Wet grafting

[Steve_in_NC]

Anyone ever use canned coconut milk for wet grafting? If so do you use it full strength, or cut it with water?

[Chef Isaac]

what is wet grafting?

[The Honey House]

Steve
I've heard of using green coconut milk but never canned. I recently read somewhere (cashman's site maybe) that cups can be primed with watered down honey. I recall reading where it said that the bees replace the honey with jelly real quickly.

[Steve_in_NC]

Wet grafting is usually grafting into a queen cell cup primed with 50% royal jelly 50% water.


Sue Cobey mentioned that coconut milk could be used. I just don't remember if it was to be diluted.

[BjornBee]

In reality you can use many options for wet grafting. Royal jelly would be the best. And everything else would be below that.

I use watered down honey. Just a guess but its somewhere around 80% water to 20% honey. The idea is to use something to keep the cells from drying out before the frame is placed back into the hive. It also aids in the transfer of larvae into the queen cell as it "floats" off the grafting tool.

You can be successful without priming at all if you are getting a good amount of liquid with the larvae. But I like to wet the cells and its one less thing to worry about.

[WG Bee Farm]

You can use distilled water. As BjornBee states the only reason to prime cells is to float the larva of the grafting needle, and to keep the larva from drying out. Any thing that you use will be replaced with royal jelly quickly in your starter. Even the worker jelly that you pick up is replaced with royal jelly when the bees start to concentrate in making a queen.
Frank Wyatt

[JBJ]

I have been using diluted RJ from Glorybee in Eugene Or. I have gotten many excellent acceptance rates with it, however it is an additional cost. I would like to here from some one who has tried the other “wet” techniques and diluted RJ to see if there are detectable differences in acceptance rates or the queens themselves. Empirically, how well do these other cell priming techniques compare to using RJ? Any feedback would bee great. Beesource is the best thing since sliced bread!!
JBJ

[ikeepbees]

While I have made a few half hearted attempts at queen rearing in the past, I'm very much a rookie at the whole process. I'm curious, Frank, Bjorn, and JBJ, how much liquid you're talking about putting in the cell. A drop? More? Less?

[JBJ]

A very, very small drop. Does not even cover the bottom of the cell. Just enough for a day old larvae to float in.
JBJ

[BjornBee]

I mix everything in a shot glass. Then using the shaft of the fancy metal grafting tool, I dip the end into the glass. The amount that sticks is less than a drop. I just rub that amount into the bottom of the queen cup. It would have to be less than half a normal drop of water. Then I pick up the cheap chinese grafting tool and graft.

[WG Bee Farm]

I buy distilled water in a gallon jug at Walmart. Keep in the refr. then when I graft I put some in a small cup. Run it through the microwave until it boils & put one drop into each cell. By the time I get back to graft the water has cooled. I also use the Chinese grafting tool, even though I have a handful of the others.

[JBJ]

WG Bee & BjornBee what are your cell acceptance rates like? Do you grow many cells?
JBJ

[WG Bee Farm]

I find acceptance runs depending on the time of year. I use queen right starters and up to the major Poplar flow I average 60-75%. During the flow the percentage goes down- the bees are interested in putting honey in everywhere +50%
After the major flow and in the summer to fall percentages go to 40-50% you have to continueally feed the starters or they tend to shut down.
What kind of percentages do you run JBJ. What kind of starters do you run. After the cells are placed in the mating nucs; what are your percentages of mated laying queens? compared to cells placed.

[JBJ]

WG, I use several different methods depending on the season and how the acceptance rates are going. You can hardly go wrong with bulk or shook bees for a starter. I often get upwards of 90% with this technique. However as the median age of the bees increase other strategies must be employed, such as adding young bees etc. I also feed plenty of protein and carbs. My favorite technique is a queenright starter finisher because they are easy to maintain; but the acceptance rate seems slightly lower. If the acceptance rate begins to drop there are things you can do to improve the cell building area, like all the books tell you, however I will sometimes make the unit temporally queenless and usually see a great jump in cell acceptance, back to upwards of 90%. I know the books say a 75% acceptance rate is good, and I often get that, but about as often get much higher. Don’t get me wrong I do lose the occasional batch of cells for various reasons. I also give more cells than the books say to. I usually start about 60 cells in a builder at a time and love it when you get 55 or more large, very white cells. If rates get into the 50% zone it seems there is always something you can do to improve it on the next graft. The yield on the mated queens is very weather driven for me. There are times when it seems ever cell you put out gets mated and others its much lower, but overall I would estimate the queens get mated at least 75% or more of the time. The other big factor that I have observed here is the condition of the mating nuc. If it is in great shape they seem to bee able to withstand the weather extremes and be much more likely to give you a mated queen no matter what is going on with Mom Nature.
JBJ

[swarm_trapper]

hey jbj how do you make you queenright starter? thanks Nick

[JBJ]

I like to start with a very strong two or three story colony that is packed with bees. The queen is then isolated below an excluder in bottom. Check for random cells in three days and feed continuously. The cells will be added to the top box near open brood and pollen and away from the queen. The day prior to the graft the frame is removed where the cells are to be added. If conditions are well there should be plenty of wax bees attempting to fill the void when you ad the cell frame. As subsequent grafts are done over time brood can be cycled up from the bottom as the queen fills them up. If acceptance rates are low I add more nurse bees and make sure there are no random cells or virgins lurking about. It is very important to have lots of young bees attracted the cell building area.
JBJ

[WG Bee Farm]

JBJ,
I use shook swarms early in the season when night time temp.s dip low. It seems to work better where there is the possiblity of queenrite starters forming clusters and pulling away from the cells. Using a queenrite starter/finisher I usually start with 3 rows of 15 Italians and 3 rows of 15 Carniolans per starter. It appears(at first glance)that my percentages are lower than yours but the number of cells harvested are approx. the same. One mating yard is reaching 78% mating. However the other is only 50%. I am in the process of moving it to a more sheltered location( out of the wind and sun)
It is amazing that some batches fail, and you only recongnize the reason after your failure.
I heard somewhere that " you never learn anything from your successes, only from your failures."

[JBJ]

WG, I agree. It seems there is always something to learn. What works well in April and May, might not work as well in June and July. I try to remain open to what the bees want to do and adjust my tactics accordingly. So If I read your last post correctly you are starting 90 cells at once? Sometimes on the first graft into a really prime cell builder I will start as many as 120, but I feel I get bigger cells when I start fewer cells on the subsequent grafts. I think if you push a cell builder to hard you will get inferior cells. In fact I just had one of my cell builders go haywire on me and produced the tiniest batch of cells I have ever seen. Time to do some work on that unit. Fortunately the other units are churning beautiful fat cells. I guess you can’t win all the time.
JBJ

[swarm_trapper]

so if you use a queen right starter that is made out of two deeps. They will draw out cell even though the queen is in the bottom box? Nick

[ikeepbees]

Thanks WG, Bjorn and JBJ for the info.

[JBJ]

If I were to start a cell builder out of a double , I would add a third box below an excluder to islate the queen in. JBJ