Cockup of the day

[Poly Hive]

By graft I mean lift a larvae into a cell cup. I give a couple of grafts so in the event of messing one up there is a back up.

PH

 

[JCBrum]

By graft I mean lift a larvae into a cell cup.
PH

Is this a cell cup that you have made yourself with a wooden stick, or an empty existing cell in an existing frame in the queenless hive ?

If the latter, how do you choose which one ?

 

[Poly Hive]

Well you cannot depend on finding an appropriate handy queen cup so yes they are cups I make, actually using a 7 gang stainless steel mandrel. IE 7 cups a time.

I mount them on a holder using a soldering iron. They on the holder fit my grafting system, in racks of 10 or 12. The frames take three racks so when grafting for real I present up to 36 at a time but I digress.


PH

 

[colin]

virgin queens

We have found where we are it takes about three weeks for the queens to start laying from hatching and mating we have had to good queens home reared this year.

 

[JCBrum]

Thank-you Poly, most illuminating.

Don't worry about digressing, I'm fascinated. I'm sure there are several others as well who would like you to give details and pics of your grafting methods.

 

[JCBrum]

Thinking aloud and following on ....... when you have raised say, 20 newly hatched queens, Then what do you do with them ?

 

[Poly Hive]

Would you guys want me to do a wee posting or blog on queen rearing?

PH

 

[Haughton Honey]

Yes please!

 

[jezd]

By graft I mean lift a larvae into a cell cup. I give a couple of grafts so in the event of messing one up there is a back up.

PH

after the first QC split failed I did then drop in a known good QC (one I had reared) hanging on a cocktail stick across the top bars - it seems this worked fine and then she got slaughtered today with the unite, as I said its all good experience but I do feel bad about them both not their fault it happened

thanks all for the great replies too

 

[Onge]

I'm with JCBrum what do you do with them. How do you make up 20 nucs, say there 3 frame per nuc how would you recombine for the winter etc. (i know how to combine normally with newspaper)

Is it true you can put a different frame from each nuc into a brood body (10 different nuc frames) and they will be so confused they wont fight ?

A comprehensive answer on (after you have the queens) care would be good

Thanks

 

[JCBrum]

Would you guys want me to do a wee posting or blog on queen rearing?

PH

Yes please Poly.

 

[Poly Hive]

I spray the frames of brood with perfumed water so the "colony" smells the same to all. Simple.

If I had the cells to hand I would be making up nucs with two frames of brood and a frame of stores.

I am making up another four nucs when I have more cells, probably next week, and will take some pics. I cannot do vid as my partner is hellish allergic to the bees and I cannot in all conscience ask her to risk it.

Grafting it's self is a matter of practice. It cannot be but self taught.

The kit is pretty simple and I'll post pics of that.

PH

 

[Crg]

I spray the frames of brood with perfumed water so the "colony" smells the same to all. Simple.

Even just sugar syrup will work, never had it fail. Though bigger colonies I always unite using paper between them anyway.

 

[DrNick]

I am sorry you have had this double loss jezd, a hard lesson to learn and to learn it the hard way too, I am sure that people on here will have learned from your experience, I know I have, thank you for sharing it.