[Glen H]

Hi
I'm in the process of starting queens for grafting.
I'm using the Cloake board method.

On Monday,(it's now Thursday day 4) I put on the cloake board turned the hive base put in the queen excluder and put a drawn frame of wax in for the queen to lay in. It was placed right beside a frame she was working on in the middle of the lower brood box, that was day 1. yesterday I pushed in the board to make the top box think they are queenless in the plan of grafting today on day 4.
When I brought the frame in to graft It was full of eggs still standing upright.

I pulled the board back out to allow the upper bees to mingle with the lower, didn't want to leave them queenless for another day.
Was that the right move???

Also the queen was on the frame that I pulled to graft today. So those eggs that are standing upright, how do I know if they will be ready tomorrow or the next day??? If it's tomorrow then I need to put the board back in. Or will it be the day after next???

Any thoughts or suggestions. I'll be pulling the frame again tomorrow at this time 5:00pm to check and if they are ready I'll graft.
I guess the queen didn't jump onto the frame on day one like I asked her too and have no clue what day she did move onto it.


Thanks
Glen

 

[beedeetee]

If I understand you right, you are using the Cloake Board differently than it was designed. It doesn't matter which hive you get the eggs (actually larva) from. It doesn't need to be the Cloake Board hive. The Cloake Board hive is where you put your grafts. The day before you graft you slide the divider in to make the top queenless. There needs to be nurse bees up there (the entire instructions are longer than I have time for right now).

So the next day after sliding the divider in, you graft from any hive that you want and insert the grafts into the Cloake Board hive. The queenless half that you added the grafts will start the queen cells. The next day you can remove the divider to make the hive queenright again.

 

[Glen H]

I grafted the frame that was put into the hive yesterday and 4 of the five queen cups with larvae were excepted.

 

[Glen H]

Update 3 of the four queen cells have now hatched and are in their roller cages. Not sure if the fourth one will hatch or not? Prob by tomorrow if it hasn't ill get it out of the nuc.
This is my first time grafting, so I'm quite excited to see the virgin queens in their cages. Tomorrow one will stay with the 5 frame nuc that they are currently in. Another is going into a split I made today, my first time splitting a hive. The third one is going to a friend who did a split today.

So over all for the first time grafting, I'm happy with the results so far.

Now all I have to do is figure out how I'm going to get a candy plug into the end of a 3/4 inch roller cage without the queens getting out. I don't have a queen muff. Any suggestions? Next time I know better to add the candy plug when placing the roller cage over the sealed Queen cells. inch: I have the cab of my truck to use to keep here from flying away if need be.


Glen

 

[WBVC]

Did you make the nuc sized cloake board?

Did you use capped brood frames from other hives for the graft nuc box?

 

[kilocharlie]

Hi
I'm in the process of starting queens for grafting.
I'm using the Cloake board method.

On Monday,(it's now Thursday day 4) I put on the cloake board turned the hive base put in the queen excluder ...

The Cloake Board has an excluder - don't put 2 in the box.

...and put a drawn frame of wax in for the queen to lay in. It was placed right beside a frame she was working on in the middle of the lower brood box, that was day 1. yesterday I pushed in the board to make the top box think they are queenless in the plan of grafting today on day 4.
When I brought the frame in to graft It was full of eggs still standing upright. ...

Eggs standing upright were laid today, not 3 or 4 days ago. Try isolating the queen behind a hive partition with queen excluder wire on it, or an entire cage of queen excluder wire.

...I pulled the board back out to allow the upper bees to mingle with the lower, didn't want to leave them queenless for another day.
Was that the right move???

Yes.

...Also the queen was on the frame that I pulled to graft today. So those eggs that are standing upright, how do I know if they will be ready tomorrow or the next day??? If it's tomorrow then I need to put the board back in. Or will it be the day after next???

Tomorrow they will lean over, the next day they should lay flat, the following day they should shed the chorion eggshell and become a larva. They are ideal to graft about 8 to 12 hours later.

...Any thoughts or suggestions. I'll be pulling the frame again tomorrow at this time 5:00pm to check and if they are ready I'll graft.
I guess the queen didn't jump onto the frame on day one like I asked her too and have no clue what day she did move onto it.

That was probably within the last 24 hours.

Thanks
Glen

 

[cristianNiculae]

A little bit off topic...

What I did on my third grafting this year:

1. queen right 10 framer
2. the queen and a frame of brood in the single facing the other way behind the
3. 5 frame nuc + lots of bees + 3 frames of stores + graft frame on the former place
4. Isolated the queen and shake many bees from the behind box
5. the other brood frames were given to other colonies as the single hive with the queen had too fewer bees to take care of them

The result was a well populated nuc that accepted 12 cells out of 17. I have done the graft quite fast but I'm pleased.
It's a variation using different ideas on this forum. The idea is that I didn't even thought that day that I'm going to start another batch of cells. I just started the process right away as it came to me; didn't wait for nothing.

The compilation of ideas came from Michael Palmer + Joseph Clemens method.

The starter/finisher nuc standing on the former place of the 10 framer will benefit from both foragers and nurse bees. I think those 12 cells will be well treated. There is no other brood in the nuc. Am I right?

 

[Glen H]

Did you make the nuc sized cloake board?

Did you use capped brood frames from other hives for the graft nuc box?

Hi WBVC,
The cloake board was a full size one placed on my largest hive.

The bees that I put into the 5 frame box, was a mini split I took from the that bigger hive, it was the mother hive to the grafts also.
The only other hive I had left coming out of winter was not strong enough to do grafting in or for taking bees from. That smaller hive is building up nicely now though.


Glen