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Stressful grafting and queen rearing attempt

21K views 83 replies 18 participants last post by  cristianNiculae 
#1 ·
I tried my first grafting yesterday and gave up when realising that I cannot do it. I've been using chinese grafting tool and mangnifying head lamp...haha...
The cells wall were too tall on that specific frame and while inserting the tool inside I didn't have the angle to still see the larva.
However I quickly changed the strategy: took a new frame with fresh egs and done it by the Oldtimer's method. I haven't looked inside yet.
For the cell builder I used Kirk Webster's method via Michael Palmer. It worked nice. I've been on the brink of disaster though as I asked myself wether to use the shaker box or not :) and luckily I used it. The first frame I took from the brood box to shake into the cell builder had the queen on it but I didn't see it. After I shook the frame I saw the queen above the queen excluder :p; I took it and put it back into the box. So for the future the shaker box will be a very useful tool for me.

I will try to train myself from time to time to try to master this technique as I find it very economical and acurate in timing. It's important for me to have the day when I form the nucs on Saturday so I don't have to take a free day out of my vacation.

Questions:

1. Can I make the nucs and give them the cells on the same day? If yes what's the timing for introducing the cells?
2. If the nucs are too strong will they accept the cells? (I know feeding is very important on this)
3. Do you think it's a good idea to move the old queen to a nuc and leave the cell builder with one or two cells? (I'm thinking to do some sort of cutdown split before the main flow)
4. How about doing cutdown splits on all my hives? - take the old queen and a couple of brood frames away and then give the old hive a cell instead...I guess the chances of acceptance(on the other hives) are smaller but if I can make it happen I could reduce swarming chances to almost zero.
5. I find queen finding very difficult in a hive that's thriving. I'm thinking on using the shaker box instead to do the cutdown split. Shake most of the bees through or shake until I find the queen. Thoughts?

In theory everything is simple but when coming to practice I find this pretty dificult.

Thanks,
Cristian
 
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#29 ·
First timers are always stressful to me. I shook them vertically, no brood frames just stores. I probably haven't sprayed them enough.

Conclusions: need a better veil, better smoker... (got some bees under the veil.. had to stop... one sting in the head, lost things through the yard)

What do you guys do if it rains on day 10? Use umbrellas? Leave the queen cells in God's hands?
 
#30 ·
For shaking nurse bees, I've never sprayed the bees with anything...you may just need to get used to the process.

Raising queens is the point in beekeeping where convenience and weather get ignored..
 
#32 ·
To clarify, the shaking should happen with the frame 3/4 of the way IN the box you are shaking into...not over the box. A frame of open brood will hold bees in the box.
 
#33 ·
>>What do you guys do if it rains on day 10? Use umbrellas? Leave the queen cells in God's hands?
>Raising queens is the point in beekeeping where convenience and weather get ignored..

That's one of the things that just goes with queen rearing. What I have to do today, I HAVE to do today... the queens wait for no man...
 
#35 ·
If you are shaking bees into a starter box, you will probably have at least 2 combs in the box for clustering and food. During the shaking put one on each side of the box. As the shaken bees run up the side of the box they get to the frame and pause a bit on the comb. If you have the box you are shaking from set up so you can quickly get frames out and in you will get the job done no worries. Speed is the essence. Like you say, some experience helps you will now be thinking about what you can do better, and next time you will improve.
 
#37 ·
Cheap umbrella and a weighted stand are handy in ugly weather when opening a hive for queen rearing is necessary. It's easy to move around and easy to store closed up until the next time. (Makes nice shade too) Look for weighted stands at garage sales. This umbrella was on sale at Rite aid for $19.99.

 
#40 ·
About queen castles:

I need some advice regarding the quantity of bees in the queen castles. I was thinking on 1 frame brood + 1 frame stores with the bees on them.

We still can have down to 45 F during nights and in the upper 60's during the day.

Thanks.
 
#41 ·
If your nights are that cold you will need quite a few bees in there to keep the brood covered. Because you are making up the nucs from hives and the brood, at first at least, may not be the best shape for the design of the nuc, you'll need the bees that are on the combs when you make them, plus maybe a shake from another comb. Later in the season when things are warmer you need not be quite so fussy.

What I do is gauge it by the brood comb, a comb with only a small circular patch of brood will not need as many bees as one with a full comb of brood.
 
#42 ·
So I should aim for brood coverage. I have different boxes configurations: 3x3, 2x5 and 2x2.

Let's take the 2x2 configuration:

1 frame brood + bees
1 frame stores + bees
1 shaken frame of bees

Is it correct?

I could also make them more strong(that would mean dissolving some colonies - which I'm going to do anyway later in the season) and then later in the season further divide them. Do you think this would be a better strategy?(I would still like to have 3 strong colonies in order to take advantage on the black locust flow)

http://www.meteoblue.com/en/romania/weather-racoviţa-27585/14-days

I'm so unsure on how to do it having so few resources :(
 
#44 ·
1 frame brood + bees
1 frame stores + bees
1 shaken frame of bees(
That should be right for your situation. However it's also a judgement call, things I factor in are how far the brood is away from hatching & what the weather forecast is for the next few days, if the nucs will be near enough to the parent colony for any drift to happen, and after that I just eyeball how many bees seem right in that nuc.

I never make them too strong either that has it's own set of problems. But initially and in your current weather pattern go with what looks like a good solid amount of bees if clustered tightly on the brood and still cover all of it.
 
#46 ·
I just transfered the QC's to mating nucs. The pupae are still white on day 10 after grafting. Could it be because of the bad weather we had? (I opened one of them)
Yellow Shelf Room Furniture

How do they look? I have no idea if they are good or not :(

A couple of them were completely engulfed in wax including the head. Are these still good?

They are suppose to hatch on Tuesday.

Thanks
 
#49 ·
I just transfered the QC's to mating nucs. The pupae are still white on day 10 after grafting. Could it be because of the bad weather we had? (I opened one of them)
View attachment 10891
How do they look? I have no idea if they are good or not :(

A couple of them were completely engulfed in wax including the head. Are these still good?

They are suppose to hatch on Tuesday.

Thanks
Were the cells engulfed in the wax comb good or did the bees just draw it?
 
#47 ·
Nice work Cristian.

Yes some can still be white on day 10, should at least have purple eyes though, my theory is if they were not immediately well fed after grafting they can be delayed but not totally sure if that is really why someone else may know. The lack of any nectar in the comb shows the bees had nothing much coming in & the cells usually are a bit slower when that happens.

looking forward to seeing the pics of some mated queens! :)
 
#50 · (Edited)
Were the cells engulfed in the wax comb good or did the bees just draw it?
The bees draw it. Weird to me... how would those queens get out of all that wax?


I think I have robbing on some of the nucs. It's hard to tell as there is no fighting... too much activity though and the syrup is sucked too soon(200 ml in less than 12 hours and all nucs are 2 deep frames). I closed entrances today on the suspect ones.

About the nucs population: I also noticed 2 of them (I opened some with less activity on the entrance) having few bees left.

These things are so delicate and I really feel helpless :(. I know I don't have to disturb them in this phase. The cells should emerge starting from tomorow. Should I shake some more bees into some of them when I get back home or should I leave them alone until the cells hatch?

I don't know wether this stuff is suitable for people that don't have the time to be in the apiary during the day also. I'm curious to see what I get in the end. So far the odds doesn't look favourable.
 
#51 ·
Feeding syrup to brand new nucs can be a mistake unless the beekeeper is experienced how to do it.

What happens is you make the nucs, they do not have a queen you give them a queen cell. So all the older bees who know their way home return to the original hive. But they will often return to the nuc to rob it. The nuc only has young bees left of not flying age, which means they are not guard duty age. They do not defend the nuc. Also, the robber bees smell the same cos they are from the same hive, they just walk right in. With all this happening, if you also feed syrup, the situation can be hopeless.

So, what to do about it. If you make nucs and have them in the same yard as the parent colony, they should be started with about twice as many bees as you want to end up with because a lot of them will return to the parent hive. the entrance should be tiny, just one or two bees wide. After a week some of the bees will be older and can do guard duty so the entrance can be opened wider at that time. Do not feed syrup this is very important, give them enough honey in the comb to last a couple of weeks, after that they can be fed syrup provided there is no robbing.

Cristian for your nucs at the moment, not a good plan to add more bees it can just cause more robbing. Best to remove any syrup you are feeding, make the entrances really small, and wait to see if they can get the robbing under control. If they have been completely robbed out and have nothing, late evening pour 1/2 a cup of sugar syrup over the bees so they can consume it, they should eat it all and leave none to attract robbers the next day, if they cannot eat it give them less. Do this every evening till robbing subsides & the bees take control of their own hive, should take a week or two. After that you can carefully feed them some syrup in the normal way, but carefully.
 
#54 ·
One way to prevent robbing of nucs is to place the nuc close to the mother beehive then you set it up. In the evening or next day then all the field bees has flown back to the origin hive its safe to move it to any location.
My experience is that field bees never start robbing nucs that stand close to the mother beehive.
 
#55 ·
I've made a quick inspection in some of the nucs and united 4 of them into 2; found some hatched queens :)

About grafting in general: I think it's more suitable for queen rearing operations and doesn't worth the effort if you don't need so many queens. I think M. Bush has made this very clear on his site.

I'm glad that I did it but now bees have made it easier for me as they started swarm preparations in 3 of my hives. I've made 2 nucs with the old queens and I'm planning some more splits using the new queen cells.
Since the best time for rearing queens is when they start naturally, I will just take advantage of their work.
 
#57 ·
doesn't worth the effort if you don't need so many queens.
Cristian, you have made all the rookie mistakes and found the going tough, and have sounded frustrated at times. But you have learned a lot, next time you graft you will likely get good results, and next time you set up nucs you may do a better job.

Trust me, once a person knows what they are doing, all this is pretty simple. Going through the initial mistakes and losses is hard, in terms of work, time spent, resources and emotional involvement. But once a person gets to the point od experience where they can go into this pretty much knowing what results to expect and not making mistakes, it gets fairly simple and quite rewarding. I think you are at the stage now where you know most of the things that can go wrong and will find it easier next time.

Making nucs and putting them in the same site is always a gamble, me, I always move them somewhere else, makes life a lot easier.
 
#58 ·
I have had bees entomb queen cells before. They always left the tip of the queen cell uncovered so she could get out. It wasn't easy for me (I cut between the cells with a knife and attached the comb in the mating nucs), but I could see that the queens would not be stuck in the comb.

Now I use frames with narrower top bars. The bees draw much less comb than with the normal width top bars that I started with.
 
#60 ·
I usually pick the comb away with my fingers if I'm going to put it in an incubator, cutting between them first.

Kirk Webster uses narrow frames (basically frames without the Hoffman style spacers in the end bars), and says this is the reason. I keep telling myself I'm going to try it, but haven't gotten around to it.

deknow
 
#62 · (Edited)
I have been following this thread closely as I also decided to raise a few queens for the first time. I am a hobbyist with 6 hives. I followed Randy Oliver's technique. Scraping a space on a pollen frame and pressing the grafted cups into the space. The grafting went better then I expected. I had 9 of 10 accepted. I lost one more during the maturing period, however, the bees also started a rogue q Cell with a larvae I didn't know was on the pollen frame. Tomorrow I move them into nucs for mating.

I have discovered it takes a lot of bees to raise 10 queens. I reduced two of my 6 hives severely to load up the starter finisher (4 frame nuc). I am using 8 four frame nucs (plus the starter/finisher) for mating and these are using a lot of bees as well. Once I get them mated, I will be happy with 5 mated queens, I will double queen my hives to get them back to production levels and then think about doing it again. I would like to end the season with 6 production hives and 4 nucs going into the winter.

I get three honey flows/crops each year and may miss out on the first flow because the hives will not have recovered in time. Raspberry, star thistle, goldenrod. In the summer 8 queen cells are worth about $80. My raspberry honey flow is worth $300-$400.

If I was able to start over I would wait until latter in the season to start. The hives I rob for bees would be stronger and less concern about cold weather. Next year I am planning on using the over wintered nucs to maintain my production hives and raising the queens latter in the year.

Regards PeterP
 
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