Moving Cells

[Foxylad]

I put my first grafts in yesterday. I plan to check and reverse the boxes to make it a finisher colony.
I also had to split 6 of my production hives yesterday.
I have taken the queen away and placed them into nucs with a frame of honey and the brood frame she was on plus two frames shaken in.
My cell builder is in an apiary around a 2 miles away. at what stage can I move the cells from the cell builder to the production hives to change my stock. Will the production colony's accept a cell, in a cell protector?
Three of the colony's were from caught swarms last year and I would like to change these for more productive queens.

 

[Foxylad]

Any experts can shed light on this? Was hoping to check on the grafts today

 

[jeff33]

If I move some of mine I usually wait till day 13 and it also depends of the situation of the receptor hive/nuclei. There is no guidelines but I rather wait until pupae are well formed before moving them about.

 

[Foxylad]

Just checked the grafts, bit disappointed with 6 out or 25. But if reversed the boxes, so it is now It’s a finisher. I would like to try a second round of grafts. As I really need more.

 

[Hebeegeebee]

If I have a queenless colony in the same apiary as a sealed queencell, I will move it as soon as it is sealed if convenient for me. If, for example, the first take-up of grafts is poor, I might move them out as soon as they are sealed before grafting some more into the same hive. I would be wary about moving them a long distance until they are nearly ready to open.

First grafts can be dissapointing. I have used one colony for the purpose of raising a few queen this year and the take up was 20% then 30% then 100%. After the first two attempts I was wondering if my technique was to blame as the success rate was not good. That's bees for you!

 

[Foxylad]

I had real trouble with the first Chinese grafting tool. Wasted a lot of cells. Wasn’t until I switched tools that it came together. Will probably do the second grafts on Saturday