# First graft testing



## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Hi, All!

Been awhile since I posted.
Busy tending to my bees now that the day temp. is in the mid-60s almost everyday.
So I thought why not do a test graft to see if I can get some fat queen cells before the
Spring flow. Actually every early flowering plant is blooming now. They are busy bringing in pollen and 
whatever is available out there. 
Four days ago I did a test graft and only 1 took out of 4. Then did another graft that 2
took out of 7. Without the graft they will not make any queen cells even though they are
queen less and full of bees in the starter nuc. 
By the time the queens emerged it will be warm enough for their mating flight next month.
So I made up a starter nuc and then transfer the took cells into a booming finisher hive made up of
2 frames (and 2 extra frame of bees are shaken in) where all the foragers are concentrated in. At first there wasn't enough bees to grow
the cells bigger. Any cell less than 1.5" will not have enough RJ to grow the developing queen larva.
Then an idea came up to take these cells into a booming 10 frames hive that I took
out the queen the day before. The 10 frames deep is divided into 3 sections where the cells are in the middle
with the foragers. Instantly you can see that the cells grew to a larger size just over night.


Turning a 10 frames production hive into a mating nuc with cells:


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## jbraun (Nov 13, 2013)

How is your drone supply? Do you have many in your colonies yet?


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

The drone supply is unknown at this point given the
end of the winter although it feels like Spring but
the calendar date is not yet there. So I have to wait
until March to further assess the drone situation. 
There are several young carnis drones inside the hives now.
Not enough to make an impact on the virgin's mating flight.
At the other nearby location there are several pallets of the
bigger hives. Maybe that will supply some of the mature drones
good enough for the mating later on. The second potential 
mating area is a bee association with the carnis hives only just
5 minutes from my apiary. Anyways, this is a successful
test graft that I have 2 big and beautiful capped queen cells in 
development now. I found out the latest time to raise some queens
in the late Autumn last year. Now is the time to find out how early that I can
take a graft to get some nice early queens.
Cut out one queen cell to put it in a mating nuc early
with some capped worker cells yesterday. If all goes well then in one month 
there should be a mated queen or 2.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

An update:

Of the 2 cap cells, one hatched today. The big fat virgin queen is healthy looking with
a yellowish Italians signature. Saw a varroa mite hanging on her fat belly. Oh well, looks like she
need to get used to the mites since I only treat when necessary with my homemade oav gadget.
Need to get rid of the mites before she is laying though. There is about 1/4" of the RJ remaining inside
the plastic cell cup where she hatched from. Overall a very clean cut at the tip of the cell opening. Let's see if
she can make it back on her mating flights. The weather is unusually warm on a February at 72F today although there
maybe be a chance of a frost at night time. Looking good for the up coming forecast. Hope it will keep up for another 2 weeks or so. 
The drone population is still a mystery now. So put in a drone comb for the drone mother queen to lay in.


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Probably too late on that queen - she's been infected with everything the mite had, and so will her brood. Doomed colony, unless the mite had no virus...is that _virii_ ? 

Could be a good thing if she happens to have some tolerance to any disease that the mite gave her...Hope, wait and see.


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## Riverderwent (May 23, 2013)

kilocharlie said:


> Doomed colony, unless the mite had no virus...is that _virii_ ?


If she had no virus then she also had no virii and no viruses. Whole hives can get the flew.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

At every Spring time I will pick a new bee experiment
to perform. This year is to see if a queen raised in a
mite infested hive can turn into a big beautiful healthy queen bee.
The first virus that came to mind is the DWV that has the potential
to cripple the queen's wings while in development. In a severe case she
can die still inside the cap cell. 
If there is a resistant trait then the queen will turn out to be a healthy normal one. What about
her offspring or her daughters?
The workers can brush the mite off her body while grooming her once she is recognized. 
This is also the time to test their hygienic and allgogrooming behavior. I once read on the internet
that a beekeeper on purpose grafted larvae in an EFB mixed RJ cup. The queens that 
survived will have some form of a resistant to this disease. While I wasn't intentional
in doing so I believe that a queen should be raised in its most natural state whether or not
there are mites present. In their natural state the queen is raised in a hive that have some mite
infestation in the wild. The added advantage is that there is a chance for them to take a brood
break to clean up the mites a bit. Can my bees have resistant to the mite viruses? Time will
tell if she can make it back on her mating flight. 


A healthy queen with a mite on:


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## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

with that many mites, I'm suprised I don't see DWV on any of the bees, are you seeing it anywhere inside the hive?


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Actually the mite to bee ratio is pretty low inside
the hive. After the last late October oav gadget
treatment I let them brood up all mild winter long.
This early Spring hive inspection showed a red carpet of
the dead mites on the solid bottom floor. All winter long
they have been grooming along. So of course there are some DWV on the
newly hatched worker bees. Soon after the housekeeping bees find them
many got dragged outside to be disposed of along with the
hatch out mites on them too. I was a bit surprised seeing this level
of cleanliness. The colony that exhibits this hygienic traits will get some grafting when
the weather gets warmer. I have 2 hives showing this hygienic traits one better than the other. It
would be interesting to do a little experiment to compare the daughters of both colonies this season.


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## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

if you are seeing mites on top of your bees, the mite to bee ratio is not low. Do an alcohol wash and post up your numbers because I see 4 mites in a sample of less than 100 bees which is roughly 5% (visible) I understand most folks who treat recommend doing so at 1 mite per 100 bees via an alcohol wash which would turn up way more than the visible one you actually see. Even just counting the ones you see, you are almost 4 times the threshold of recommended treating. Be sure to keep us posted


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

You are correct. My mite
load is quite high compare to the recommended treatment threshold.
I'm comparing the bee to mite ratio maybe at 20%. Some hives have
higher and some have lower mite ratio than the other. But the amazing
thing is that the hive is still thriving not crashing like that of
last year in late January. As long as I have bees I will continue to
do my little bee experiment. After 4 years, I finally have bees coming
out of the Spring time that are still alive and growing. Will continue
to use my oav gadget when needed and selection for the resistant queens to
head my colonies. At a later date will try a ft hive with the most resistant
queen at a local farm. This will truly test the quality of this queen and her
daughters. I'm still trying to find out why such a high mite load hive did not
crash over the mild winter we have here.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Another update:

This morning when I was adding bees into a mating nuc, I
saw another hatched virgin queen. She is lighter in color but is not a
full Cordovan queen. Maybe she is a Russian mutt. Still the bees like her!
So I put her in a fairly crowded mating nuc for her mating flight in a week or 2.
I also saw a moving queen inside another cap queen cell on the same frame that this queen
had hatched. Not sure why she has not sting the cap queen. Maybe she is too gentle for that.
Since the cell wall is rather thick not sure if she will make it without the worker bees to help her out.
Should know by tomorrow's hive inspection.


Another virgin queen hatched:


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## fieldsofnaturalhoney (Feb 29, 2012)

beepro said:


> I'm comparing the bee to mite ratio maybe at 20%. Will continue to use my oav gadget when needed and selection for the resistant queens to head my colonies.


"When needed",,which would be at what percent?


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

On every hatch if I see 10 bees with DWV and the mites on
the bees then it is time to treat using my homemade oav gadget. I don't
look at percentage just the number of free running mites at hatch time.
If you don't keep the mites under control then the next 2 hatch cycle will
be exploding with the mites. Spent the entire half day to improve on my
homemade oav gadget today. Looks promising for an effective oav delivery
solution.
The last of the virgin hatched today. But being stupid again I put another foreign
frame of bees into her mating nuc. Forgot about that and they balled her. She is a 
beautiful yellow queen too. She is 80% Cordovan color except the black thorax.
Tomorrow have to do the tedious work again to pick out the young nurse
bees and early hatched bees so that she will have a chance to survive. 
So next time I will put a sign at the bee yard to never mixed in the
foreign bees into the virgin nuc hive again. Need to make up the mating nucs early on with lots of bees.


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## McCoslin (Dec 4, 2013)

I'm so glad my bees are no where near yours.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

If you're closer to me I'll give you one of my homemade oav
gadget to try. You won't be worrying about the mites plaguing your bees
anymore from now on. An improved version of the oav gadget is already done at 90%. Everything
is documented on the testing.
Today all the foragers and mean worker bees flew back to their original hive after balling
the newly hatched virgin queen yesterday. Only the freshly hatched young bees and the nurse bees
stay in the nuc hive. They did not ball the virgin anymore. I did sprayed them yesterday with 3 ounces of water and 10 drops of
lemon grass oil. Today I found zero mites. Maybe the oil had drowned the mites? It is a good experiment to
repeat on. The weather is nice at 75F today. Still waiting for the virgins mating flight. Need to graft more to get the 
good genetics going.


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