not posted anything on this website that shows that they do. You have posted 2 videos. One of a bee cleaning another bee (happens all the time) and another of bees washboarding.

Allogrooming is just a process that many "social" animals or insects do. It is not specific to mite removal. All bees allogroom, there is nothing special or noteworthy about it, unless they are mite biters and like I said I've seen nothing to indicate that yours are doing that.

Like I said I'm not trying to be mean spirited or offensive to you. My concern is that you are going to eventually try and sell these queens and pass them off as something that they are not. If that is not your plan, then go ahead and call them whatever you wish to call them, it will make no difference to me.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

I do have some special bees here, Brad.
First of all I obtained the allogrooming bees from a 10 years tf operation in upstate N.Y. with the Russians bees.
Those are the allogrooming drones for this local Spring queens. The genetics are all mixed now.
Now I got a vsh breeder queen to further fight the mites. Somehow my mites do not plaques
the bees anymore. The hive population is at an explosive growth now that I have to do a shook swarm.
If all bees groom each others like the monkey and guerilla do then the commercial treatment operation will
not have that much headaches in losing their bees to the mites. The fact that my bees are capable of controlling
the mites without me using my homemade oav gadget anymore (since early Jan.) said something special about them. I still believe that
the bee genetics have something to do with it. Later on, I will add the mite biting bees to my operation as well. Let's 
see how they do first with the vsh cross. We're in half of the year already and with many improvement to be made here.
For the last 4 year I cannot grow my apiary because of the mites constantly crashing and reducing the hive population without much control.
Growing my apiary with a stable population of the mite fighting bees first is what I'm after now. Without them my tf operation will be a big failure later on. I would be worry now if they are still showing any signs of the DWV and mite infested bees on every hatch cycle. They're
all clean up now! Will see what the late Autumn will show since I'm trying to go the tf route now. Willing to requeen with the
vsh genetics if there is any sign of an infestation later on. If other beekeepers can do it going tf for a number of years now so can I.
Oh, the queen did emerged yesterday on a hive check. Guess she is too tired cooping up in that man made cell cover.
Gave them a new frame with starter strip (small cells) for them to draw out the new comb. Too many bees in there!

No more DWV booming hives:


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## j.kuder (Dec 5, 2010)

he's a pro how could he not know? so where did you get your special breeder queen from?


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

beepro said:


> The fact that my bees are capable of controlling
> the mites without me using my homemade oav gadget anymore (since early Jan.) said something special about them.


I haven't treated since September 2015, mine must be even more special!


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Jw, how is the mite level now?
I only saw 1 male mite on a hive check tonight.
The other hives I don't see any mites on the newly 
emerged bees. The allogrooming hygienic bees will removed
the DWV young emerged bees often with the mites still attached. I saw them did it but cannot capture a
vid that fast. If you are going the tf route and the mite level is acceptable to the point that you are confident
in your bee's mite fighting ability without any further treatment until this winter time then I think your bees are
special. Other member said if they stop the oav treatment then the infestation is back. So far I don't see this issue
in all of my allogrooming and vsh hives. I kind of cheated a little by donating the frame of eggs/larvae from the vsh
queen to the allogrooming hives. This will further weakening the mites to disrupt their reproductive cycles. I see a 
bright future for my mite fighting bees here. 

Oh, the bees I got was from a local Russian guy. They are the Italians genetics to start.
Then the daughters got mutted with the local carnis drones from the bee association hives. 
Then I got the Cordovan queens also a tf operation to highlight the yellow color. Last year I got Pete's bees from upstate N.Y. tf operation, keeping his bees for the last 10 years. Pete's bees got the allogrooming from the Russians genetics. Then I
got the vsh queen genetics from the LA bee lab this year to incorporate some diverse genetics into my local apiary. 
So from the start I have been keeping the survivor stocks all along. This year is the time to pick and choose the mite
fighting bees to graft. Then allow the genetics to mix a little to see what I have at the end of the season. 
The bee pics above are from the survivor queen's daughter. They have the Cordovan genetics mixed in with the allogrooming
genetics. It is a good combination so far of the Italians gentle bees. Many times I have read here that the beekeepers got the
wrong color queen when she arrived. This year the vsh queen is rather lighter color than what I had imagined she to be. So it is a perfect addition to my bee operation. I would be sadly disappointed if she is a darker Italians as they have those queens too. I'm trying to keep the lighter Italians color going because of too many carnis drones locally. It is about to change by next year sending all my Italians angle biting drones to the local DCAs. Let's see how the carnis drones can compete with them.


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## Rader Sidetrack (Nov 30, 2011)

beepro said:


> I only saw 1[HIGHLIGHT] male mite [/HIGHLIGHT] on a hive check tonight.


According to the USDA page that I linked earlier in a response to you, male mites _rarely_ emerge alive from the bee brood cell ....



> The male mite usually remains in the brood cell. He will be killed and removed by nest cleaning bees that prepare newly vacated brood cells to receive another egg from the queen bee.
> 
> http://www.ars.usda.gov/Research/docs.htm?docid=2744&page=14


- and -


> Adult male mites cannot live outside the capped brood cell.


If you are seeing live male varroa mite(s) on your bees, it may be that your mite problem is bigger than you think.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Thanks, Rader!
Now I have to go back to recheck my hives. Which hive was it that I found
this mite? If I finds it then I will definitely take a pic. Not sure though if I can 
among all those crowded bees. On one summer of cutting the
mites with a small razor blade I found some newly emerged male mites along with the
females. That summer was the heaviest mite infestation ever that almost crashed my only
hive in transition to be tf. Funny that the DWV goes hand in hand with the number of deformed
emerged bees that cannot fly. Judging by the number of the crawling bees on each hatch cycle I
can tell the mite infestation level. Though lately I have not seen that many DWVs on the newly
emerged bees. They're as healthy as can be. Also the cap drones I have uncap several to check on
the mite infestation. So far none there. This is the lowest mite level ever in my hives. It seems like that
one generation of the emerged bees build on the next. When one generation is without the heavy mite 
infestation then the next cycle of bees emerged are healthier too. At this rate of growth with the patty subs and honey water
feeding, I can continue to make splits until the early Autumn. The new vsh queen sure have some nice yellow color bees.
I wonder if the daughters are vsh also?


Cannot find that 1 male mite:


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