[Steve in PA]

One of my beeyards is ~45 minutes from home. I do all of my "heavy lifting" at home in my workshop and take hives or nucs to the small yards I have. I have one particular hive that I would like to graft from but it is far away. I am thinking that grafting into cups, then bringing cups home is not a winner. Taking a queenless nuc there also doesn't sound like a winner but better than option 1.

The only other way I can think of would be to bring a frame of eggs/brood/nurse bees home to graft then put it in another hive.

Any suggestion are appreciated. I'm sure that many of you have done this without even giving it much thought. This particular hive is the best honey producer and is also very frugal with winter stores.

 

[AR Beekeeper]

You could remove the queen and a 5 frame nuc, replace her with another queen and 5 frames, take the choice queen home and use her only as a queen mother to graft from. She won't fail as fast when confined to a smaller hive.

 

[grozzie2]

I would take a nuc along in a travel box. Find a frame with eggs and graftable larvae from the hive in question, then swap it for a frame out of the nuc. Now take the nuc home, and there is your grafting frame at home.

 

[JWPalmer]

I would go with grozzies advice. Use a travel nuc, graft from the selected frame, then use the leftovers as a split to get a few more queen cells "au natural".

 

[Bdfarmer555]

You could remove the queen and a 5 frame nuc, replace her with another queen and 5 frames, take the choice queen home and use her only as a queen mother to graft from. She won't fail as fast when confined to a smaller hive.

This is what I've done.

 

[beekuk]

Any suggestion are appreciated.

Just bring back the frame with eggs and tiny larvae wrapped in a damp cloth, did some grafts three weeks ago from a frame which spent eight hours wrapped just so, put it into a hive then above an excluder at 6 in the evening and took it back out later at 9 in the evening and did 35 successful grafts, next day in the evening did another 45 from the same frame.
Last year I did successful grafts from a frame which was posted to me, overnight delivery.

 

[Steve in PA]

Strange this came back up today...

I went to the distant yard with a nuc box and brought home 2 frames of eggs,larvae, and clingers. I just cleaned up from grafting about 3 hours ago.

 

[JWPalmer]

Cool. Throw in a shake or two of nurse bees from the home hives and call the leftovers a walkaway split.

 

[GregV]

One of my beeyards is ~45 minutes from home....

I have have seen videos and also heard Solomon Parker just grafting on the spot - in their cars.
People do it, have good results, and it sounds as if a practical solution.

I don't graft to know the details first hand.

 

[JWPalmer]

There are even special frame holders that attach to the steering wheel to allow grafting in your vehicle. I could never do it as I require good lightining and magnification just to see the correct aged larvae. But, all my hives are in the backyard so life is good.