Second Round of Grafting

[Chef Isaac]

Well, today was the second round of grafting. After buying a curet tool as mentioned in a former post and a small brush that was suggested to me, I went out to the bee yard, got a frame of bees, wrapped it up in towels and brought it home to practice.

I did purchase a table magnafying glass with a light to help me. I used it the first few times and than thought it wouldnt be practical if I was to graft out in the field so I stopped.

This time it was much better. I knew what I was "looking" for and most of the grafts went well.... at least as far as picking them up.

I did have a few questions for ya all

1: how "forgiving" is the larva? When I grafted some of them, they got snagged on the sidewall of the cell. Are they gonners?

2: I had a hard time getting the larva off the tool that I was using (which was a 10/0 brush). Is there a trick to getting them off? I suppose that is why you prime the cells first.

3: what are some of the other mistakes that begginers make when trying to rear queens using the grafting method?

4: Does it make since to put an empty drawn out frame in the middle of the brood deep and let the queen lay for a day and than the next day, remove the frame and place it on the second deep with a queen excluder in the middle which prevents the queen from laying on that frame and allows the eggs to hatch and be the right age for grafting. Does this save time or it is more of a pain?


Thanks for the help!

[Robert Hawkins]

Way to go Chef, I knew you could do it. Sorry I can't answer your questions but I'm glad to hear that you learned so much in a short time. If I ever need that many queens, I'll be callin ya.

Hawk

[tecumseh]

1. Likely yes. I call this rolling the larvae. Very bad.

2. If you have trouble removing the larvae either prime the cell or use an automatic grafting needle.

3. There are so many ways to mess up I suspect a book even the size of say "War and Peace" would not do it justice. Two things that comes to mind. If you are using a queenless cell starter 1. stuff as many bees as possible into the starter and 2. dribble a bit of feed in a continuous manner into the unit. If you are using a divided queenright colony make sure their population is practically bubbling out the top of the hive.

[Roundman]

Hi C.I.

I use a pair of reading Glass from wal-mart a small led light flash light held in one hand, automatic grafting tool,in the other hand. I always leave the tounge out as i enter the cell and pick up the larva you can angle the light to see the larva.pick up the larva. may or may not retract the tounge to disloge the larva. i use rolal jelly for priming one of the plastic cups you can graft 60 0r 70 reale easy with the amount of jelly in it.I usally graft 10-15 hour larva. very small

[Michael Bush]

>I went out to the bee yard, got a frame of bees, wrapped it up in towels and brought it home to practice.

How far is home? How long from removing the frame to putting the cell cups with the larvae back in the hive?

>4: Does it make since to put an empty drawn out frame in the middle of the brood deep and let the queen lay for a day and than the next day, remove the frame and place it on the second deep with a queen excluder in the middle which prevents the queen from laying on that frame and allows the eggs to hatch and be the right age for grafting.

The eggs need lots of nurse bees and warmth and humidity and they are most likely to get that in the middle of the brood nest, not in the box above. I'd leave them. Age isn't a problem. You'll have no trouble spotting the ones that are still eggs. Leave the eggs.

>Does this save time or it is more of a pain?

If the nurse bees aren't populous enough to care for the brood in the upper box, then the eggs won't even hatch. That's a pain.