# Sticky  Beginner Queen Rearing using the Joseph Clemens Starter/Finisher



## David LaFerney

I’m a beginner. This has been my second year raising queens – my third year keeping honey bees. So I am in no way pretending to be any kind of an expert. But Joseph Clemens has generously agreed for me to share some of my experiences using his method of queen rearing.

For anyone who is interested this thread starter is based on a broader post about my experiences as a beginner at queen rearing.

*The Joseph Clemens Starter/Finisher System*

The system that I’ve been using is what I call the Joseph Clemens System – because that is where I heard about it from, and because Joseph Clemens has proven that it works by producing very large, high quality cells and queens using this system. I have found that it is very well suited for me to produce a fair number of queens while learning skills that can be scaled up to higher production later if desired. It’s fun, affordable, and you can use it even if you only have a few hives.

This system uses a *queenless* five frame nucleus with 4 medium frames of bees and a cell bar as a combined Starter/Finisher and produces 10-20 cells (more or less) at a time – and it can be used all season without having to be rebuilt. As you can imagine this is much more manageable for hobbyists than the way the commercial guys do it.

You can use this system over and over throughout the season without having to repopulate the starter/finisher hives, and you can use it just about any time that you want without having to do a lot of prep work – once you get it going . This system also avoids the problem of having to manage a cell builder hive that is on the verge of swarming by being Queenless – no matter how strong it is, a hive won’t swarm without a queen. When I first read about it, I thought that it sounded like such a hive would develop laying workers or some other problem because of being queenless for an indefinite time. But, because you give it fresh brood about once a week none of those problems crop up – it just gets really strong and stays that way all season long. It really does.









One of my best batch of cells using this method. I’m still learning, but next year these will be my “regular” sized cells instead of just the best ones. I hope.










This is the setup I started the season with – the top box houses a quart jar feeder. Before long I realized that the small entrance (with a piece of excluder over it) through the slatted rack was too small for such a populous hive, and that the ventilation was not adequate. 










So, I changed to this setup – from the bottom – Screened bottom board, queen excluder, 5 frame medium hive body plus the same inner cover, feed shim, and tele cover as in the previous picture. 

*Setting up the Cell Builder Hive*

The two outer frames are capped/emerging brood, the next two contain stores – honey and pollen, maybe some empty space for them to draw comb and store incoming food. The center position is where you will be putting your cell bar after you graft.

You want this hive to be very populous, so shake in lots of nurse bees. After the initial setup the cell builder will stay strong – even get stronger – from the frames of brood that you swap in every week.

Once a week (more or less) when you are working your other hives swap in a fresh frame of capped/emerging brood. The open brood on those frames along with the grafts and other open brood that you add to the cell builder keep it strong and stable. When you swap in new brood, you also have to check for queen cells in the starter/finisher, and on any frames that you take out – you will find wild cells pretty much every time. But since it’s only a 5 frame hive, and it doesn’t have a queen you can shake the bees off, and thoroughly inspect every frame in just a few minutes. Usually there is no need to even look at every frame – 2 of them will be pollen/honey, and one will be the cell bar. It’s pretty quick and easy maintenance, but it does have to be done at least once a week while the hive is being used.

*How I (and you can ) Finally produce Big Cells*

I tried fruitlessly almost all of this year to produce big cells like Josephs. I packed my cell builder with bees which I fed copiously, I tried double grafting, priming with royal jelly, placing fewer grafts – but no matter how hard I tried my best cells were “OK” at best (did get some nice queens though) – until I found this tip by Ray Marler: 4 days before you graft put a frame of hatching eggs/young open larva in the cell builder. That will insure that your nurse bees get into feeding mode by the time you add your grafts. My experience is that if I skip this step I get much smaller cells. Joseph Clemens produces nice big cells without this step, I think because he is continuously using his cell builder – so the bees stay in feeding/nurse bee mode – while I was only adding grafts to my cell builder every week or two.

When you swap in the cell bar with grafts on it there will almost certainly be queen cells started on the “primer” frame of open brood - At that time also check the other frames for queen cells. If you ever let one emerge it will ruin any cells that are currently in the hive – and you might have a hard time finding a virgin lose in such a crowded hive.

I feed my cell builder hive continuously – 1 to 1 sugar syrup from an inverted quart jar, and under the jar lid…










…Pollen substitute. I just spoon it in through the hole, and cover it with the jar lid. This is 8% protein mega bee mix with enough syrup to make a paste that is thick enough to not fall through the frames. The bees love it.

I hope this is helpful to anyone thinking about trying queen rearing.


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## MichaBees

Starter/Finisher; one unit?, no transferring after 24 hours?
Cool!


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## Lost Bee

Those are nice queen cells. The closeups 
also nicely reveal the fuzzy grey hairs on 
the bees.


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## peacekeeperapiaries

this is the method we use to make all of our cells. 20-25 cell cups in a 5frame nuc, or 45 cell cups in an 8 frame single...works like a charm. Over the summer we usually have cells coming out of the 5 frame nucs every week.. and when we really need a bunch we will make a few 8 framers and graft 150 cups or so.


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## WWW

Thanks for sharing David, this is most interesting.


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## Daniel Y

seems you started to figure it out about the cell size.
I have read in several places that there are three "Modes" for queen cell building and rearing.
Emergency. Leaving no time for bees to prepare and always produces inferior queens.
Supercedure. Bees choose this and prepare. draw back is they produce few cells in this mode.
Swarm. From what I have read this is the mode in which bees are not only prepared but will produce cells in abundance.

Your introduction of eggs and Larvae would be consistent with the bees already being in feeding condition. My concern is are they in a swarming mood? It appears to me that the swarm instinct being triggered is also a part of a large number of large cells being built and tended.

It appears to me that you method may be suffering from this later distinction as well. The bees will build and support a few large cells leaving the others being left to want.


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## VolunteerK9

Just out of curiosity DanielY - just how many queens have you attempted to raise using any method? Reading on a subject does not necessarily make one knowledgeable about it.

Could the mods make this a sticky?. A lot of good info here. Thanks for sharing David. I'm planning on trying some of this as well next year.


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## David LaFerney

Everyone - Thanks for the positive comments.
Peacekeeperapiaries - Any more information about how you use this kind of system? All tips are welcome - esp from experience.

Daniel Y - I don't really know exactly why and how this works - as far as what the bees are "thinking" - If I did, it probably wouldn't have taken me all summer to attain the goal of producing larger cells.

This may not be the *Best* way to produce great queens, surely not the best way to produce hundreds of queens - it may not even be the best way to produce a few good queens once or twice a season. *It's a good way to learn* though. It's like a chemistry set instead of a chemical plant.

Before I started I read everything I could get my hands on - but I know now that a lot of it went over my head at the time. Probably because of our limited ability to communicate and understand - nothing is the same as hands on experience (for me anyway). That's what this system has done for me - let me go through many cycles of grafting, cell building, and mating nuc management without having to rebuild a swarm box full of bulk bees every time. If I had to do that, I probably would have done it once or twice instead of every week or two between March and September.


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## Ted Kretschmann

We always place two frames of pollen and a frame of honey into the starter finisher, one cell bar of grafts and six pounds of bees. The bees are placed in the nuc a day before the graft is. But then we have many colonies to shake bees from. We have placed sealed brood in the nuc before but you always run the chance the bees just might build and slip a cell in on you if you get distracted in your work. Then the virgin hatches and destroys your graft. This usually happens when you really need those cells badly. This is the method the Normans of Montgomery Alabama used when they were producing queens. Works well, as they produced over one million queens during Thomas D. Normans career. TED


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## Steve10

David LaFerney said:


> Before I started I read everything I could get my hands on - but I know now that a lot of it went over my head at the time. Probably because of our limited ability to communicate and understand - nothing is the same as hands on experience (for me anyway).


Very true for me too. There's a "lot between the lines" we'll never understand until we give it a try. Thanks for taking the time to post this very interesting topic. I think learning how to rear queens has made me a better beekeeper in general. It's not as hard as it looks, but it does require some bookwork, practice, and discipline just like any other skill worth acquiring.

Good job and thanks for teaching more of us to be better at what we enjoy.


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## Daniel Y

VolunteerK9 said:


> Just out of curiosity DanielY - Reading on a subject does not necessarily make one knowledgeable about it.


Please point out where my comments suggest a lack of knowledge. 
"Read, Read Read" does that look familiar? If reading is not beneficial why is it so commonly recommended? Is it some inside joke to direct new beekeepers in that direction? Then all those in the know can set back and have a good laugh?

Please support your insinuation that my reading has left me deficient in knowledge. what about my comment is not correct? In case you don't realize this either. that is another method of gaining knowledge.


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## Solomon Parker

Don't let it get you down Daniel. They tell me to read such and such a book all the time, but then they tell me I can't really understand beekeeping unless I work for a commercial beekeeper. Hooey.


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## deknow

This is good David.

WRT queen rearing, the best thing to do is read, read, read. You've got to understand a few different systems, then you learn what needs to be done, and you can improvise if need be.

I often make up a cell starter/finisher the day or better, the day before I'm going to graft. My favorite configuration is a 2 story 5 frame deep...with no frames in the bottom box (I use a box with a screen across the bottom for ventilation). Over time, I might add a few frames to the bottom (capped brood, honey), but what seems to be a giant cluster hanging off of 5 frames (with cells in the middle) seems to work great. Honey on the outside frames, pollen (you want fresh "dusty looking" pollen for this) surrounding the middle position, which is left open for the cell bars. I also make sure there is some eggs/open brood in there, usually on the frames with the pollen.

I shake in enough nurse bees into the bottom box...lots of them, then add the box above (with the frames already in place). A migratory cover (a sheet of plywood with an entrance routed out of it), and you are good to go.

Best to do this the day before you need it, then you can also check for queen cells (meaning that you didn't put a queen in there by mistake). I can do 35 or more cells with almost all emerging this way. I've tried queenright finishers, but have had the queen get past the excluder too many times....so I sometimes split a queen and a nuc off from a larger colony and use the queenless parent as a finisher (so I can run 3 or 4 rounds from the nuc with no problem).

When they are building cells (flow or not), I feed by spreading a bit of crystalized honey on the top bars once or twice a day.

Essentially, you want a colony that is/feels abundant and prosperous...a complete system _except_ for a giant hole the shape of a bunch of queens (along with the resources to produce them)...lots of ways to get there.

deknow


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## wheeler88

Good post David, along with some good replies. I attended a queen rearing class this summer and your method is very similar to one of the methods that he taught. 'One 5 frame nuc with lots of bees some frames of honey and pollen as starter/finisher.' He called it his cheater method.....


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## Daniel Y

First, David, I think you are dong just fine and will eventually get to those fine top quality large cells consistently.

For anyone else. Please explain the possible differences and effects the following might make weather good or bad. 

1. an egg that is laid in a worker cell compared to a queen cell.
2. the difference in a queen cell that was made by man or one made by bees.
3. The care of a larva from the moment it hatches that is laid in a worker cell and one that is laid in a queen cell.
4. a queen cell in a hive that has a laying queen and one that does not.
5. The importance of royal jelly or as some refer to it "Milk" In detail and exactly what minute difference are there in how it is supplied to a worker and a queen.
6. The possible effect it has when bees have chosen and prepared to produce a queen and those that have had in forced upon them.
7. Why do bees that have had open brood supplied to them prior to being given queen cells produce larger queen cells and quite probably produce better quality queens?
8. Why exactly is it that bees will produced better quality queens in larger numbers when influenced by the swarm impulse than under any other impulse?
9. It is impossible to ask bees to do a top quality job that they are not prepared to do. What do you understand is involved in bees being prepared to produce queens.
10. even bees that are well prepared can only be expected to adequately produce and tend to a limited number of queen cells. what is your understanding of where that limit is? I have seen claims of as many as 150 queen cells being placed in one hive. Is it possible that a hive can produce 150 quality queens at one time? or are there simply going to be 150 trash queens being produced.

Please take a moment to expand on my obvious lack of knowledge on any or all of the above. I invite you to seize a ripe opportunity to educate the ignorant. Or are you only capable of insults?


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## Intheswamp

Daniel Y said:


> Please take a moment to expand on my obvious lack of knowledge on any or all of the above. I invite you to seize a ripe opportunity to educate the ignorant.<snip>


Daniel, these guys are sharing some good experiences and giving some really good information out. Your comments may not have been handled with kid gloves but I saw no intended insult to you. As newbees we need tough skin...those ladies aren't the only thing that can sting. I consider myself "in school" and at the moment the experienced (and some of the not so experienced) beekeepers are my "school masters"...and I've been rapped on the knuckles a few times already...and I've learned from it. In years to come the bees will take over and become my school masters (and task masters  ) and my fellow beekeepers will become my peers (and fellow students of the bees)...and when the bees rap our knuckles we definitely won't forget it nor will we feel as though we've been insulted but rather that we've been shown our errors. I'll take all the knuckle rapping I can get right now...rather now than from the bees later.  

Honestly, Daniel, your last comment is more alienating than it is constructive for you. You might want to edit it a bit (I went ahead and snipped it from my quote). It won't surprise me, though, if even with the remark that somebody, with much more knowledge *and* experience than what you or I have, will still try to answer the questions that you listed. Bee keepers are good folks.

Ease up, man, enjoy the journey, but remember your veil. 

Best wishes,
Ed


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## AstroBee

Thanks David for putting such a great post together! I'm sure many will benefit from your efforts.

I do have one question related to how you configure your cell builder. You say: "The two outer frames are capped/emerging brood, the next two contain stores – honey and pollen, maybe some empty space for them to draw comb and store incoming food."

Can you explain why you place the capped/emerging brood on the outside? I've always kept the brood near the middle, just like a normal functioning hive.


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## Intheswamp

I think David meant that the two "outer" frames were out from the center on either side of where the queen cell frame will be placed. The stores on the outside are correct. By the term "the next two..." I think he meant the next two going out from center. 

At least that's what I think he meant. 

Ed


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## Steve10

I'll take a stab at this with the disclaimer I'll always be a student of the bees!

1. an egg that is laid in a worker cell compared to a queen cell.
> As best I know, identical.
2. the difference in a queen cell that was made by man or one made by bees.
> Although our man-made cell cups may not be perfect replicas, practically they work fine.
3. The care of a larva from the moment it hatches that is laid in a worker cell and one that is laid in a queen cell.
> According to Sue Cobey's article on Cloake Boards, "a developing queen larva receives 1600 feeding visits from nurse bees, compared to the 143 feeding visits received by a worker larva."
4. a queen cell in a hive that has a laying queen and one that does not.
> Some say that queen-rite finishers produce better queen cells, but as Joe and David have shown, their cells are just as good if not better. Take your pick.
5. The importance of royal jelly or as some refer to it "Milk" In detail and exactly what minute difference are there in how it is supplied to a worker and a queen.
> I believe it's just a matter of quantity and frequency of feeding noted in #3. A case where "more is better."
6. The possible effect it has when bees have chosen and prepared to produce a queen and those that have had in forced upon them.
> I don't think anyone will disagree that anything the bees or the beekeepers can do to have the greatest number of nurse bees and resources (pollen and nectar) to lavishly feed the queen larva will increase the "quality" of the queens.
7. Why do bees that have had open brood supplied to them prior to being given queen cells produce larger queen cells and quite probably produce better quality queens?
> Because the bees covering open brood have the greatest proportion of nurse bees that are the right age to produce royal jelly, again more royal jelly so the queens can reach their best potential. The more nurse bees the better.
8. Why exactly is it that bees will produced better quality queens in larger numbers when influenced by the swarm impulse than under any other impulse?
> That's when there is a peak in the "concentration of bees, particularly the number of nurse bees.
9. It is impossible to ask bees to do a top quality job that they are not prepared to do. What do you understand is involved in bees being prepared to produce queens.
> Bees don't prepare. They react instinctively to biological stimuli. Loss of a queen, a failing queen, or a colony is triggered to swarm all result in a change in chemistry (pheromones) of this super-organism to produce queen cells. The it's a matter of resources that effect the results. 
10. even bees that are well prepared can only be expected to adequately produce and tend to a limited number of queen cells. what is your understanding of where that limit is? I have seen claims of as many as 150 queen cells being placed in one hive. Is it possible that a hive can produce 150 quality queens at one time? or are there simply going to be 150 trash queens being produced.
> That's better answered by the commercial breeders. 

Hope this helps.


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## VolunteerK9

Daniel Y said:


> Please point out where my comments suggest a lack of knowledge.
> QUOTE]
> On 10/23/11 you posted Re: Beekeeping Business Planning - Can you make money in this business?
> I am a new guy and do not even own bees.
> 
> Just rubs me the wrong way when very knowledgeable beeks take their time to post valuable information regarding a specific subject and then someone else posts that they have read a few books or watched a video begins critiquing their work. Yes, reading is a great source of info-Ive done plenty of it via books, Beesource and other sites. But until you begin practicing some of these things, then you begin to understand and appreciate the complexities of everything involved. I read my Driver Safety Handbook, but didnt know how to drive until I actually did it. Then again, I may just be cranky due to the upcoming winter.


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## VolunteerK9

David...do you have any pros or cons with using the 5 frame nuc as your starter vs. a cloake board? I'm undecided on which method I'm going to use but like the simplicity of the nuc sized, if for no other reason than fewer frames to look for rogue queen cells. Do you use different donor hives for your nurse bees or do you just pull from one particular hive?


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## Intheswamp

K9, I know folks that read the Driver Safety Handbook, attempted to drive, and *still* don't know how! "LOOK OUT FOR THAT....!!!" inch:

Ed


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## stripstrike

Intheswamp said:


> I think David meant that the two "outer" frames were out from the center on either side of where the queen cell frame will be placed. The stores on the outside are correct. By the term "the next two..." I think he meant the next two going out from center.
> 
> At least that's what I think he meant.
> 
> Ed


I think he said it correctly for a five frame nuc. Brood on the outside, and pollen/stores next to what will be the cell bar for easy access. With 4-6 pounds of bees in there I think they'll be able to keep the two outside frames warm enough to continue caring for the brood, but you want the food for the prospective queens as close as possible to the graft.


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## David LaFerney

AstroBee said:


> Can you explain why you place the capped/emerging brood on the outside? I've always kept the brood near the middle, just like a normal functioning hive.


Instheswamp as well,

I can explain my reasoning, but I sure won't swear that it's correct. The capped/emerging brood is just supplying new nurse bees - there is little if any open brood on those frames - and as they emerge they are quickly back filled with stores, because there isn't much space for that anywhere else in the hive. The only open brood (ideally) is on the cell bar - and all of the nurse bees will be there as well. My reason for having the stores right next to the cell bar is so that they will be where the nurse bees can get to them, and stay with the grafts.

I've tried it the other way too, and I can't really say that it makes a difference - with such a small highly populated hive it's all right there no matter how you arrange it. 

I would sure welcome the opinion of anyone who is more of an authority.

Stripstake - I wrote this before I got to your reply. I'm glad someone agrees with my reasoning though.


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## David LaFerney

VolunteerK9 said:


> David...do you have any pros or cons with using the 5 frame nuc as your starter vs. a cloake board? I'm undecided on which method I'm going to use but like the simplicity of the nuc sized, if for no other reason than fewer frames to look for rogue queen cells. Do you use different donor hives for your nurse bees or do you just pull from one particular hive?


I do, with the caveat that I haven't tried the Cloake system. 
1) A queen right hive as populous as this would be quite likely to swarm if you weren't mighty vigilant. With a queenless hive as long as you find wild cells before they emerge all is well - 10-12 days. A Queenright hive might swarm with a 5 day old capped cell if it was really in the mood. So, you are more likely to catch them with once a week inspections - during which you don't have to worry about accidentally killing the queen.
2) This system doesn't require either a big strong hive or any equipment (Cloake board) that I didn't already have. 
3) It's just one box, so you pull the lid off, and it's all right there.

It's simple, easy, and it works. I'm not saying that the Cloake system isn't good too - I'm sure it is once you learn to use it.

I swap brood frames from where ever I find them. Thus spreading the joy.


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## VolunteerK9

I think the nuc will be the way I go. I have several all medium setups as well as the deep/shallow combos. Sorting through a couple of frames for stray cells will be a lot easier than 30 frames not to mention with fewer stings  Thanks for the post


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## Intheswamp

Thanks for setting me straight, David. What you've explained makes sense to me. I've gotta learn to keep my mouth shut about things I know nothing about. 

Ed


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## David LaFerney

If I kept my mouth shut except when I know what I'm talking about I'd starve to death.


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## Intheswamp

David LaFerney said:


> If I kept my mouth shut except when I know what I'm talking about I'd starve to death.


I resemble that remark. 

Ed


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## Jaseemtp

David thank you for this post. Very informative and I look forward to giving this a shot at some point in the future.
Jason


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## Steven Ogborn

I've been going back over this thread a few times, over a few days now. I have been thinking that this would be a good
system for those guys that are strictly top bar hive types also. I think I've found what I'll be using in the future when
I start trying to rear queens. Because I really haven't thought of a simple way to rig a cloake board into a top bar hive.lol
I'm thinking the nuc even could be run in the back of a full sized TBH hive body. I won't have to sacrifice a full size hive
to raise cells. It could be a matter of just swapping bars and follower boards around. Thank You, so much.


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## bhfury

Great Thread!!


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## johno

Great thread David,
Raised some queens in 2012 with the cloake board method for my own and club use later in the year found that they sometimes would not build up the cells, too hot maybe. Since then I just started new nuc's with 4 frames and put in the center a bar with 4 grafts from my best queen,all the nuc's requeened themselves in this manner and are the nuc's that I am over wintering
Johno


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## Adam Foster Collins

Yeah, this one is one I've bookmarked. It's all really well-explained and seems like a great approach which requires little gear. David did a great job putting the material together and sharing it.

Adam


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## lakebilly

Dave, can you give an "exploded" view of the anatomy of your nuc box? It appears as if there is a 2" extension cleated above the SBB. Why wouldn't you use a deep? essplain porfivore


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## BeeGhost

Thanks David!! This answers a lot of my questions on the starter/finisher hive thing!! Cant wait to try it when spring hits!!


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## DC Bees

Lakebilly,I was thinking that it was a slatted rack to give them some room ,but that's just a guess.:scratch:


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## David LaFerney

Yes, that 2" extension is a slatted rack to give them some room. I didn't use a deep nuc box because i didn't have one. I do all mediums so that is just what i have. I doubt if it makes much difference though. If you already have deep equipment then use it.


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## tommyt

Just a few ? .
#1 On what day do you remove the cells 

#2 
How early can you safely remove the cells 

#3. I forgot :scratch:
Happens often.


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## David LaFerney

tommyt said:


> Just a few ? .
> #1 On what day do you remove the cells
> 
> #2
> How early can you safely remove the cells
> 
> #3. I forgot :scratch:
> Happens often.


You need to remove cells on the 10th day *after grafting* - not too late on the 10th day for good measure.

It is safe to remove cells from the finisher as soon as they are capped - on the 4th - 5th day - but they will have to be put into an incubator if you do.

Some companies ship cells, so obviously they can be removed from incubation before they are about to emerge, but when it is safe to do that is probably highly technical and above my experience. It is safe to handle them gently on the tenth day.

It might sound obvious, but just for the record - if you graft on Saturday, then Sunday is the 1st day after grafting. At least that's what I mean by it.

There is some variation of schedules because of many factors, but especially temperature. If it is really hot, then you don't want to wait too late on day 10 to put your cells in nucs or it is quite likely that one will emerge and kill the rest.


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## Jgabbert

David, thank you for working on this thread. I have studied your info and read 3 queen books this winter. I live in south west Florida and it is early Spring here. 80degrees during the day now and 60 at night. I have used a version of the Clemmons system 3 rounds so far. The first try I had 4 capped cells and 2 hatched .#1 (Eve) hatched in the incubator on day 10. I introduced her to a new nuc by direct introduction on top of the frames. She had a full frame of brood on both sides at day 15 following introduction. #2 went into a nuc and is now laying also. The other two never hatched and when I opened them up they were partially developed and died in the cell.round two, I had twenty cells capped at day 5. I was really excited. When I went to take them out on day 10 all were chewed open. I neglected to check for starter queen cells. I took the virgins and bees from the starter nuc and made up a ten frame hive and she is laying now, so all was not lost.round three and I had 19 started cells and 13 were capped and removed at ten days. I installed them today into nucs and grafted round 4. I really feel like I am getting the hang of it. I am send this to you to THANK YOU for your work and for sharing the knowledge with all of us on the forum. I thought you would like to hear what I think is a success story, only possible because others shared info and took the time to help others. Jim


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## David LaFerney

I appreciate you saying so, and your experience really highlights the great thing about learning with a system like this - you can easily use it over and over to sharpen your skills. Sounds like you are doing great. 

BTW, If I had an incubator I would put cells in it as soon as they are capped I think. A friend of mine who is an actual queen producer does that to eliminate the chance of capped cells being torn back down in the finisher. I think he also uses some kind of cell protectors to keep an early bloomer from spoiling a batch. An incubator would be good to have.


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## Widdy

what temp and humidity would you keep an incubator with queen cells in it?


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## AstroBee

Optimal 92.2 - 93.2 F
RH is less sensitive 50-70 is probably fine.


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## Marc

What happens to the cell builder after you removed the first round of capped cells on the 10th day? Is it ready to be used right away? Do you split it up and put a fresh one together? Or do you simply keep adding fresh frames with capped brood to have a steady supply of hatching brood in the cell builder? Thank you for your time in putting this together David. I sure am excited to try grafting for the first time this spring!!


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## David LaFerney

You can use it again right away, but as long as you are continuing to use it you need to give it at least one good frame of brood per week. When you place your new grafts you want them to be pretty much the only open brood in the hive, so ideally you give it frames of capped/emerging brood. Although there is almost always a few larva that they build queen cells from, so you have to check for those once a week too. Still, the maintenance doesn't take much time at all.

When you're finished queen rearing for the year just remove the queen includer (if used) and let a queen hatch into the cell builder - although you might want to put it into a larger hive setup first so that they don't immediately swarm.

I'm looking forward to this season too. Good Luck.


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## sfisher

David what is the queen includer used for?


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## David LaFerney

It's between the bottom board and the hive body - to keep a lost virgin from taking over. If you have a separate mating yard it is less needed than if your mating nucs are close.


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## delber

I am SOOOO thankful that there's this kind of info here and it isn't deleted after a given ammt. of time. Barry hat's off to you!!! :applause: Here is a thread I was following a couple years back. There's a TON of good info on this thread from Joseph Clemens and others. 

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?259410-Moving-from-ok-queens-to-great-queens


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## JonnyBeeGood

David, I would like to echo all the words of appreciation that have already been shared here. I am preparing to start 'down the road' of queen rearing this Spring. And this thread has answered a lot of my questions. Thanks to all for sharing your knowledge and experience.


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## tct1w

Thanks for a great post Dave. Im going to try my hand at it this year. Really appreciate the tread. CU Dave


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## lakebilly

David,

Can you inspect too often?

I like Deans configuration. I am wondering if frames of stores flanking the cell bar & stores overhead would be a good way to go.

What is your pollen sub/syrup recipe?

When nurse bees become foragers, move cell builder & replace with weak nuc? Assuming you maintain a store supply. 
Sponge w/H2o? for hydration?

Cage capped cells & leave in starter?


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## David LaFerney

lakebilly said:


> Can you inspect too often?


I don't think you are too likely to.



lakebilly said:


> I like Deans configuration. I am wondering if frames of stores flanking the cell bar & stores overhead would be a good way to go.


You should try it.



lakebilly said:


> What is your pollen sub/syrup recipe?


_
8% protein mega bee candy 

1.25 cups water
1/2 liquid oz veg oil or shortening 
5 pounds sugar
1 pound straight mega bee powder - without sugar already added.

Even though you don’t have to heat this to the very high temps that some recipes call for it will still burn you very badly if you get it on you – wear gloves, safety glasses, use a long spoon to stir, and if you use a mechanical mixer of any kind protect yourself from the possibility that you will slop some out. For Pete’s sake don’t do this in tee shirt and shorts.

a cordless drill with one of the blades from a powered hand mixer chucked in it is very helpful – almost essential, because it will be very thick after adding the megabee until you get it mixed. 

In a large container bring the water and oil to a boil.

Leave heat on high.

Add 5 pounds of sugar, bring the mixture back to a boil stir pretty much constantly.

Remove from heat and add the mega bee. mix then pour out into mold. I use brownie tins sprayed with pam. In a few hours to a day or two it will set to the consistency of a sugar cube and will come out neatly.

This is what I feed as pollen sub, and it keeps really well in this hard candy form and isn't likely to be infested with hive beetle larva. To make patty to feed to weak hives or cell builders I crush some of this up and add a little bit of syrup to get the consistency I want_ 

You can easily scale this up to make 30 pounds at a time - 25 lb sugar 5 lb megabee.




lakebilly said:


> When nurse bees become foragers, move cell builder & replace with weak nuc? Assuming you maintain a store supply.
> Sponge w/H2o? for hydration?


No, you just keep adding emerging brood every week to keep the nurse be population up. It will get really strong with foragers too, but it isn't really a problem. But if you want to you can certainly move it to a new spot to leave behind the foragers if you want to.



lakebilly said:


> Cage capped cells & leave in starter?


I don't but it's probably a good idea.

Sorry I didn't see this question until just now.


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## Adam Foster Collins

David,

I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to do the write-up on this method that Joseph uses, and for sharing it as well as you did through this forum and your blog. I followed your instructions, and just checked my first batch of grafts to discover I had 87% of the cells take on the first attempt (27 out of 31). This method is a nice, minimal approach to grafting and uses very little resources from the bee yard.

Perfect for us little people.

I know that one can put a lot of effort into things for the internet, and wonder sometimes if anyone cares.

Well, I want you to know that your effort made a difference to me.

So thanks.

Adam


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## David LaFerney

Thanks for saying so. Good luck with it.

I just did a couple of hands on workshops with our local association using this method, and I think it was a hit.


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## Lburou

Yes, thanks again David!.....This is as good as any sticky :hinthint:


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## rmdial

Wow, what a great thread for us novices. I have learned a lot and am ready to try my hand at this. 

One simple question and I apologize if I missed something that already explains this. But why do we need to confine bees to the starter nuc for some period before grafts are introduced?

Thanks in advance.

Soapy


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## Joseph Clemens

When the nurse bees have recently become queenless, they are much more motivated to build and grow queen cells. But, for subsequent batches, as long as all finished cells and rogue cells are regularly removed, they remain queenless, and waiting isn't as important. When the cell growing colony is first assembled, it seems to work better to wait overnight before giving new grafts. I try to spot rogue cells early, before they are capped (though this timing isn't critical - capped cells still have royal jelly that can be collected), then I collect the royal jelly from them and load it into a plastic glue syringe, to use for priming future grafts.

I've tried a few other things, adding them to what I do, in these past few years:
1) I build my cell growing nucs from 1-1/4" thick styrofoam board, with foil lining the entire inside of the nuc, and pieces of wood trim on the edges for reinforcement, especially of the frame rests. I put a few small 1/4" plastic tubes or straws in the bottom corners for drainage, but let the bees use the top for ventilation. I leave a small 3/4" wide area front and back on top for entrance and ventilation.

2) I feed pollen sub constantly, but only add 1:1 syrup when there is no flow on.

3) Similar techniques have been mentioned earlier in this thread, so I will describe this version, which I use, that I've found helpful to me> I get the largest cells, with the most RJ, when I place a frame of grafting age larvae into the cell builder overnight, then shaking those bees into the cell builder nuc, and removing that frame (and replacing whichever frame was removed to accommodate it), just before adding new grafts.


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## Daniel Y

Joseph, I noticed this reluctance to build queen cells after a period of time also. I was told it was becasue the queenless bees had grown to old. made since. that is until I added several frames of young nurse bees and a frame of open brood including eggs. not one queen cell was produced from that entire frame.

This has caused me to rethink the long term cell starter. I am thinking that every frame of grafts will be introduced to a colony that was made queenless only 24 hours prior. I have no idea why colonies that have been queenless for a period of time will not make queen cells. I do know I have seen it for myself. And it is not all about age of the bees.


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## Joseph Clemens

Daniel Y, I really haven't seen that, yet. I'm not sure what the differences are between how you're doing it and how I do it - which may be the key. When I add a fresh comb of emerging worker brood, each week, I make sure that it contains some eggs, so it can help suppress the development of laying workers as a problem (I also want that worker brood to be the target of any Varroa that might be present, instead of my queen cells). I've also found that if I have a 15 cell bar, or two in the builder (open or capped cells), when I add the frame of grafting age larvae, with attendant nurse bees (for an overnight visit), they often fail to start any additional cells on the frame of open worker larvae.

However, I do not run them forever. Every so often I break one down to restock mating nucs, one frame of bees from the cell builder and a cell for each 3-frame mating nuc compartment. I sometimes shake a frame into a weaker 5-frame nuc that I want to boost the population of.

And, just to see how it goes, I've relocated cell builders, leaving the field bees behind (I put a weaker nuc in its place so it benefits from the field bees), and added even more nurse bees, to see what differences that might make. Of course I make sure I'm feeding 1:1 to help compensate for the missing field bees. Also, when a comb has been filled with syrup or honey, I remove it and replace it with a fresh comb of either emerging brood, or one that has some pollen in it, but is only partially finished - giving the bees wax work to do, instead of encasing the queen cells in burr comb.

And, sometimes I take a batch of 22 finished cells, carefully remove a little bit of wax from their tips, if the bees haven't already done so, then gently insert them into California mini cages, placing them on a frame I made up just for that purpose. I then remove a frame from a cell builder and insert this incubator frame with the cage screens facing a comb of brood, and inspect it as the virgin queens are expected to emerge, so I can quickly transfer them to cages with attendants and candy - to be used as needed. During this process I also QA the new virgins, discarding any that don't appear well-formed.

-------------------
About the older cell builders no longer willing to build cells:
I have seen this, but only when there was a rogue virgin present. Earlier, when I was getting my feet wet, I would sometimes unintentionally overlook a stray queen cell and batches of grafts would mysteriously fall to take, until I located the rogue virgin and remove her. I keep my cell builders and mating nucs in the same yard, underneath a large mesquite tree. Every so often I would also find a similar issue, when a nearby virgin would find her way into my cell builders and destroy batches of cells, that's why I frequently use excluders to help reduce that happening.


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## Steves1967

Ok, I just have to ask. I tried grafting last week with a CLOSED cell builder last week. I am seeing that this system is entirely open from inception. Do I have it right? Transfer frames of pollen, honey, brood and shaken nurse bees and give them a day to acclimatize before introducing grafts?


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## Joseph Clemens

Yes, I never close them in. Conditions must be just right, or else confined bees will just spend all their time trying to escape.

Confined bees can't forage, can't relieve themselves, etc. I can't really think of any good reason to confine them, and have often wondered about the reasoning behind that method, whenever I've read about it.


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## Steves1967

I tried it because a local gentleman who has kept bees for a while told me to. I got a few cells to make a few nucs later this week. Tomorrow I will try again your way. Thank you


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## Joseph Clemens

If I remember correctly, after closing them in, they need to be placed in someplace like a dark/cool/damp cellar or basement. I don't have anyplace like that, so I've never even had the chance to try it. If I had a basement or other suitable location, I'd probably have tried it with a closed setup, just to see how it works.

I wish everyone the best success at this endeavor. It can be very rewarding.


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## Daniel Y

So far my experince with this system is.
6-6-13 20 graft with 4 accepted cells. These 4 are due to emerge yesterday or today. one has emerged and is a small stunted queen. These cells have been relocated to an incubator for the last two days. Low acceptance I consider due to poor grafting technique and a weak cell starter colony. I am also thinking that the one is small due to a weak starter.
We made improvments to our methods of grafting and made a second attempt.
6-8-13 10 cells from the original 20 that had not been accepted where regrafted. again 4 cells where accepted. These are also on the incubator as of yesterday and due to emerge in 2 days according to an online calendar. 3 days by my calculations. So far my calculations have been more accurate.
After this attempt we focused on a stronger cell started as well as improved cell finisher. We added frames of capped brood, added several frames of nurse bees, gave this starter a frame of open brood for 4 days and grafted another set of 20 cells.
6-15-13 we grafted 20 cells. this time we focused on lifting the smallest larva possible. They where tiny barely bigger than an egg. on inspection yesterday there was 0 acceptance. All larva had been removed from the cells. Except that maybe we killed 100% of the larva while grafting I have no idea what would have caused this complete failure of acceptance. All conditions otherwise indicate we should have improved on our so far best 40% acceptance rate.

6-16-13 on the 156th I had unintentionally made another nuc queenless while attempting to mark the queen. this was strong on brood. strong on nurse bees and 24 hours from being queenless. We grafted 20 cells and placed them in this colony even though they showed no signs of producing queen cells on the brood they already have. We returned to attempting to graft 2 day old larva again rather than the tiny 1 day ones.

Today I will inspect for acceptance some time after 6 PM that gives them over 24 hours to show some indication of acceptance. we will also be grafting another 20 cells and giving them to the original starter nuc just to see if we can figure out what is going on their.

Some of my other thoughts are that it has been to many cells in a week. basically a weak starter was given 30 cells in a 3 day period. given a 5 to 6 day break and boosted quite a bit then given 20 more cells. that seems acceptable to me and explains why the original cells did not fair well. The first four cells where left to be finished in the starter as well (Not prepaired). After the second attempt all cells whee moved to a finisher that did a much better job of building out larger cells with the second set of four. I have no idea how well this original starter might due with finishing cells now that they have been strengthened.

At this time I am really stumped. I am most inclined to think it was the attempt to graft smaller larva and not a problem with the starter nuc. But I don't have a really strong feeling about anything at this point. It is almost like adding open brood sapped the bees of what royal jelly they had. they ay have simply refused to stat new queen cells. I have no idea.

By the way this nuc has had sugar water and mega bee the entire time. Plus they do have bees foraging.

hopefully this afternoon will show we are back on track and actually improving our results. If it comes up another zero I will find it hard to justify continuing any further attempts. I will have no idea what to fix in order to expect different results.

We will continue with the mating of these poor queens just for the experience. but so far our final results will be no acceptable queens from 50 grafts. That may improve to 4 out of 50 in the next couple of days.


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## Steves1967

Daniel, please keep us informed. This is along the lines of my own experiences so far but I am going to try more grafts tomorrow. I am going to build open starter/finishers today and graft tomorrow. Last weeks efforts only gave two cells of twenty in one yard and I was not able to check the other.


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## jim lyon

Daniel: Dont give up on grafting those newly hatched larvae. If they are literally floating they should transfer easily, if not then they can be easily damaged which I would agree is probably what happened to you. A tool like the Chinese grafting tool is particularly good at acting as a tiny scoop shovel to lift out larvae and jelly together, a tool that requires the larvae to adhere to it may be a bit more problematic. So much of queen raising is dependent on conditions. I think of it as "swimming with the current". When bees are wanting to swarm its pretty easy but if you aren't in prime swarming season then you must be far more diligent about creating the right conditions by getting even more populous and crowded cell builders.


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## Joseph Clemens

Don't worry, it wasn't much better for me when I first began grafting. I wear corrective lenses (glasses), and after I started wearing a pair of high powered reading glasses, over my usual glasses, and using an extremely bright LED headlight to illuminate the larvae I was grafting, which helped me a great deal. Even those very young, very tiny larvae must not be injured or flipped over during the grafting process, so, being able to observe the process (for me, with highly magnified vision), is most important. Some people can do it blind, but I can't, yet. I have learned, for me, if I fumble, even a little, during the grafting, that I need to abandon the larvae I'm working with and select a new one. I use the JZsBZs red plastic grafting needle, most often. It has a small projection, at 90 degrees from the tip, which I use to push under the larvae (from front or back), then lift it cleanly. A tiny drop of royal jelly in the cell cup that I then touch the larvae to as I push the needle through the RJ drop and then up and out of the cup, works best for me. It's sort of a quick fluid motion; pluck larvae from its cell, touch larvae to RJ drop, then push needle down and then up and out of cup. But what really makes this work for me, is my highly aided eyes can see what and how everything is working. I can see the tiny little larvae and observe its entire transfer process. Whenever I notice any tiny flaw in the process, I can almost guarantee it has failed. I still sometimes mark a few that are questionable, to watch how they turn out -- those are almost always rejected.

My most common failure is to unintentionally touch the larvae to the cell wall on its way out of the cell. I have learned that if this happens, to abandon that attempt and move on to another larvae.


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## David LaFerney

Jim is right - don't give up on grafting the smallest larva possible. That is absolutely the direction you want to go. I don't know what the weather is like in Reno right now, but I'm going to step out on a limb and guess hot and dry. That can be an issue that you have to deal with. Keep your frame of larva and your grafts covered with a damp towel as much as possible, and get them all back in the hives ASAP. Also feed the hive you going to graft from and they will have more jelly and be easier to work with. Also something I learned recently is that you can lightly mist the brood frame with plain water which also helps.

Make sure that your cell starter is queenless - if they aren't starting cells somewhere then they are not. If they are building cells on brood frames, but not your grafts... That tells you where the problem is.

The most likely problem that I think beginners have is not making the starter strong enough with nurse bees. 

Don't give up - there is a learning curve, but soon you will improve a lot if you keep doing it every few days like you are.

Good luck.


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## David LaFerney

Joseph - I've had very similar experience. Lot's of magnification and light make a huge difference - I use a donegan optivisor. I never got used to a Chinese tool, and use a German SS tool - I'm a tool user by trade and I like durable ones that I can become very familiar with, but I might have to give the JZBZs tool another try - I do like how it doesn't get in the way of seeing the larva.

For me, I have better luck it I approach the larva from the outside of it's curved shape. And I also abandon and start over if the smallest thing goes wrong.

For best results you need to do everything that you can to stack the deck in your favor - and then it comes out looking easy.


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## jim lyon

I guess it's all in what tool you get used to. The Chinese grafting tool is used by everyone that I know but they no doubt all work well once their particular technique is mastered. A real nice description by Joe. You really need to be able to see what you are doing to get a feel for the proper technique. If you aren't sure if you did it properly then you probably didn't, at least that has been my experience.


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## VolunteerK9

I made up a queenless 5 framer this weekend. Today, I'm checking for any rogue queen cell building and destroying any of those. Should I wait another day before adding my grafts or will today be fine?

DanielY..I prefer my crow with bbq sauce. Youre way ahead of me


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## Joseph Clemens

When I first started I got one, each, of most of the various grafting tools available, except the very pricey one, the one with the metal tongue that sticks out when you push on a lever, looks similar to finger-nail trimmers - probably the best one, but I just couldn't get myself to pay that much for a simple grafting needle. All the money I've invested in needles over the years, probably wouldn't be enough to buy three of those.

I started with the German stainless, double ended. Then I found the JZsBZs No. 1, red, plastic needle to work nicely. I also tried the Chinese ones with the goose quill tongue and bamboo or plastic pusher. I do appreciate those Chinese grafting tools, when they work, they work very well, and cups don't need to be primed, but I sometimes find it difficult to locate one where the quill tongue flexes just right. Then, once I have one that works quite well, it usually wears out just when I'm on a grafting roll. I've also tried some differently configured JZsBZs grafting needles (Jim let me try other needle sizes and angles to see if any particular configuration worked best, for me). None worked better than the original No. 1, but a slightly different No. 1 angle worked almost as well. I like to keep plenty of the JZsBZs needles around, since I have the habit of placing them where the fragile needle tips keep getting knocked off (Note to self: I need to build a holder that will protect the needle when not in use). What I like about the JZsBZs needle is how it has a tiny tip that barely touches the larvae (the larvae is perched above the needle as it's being moved), then once I touch the larvae to the tiny bead of RJ and quickly push the needle down and move it up, the surface tension of the RJ holds the larvae and the needle is removed, sans larvae.


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## David LaFerney

That actually sounds better than what I do with the SS tool which is try to just barely get under the larva so that it's hanging off the edge of the tool. If you get it too far under the larva it's difficult or impossible to get it deposited in the cup. When you do pick it up just right it's a breeze. I probably eat about every third one.

It would be great if someone with a really good camera could video the different techniques you use with the different tools.

The thing that beginners need to understand is that it isn't all that hard no matter what tool you use - it just takes a bit of practice and diligence.


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## Joseph Clemens

Another trick I sometimes use, that I haven't heard much mention of, yet -->

After I do a batch of grafts, 1, 2, or more bars. I keep track of the frame I grafted from, so I can reacquire it easily. Then I only wait about an hour, then check them. Those that are now empty, I regraft, it usually improves the total take. Sometimes I do this two or three times, an hour apart. Usually, if I've done this I can get nearly 100% of the cups started (they may not finish them all, but at least I get more started). Sure, it's cheating, but in a good way.

----------------
Getting this documented on video seems like it would be quite a feat. I am not a video expert, and there's probably an easy trick to get it done. But, it usually is a very narrow angle I must acquire to properly view each larvae as I pick them up with the needle and then likewise as I deposit them in the cell cup. In my minds eye, I don't know how the camera could capture this, without completely hindering the process, or vice versa. It would be very nice though, if it could be done.


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## David LaFerney

VolunteerK9 said:


> I made up a queenless 5 framer this weekend. Today, I'm checking for any rogue queen cell building and destroying any of those. Should I wait another day before adding my grafts or will today be fine?


You can add grafts any time. It doesn't matter when you remove queen cells as long as you do it before they emerge - and of course if they are open then they will consume some of the attention that you want your grafts to get. I get the *best* results if I put young open brood in 4 days before I graft then remove any cells the same time that I get ready to add my grafts.


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## VolunteerK9

I did 20 grafts earlier today-just checked on them after about a 5 hour time frame of being placed in a hive. Lots of festooning around the cell cups which may be nothing but festooning for festoonings sake. Time will tell I suppose.


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## Daniel Y

Update on yesterday. It turned out we had 26 grafts in that last frame. My daughter had added some used but ignored cups from previous attempts she had added. I was not even counting at the time we grafted. We had an acceptance of 8 cells. An acceptance of 36.6%. It beats the previous day anyway. I am not going to admit our less than 16% running total. Oops.

We also combined the two nucs to make a stronger 10 frame starter. Two 5 frame deep nucs stacked on top of each other.

We grafted another 20 cups focusing once again on the tiniest of larva. this afternoon will tell if we have improved with them. I primed all cups and we where more careful in abandoning any failed attempts. I also gathers a drop of jelly for each cup before transferring any larva. We did not have the best frame for larva selection so I had a hard time finding the size larva I wanted so I am probably still on the largish size my daughter found a patch of very small larva. so comparing her bar to mine may be interesting.

So in all after 96 grafts we have 16 cells cooking, 4 queens emerged with only one of acceptable quality and 4 still in the incubator. 8 are in my largest hive that we are using as a finisher. If we make another attempt I may see what happens if we just start and finish them in this large hive. The starter we have is struggling to start cells so I am not using it to try and finish them. the first batch of cells where started and finished by one of them and the queens turned out very poor quality.

I also think it is time to boost the starter again if we continue grafting. For the most part I think we are done for now. It depends on the quality of some of thee other queens. the next 4 cells look far more promising and I only need 15 queens total.

In all I am not real happy with our acceptance rate. but if we get the queens we need that is what counts. So the journey may look ugly but the results are right where we need them. So I will keep going until we have 15 acceptable quality queens.

Final note on another thought I have had. We are most likely past the best time to be starting queens.


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## David LaFerney

Daniel Y said:


> Final note on another thought I have had. We are most likely past the best time to be starting queens.


Maybe, but some people believe that queens which are mated after the Solstice (June 21 I think) are more prolific layers for the fall build up.


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## Steves1967

Ok! So using all the little tips and tricks I picked up in this last page of this thread about the handling of larvae I did 20 more grafts today!

I used an illuminated magnifying visor that was only seven bucks from amazon, I cut down comb with a razor, I slipped the tongue of my trusty Chinese grafting tool stealthily under bug after bug! It all really went very, very well from what I have read and experienced last week.

My big question is...... The very NEWEST larvae were in a pool of royal jelly that was so small that the tool really just did not work very well, at least for my inexperienced self. I ended up picking SLIGHTLY OLDER larvae just because they had a "juicier" puddle of RJ. Has anyone else experienced this?

Also, did the grafts at noon and tomorrow is a 24 hour shift at the firehouse, can I check tonight and tell if they have taken?


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## Daniel Y

Steves, yes I do. But I also find larva that have been supplied a better pool of jelly also even though they are small. I am starting to prefer those.


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## Steves1967

So can anyone tell me if I can go in and look and know anything a mere six or eight hours after grafts?


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## Michael Bush

> The very NEWEST larvae were in a pool of royal jelly that was so small that the tool really just did not work very well

The only tool I've found that works on the youngest larvae is the chinese grafting tool. The rest you have to pick up the larvae. With the chinese grafting tool, you pick up the pool...


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## Daniel Y

Steves, according to one post above you can go back after 1 hour and look for cells where the larva has been removed.

I may have to get a Chinese tool.

At this point I am 18 total cells some of them not producing really good queens out of 96 attempts at grafting cups. I will also say that the queenless nucs I am using are not even making emergency queen cells though. It is like I am in a period where the bees don't care if they have a queen or not.

What I know for now is I am done. I need 15 queens and will see if I can get them from these 18 started cells. 6 queens have emerged so far with 2 more due today. That puts me just over half of what I need. If I come up I will make up short the difference with a split next spring or swarm captures at some point. But for now my first overall attempt at grafting cells has been a disaster. I am probably going to look at completely different methods of starting queens. Cell punch the nicot system or something. it can't be much worse than this has been.


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## Saltybee

When I am being unsuccessful grafting (often) I do not find punching or cutting works either. What does work consistantly is removing the queen into a nuc temporarily. Relatively new wax helps the looks of the cell, it may not make any other difference. New wax tends to make closely grouped cells though. Make the splits after the cells are started.
Not high tech, relatively non disruptive.


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## Steves1967

Well Daniel, I wish I could say something encouraging but I cannot at this point. Out of 40 grafts I tried last week I only KNOW I have two cells to transfer to nucs tomorrow. The twenty grafts I did yesterday looked and felt great though so I will check my cell builder tomorrow and check back in  I am also going to make up another cell builder in a different yard and try some more. This particular skillset and beekeeping in general is one of those things that look simple from the outside but has a lot of nuance that I just have not "mastered" yet. So I will just keep tilting the windmill and try to learn


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## Cleo C. Hogan Jr

Daniel Y;724816
1. an egg that is laid in a worker cell compared to a queen cell.
2. the difference in a queen cell that was made by man or one made by bees.
3. The care of a larva from the moment it hatches that is laid in a worker cell and one that is laid in a queen cell.
4. a queen cell in a hive that has a laying queen and one that does not.
5. The importance of royal jelly or as some refer to it "Milk" In detail and exactly what minute difference are there in how it is supplied to a worker and a queen.
6. The possible effect it has when bees have chosen and prepared to produce a queen and those that have had in forced upon them.
7. Why do bees that have had open brood supplied to them prior to being given queen cells produce larger queen cells and quite probably produce better quality queens?
8. Why exactly is it that bees will produced better quality queens in larger numbers when influenced by the swarm impulse than under any other impulse?
9. It is impossible to ask bees to do a top quality job that they are not prepared to do. What do you understand is involved in bees being prepared to produce queens.
10. even bees that are well prepared can only be expected to adequately produce and tend to a limited number of queen cells. what is your understanding of where that limit is? I have seen claims of as many as 150 queen cells being placed in one hive. Is it possible that a hive can produce 150 quality queens at one time? or are there simply going to be 150 trash queens being produced.[/QUOTE said:


> Daniel y.. Those are good questions to use on the Master Beekeeper Certificate Exam.
> 
> cchoganjr


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## David LaFerney

Steves1967 said:


> My big question is...... The very NEWEST larvae were in a pool of royal jelly that was so small that the tool really just did not work very well, at least for my inexperienced self. I ended up picking SLIGHTLY OLDER larvae just because they had a "juicier" puddle of RJ. Has anyone else experienced this?


It helps if you feed the hive you are going to take the larva from. Also, you can give the frame of brood a very light mist of water - which helps more than you might expect.

I'm sure you can tell pretty quickly which ones they are going to make queens from and which ones they are going to abandon, but I've never tried looking before the next day.

I'll bet that your success rate is about to go up. The magnification alone will probably make a difference - it did for me.


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## Joseph Clemens

I find that if the bees are going to reject my grafts, they do it almost immediately.

To check on graft acceptance, after about an hour (it may even be possible sooner), I lift the cell bars, turn the cups open side up, then give the bar a sudden bump (I move it in a downward motion, then stop it abruptly against my other hand), just hard enough to knock most of the nurse bees off and back into the top of the cell builder nuc. Then I give a quick look for small pools of RJ in the bottoms of the cells, and remove all cups that have clean bottoms (they were aborted/rejected).

If I need those cells, I will place them together on another empty cell bar, regraft them and place the new grafts back in the cell builder.


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## Steves1967

Thank you all so very much, tomorrow I finally get to check Tuesdays grafts, I am going to make another open starter in my other yard. I am happy I learned about that method here. So much better than keeping the bees boxed.


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## rmdial

Once again, great thread. I have learned a lot of useful information and tips I plan on using.

In the past few days I have followed the suggestions in building a starter nuc with frames of brood, lots of nursed bees, and plenty of food. Yesterday I took the big step and tried my hand at grafting for the first time. As mentioned over and over, harder than it looks and I expected. At 62, the magnifying glasses were essential and I got pretty comfortable using them. Had several failed attempts getting larvae/jelly into the Chinese tool and transferring it into cup. Anticipate it will become smoother with practice. I am still not confident in my ability to identify the proper stage of larvae to graft. I have read several times that a "C" shaped larvae is too old. But it seems that is all I see at some stage or another or the lone straight egg/larvae in the bottom of the cell without any jelly whatsoever. So I took the smallest larvae I could see that had some jelly in the bottom of the cell.

One thought I had in the middle of the night when I was pondering the whole process was about stealing jelly from other cells. If I find larvae a little too large/old to graft and it still has jelly in the bottom of the cell, is it OK to discard that larvae and transfer it's jelly over to a cup to prime it and float the chosen larvae into?

I have read where queen jelly is different in composition and nourishment than worker jelly but thought it might be OK for a primer.

Your thoughts please and, again, thanks for all the time and energy put into this site. I learn something every time I visit.

Soapy


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## Joseph Clemens

> Had several failed attempts getting larvae/jelly into the Chinese tool and transferring it into cup.


>Not all the Chinese tools function optimally, some work better than others. That's why I buy at least six at a time. Usually one or two out of six work very well, but you need to work with each one for a bit in order to determine which ones work best. The variation seems to be in the goose quill that is used as the flexible, "tongue" part. Some have the perfect amount of flex, while others do not.



> I am still not confident in my ability to identify the proper stage of larvae to graft. I have read several times that a "C" shaped larvae is too old. But it seems that is all I see at some stage or another or the lone straight egg/larvae in the bottom of the cell without any jelly whatsoever. So I took the smallest larvae I could see that had some jelly in the bottom of the cell.


> I don't know about the "c" shaped larvae, being too old, but I simply graft the smallest larvae, which are usually right next to eggs that haven't hatched, yet.



> One thought I had in the middle of the night when I was pondering the whole process was about stealing jelly from other cells. If I find larvae a little too large/old to graft and it still has jelly in the bottom of the cell, is it OK to discard that larvae and transfer it's jelly over to a cup to prime it and float the chosen larvae into?


> I'm sure that would be acceptable, except for the time it would take to accomplish that. Since one of the most important factors in successful grafting is transferring the larvae and returning them to the optimal environment of a brood nest as quickly as possible.



> I have read where queen jelly is different in composition and nourishment than worker jelly but thought it might be OK for a primer.


> Yep, they very well may be different, but generally the nurse bees know best, and seem to be able to replace or freshen any RJ that they feel is not best.


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## VolunteerK9

Checked on mine today. Cant tell too much with my crappy cell phone taking ability but Ive got 15 out of the original 20 grafts. Now mind you they arent the big, plump ones of Clemens or Laferneys, but I'll take it. The 2.75 reading glasses I bought worked wonders.


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## Daniel Y

Well we are going to back track and start a completely new attempt. once we got some queens ready for mating nucs we ran head long into finding out out our nucs are completely inadequate. I had mu suspicions anyway.

Think through the entire process. WE have a lot of the little half frames that if attached end to end are the same length as a full frame. so we will assemble them place them in hives and get them completely filled with comb and hopefully brood. once that is accomplished we will start grafting again. when queens are ready these frames will be taken brood bees and all and placed in our mini nucs. We have some comb drawn in the frames just not enough and no brood. Every one of our queens wandered off and we where left with nuc with just a hand full of young bees wondering around looking for something to do. We did get enough quality queens to requeen the hives that needed it though.

We have 10 more cells due to emerge in 3 days. in the mean time I am goign to get 3 queen castles made so we can transfer frames from existing hives to these mating nucs.

I expect it to take as much as 30 days to get our mini frames drawn and filled. so the window is closing on us to get nucs made for this year.


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## seapro220

I just want to thank everyone for all their advice.

I'm trying something similiar using 4-frame nucs. So far, I've been using a 'crowded' method to force the bees to create their own queen cells - then transfer them over to their own starter/finisher-final product nuc boxes, mostly to increase my # of hives. I've bought the chinese grafting tool, made a couple of frames, and the EZBZ cups along with a magnifier head piece that I hope will allow me enough 'vision' to see what I'm doing. Haven't started yet - but keep reading and following along and just wanted to express thanks to all for their knowledge and time they spend helping out new beeks as they try their hands in this process. Just remember, we all had to start somewhere, before we got here...


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## Daniel Y

Seapro, and anyone else. I am finding there is a skill involved that must be developed. I woudl compare it to telling you I can teach you to draw. which I can. I can fill you full of the technical information about drawing. but nothing will replace you setting down with pencil and paper and applying your had to the effort. that will be a struggle only you can make your way through.

What miffs me is that I have very well refined motor skills. I paint. carve, work in clay. draw, Tie flies, and make may custom items including fishing rods. I can hand transfer tobacco seed sprouts. a tobacco seed is about the size of half the period in this text. But there are still some details for me to refine in transferring larva. It will come. But I must find just the right way to hold my mouth as I do it.

For now I think everything about my attempts needs to be improved. 
Larva to old. starters that are two week. bad time of the year. inadequate mating nucs and feeble looking queens when I do manage to get them. So far my attempts look like stick figures if compaired to my drawing example.


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## Saltybee

To continue your art analogy; practice does not require the expectation of a finished product. A small nuc with 2 or 3 grafts at a time which are only kept long enough to practice that step will improve the technigue while you wait for the real attempt.


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## delber

Daniel Y said:


> What miffs me is that I have very well refined motor skills. I paint. carve, work in clay. draw, Tie flies, and make may custom items including fishing rods. I can hand transfer tobacco seed sprouts. a tobacco seed is about the size of half the period in this text. But there are still some details for me to refine in transferring larva. It will come. But I must find just the right way to hold my mouth as I do it.


Daniel, I totally understand your "miff". I also have skills in many of these areas and yet there are other areas that I should be able to do well but can't. (or at least I haven't taken the time to do it well) I don't try to graft now because I don't need that many queens to warrant it for now. I use Oldtimer's "cut cell method" slightly modified with other information on here. It has worked well for me to get what I need as a small beekeeper. (God willing my 9th hive will be cut out tomorrow) 

Keep at it. If you desire to do it and work patiently you can get it. If someone has skills with their hands then I don't see a reason why it can't be done IF they want to. It must be a desire!!! I'm very very thankful for this and other threads like this the help incredibly to understand the "how to's" and the "how not to's" of queen rearing!!!


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## Steves1967

My first two "confined swarm boxes were utter failures. My first "open" cell starter nuc has four of twenty grafts taken hold. Sunday will be day five for those four. Sunday I will try making another and graft again a couple days after that. Thanks everyone for the help.


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## Steves1967

And that leads to another question, I did my last starter and grafted 24 hours later. Do any of you let the starter sit longer than that so the bees are "more" queen less? More desperate to raise a new queen(s)


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## Pops

VolunteerK9 said:


> Just out of curiosity DanielY - just how many queens have you attempted to raise using any method? Reading on a subject does not necessarily make one knowledgeable about it.
> 
> Could the mods make this a sticky?. A lot of good info here. Thanks for sharing David. I'm planning on trying some of this as well next year.


I think you have Knowledge and Experience confused! You do get knowledge from reading and experience from doing. You can also gain knowledge from experience.


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## Rader Sidetrack

_Pops _- please don't take offense from the above. _Miscommunication _is rampant here!  Your comments are as valuable as anyone elses.


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## delber

Miscommunication is exactly right!!! Daniel Y he wasn't even saying anything about anything about you. He didn't even quote you. He was making an observation about the difference between knowledge and experience. He wasn't saying anything about who has what experience, knowledge or what. 

This thread has been and is very helpful in many ways looking to rear queens!!! This is a busy time of year and no doubt some of us may not be in the best spirits as we ought to be.


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## Daniel Y

I removed this post myself. I think I am confused about what thread I am reading. So as a serious response to what I earlier took as an insulting comment by volunteerK9. 

I eventually made around 250 grafting attempts. This morning I was reading that post in response to one I had made about mating nucs. I am now thinking that is an entirely different thread. I am not entirely sure because posts seem to appear and disappear on this site. 

Anyway my apology K9 and even to Pops if you thought I was replying to you.


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## delber

Well there is a silver lining in everything. . . This caused me to go back and reread the first page of this thread which was where the quotes were from. This is a great thread.


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## McBee7

Built my box for the starter/finisher today even though I wont populate it or try grafting for another 6 weeks. I'm thinking about building a lighted frame holder with LED light on it (battery powered). My 60 year old eyes need all the help they can get  All my bees are in the wintering shed and there is still snow on the ground but spring will be here soon....Wintering ability will be my first character I graft for......

==McBee7==


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## frogpondwarrior

For you and I that's a given. Everything else is gravy.


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## wwfoste

I did my first attempt at grafting following this method on Friday with just 10. One of the cups fell off as I installed the frame, but of the remaining 9, 7 were accepted, so I call it a rousing success. Thanks for the guidance you've posted along the way.


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## McBee7

WWFoste---They look great , how about a pic of your cell starter/finisher  
And did you do the trick of putting in a frame of open brood a couple of days before you actually put in your grafts? Whatever you did, it looks like it worked.....Good Job..

==McBee7==


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## wwfoste

Thanks. Here's the starter/finisher. This picture was from a week or two ago just after I set it up, so it's more populated now after some of the capped brood hatched. And yes, I added a frame of eggs and young brood on Monday and grafted on Friday. I used the frame I planned to graft from.


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## floydboy1

This thread is great. I plan on trying to raise some queens this summer using this method. My question is after the cells are capped can you add more grafts. Leave the original capped grafts in the hive to incubate. You would be using a frame with enough slots in the sides to add more bars with grafts on them. The capped cells would just stay in another 5 days to incubate. Theoretically you could pull ripe cells and add new grafts about every 5 days. I'm thinking there are a couple references to this but they don't just come out and say so. Is my reasoning sound or have I missed something?


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## wwfoste

floydboy1 said:


> This thread is great. I plan on trying to raise some queens this summer using this method. My question is after the cells are capped can you add more grafts. Leave the original capped grafts in the hive to incubate. You would be using a frame with enough slots in the sides to add more bars with grafts on them. The capped cells would just stay in another 5 days to incubate. Theoretically you could pull ripe cells and add new grafts about every 5 days. I'm thinking there are a couple references to this but they don't just come out and say so. Is my reasoning sound or have I missed something?


I think the issue is that if they have the capped queen cells still in the hive, there is no drive or need for them to build more right next to them.


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## Saltybee

Jump back to post #40


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## Hillbillybees

floydboy1 said:


> Leave the original capped grafts in the hive to incubate. You would be using a frame with enough slots in the sides to add more bars with grafts on them. The capped cells would just stay in another 5 days to incubate. Theoretically you could pull ripe cells and add new grafts about every 5 days.


I know one breeder who uses exactly what you are talking about on a large scale. Each cell builder has a frame in it with 30 to a bar. Every 3 days he puts another bar in frame with 30 cells. In the morning I was there he told his guys to pull row three of the cell builders middle graft. Two differences is size of finishers. Huge three 10 frame boxes over flowing. Queen excluder on the bottom box they pulled brood from all the time. The other difference is they were started in a queenless closed up nuc full of bees for 24 hours before they went into the finisher. He was running over 90% percent on takes doing 400 everyday and mating 75%. We do about 200 a week mostly for our own use. If we end up with 60% mated were happy. We leave thirty in a starter till they are capped then put them in a queenright finisher for incubation.


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## floydboy1

My thoughts are the nuc would never have more than say 10 cells to start and build. Lets say my goal would be 5 cells at a time. I put in my first bar with cells and 5 days later they are capped. Just sitting there keeping warm. On day 5 I put in another bar of cells. For the next 5 days bees start and finish that bar. At the end of 10 days the first bar is ready to be removed and the queens put in mating nucs. The second bar I put in on day 5 is capped and just sitting there for another 5 days staying warm. After removing the first bar on day 10 I put another bar with new cells in it's place and just repeat the cycle every 5 days.

The bees never have more than a very few cells to start and finish at one time but they will be doing that work almost continuously.


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## kilocharlie

Glad this old thread got resurrected 

I made up a 12" (30.5 cm) tall, 6-frame, ventilated nucleus box to use for this Cell Builder method. This worked out well the 2 years I used it. The big benefit is that it is used often throughout the season, and you can learn a lot without committing a lot of resources, while building up your apiary from pretty stinkin' small to pretty booming big.

I'm now in the middle of a major change-over to BIG BOX equipment - Modified Square Jumbo Dadant beehives, so will be making evthreeen bigger 6-frame nuc's, and a bundle of mating nuc's.

David published elsewhere that his schedule is to start a batch of queen cells every 11 days, cutting and planting on the 10th day, and that the queen cells stay in the mating nuc's for 22 days. If one modifies this to starting a batch every 12th day, you can eventually run 3 such Cell Builders starting a batch every 4th day, running a total of 60 nuc's. After a season or 2 of this, you'll have the resources for running full-blown 3-box cell builder colonies using Michael Palmer / Brother Adam's method.

Thank you, David, and Thank you, Joseph. This is the key to growing a bigger apiary - "Right-size" queen rearing for your own apiray's resources! I now do a photo inventory of every frame in the entire apiary before starting queen rearing and again before making nuc's. This way, I know when to quit before resources run out.

An incubator and a queen bank give a lot of flexibility to the system, for when things don't go according to plan. This system gets both populated with queens in the first place.


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## wwfoste

I checked my mating nucs from the grafts. 4 out of the 7 had laying queens. I grafted a new set today.

The first picture is the "mother" queen, the next are the new ones.


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## jwcarlson

Well done, wwfoste, this will be my second year using this technique. I love opening up mating nucs, it's like a little present every time. 

Sometime later this year I will use a queen right finisher, but haven't gotten to that point yet. Maybe after the next graft.

Here's my first round this year, grafted 4/13.


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## wwfoste

Thanks. Yours looks impressive too. I checked on my second set today, I was 7/7 on acceptance of the cells, but they had already built out a bunch of comb on two. I cut the big one off and put a frame of foundation next to it to try and discourage them.


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## jwcarlson

Hoping for good luck on this first round. Like last year, though, it looks like they might end up mating at the same time as the ones grafted a week later do. May 1st is the first date for possible mating for the first round. The take on the bottom bar is awful because it got dropped into the grass and dirt and a bunch fell off. So 29 of 38 took (not all pictured). I don't think there was a miss on the top bar though... dropping them didn't do them favors. I did a 24 hour pic and it looked like 100% acceptance, but I didn't look too closely.


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## sc-bee

kilocharlie said:


> David published elsewhere that his schedule is to start a batch of queen cells every 11 days, cutting and planting on the 10th day, and that the queen cells stay in the mating nuc's for 22 days.


I often hear folks talk about micro breeders and you should buy a 21 day laying queen. Does this mean 21 day laying eggs.... or like you mention above 22 days in nuc from transferred cell . 21 days laying is definitely a lot of time invested in a queen to sale... i understand the reason but can see why the commercial guy does not want to do this.


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## Juhani Lunden

Simple no extra gear queen rearing system which can be used all summer in the same colony.

1. Divide a very strong two story colony, which has brood in both boxes
2. Find the queen and put her with the frame she is walking in the upper box. Destroy all queen cells.
3. Shake nurse bees from 4 frames of open brood to the lower box.
4. In the lower box remove one frame (capped extra food for instance), put frame of young larvae in the middle and a frame with lots of stored pollen (bee bread) beside the young larvae frame. Place the emptly gap between those two.
5. Put a plastic sheet on top of the lower box
6. Put a ½ inch stick of wood on the plastic sheet, near the rear of the lower box, this stick provides a rear entrance to the upper box, close other entrances in the upper box.
7. Close the hive for at least 4 hours, more if the weather is bad
8. Do the grafting and put the frame of grafted larvae in the gap in the lower box
9. Wait 24 hours
10. Remove the plastic sheet and wooden stick. Place a queen excluder between the boxes. 
11. Wait 4 days (5 days from the start) queencells are capped and it is good practise to protect them if you have gear for that. If not wait 9 days for the cells to be ripe and use them in any queenless hive by putting them between the frames.


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## sc-bee

Juhani Lunden said:


> Simple no extra gear queen rearing system which can be used all summer in the same colony.
> 
> 1. Divide a very strong two story colony, which has brood in both boxes
> 2. Find the queen and put her with the frame she is walking in the upper box. Destroy all queen cells.
> 3. Shake nurse bees from 4 frames of open brood to the lower box.
> 4. In the lower box remove one frame (capped extra food for instance), put frame of young larvae in the middle and a frame with lots of stored pollen (bee bread) beside the young larvae frame. Place the emptly gap between thoetc etc etc


And you think all this manipulation is simpler than the Clemens method? Really?


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## Juhani Lunden

sc-bee said:


> And you think all this manipulation is simpler than the Clemens method? Really?


Rearing quality queens is such a fundamental factor in succesfull beekeeping that aiming for simplicity is is not a good practise. 

No matter how big or small beekeeper you are.


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## kilocharlie

Any system you choose comes down to having enough nurse bees to feed the queen cells royal jelly 1,600 times a day. That's a feeding every 54 seconds, assuming they feed over night time hours, which is probably a false assumption.

Nurse bees do not refuel up with royal jelly instantaneously, so there has to be [B A GREAT NUMBER[/B] of them taking turns.

Clemmens' / LaFerney's method is good for small operations because it uses a smaller number of bee resources (than, say Bro. Adam's / Michael Palmer's method) making only a few queens as the small-time beekeeper needs them, allowing him to grow an apiary without over-committing too many of his precious bee resources in making queens (an activity prone to many failures when first learning queen rearing). 

He gets the additional benefit of getting many runs of experience that helps get the many fine details down expertly, resulting in large, healthy queen cells sooner than later.


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## msl

> Rearing quality queens is such a fundamental factor in succesfull beekeeping that aiming for simplicity is is not a good practise.


^I agree with the stament
However nuc starter/finishers have a long track of success.
Our own JSL discusses there use in his Bee culture article http://www.beeculture.com/net-gain-cell-building-system/ and has some nice tweeks to the concept. 
If he says a nuc starter finisher is good enuff to make a few cells I am willing to take that at face value.


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## squarepeg

i was thinking about david laferney the other day. if anyone here communicates with david tell him squarepeg says hi and hopes all is well with him.


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## kilocharlie

Squarepeg - I asked someone in his club a month or so back because I had not heard from him in a while. The reply came back, "LaFerney's OK, he just super-busy!" 

What I have not heard is, "How is Joseph Clemmens doing?" haven't heard from JC in a number of years. - kc



sc-bee said:


> I often hear folks talk about micro breeders and you should buy a 21 day laying queen. Does this mean 21 day laying eggs.... or like you mention above 22 days in nuc from transferred cell . 21 days laying is definitely a lot of time invested in a queen to sale... i understand the reason but can see why the commercial guy does not want to do this.



Clemmen's / LaFerney's method is not a commercial method - it is for small operators trying to increase the size of their apiary. The 11 / 22 day scheme mentioned is for a single Cell Builder colony (5- or 6-frame, 12" tall, ventilated nucleus box - a special feeder inner cover is a nice addition). The 22 days are for cells planted to the time they are moved to the full-size hive boxes (usually 8- or 10-frame Lang's, TBH's, or other large hive).

The beauty of the system is that 1 Cell Builder colony uses up to 40 mating nuc's with a cycle of up to 20 queen cells starting every 11 days (when they get planted into 20 nuc's). Another cycle can be started the same day, and 11 days after that (22nd day) the other 20 nuc's (of the 40 total) are planted with QC's.

(day -10): import several frames of capped brood into the Cell Builder. 
(day -4): put a open brood comb frame into the Cell Builder.
(day -1): put the grafting frame without grafts into the Cell Builder and right next to the open brood for "polishing".
day 1: Remove the open brood, graft 20 queen cells, place them in the Cell Builder.
day 9: Peek in the Cell Builder and count the queen cells. Go make up that many queenless mating nuc's from boxes number 1 through 20.
day 10: cut & plant queen cells into nuc's, cover entrances with robber screens, and move them to the mating yard.
day 11: start another queen cycle as from day 1.
Day 19: Peek into the Cell Builder and count the queen cells. Go make that many queenless mating nuc's from nuc boxes number 21 through 40.
Day 20: Cut out queen cells and plant into mating nuc boxes number 21 through 40.
Day 22: Move bees out of nuc' boxes 1 through 20 into 10-frame Lang's (or other style large hive box).

note: this may be repeated, but do not take bee / comb resources from this year's new colonies - THEY NEED THE RESOURCES.

********************************************

If one is enthusiastically trying to increase in his second year after a successful year or two as in the paragraph above, he'll now have the bee resources to run two 5-frame or 6-frame Cell Builder colonies and up to 80 nuc' boxes. He may choose to change the schedule to 12 days / 24 days (queen cells still get cut out 10 days after grafting!!!) - this is so that a batch of queens is started every 6 days - both Cell Builder colonies feeding up to 20 mating nuc's at a time (40 total) in the same scheme as if only 1 Cell Builder is used, but the schedule is staggered like zipper teeth.

(day-10): import several capped brood frames into Cell Builder A. REMOVE ALL QUEEN CELLS!!!
(day -4): place open brood into Cell Builder A. REMOVE ANY QUEEN CELLS.
(day -1): place the queen cell bar frame into Cell Builder Aright next to the open brood for "polishing".
day 1: REMOVE ANY QUEEN CELLS. Graft 20 queen cells into queen cell bar frame #1 and place into Cell Builder A (cycle #1A). 
day 2: Place open brood into Cell Builder B.
day 5: place queen cell bar frame #2 without grafts into Cell Builder B for polishing.
day 6: Graft 20 queen cells into queen cell bar frame #2 and place it into Cell Builder B (cycle #1B).
day 10: Peek into Cell Builder A and count queen cells. Go make up that many queenless mating nuc's from mating nuc' boxes number1 through #20. Affix robbing screens to the entrances.
day 11: Cut queen cells out of Cell Builder A and plant them into mating nuc's #1 through #20. Move these to a mating yard or known DCA.
day 12: Graft 20 queen cells and place queen cell bar frame #3 into Cell Builder A (cycle #2A)
day 15: Peek into Cell Builder B and count queen cells. Go make up that many queenless mating nuc's from mating nuc' boxes #41 through #60. Fix them with robbing screens.
day 16: Cut queen cells out of Cell Builder B and plant them into mating nuc's #41 through #60. Move them to a mating yard or near a known DCA.
day 17: Graft into queen cell bar frame #4 and place it into Cell Builder B (cycle #2B).
day 21: Peek and count queen cells (cycle 2A) in Cell Builder A. Go make up that many queenless mating nuc's from mating nuc's #21 through #40. Fit them with robbing screens.
day 22: Cut queen cells from cycle 2A out of Cell Builder A and plant them into mating nuc's #21 through #40. Move them to mating yard or DCA. Move colonies in mating nuc's #1 through #20 into full size Langstroth (or other full-size boxes).
day 23: graft into queen cell frame #1 and place them into Cell Builder A (cycle #3A).
day 26: Peek into Cell Builder B and count the queen cells. Go make that many mating nucleii from mating nuc's #61 through #80. Affix robbing screens.
day 27: Cut queen cells out of queen cell bar frame #4 in Cell Builder B and plant into mating nuc's #61-80. (These will get moved into full-size boxes 22 days later on day 49.)
day 28: Graft queen cells into queen cell bar frame #2 and place into Cell Builder B (cycle #3B).

etc. etc. etc. ...

... the schedule for Cell Builder B is exactly like for A, but set back 6 days, if you prefer to run 2 separate calendars.

When the nectar / pollen flow subsides, cut back the number of queen cells grafted like down to 8 from 16 or 20. If there are no drones, it's futile, so feed those drone colonies a pollen substitute patty every few days.

When a beekeeper builds up large enough for 3 of these Clemmens' / LaFerney's Cell Builder boxes feeding 120 mating nuc's (that is merely 3 separate Clemmens systems), he can adjust the schedule to a batch starting in one of the Cell Builders every 4th day. The schedule for Cell Builder B is set back 4 days from Cell Builder A, and the calendar for Cell builder C starts 8 days after Cell Builder A. The second cycle for Cell Builder A is grafted on day 12. (I won't type this out fully for the sake of keeping this post to a readable length.)

After a successful year of this, the beekeeper will likely have enough colonies that he'll likely find it more efficient to convert over to Brother Adam's / Michael Palmer's method using the larger "Bee Bomb" Cell Builder colonies 2-1/2 boxes tall, and up to 48 queen cells per frame. The larger, more powerful colonies can operate more efficiently than a nuc' box Cell Builder, but you'll need the massive resources of a large apiary to operate them.


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## Saltybee

And a good thread just keeps getting better.


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## dtrooster

Nice thread.
joseph and David, many thanks.


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## squarepeg

thanks kc, glad to hear laferney is keeping busy! 

i heard it from someone who heard it from someone that j. clemens was busy taking care of a family member having medical issues. 

i sure miss the contribution that both of them were making to the forum.


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## kilocharlie

And thank you, SP for the good news about Joseph. 

Glad the previous post is appreciated. That is the true beauty of Joseph Clemmens' and David LaFerney's system. It takes us from backyard beekeepers up to sideliners quickly by reducing the resources needed (we don't have that many yet!), making fewer queens more often (as we need them), giving us more queen rearing experience in less time (so details of method may be refined, and cell size tends to get bigger).

We do have to rotate in capped brood on a regular basis - how often you do depends on how many you have in your apiary - to keep the number of 5- to 10-day-old nurse bees up. This will likely be a limiting resource for small-time beekeepers. This system sill be very likely to help that situation - over time and lots of effort 

I've found that the 12" tall, ventilated, 6-frame nuc' box with a feeder inner cover is better at making queen cells than the 5-frame box. I also find that if I keep it to 16 queen cells, they tend to come out larger and with better take.

Another good idea is an adaptor board to move the mating nuc' colonies into the big boxes. They'll crowd themselves out of the mating nuc' and the queen will get down into the larger box in a week or two.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

kilocharlie said:


> And
> We do have to rotate in capped brood on a regular basis - how often you do depends on how many you have in your apiary - to keep the number of 5- to 10-day-old nurse bees up. This will likely be a limiting resource for small-time beekeepers. This system sill be very likely to help that situation - over time and lots of effort
> 
> I've found that the 12" tall, ventilated, 6-frame nuc' box with a feeder inner cover is better at making queen cells than the 5-frame box. I also find that if I keep it to 16 queen cells, they tend to come out larger and with better take.


I agree. To get well fed queens I would put  max 15 larvae into one 2 story 10 frame Langstroth hive (20 frames alltogether), full of bees. This unit is capable to take care of them all summer without adding any brood from other colonies. The new larvae can be put in whatever interval, but not sooner than 5 days (the previous ones have been capped). I usually put new larvae in every Saturday.

I´m not familiar with this Joseps Clemmens method, but why use a 5-6 frame box, if all other hives use say 10 frame Langstroth? More gear, less nursing bees.

(15 or 16 whatever, in my queen rearing frames there is room only for 15 Nicot system cells in one bar.)


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## sc-bee

kilocharlie said:


> XXXX
> .


Thanks kc for the schedule and notes...


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## jwcarlson

squarepeg said:


> i was thinking about david laferney the other day. if anyone here communicates with david tell him squarepeg says hi and hopes all is well with him.


I PMed him awhile back when I noticed that he hadn't been active for quite awhile. As I recall he PMed me back and was doing just fine, just too busy for Beesource.


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## squarepeg

good deal jwc, many thanks for that.


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## jwcarlson

Regarding queen quality, can anyone explain to me how queens made this way might be of lower quality?
Given that I've been getting 30+ usable cells, each with at least a little bit of royal jelly still left after the queens emerge from a 5-over-5 (deep) comb queenless starter/finisher. I'm not saying it's the end-all, be-all of queen rearing... so don't get me wrong. But a queen that has royal jelly left over when she emerges is as well fed as she possibly could be, right?

Virgin that emerged in the incubator last night:


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## sc-bee

Like the color.....


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## jwcarlson

sc-bee said:


> Like the color.....


Thanks, she's the daughter of a queen I bought from Michael Palmer last summer.


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## Saltybee

Looks like an uncooked lobster! Never know what those Vermont guys are up to. Seems to work though.


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## razoo

Saltybee said:


> Looks like an uncooked lobster! Never know what those Vermont guys are up to. Seems to work though.


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## sc-bee

kilocharlie said:


> I've found that the 12" tall, ventilated, 6-frame nuc' box with a feeder inner cover is better at making queen cells than the 5-frame box. I also find that if I keep it to 16 queen cells, they tend to come out larger and with better take.


So KC... 6 frames from start. Are we looking at center slot for grafts (at day -10 what is in center slot foundation?)- Honey and pollen on each side of center grafts- and then three frames of capped brood on the outside....


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## kilocharlie

I set it up 10 days ahead of grafting (grafting is therefore on day 11, right) with one frame of pollen / honey and 5 of capped brood. If you can't find pollen and honey on the same frame, youcan put in one of each and only 4 frames of capped brood, but you should add another 2 scoops of nurse bees if you do.

4 days before grafting day, I put in the open brood - Ray Marler's trick to get the girls into nurse mode (feeding babies) - in the slot where the queen cell bar frame will go. The pollen goes right next to it.

The day before grafting, I place the queen cell cup frame in for "polishing". The bees always accept better if they have a day to prepare the queen cells to their own specifications.

On the morning of grafting day, I first take the super fresh pollen out of the freezer to thaw and fill the bucket with hot water, bringing it down to 95 degrees F. I then pull out the open brood and the queen cell frame from the Cell builder. I take the latter into the grafting tent, where I have set up the table, my chair, my 7X loupe, my flashlight, my grafting tools, my bucket of 95 degree F water, my spray bottle, and the net with which I capture the bees that somehow always get inside the tent.

I graft one bar, and go place it in the Cell Builder. Then I graft the next cell bar, then go add it to the queen cell frame in the Cell Builder.

Now I've removed 2 frames and replaced 1, so another frame of capped brood goes in, and I replace the pollen with the thawed-out, SUPER-FRESH POLLEN, which I've shaken into an open, empty comb.

Like Oldtimer, I find that 16 cells at one time usually gets the 100% acceptance, so I rarely even attempt 20 cells. Also, I find he's correct that a 6-frame nuc' is a bit better than a 5-framer.

Hope this helps


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## sc-bee

kilocharlie said:


> Hope this helps


Yes Sir...................Thanks


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## DerTiefster

kilocharlie said:


> Like Oldtimer, I find that 16 cells at one time usually gets the 100% acceptance, so I rarely even attempt 20 cells. Also, I find he's correct that a 6-frame nuc' is a bit better than a 5-framer.


Well,now... I have 5-frame boxes and 10-frame boxes and a couple of 8-framers. I could mimic a 6-frame box with fillers in either 8- or 10-framers, but is there anyone who knows that using an 8-frame box is beyond some production boundary? Should I expect 6- and 8-frame queenless boxes to be equivalent in QC generation? I'll probably try this fairly soon.

Michael


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## Juhani Lunden

DerTiefster said:


> Well,now... I have 5-frame boxes and 10-frame boxes and a couple of 8-framers. I could mimic a 6-frame box with fillers in either 8- or 10-framers, but is there anyone who knows that using an 8-frame box is beyond some production boundary? Should I expect 6- and 8-frame queenless boxes to be equivalent in QC generation? I'll probably try this fairly soon.
> 
> Michael


Box size is irrelevant. What is relavant is the amount of well fed (have eaten a lot of pollen) nurse bees (in relation to the amount of larvae given to them) and the mood of the bees. If they have experienced queenlessness they want to raise cells, but if the queenlessness has been going on too long (more than couple days) they most propably have own q-cells (very tiny!) coming, and therefore they are not interested in the larvae you try to offer. 

If the queenlessness has been going on 10 days or more raising queens becomes impossible for at least two reasons: no nurse bees (there are no larvae to be fed, bees brood food glands are not in good shape any more) and maybe young queen has emerged,

And: some bees are just so unwilling to swarm and focused to collect nectar that they just wouldn´t care less of raising queens. Then it is time to change the queen rearing hive.


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## DerTiefster

Juhani, Thank you. What Charlie and Oldtimer may mean (please correct me, folks, where I err) is that to get the number of cells drawn that they want, 6-frame boxes have enough size to hold adequate resources. I will be starting off small, trying to get 5-8 QCs per ~10-day cycle, and I rather expect a 5-frame setup to do that adequately.

However, I am at a loss as to what to do about pollen. I never notice a _lot_ of pollen. How worthwhile is it to add pollen patties in addition to pollen in the usual stores frames? I'd expect that if the bees eat it, then it was helpful to them. If they don't, then not so. I've not considered a pollen trap and don't know whether that's what, for example kilocharlie uses to get his pollen that he puts into the freezer. Or should I be able to find pollen dense frames in some hive somewhere?

Michael


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## Juhani Lunden

DerTiefster said:


> Or should I be able to find pollen dense frames in some hive somewhere?


Yes


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## McBee7

Made my first attempt at grafting today....
This morning I made what I'll call a "grafting pulpit" kind of a slanted box that can sit on a table or tailgate or whatever, it has an edge to keep the frame from sliding off and an adjustable U-shaped bar that goes over the top that I mounted 2 LED battery lights (160 lumens each) -- held to the bar with rubber bands...I discovered that my 60 year old eyes wasn't the problem or my focal length,, but just a lack of lighting....Whew- I thought I was getting old...
I grafted 10 larve into nicot style cell cup holders and mounted them to a frame. They look like good grafts to me, but we'll see what the girls think of them..LOL...
I have to add that I took a grafting class on the weekend and am building off of the practice I got there...
I also prepared a Frankin-Nuc with TONS of bees from a overwintered 5/5/5 nuc and the grafts are from another overwintered nuc (black queen)  anyway on about memorial day the proof will be in the hatched queens.....




==McBee7==


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## wwfoste

McBee7, it may just be the perspective, but those larva look too old to me. When I'm grafting I'm getting ones like this:


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## McBee7

WOW--Maybe I'll have to take it down a notch. I'll check them in 3 days and see what's going on with them and maybe I'll have to do it again. Thanks for the input wwfoste.

==McBee7==


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## Saltybee

Do like your stand.
Nice photo of priming the cells first and re-grafting too.


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## Earthboy

The size here (WWFoste) looks right for me, also. I like to use the ones right next to the eggs.

EB


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## StingerMcStung

Great photo WWFoste!

I agree with the others. The larvae are translucent. 

I can often only see the reflective segments, and I use 3x magnification.

I'm finding the cell-builder/starter strength seems to be the critical part.

Cool stand!


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## dtrooster

I've never raised a queen but plan to so I'll ask what's maybe a stupid question that's probably been discussed. Why not notch cells with eggs? It should be fairly obvious the cells that got started with larvae by bees that's possibly are not revved up in jelly making mode quite yet. Eliminate those after 2-3 days then let them build from freshly hatching eggs when they should be in full go. Is it strictly a time saving thing or am I missing something?


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## Saltybee

dtrooster said:


> Is it strictly a time saving thing or am I missing something?


Joseph discusses around #58 this thread. Miss the guy.


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## dtrooster

Thanks, I'll check that out


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## jwcarlson

wwfoste said:


> McBee7, it may just be the perspective, but those larva look too old to me. When I'm grafting I'm getting ones like this:


Sorry to say, McBee, but I think you should pull them now and regraft. I've grafted some that big before and I ended up with a virgin emerging DAYS early and she started laying right away.


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## wwfoste

Here was my third graft, just doing 7 cells. I made a skinnier frame, which so far has prevented any of the comb build-up.


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## McBee7

I'll take a look at them tomarrow....
Thanks for the advice ALL, and it sounds like even though they might build them out, they could still be duds--just because--Thanks for the extra info on that JW, I appreciate it.
My problem is that I only have silly Italians in my back yard to graft from, and my favorite hives are building up 20 miles down the road and I'll have to plan my trip so I can bring home another frame to graft from....and the lucky Italians will get the grafting frame when I'm done....I started out 4 queens in my back yard with the left over bees from packages I installed a week ago...They also adopted the fly-aways from the starter/finisher I started last week. They are building up if they want to or not 

==McBee7==


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## McBee7

Well I re-grafted today.
The new grafts are definitely smaller and less meaty, -- but they still taste good 
They had drawn out 2 of the 10 celle I grafted earlier (the meaty ones) and the 2 were full of RJ and the grubs had grown a LOT in just a couple of days, I also added more bees to the cell builder and donated the grafting frame to the new nucs in the back yard . Will give these grafts a few days and see what they think of them..

==McBee7==


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## grozzie2

I've read this thread a few times over the winter, a lot of the concepts behind using a nuc and replenishing it weekly with a frame of brood seem to 'make sense', but, the proof is always in the pudding. In years gone past, I've used a double deep with cloak board to raise a few queens. At this time of year with the early flow running hard, it gets to be a lot of work because that hive needs two honey supers, so every time I go to do something with / about cells, I have to lift heavy supers off, then put em back on when I'm done. The appeal of this system using a smaller box for me was in the reduced work. But I was skeptical about how well the bees would build and feed the cells.

I am set up to do half a dozen queens per round, the limiting factor for me is the number of mating nucs I've got to work with. Half a dozen queens every two weeks meets my needs, and will leave me with a small surplus of queens. When I set the builder up the first time, two deep frames of capped brood, two good frames of pollen and nectar, and I shook in nurse bees off of 6 more brood frames from a total of 3 different colonies. I left them to settle for a couple hours, then grafted 15 cups on one bar and placed the cell frame into the center of the new builder. First graft of the season, light wasn't the greatest and my hands were a bit shakey, so the graft wasn't the greatest. Check 24 hours later, they had 6 cells nicely built up with jelly. I'm happy, I wanted 6 cells, I had one deep split into 4 compartments of half size frames, and two 4 frame deeps to use as mating nucs. I planted those cells when they were ready. My 'bee schedule' is to do the majority of my work on Saturday each week, so I've been adding a frame of capped brood every Saturday.

For my second round, I started on Monday by putting in a frame of young brood just emerging from eggs to get the bees back into 'feeding' mode. I grafted the day before yesterday, on Wednesday, which will result in cells ready to transfer on Saturday the 17th, so my 'lotsa bee work' day falls on Saturday. Wednesday around noon I took out the brood frame and brushed all the bees back into the colony, then a couple hours later grafted 15 cups on one bar which went into the builder box. I went out today (Friday) and took a look to see how it turned out so far, this is what I found:-



Twice as many cells as I am prepared to deal with, and with the exception of one, those cups are FULL of jelly. I know a lot of folks are concerned about the cell size, but, one thing I've learned by reading here and listening carefully to those with a lot more experience, a well fed queen will be a good queen. I'm far more interested in 'how much jelly in the cups' than I am in 'how big are the cells'. I have no doubt that the queens coming out of these cells will be well fed, there isn't room for more jelly in most of those cups.

When I did the first batch, I did put syrup on for them, and some pollen supplement, I had just made up the nuc so no foragers oriented and foraging for this box. For the second round, they have lots of bees coming and going with pollen and nectar, the frames where brood is emerging are promptly getting filled with stores. I did put on a batch of supplement for this round as well, but didn't give them syrup. I'm using a really complex recipe to mix up supplement for the builder. 1 cup of sugar with 2/3 cup of warm water to make a syrup, then add bee-pro until the mix is roughly the consistency of peanut butter. It's still very wet, but wont run down the frames when I put it on top. The bees are all over it when I open the lid. I use wax paper to make a long skinny patty with that stuff that can sit on the two frames one side of the cells, and runs from end to end, so there is LOTS of feed real close to the cells.

The first batch are in the mating nucs, should be seeing eggs there any day now. Going to be interesting to see how this turns out, so far, it's looking pretty good.


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## wwfoste

Looks good so far grozzie. I just grafted another 10 today. Found one of my new queens today also.


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## jwcarlson

Grozzie, I am for the "cup" full of jelly at the time of capping. So far I haven't noticed any of the ones that are full be "empty" when they pupate. The ones that aren't quite full seem "low" when done, but there is still some sort of residue. As long as there is jelly left over, I don't know how they could be malnourished. Unless there's some mechanism that I'm not understanding. I need to get better at adding brood to my cell builder. Open brood in particular. After two rounds they seem to go laying worker right after the second round is capped. So I need to remedy that... I usually tear down the builder and make it into mating nucs, I've had good luck with LWer colonies taking cells or honeywater dipped virgins pretty darn well. But this year I want to have them continuously make cells for me. So I need to master keeping it strong. When I graft Thursday I might make my first foray into a queen right finisher... which in theory would help prevent the LWers. Or I might just shuffle a frame of open brood into the starter/finisher on Friday and then put another one or two in on the day they cap them.

Good looking queen, wwfoste!

I lost my last batch to LWers "turning back on" or something... they started cells when I checked a day after grafting. Let them be until the day I usually pull them and they were all torn down (no virgin, just LWers). So I broke them up and used the last couple cells I had. Then made up a builder and grafted last week. That opps (and not checking every couple of days) kind of set me back some. I could see wanting to run two of them "just in case". 

Anyway... here's a pic of my best batch so far this year, I think there were two misses and two "duds" in that batch:


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## wwfoste

Nice batch jwcarlson. I've been rotating in a frame or two of mixed brood (mostly capped though) each week. Haven't run in to a laying worker problem yet, but I did miss a queen cell last time. Moved the new virgin to a mating nuc.


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## Saltybee

Totally a question. grozzie2's cells look like much of the wax is recycled. Is wax aged bees a factor in cell size? Can you have too many nurse (pre wax stage) bees?


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## grozzie2

Saltybee said:


> Totally a question. grozzie2's cells look like much of the wax is recycled. Is wax aged bees a factor in cell size? Can you have too many nurse (pre wax stage) bees?


I dont think my setup is missing any age of bee at this point. It was set up on May 22 with two frames of capped and lots of bees off of brood frames, then had capped brood added on May 28, June 3, prior to the photo above. I'm pretty sure they are making wax in there, the frame of capped I added on May 28 was a medium frame (it was convenient from a colony on the next stand), and they have drawn wax below the medium to deep depth. But even that new comb looks the color of older wax, probably because it's heavily travelled by bees headed up and down, it doesn't look like the clean new wax we see in honey supers on the other colonies in the same yard.


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## Saltybee

Thanks grozzie2.
I really had been thinking of it from the other direction. i have had webbing before, took that as just the bees, after seeing the pictures it dawned on me that by using the bees from new frames being drawn out I may have been the cause. Might be less webbing had I had been using old frames with young brood as a source. Method variance not a genetic variance.


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## MimbresBees

I set my cell builder up last saturday the 17th. not going for a big run of queens, want to try for 30 queens te leftover to the bee club here. Yep, I'm a bit late this season, 
but I want these ladies for the 20+ nucs I built these last few weeks. Plus, I've finally gotten enough drawn combs, and have the resources going.
When it was first populated it was overflowing with bees, seems a bit quiet, but it's full inside, 

View attachment 34030



I went in and did a QC check and today there is nothing but closed brood.
I'm setting the open brood in tomorrow to start the feeding response, and going to graft on the morning of the 27th.

My goal is to requeen, and then make some nucs for next season.
Then make bees, and queens like Michael Palmer teaches one to do in his lectures.


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## MimbresBees

Can these cell builders be used to draw comb in the upper box without a queen?


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## jwcarlson

MimbresBees said:


> Can these cell builders be used to draw comb in the upper box without a queen?


I have never had luck getting bees to draw any appreciable comb without a queen. That's just my personal experience. If they start drawing comb off of the cells, it is my experience that they have laying workers.


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## MimbresBees

thanks jw, that's what I thought about the queen.


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## jwcarlson

MimbresBees said:


> thanks jw, that's what I thought about the queen.


I even use it as a gauge in mating nucs. When I see white comb being drawn 95% of the time they've got their queen back.


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## MimbresBees

What's the reasoning for leaving the cb queenless for 10 days?
Why do we do it this way for the nuc cb?
Tying to see the logic to this methods length of time for queenlessness.
I see many others using their cb's within 48hrs or less.

I'm def following the method we have here, just would like a little clarification.
Not finding any answers for this online here or other places.


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## Juhani Lunden

MimbresBees said:


> What's the reasoning for leaving the cb queenless for 10 days?
> Why do we do it this way for the nuc cb?
> Tying to see the logic to this methods length of time for queenlessness.
> I see many others using their cb's within 48hrs or less.


Does someone really say that somewhere?
You are absolutely right, there is no what so ever reason to leave the cell builder queenless for 10 days.


All the needed nursing bees have changed into older bees in 10 days.


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## grozzie2

Juhani Lunden said:


> All the needed nursing bees have changed into older bees in 10 days.


If you are not adding the weekly frame of capped brood, then yes, you will end up without the required nurse bees. But if you add the frame of capped / emerging once a week, you will have the required nurse bees constantly being added.


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## MimbresBees

this sucks, I didn't check the cb last week, and I have a laying queen inside my cb I just found out.
friggin tight layer but wtf...she's daughter of a Michael Palmer queen.
Guess I'll try again making another cb starting tomorrow.
I thought I searched for a queen better, then not seeing any swarm cells etc

I guess I have a brood factory now, this bomb is gonna bust...
I guess I'll move a frame to my slow hive


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## Juhani Lunden

MimbresBees said:


> this sucks, I didn't check the cb last week, and I have a laying queen inside my cb I just found out.
> friggin tight layer but wtf...she's daughter of a Michael Palmer queen.


Another disadvantage of leaving CB queenless for 10 days is that new queens may emerge in that time.


----------



## AR Beekeeper

I have left the cell builder without a queen for the 10 days after grafting and then used the frames and bees to make the mating nucs. There was no problem with the brood being fed when the new queen started to lay, the older bee's brood food glans were able to produce the food that was needed.


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## Arbol

maybe you placed a queen inside when making the cell builder.


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## Juhani Lunden

AR Beekeeper said:


> I have left the cell builder without a queen for the 10 days after grafting and then used the frames and bees to make the mating nucs


Wow wow wow, we are now talking, or at least I understood so, how long CB should be queenless before grafting.


After grafting it is minimum 5 days queenless, if the cells are covered.
If not 10 days, then they are removed from CB to mating nucs.


----------



## kilocharlie

DerTiefster said:


> Well,now... I have 5-frame boxes and 10-frame boxes and a couple of 8-framers. I could mimic a 6-frame box with fillers in either 8- or 10-framers, but is there anyone who knows that using an 8-frame box is beyond some production boundary? Should I expect 6- and 8-frame queenless boxes to be equivalent in QC generation? I'll probably try this fairly soon.
> 
> Michael


I went ahead and built 2 Cell Builder nucleus boxes just specifically for this system.

They are 12" tall, and the bottom 3 inches are covered with window screen for ventilation. They hold 6 deep frames. I also have a 5-framer built like this. Included in the design are a feeder inner cover with 1/2 inch hardware cloth over holes for pollen substitute patties and a jar top outer cover for 1:1 liquid feed.

Two neat things about the 6-frame, ventilated Cell Builder boxes is that they hold 20% more 5- to 10-day-old nurse bees than the 5-framer does, and it holds PLENTY of food.

By keeping to a limit of 16 queen cells, the 6-frame CB has plenty of labor force to make large, healthy queen cells. It is stuffed so full of nurse bees that it has to be ventilated.

BTW, 8- and 10-frame boxes are NOT beyond production capacity of a STRONG colony. I use 10-framers when making large batches.

Joseph Clemens and David LaFerney came up with this scaled-down version of queen rearing all season long to meet their needs, right where a lot of us are, small-time operators trying to get bigger.


----------



## KevinWI

Maybe the original thread is missing a step??....if this is a cell starter/finisher in same box, when are the cells pulled?? You stated that Joe Clemens is putting in a new graft continuously...every 4 to 5 days but you were doing it once a week....but that can't be the case if this is also a finisher...the timing doesn't add up.....maybe I missed a step??


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## Saltybee

For anyone who is interested this thread starter is based on a broader post about my experiences as a beginner at queen rearing.

Above is the third line of the first post; it has a hot link to an expanded explanation with pictures and a more detailed calendar.


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## KevinWI

Saltybee said:


> For anyone who is interested this thread starter is based on a broader post about my experiences as a beginner at queen rearing.
> 
> Above is the third line of the first post; it has a hot link to an expanded explanation with pictures and a more detailed calendar.


I've read the article...my question above still stands. something isn't adding up calendar-wise for starter/finisher.


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## Saltybee

Saw it yesterday , can't find it today. The only thing you are missing is the little snippet that says_ two_ nucs for 4-5 days.


----------



## KevinWI

David LaFerney said:


> 4 days before you graft put a frame of hatching eggs/young open larva in the cell builder. That will insure that your nurse bees get into feeding mode by the time you add your grafts. My experience is that if I skip this step I get much smaller cells. Joseph Clemens produces nice big cells without this step, I think because he is continuously using his cell builder – so the bees stay in feeding/nurse bee mode – while I was only adding grafts to my cell builder every week or two.





Saltybee said:


> Saw it yesterday , can't find it today. The only thing you are missing is the little snippet that says_ two_ nucs for 4-5 days.


The above quote is where I am scratching my head...he said he didn't use his box as much as Clemens......he said he put grafts in every week or two while Clemens used it more often which is why Clemens cells were bigger......this statement did not add up......if you are using the nucs as a finisher for 10 days, then that's the minimum you can swap in grafts.... 


Don't get me wrong.....I think this is a great approach....I just want to have every bit of information before even attempting this style.


----------



## grozzie2

KevinWI said:


> .if you are using the nucs as a finisher for 10 days, then that's the minimum you can swap in grafts....


No, that is not correct. Using my own schedule as an example. we graft weekly here during queen season. Schedule goes like this. At the start, we graft on Wednesday and place cells in the builder. The following Wednesday, another graft goes into the same builder, so now two grafts a week apart are in there. On Saturday, the first set of cells is removed and spotted into mating nucs. The builder will only ever have one set of open cells that need feeding as a batch placed on Wednesday are due for capping the following Monday. Thru the season I graft on Wednesday, place cells into mating nucs on Saturday. From Wednesday thru Saturday there are always 2 sets of grafts in my builder arrangment. 

In my own case, I'm only doing 1 bar of cells for each round, so I can actually have both graft sets in the same cell frame. But others doing larger quantities along this line will have two full cell frames in the builder at the same time.


----------



## KevinWI

grozzie2 said:


> No, that is not correct. Using my own schedule as an example. we graft weekly here during queen season. Schedule goes like this. At the start, we graft on Wednesday and place cells in the builder. The following Wednesday, another graft goes into the same builder, so now two grafts a week apart are in there. On Saturday, the first set of cells is removed and spotted into mating nucs. The builder will only ever have one set of open cells that need feeding as a batch placed on Wednesday are due for capping the following Monday. Thru the season I graft on Wednesday, place cells into mating nucs on Saturday. From Wednesday thru Saturday there are always 2 sets of grafts in my builder arrangment.
> 
> In my own case, I'm only doing 1 bar of cells for each round, so I can actually have both graft sets in the same cell frame. But others doing larger quantities along this line will have two full cell frames in the builder at the same time.


Well, if that how this works is one bar (on a single grafting frame) is put in week 1 and 2nd bar week 2 (or thereabouts) then that would certainly keep this starter/finisher colony chugging right along. That part was NOT described in either the original post nor the article, and that is what I was trying to drill down upon. Thank you....The way the 5 frame nuc was described, there is no room for two grafting frames....For a full size or 6 frame nuc? yes.


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## Saltybee

Like that twist. Certainly suits the findings that royal jelly varies by day. Got them feeding queen cells , keep them feeding queen cells.


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## tpope

grozzie2 said:


> No, that is not correct. Using my own schedule as an example. we graft weekly here during queen season. Schedule goes like this. At the start, we graft on Wednesday and place cells in the builder. The following Wednesday, another graft goes into the same builder, so now two grafts a week apart are in there. On Saturday, the first set of cells is removed and spotted into mating nucs. The builder will only ever have one set of open cells that need feeding as a batch placed on Wednesday are due for capping the following Monday. Thru the season I graft on Wednesday, place cells into mating nucs on Saturday. From Wednesday thru Saturday there are always 2 sets of grafts in my builder arrangment.
> 
> In my own case, I'm only doing 1 bar of cells for each round, so I can actually have both graft sets in the same cell frame. But others doing larger quantities along this line will have two full cell frames in the builder at the same time.


Gold nugget... Many thanks. Does make me wonder though if you place a bar of grafted cells always into the top spot in the frame or does it matter?


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## Andhors

Got my first package 2 months ago and now have a few queen cells in a CB (via Nicot and emergency cells). It is June 20 and my colony seems to be doing well. What are your thoughts on expanding my bee empire? I was thinking of starting 2 nucs (5 frame deeps) in addition to the 10 frame original. Is that asking to much of the bees? Too close to winter (California coast, so relatively mild)?

Also, does size matter? Your queens’ genes are the same whether she is large or small. Has it been shown that smaller QCs make poorer layers or are we speculating?

Thanks all for your contributions!


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## BomberJosh

Well after reading from beginning to end I tried this method after 2 attempts at a closed cell starter produced 2 cell starts from about 60 grafts.

Happy to say checked today and I'm at least 75% started now. I think the practice of grafting has helped me improve as well and finding a more flexible chinese tool ( 1 out of 10) on amazon. My tool from mannlake was just digging into cell bottoms too much, and im struggling with the jzbz tool.

Thanks so far.


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## JWPalmer

I used a piece of fine grit sandpaper to thin the reed on my Chinese grafting tool. Much more flexible now. Wrecked the first one by sanding it too much, so check every couple of swipes.


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## BomberJosh

That's a fine idea...I will have to give that a try when I get off patrol tomorrow afternoon. Good thing I didnt throw them all out. 

I went ahead and purchased new ones from the chinese seller on amazon that has all the high reviews but they average at least a month for delivery.


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## little_john

grozzie2 said:


> In my own case, I'm only doing 1 bar of cells for each round, so I can actually have both graft sets in the same cell frame. But *others doing larger quantities along this line will have two full cell frames in the builder at the same time.*


Quite right - or even more than two ...

Laidlaw writes (about a guy who operated a 3-day cycle):


> The makeup of one of his cell builders after a new frame of cells has been given could be something like this: at the side of the hive next to the entrance through the wall is the feeder, then (1) a comb of honey and pollen, (2) honey and emerging brood, (3) brood (sealed), (4) pollen, *(5) new graft*, (6) hatching brood, *(7) queen cells three days old*, (8) older unsealed brood, *(9) queen cells six days old*, (10) sealed brood, *(11) queen cells nine days old*, the remaining frames are filled with brood and honey.
> *Queen Rearing - Laidlaw & Eckert, p.79*


The guy being referred to was using several (!) 15-frame boxes inside a custom-made building ...
LJ


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## little_john

Just sticking my oar in on this thread to say a few things - firstly, imo it's one of the most valuable threads on the forum and I'm surprised that it hasn't yet been made a 'sticky'.

Secondly, for anyone who is rubbish at grafting (like me) and only needs a few queen-cells from time to time - it's not compulsory to donate larvae in the form of grafts - other methods can be used: such as inserting whole frames of suitable larva. Then, after you've cut the q/cells out, leave that frame in place to provide additional 'top-up' nurse bees. 
Should you want to try the Hopkins method, then arrange for that frame to be held horizontally above the rest. Miller method, Ally method - they can all be used with the JC Queenless Starter-Finisher.

Lastly, I've used this 5-frame system very successfully for some years now, but this year I've been running it within a full-sized box, and initially dummied the box down to 5 frames. Then, as demands varied over the season I've been able to enlarge the space available to 6 or even 7 frames - so I guess an 8-frame box would be optimum.
LJ


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## Bob Anderson

BomberJosh said:


> My tool from mannlake was just digging into cell bottoms too much, and im struggling with the jzbz tool.


Always graft from the darkest, blackest, oldest, brood comb with suitable larvae otherwise the chinese grafting tool may not 'turn the corner' at the bottom of the cell and will just penetrate the wax. You can stick such a comb into your breeder queen box 5-6 days before grafting - the bees will clean it, she'll lay it up, and you'll have a load of nice larvae - unless the bees fill it with nectar...


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## BomberJosh

well im happy with this method now. checked on the cells and they are all twice as large as before and i have 22 out of 30 that are accepted and capped. Probably need to still work on my grafting i know a few were definitely my fault.






I did my first frame swap for some new open and capped brood today as well.


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## snl

Nice looking cells, ya did good. Assuming 70-80 % mating rate.....


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## Surviving Our Bees

This method confuses me.

1. Why do we use a 5 frame colony instead of a populous 10 frame colony?

The larger 10 frame colony would be able to turn out double the number of queen cells...why does the author insist on a 5 frame box? Why not use a 10 frame box and insert 2 or 3 queen cell frames????

2. Why not just let the colony finish capping the 2-3 queen cell frames, put them in mating nucs, and then rinse and repeat? 

I really do not understand why they insist on using a 5 frame box.


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## tpope

Surviving Our Bees said:


> This method confuses me.
> 
> 1. Why do we use a 5 frame colony instead of a populous 10 frame colony?
> 
> The larger 10 frame colony would be able to turn out double the number of queen cells...why does the author insist on a 5 frame box? Why not use a 10 frame box and insert 2 or 3 queen cell frames????
> 
> 2. Why not just let the colony finish capping the 2-3 queen cell frames, put them in mating nucs, and then rinse and repeat?
> 
> I really do not understand why they insist on using a 5 frame box.


All about the resources you can bring into the queen rearing equation... This method uses less..


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## crofter

It is easier to get the high population density in a smaller box. It is common to dump in the equivalent of near 10 frames of bees into the 5 frame box though. The foragers will mostly go back to where they came from.


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## msl

Surviving Our Bees said:


> I really do not understand why they insist on using a 5 frame box.


like most thing beekeeping because they felt it worked for them 




Surviving Our Bees said:


> Why not just let the colony finish capping the 2-3 queen cell frames, put them in mating nucs, and then rinse and repeat?


because most people don't have the resources to spare to run that volume of mating nucs, and most don't need that volume of queens a week.
side note 3 frames is 144 grafts.. that's going to take a packed double deep or more .. looking at 250 ish mating nucs on a 2 week cycle (365 or so on a 3 week cycle), if your not running specialty minis thats 500 frames of food and brood you have to take out of some were

for most beekeepers who are learning to graft an rear queens, one bar of cells a week is plenty.. call it 10 cells a week needing 20 nucs on a 2 week catch cycle, 30 on a 3 week cycle.. thats a LOT of resources for a little guy (one reason I push minis)


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## Saltybee

maybe I'm lazy or still scared. Open an ornery packed double ten and ask the question again.


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## msl

Saltybee said:


> maybe I'm lazy or still scared. Open an ornery packed double ten and ask the question again.


Yep 


> Keep the population manageable so that you can handle the colony with little effort


Steve Taber- Breeding Super Bees


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## jwcarlson

I've modified this method a little bit. But as long as you can keep the colony queenless (which I have struggles with on occasion because I'll skip checking for cells as thoroughly as I should) it just works so well for me. Now, I'm not claiming I have the best cells or the highest quality queens, but there is always jelly leftover when I'm on my game keeping everything in good shape. But they're leaps and bounds better than anything I've bought over the years. I usually run this in a 5 over 5 nuc initially and then build up to four boxes high (with feeder in one box). A few pics of my successes with this over the last year (and one queen from a couple years ago who was still going strong this spring).





































This is a typical virgin:


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## tpope

Good looking work there jwcarlson. How often do you add capped brood?


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## jwcarlson

tpope said:


> Good looking work there jwcarlson. How often do you add capped brood?


I've been grafting less often. Less often enough that I can let a queen emerge, mate, and lay up for a bit. It happened by accident once this year and by design a second time. And it's been good for them. Usually I add brood when I pull cells to help keep LWs at bay and also give them boost down the line. So no great answer to that question. But they don't go more than a couple weeks without some influx of brood to care for/reinforcements. This last batch I left a cell behind for them and then she _should_ take them through the winter then. But I still have a number of cells left over. I think I'm going to go split them a couple more ways and drop cells (or maybe queens as I have a glut of them too).


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## Gray Goose

when I make queens I need 6 to 10.
As someone mentioned I do not have the bees and NUCs to make up 40 NUCs.
so if you need more then the 10 frame makes since, if less then the 5 frame starter works.


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## crofter

It is easy to let queen rearing get away with you and wind up with too many small colonies tying up all your equipment plus perhaps compromising your honey producers that you have borrowed a few frames from here and there. It would seem that more queens laying should give faster population growth but I think reality is something else.


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## Saltybee

" It would seem that more queens laying should give faster population growth but I think reality is something else."

You nailed it!


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## tpope

I appreciate the reply jwcarlson. There's many ways to raise a few queens. Looking to improve my mated return percentages on July grafts.


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## Gray Goose

crofter said:


> It is easy to let queen rearing get away with you and wind up with too many small colonies tying up all your equipment plus perhaps compromising your honey producers that you have borrowed a few frames from here and there. It would seem that more queens laying should give faster population growth but I think reality is something else.


totally agree, as I am scrambling to get 10 or so more deeps built to finish the configs of my spring splits.
with that said I am putting the 3rd super on some of the splits so IMO make strong splits and get 1-3 supers and the production is still there.

GG


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## Saltybee

Mostly it takes bees to make bees.


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## jwcarlson

crofter said:


> It is easy to let queen rearing get away with you and wind up with too many small colonies tying up all your equipment plus perhaps compromising your honey producers that you have borrowed a few frames from here and there. It would seem that more queens laying should give faster population growth but I think reality is something else.


Yeah, there's a balance between mating nucs, 'promoting' those to 5-frames, and selling off queens. Some years it's hard to hit the balance. But my two deep frame mating nucs, once they're rolling, need brood robbed from them 'constantly'. So I use that to boost anything that's slow or to make into nucs to sell. I also convert all my 2-frames into 5 frames and pull about half the queens. So I usually run 16 mating nucs and combine that down in 8x 5-frames that then get a 2nd story for winter (and some years a third). 

An apiary is kind of like a big breathing organism. It's out of breath in February and slowly inhaling starting about April. And then it's lungs swell and swell taking up capacity that you never needed. And then it starts exhaling again come August. I used to get hung up on 'giving up' on a colony or "look at all these empty boxes!", but anymore those decisions are just happening and I don't really even register the individual action. There's just kind of an almost automatic management that goes on that's pretty cool to be a part of. I do make special exceptions and have special cases from time-to-time where I just want to see how the bees handle things. Like last night I popped open a colony and immediately I decided they were smaller than they should be at that point. So pulled a brood frame... there's the marked queen (from this year). Was going to swap them a frame of capped brood for their frame of open brood and see if they takes off better. Plucked the queen off and dropped her on the next frame over. Look back at the frame I pulled her from and... there's another queen. I did swap in a capped frame for them and closed them back up. They'll sort it out.
In years past I might have killed both of them and dropped a cell or a mated queen in. Was also way more crazy about preventing swarms. Now I kind of have my set management style, if they respond... great. If they still decide to swarm... eh. I breed from the ones who stick around and make honey and are pretty gentle. It works out.


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## Lee Bussy

Hopefully, it's cool to respond to this sticky, but it's been here a while. I had a couple of questions about the OP's somewhat longer website article.



> Joseph uses a deep hive body with medium frames, and I’ve been using a medium hive body with a slatted rack under it.


This stuck out at me because I will be using mediums, but why a slatted rack, or why mediums in a deep box? Not sure what that's accomplishing.



> Note – if you use a modified self spacing Hoffman style frame like the one in the picture after your cells are built and capped the bees will almost always build lots of burr comb on and around your cells, and nothing that you do will make much of a difference. It’s not a disaster – your cells will be fine, you just want to carefully pick the wax away from the tip of the cell so that the queen can get out. But who needs that? The cure is to make a narrow frame (5/8″ – 3/4″) to hold your cells.


This one doesn't make sense to me at all. I thought the Hoffman frames were intended to keep bee space. How does that violate it and a 3/4" wide frame keep it?


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## crofter

Grafted queen cells are usually placed in a single row. A regular comb has cells on two sides and both horizontal. The grafting frames of cells if placed on the standard 1 3/8 c. to c. creates excess space. Narrower side bars on the cell frame allow you to slide adjacenet frames up tight to the cells. The cells get less burr comb which sometimes totally incorporates the cells into one mass. You will want each one separate to introduce individually.

The mediums in a deep box gives you options of using deep frames of resources as well as mediums.


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## Lee Bussy

Ah, that makes sense!


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## kilocharlie

I see that this post got resurrected again in 2019, and has been ongoing until about 4 months ago. I see that those who have questions about the scheduling may not have quite absorbed my posts #116, #125, and #128 from 2017 back on pages 6 and 7

In post #128, I gave 2 schedules. The first was for the first year, the second was for after your apiary had grown and you'd want to run 2 Queen Cell Builders, and perhaps a slightly less intense schedule, perhaps a bit easier to coordinate and get everything done.

Again, I built 2 special Queen cell Builder boxes specifically for this system, 12 inches tall, 6-framers, ventilated with window screen on the bottom 3 inches. 

I also built the equivalent of 40 nucleus boxes - mine were actually only twenty 10-frame standard U.S. Langstroth boxes with 3 slots for hive partitions inside. They could be used as a single 10-framer, 2 x 5-frame nuc's with one partition in the middle slot, or 3 x 3-frame mating nuc's with 2 partitions in the outside slots. These did each require three 1/3 wide inner covers, two 1/2 wide inner covers, and one 10-frame inner cover, plus special floors that accepted the hive partitions. All my 10-framers were made this way.

Probably easier to just make up the nuc' boxes.


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## Gray Goose

Lee Bussy said:


> This stuck out at me because I will be using mediums, but why a slatted rack, or why mediums in a deep box? Not sure what that's accomplishing.


More bees , more bees and more bees, bees hanging on the outside. so for you just use 2 mediums, or a feeding rim under the medium, for more bee space.

This one doesn't make sense to me at all. I thought the Hoffman frames were intended to keep bee space. How does that violate it and a 3/4" wide frame keep it? 

At some width,, comb is built, the more narrow will take more time, and the wider will take less time, recall above" lots of bees" you really only need the width of a Queen cell + a bee space on each side toward the next comb. IE you do not want a comb there, just finished cells.

GG


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## crofter

Gray Goose said:


> More bees , more bees and more bees, bees hanging on the outside. so for you just use 2 mediums, or a feeding rim under the medium, for more bee space.
> 
> This one doesn't make sense to me at all. I thought the Hoffman frames were intended to keep bee space. How does that violate it and a 3/4" wide frame keep it?
> 
> At some width,, comb is built, the more narrow will take more time, and the wider will take less time, recall above" lots of bees" you really only need the width of a Queen cell + a bee space on each side toward the next comb. IE you do not want a comb there, just finished cells.
> 
> GG


GG I think you missed post # 219 where Lee acknowledged post # 218 I had to go back and check to see what was causing the confusion. Wondered if Lee was still suffering from covid brain fog,  but no, he is OK, lol!


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## Olododo

Good day everyone, I'm new here.
I have a question, I don't make use of langstroth bee hive rather Kenya top bar hive.
Can I combine starter colony and finisher colony??, so I will make use of a queen less hive to rear the young larvae till the queen emerges??


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## ruthiesbees

Olododo said:


> Good day everyone, I'm new here.
> I have a question, I don't make use of langstroth bee hive rather Kenya top bar hive.
> Can I combine starter colony and finisher colony??, so I will make use of a queen less hive to rear the young larvae till the queen emerges??


Yes Olododo, you can use a topbar hive to make grafted queen cells. You will need to make a custom bar as I did to fit the shape of your hive. You might also need the follower board to push the bees into just a section of the hive to feel crowded. However, I found I can take a robust colony with old comb, steal their queen in the morning, add grafted larvae in the afternoon and they will make about 10 beautiful cells. You do still need to check the bars for rouge cell (which is why all the grafts don't get built) but it works fine for me to have this system going for the small amount of cells I want at a time. I rehang the queen in a cage with candy after 48 hrs post graft and let the hive chew her out in about 3 days. That coincides with the day the cells are capped and I move them to my incubator for safe keeping, otherwise you need to leave it queenless until the cells are mature and removed to their splits.

You can also skip the grafting part and just insert a new empty bar into the brood nest 5 days before you plan to pull the queen. This gives them nice fresh comb to rework into queen cells and you will get some beautiful fat cells, as the bees will preferentially pick the new comb over the old dark stuff. With this, you have to cut out the cells off the wax to place into splits, but I did this for a number of years before I started grafting and using the roller cages.


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## minister man

David LaFerney said:


> I’m a beginner. This has been my second year raising queens – my third year keeping honey bees. So I am in no way pretending to be any kind of an expert. But Joseph Clemens has generously agreed for me to share some of my experiences using his method of queen rearing.
> 
> For anyone who is interested this thread starter is based on a broader post about my experiences as a beginner at queen rearing.
> 
> *The Joseph Clemens Starter/Finisher System*
> 
> The system that I’ve been using is what I call the Joseph Clemens System – because that is where I heard about it from, and because Joseph Clemens has proven that it works by producing very large, high quality cells and queens using this system. I have found that it is very well suited for me to produce a fair number of queens while learning skills that can be scaled up to higher production later if desired. It’s fun, affordable, and you can use it even if you only have a few hives.
> 
> This system uses a *queenless* five frame nucleus with 4 medium frames of bees and a cell bar as a combined Starter/Finisher and produces 10-20 cells (more or less) at a time – and it can be used all season without having to be rebuilt. As you can imagine this is much more manageable for hobbyists than the way the commercial guys do it.
> 
> You can use this system over and over throughout the season without having to repopulate the starter/finisher hives, and you can use it just about any time that you want without having to do a lot of prep work – once you get it going . This system also avoids the problem of having to manage a cell builder hive that is on the verge of swarming by being Queenless – no matter how strong it is, a hive won’t swarm without a queen. When I first read about it, I thought that it sounded like such a hive would develop laying workers or some other problem because of being queenless for an indefinite time. But, because you give it fresh brood about once a week none of those problems crop up – it just gets really strong and stays that way all season long. It really does.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> One of my best batch of cells using this method. I’m still learning, but next year these will be my “regular” sized cells instead of just the best ones. I hope.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This is the setup I started the season with – the top box houses a quart jar feeder. Before long I realized that the small entrance (with a piece of excluder over it) through the slatted rack was too small for such a populous hive, and that the ventilation was not adequate.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> So, I changed to this setup – from the bottom – Screened bottom board, queen excluder, 5 frame medium hive body plus the same inner cover, feed shim, and tele cover as in the previous picture.
> 
> *Setting up the Cell Builder Hive*
> 
> The two outer frames are capped/emerging brood, the next two contain stores – honey and pollen, maybe some empty space for them to draw comb and store incoming food. The center position is where you will be putting your cell bar after you graft.
> 
> You want this hive to be very populous, so shake in lots of nurse bees. After the initial setup the cell builder will stay strong – even get stronger – from the frames of brood that you swap in every week.
> 
> Once a week (more or less) when you are working your other hives swap in a fresh frame of capped/emerging brood. The open brood on those frames along with the grafts and other open brood that you add to the cell builder keep it strong and stable. When you swap in new brood, you also have to check for queen cells in the starter/finisher, and on any frames that you take out – you will find wild cells pretty much every time. But since it’s only a 5 frame hive, and it doesn’t have a queen you can shake the bees off, and thoroughly inspect every frame in just a few minutes. Usually there is no need to even look at every frame – 2 of them will be pollen/honey, and one will be the cell bar. It’s pretty quick and easy maintenance, but it does have to be done at least once a week while the hive is being used.
> 
> *How I (and you can ) Finally produce Big Cells*
> 
> I tried fruitlessly almost all of this year to produce big cells like Josephs. I packed my cell builder with bees which I fed copiously, I tried double grafting, priming with royal jelly, placing fewer grafts – but no matter how hard I tried my best cells were “OK” at best (did get some nice queens though) – until I found this tip by Ray Marler: 4 days before you graft put a frame of hatching eggs/young open larva in the cell builder. That will insure that your nurse bees get into feeding mode by the time you add your grafts. My experience is that if I skip this step I get much smaller cells. Joseph Clemens produces nice big cells without this step, I think because he is continuously using his cell builder – so the bees stay in feeding/nurse bee mode – while I was only adding grafts to my cell builder every week or two.
> 
> When you swap in the cell bar with grafts on it there will almost certainly be queen cells started on the “primer” frame of open brood - At that time also check the other frames for queen cells. If you ever let one emerge it will ruin any cells that are currently in the hive – and you might have a hard time finding a virgin lose in such a crowded hive.
> 
> I feed my cell builder hive continuously – 1 to 1 sugar syrup from an inverted quart jar, and under the jar lid…
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> …Pollen substitute. I just spoon it in through the hole, and cover it with the jar lid. This is 8% protein mega bee mix with enough syrup to make a paste that is thick enough to not fall through the frames. The bees love it.
> 
> I hope this is helpful to anyone thinking about trying queen rearing.


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