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My first graft

2K views 8 replies 6 participants last post by  beepro 
#1 ·
Hi, All! Today I did my first test graft using 8 small plastic cups. Trying to find the right age larvae to graft
is hard using smaller cells comb. But I did it just for a test run. Hopefully I'll get some take on this batch.
If I have 2 take then I will be happy. Larvae come from the newly mated queen that has been laying for 1 week or so.
Using the old plastic cups from 2 years ago that still have a bit of old wax on and the smell of the old emerged queen make the bees go crazy over them.
I think this will help to accept the newly grafted larvae more. Anyone using old plastic cups without cleaning them first?
 

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#3 ·
If you graft small cell laid larvae into standard size plastic queen cups will they produce small cell queens? Logic says no, No?

Bees clean and polish cells before queens lay eggs in them, so I would be concerned about using used queen cell cups. It'll be interesting to see if you get any let alone 2. Just my thoughts.
 
#6 ·
Thanks for all the good tips. I was thinking since these cups are not damaged I can reuse them. I believe
in reduce, recycle and reuse. You can call me cheap or frugal I don't mind. Helping the environment is good. Imagine
if I can recycle all these cups from all the beekeepers out there each year. Yes, I know these cups are cheap here.
Next time I will boil them first and then disinfect with h2o2 follow by clean distilled water.

Surprisingly only 2 cups took. I don't think I will be keeping them this time. Besides, this nuc hive already developed
a laying worker that laid an egg inside one of these clean up cups. So I caged the recently mated Spring queen from another nuc hive and
combine alternating frame of new and old bees into 1 bee box. The 2 cups I still leave inside to see if they develop or
not. Since majority 95% of the bees are still nurse bees I figured to combine them to see. Hopefully they will not ball
the new queen that I will release her in a day or 2. Two months without a laying queen is too much for them I think.
Anybody know how long a laying worker bee will live?
 
#8 ·
No, I did not. I only put in for 4 hours. And then made my graft.
So far this is a fairly strong hive making a new queen now. Only one cell
survived now since the other one didn't make it. This remaining cell is
a very large cell about to be cap within a day or 2. Looks like this hive will has a
chance to make a very strong laying queen. We'll see later on.
The other hive has a laying queen but not too strong. It also have some laying worker
bees along with the queen from a shake out. I don't know what to do next to return this
hive back to normal again. There are 4 eggs in each cell including one that the normal
queen laid. What is the normal process to do in a hive with a normal queen and some laying worker
bees that the population is dwindling away right now?
 
#9 · (Edited)
Only 1 qc remain from the graft. But they feed her well in the larva stage of development.
It is almost 1.5" all filled with RJ next to a hive tool. Not sure why they covered it with combs but leave an
opening at the end. She is not cap yet so I'm hoping that it will soon within a day or 2. The
queen calendar is off by 1 day though.
I tried to cut off the extra comb but they rebuilt it again the next day. They also made 4 extra
large qcs on the combs that I think I will keep. Overall this is a fun and educational process.

1 qc remaining:
 

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