Queen raising 2014

[Bumble]

and just made 4 heather floors to try out from scrap wood, painted with old style cuprinol

Attachment 1998

Taking a stroll away from the topic of queen raising, is that a central vertical entrance I see? If so, is there a baffle in front of it the same as with the Dartington-type floor? If not, it looks a much easier way to make one.

[prakel]

Early May's my preferred time

Just made a small batch of cell cups for an initial start later this week.

[greengumbo]

Just a few questions !

My first grafting attempts pretty much failed - out of 20 grafts only 3 resulted in drawn cells. I was finding getting the very young larvae off the grafting tool quite difficult and may have damaged a fair number of them....any hints ?

Secondly, these cells are now sealed and due to hatch on saturday / sunday. I want to start grafting again straight away.....is it okay to move these to mating nucs on friday and then start again (after moving brood frames around in the rearing hive).

I have access to a small incubator as well. Would it be possible to move newly sealed cells carefully into this incubator and leave them until near hatching ? What would the optimum temp and humidity be ?

[Rosie]

I have had to stop my queen rearing because the continuous rain has caused a severe shortage of pollen stores in my queen rearing colonies. You might be suffering from the weather rather than your grafting ability. I always transfer my queen cells 10 days after grafting and a day or 2 before they emerge. Occasionally I put cells in my honey warming cabinet set at about 34 degrees C with a bowl of water to keep it moist. I don't know exactly what the ideal humidity and temperature should be and suspect they are not that critical because they rarely fail.

[Black Comb]

That's a good idea Rosie.
How do you arrange / suspend the cells in the cabinet?
In oasis?

[fatshark]

GG … what are you using as a 'grafting tool'? Try a 00 paintbrush. Easy to slide under the larva, then just rotate in your fingers to slide the larva off into the dry cup. Much better (IMHO) than a Chinese grafting tool or one of those metal ones. We ran a course here for outright beginners and all (just about) managed to get cells from their first ever go at grafting (using a paintbrush). You soon get a taste for the royal jelly. Also helps to choose larvae already sitting in a reasonably generous dollop (the technical term) of jelly.

However, Rosie is probably correct … the weather is pants. If there's no flow - or no way of the bees detecting it because they'd drown if they leave the hive - you can feed them thin syrup which sometimes works. If you have a source of pollen you can liberally sprinkle it in the frame adjacent to the cell bar frame - they use it perfectly well.

Your timing should work just fine.

I also use my honey warming cabinet sometimes. I use Nicot hair roller cages and let the virgins emerge in them. I stand the cages in a small block of foam - the sort they pack some electrical goods in - so they don't tip over. I have a shallow tray of water nearby to keep things humid. I don't know that the humidity is supposed to be but - as Rosie says - this generally works. I have the temperature at 34 degrees Centigrade. Don't leave the virgins for long after emergence.

[Black Comb]

So you transfer to cabinet on the 10th day or just after they are sealed?

[Jon]

So you transfer to cabinet on the 10th day or just after they are sealed?

They are sealed by the 5th day from grafting.
The critical period for damage through temperature fluctuation or mishandling is the 4 days after the cell is sealed, ie up to day 9. At day 10 the queen is pretty much fully formed and the cells are quite hardy at this point.

I bought a Brinsea Octagon incubator which I am using for the first time.
I put a batch of 18 cells in it last weekend and had 16 or 17 emerge ok.
With the cells in an incubator you have them in rollers and can transfer the cells to the apideas on day 11.
If the odd one emerges early you put it in an apidea and chuck a scoop of wet bees on top of it.
I put a little bit of fondant honey mix in the bottom of each roller so an emerged queen has something to feed on.
Without this any emerging in the night would be dead in the morning. They only last a couple of hours without food.
The other thing you can do is put a couple of workers in each roller.

I also use the 000 sable paintbrush.
Ordered another dozen yesterday as they are easy to lose.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1113447524...84.m1497.l2649

[fatshark]

So you transfer to cabinet on the 10th day or just after they are sealed?

Either … comes to exactly the same thing as the cells are sealed*. However, I usually let the colony do this bit. My production line is intended to be more Rolls Royce than Ford … and I simply don't have the time or resources to get 20 queens mated a week (or a use for that number).

* I'm in some sort of interweb time warp … Jon has already said this.

[Jon]

Can't keep up with those nimble typing fingers fatshark!