Ah yes - the the risks at every stage of Q rearing (20% each stage - at best) combined with (as I know myself) beekeeper gaffs and wet/windy weather (sod's law) - surely do make a roller-coaster of cliff hangers. And yes, you do learn a lot, especially by the mistakes - but sure, the sheer pleasure of it keeps me a bee keeper.

So - in mid-May I harvested two Q cells for Apideas - one vQ was killed by the workers on the outside of the ventilation grill ("could not fly"?, returned to the wrong Apidea?) - I am unsure if the second was mated or whether laying is just delayed. A week later, a Cloake Board hive I had prepared for grafting was ready and I had a 8/14 grafts take, a 7/8 hatched (in an incubator), one was 2 days, one was a day early and 5 were on time - large dark beauties. Transfer to Apideas was successful and then before the vQs were ready to mate, the weather broke to wet, cool and windy...........???