On Saturday, March 15, I headed out to the bee yard and put my starter/finisher together in a double deep 5 frame nuc!! I took donor bees from a few different hives and concentrated on brushing nurse bees from frames of fresh brood only, and only after I found the queen in each hive, which didn't take long! After shaking in about 8 full frames of bees I placed a frame of capped brood, a frame of open nectar/pollen, another frame of mostly capped brood with some eggs/young larva and then put the grafting frame in with cups already installed and let the bees "warm" things up a bit while I let them sit queenless for 2 hours while I went to town and visited friends from the old neighborhood. I then went back to the yard, pulled the grafting frame out that was full of festooning bees and shook them back into the nuc, took a frame of young larva from one of my favorite hives and proceded to graft with the Chinese grating tool, covering each larva in the cup with a wet towel as I went, a step I learned from here which I have never done before, what a huge difference that made, no drying larva!!
I then placed the frame with 20 cells into the nuc, strapped it up and took it home where I could monitor them for the first few days and feed them pollen sub and sugar syrup.
Well, I crossed my fingers before opening the hive 24 hours later and to my surprise 18 of the 20 looked as though they were being worked!! I closed them up and checked again today, 48 hours later, and after brushing most of the bees off to really look at the grafts I found that 16 of the 20 were accepted and packed with royal jelly!! I think I read something about grafting on a full moon being a good thing and I am a firm believer!! I also think the grafts that did not take were the ones I tried to use the JZBZ tool on. I am much more comfortable with the Chinese grafting tool!!
Anyhow, this is my third attempt at grafting since last spring, the first attempt only yielded 2 viable grafts out of 20, the second grafting session yielded nothing out of twenty and now this, 16 out of 20!! Needless to say, im very happy!!!
I then placed the frame with 20 cells into the nuc, strapped it up and took it home where I could monitor them for the first few days and feed them pollen sub and sugar syrup.
Well, I crossed my fingers before opening the hive 24 hours later and to my surprise 18 of the 20 looked as though they were being worked!! I closed them up and checked again today, 48 hours later, and after brushing most of the bees off to really look at the grafts I found that 16 of the 20 were accepted and packed with royal jelly!! I think I read something about grafting on a full moon being a good thing and I am a firm believer!! I also think the grafts that did not take were the ones I tried to use the JZBZ tool on. I am much more comfortable with the Chinese grafting tool!!
Anyhow, this is my third attempt at grafting since last spring, the first attempt only yielded 2 viable grafts out of 20, the second grafting session yielded nothing out of twenty and now this, 16 out of 20!! Needless to say, im very happy!!!
Way to go. :thumbsup:
