Grafting Problems?

[markylaird]

I have a problem where the bees remove my larva from the NC Queen Rearing Kit with the plastic cups and place them in brood comb?

I grafted on the 4th of this month into 40 cell cups on frames (first attempt). I used a 6 frame nuc box, 4 frames of near emerging brood with a further 4 frames of shaken off bees (non flyers), neopoll patty and a lot of syrup. I left them 24 hours before grafting closed up then grafted from my selected hive and placed the cell bars in. I checked a further 24 hours later and there was only 4 queen cells made from the grafts but all the other larva were gone from the other cups.
I made my mating nucs up on fri and placed the 4 queen cells in there today and when I inspected the colony I had made up for the rearing there was about 5 sealed queen cells that were not there when I put the cell bars in so I'm only assuming they were shifted out of my cell bars?

 

[Poly Hive]

personally I wouldn't offer as many as 40, the max I give is 36.

I do not use brood of any type in my starter colonys.

Now whether they moved your larvae or not is immaterial.

You do not say what age your larvae were? I try to use material at the oldest at 24 hours and preferably half that.

Ponder your timing? Ponder the weather. If it was cold then pretty much it's against you despite as far as I can work out anything you do. I had failure after failure one year and then the sun came out and massive successes immediately.

It's not mathematical sadly, it's livestock.

PH

 

[RoofTops]

Sounds like they rejected all but 4 of the grafts. The dead larva they would have eaten or junked. As PH says, 40 is a lot for a nuc. I would go for 16 at the most as one danger of too many is the time it takes to do them if you are not very quick, leading to the larva drying out. However, practice makes better if not eventually perfect - so try again! Choose the tiniest larva - if they are bent round in a semi-circle they are too old, select the ones which are only just starting to curve.