does anyone know where i can buy some royal jelly for queen rearing...thanks greg
Here are descent instructions on rearing queens... Rearing Queens (http://www.glenn-apiaries.com/queenrear.html)
Nobody can raise a queen better than the bees.
Good Luck
i have raised plenty of queens before....glenns website is one that i have followed in the past....i want to experiment alittle and thats the reason for the request...once again thank you greg
I used to collect it and saw no difference in acceptance. Here is HOW from Jay Smith:
http://bushfarms.com/beesqueenrearingsimplified.htm#c6 (http://bushfarms.com/beesqueenrearingsimplified.htm#c6)
"Before grafting, a supply of royal jelly is necessary. Some very successful queen-breeders report they get satisfactory results without its use; but I have never been able to procure as large acceptance or as good strong queens without it. J.W. George of El Centro, California, gave to the beekeeping fraternity a valuable little kink when he explained that royal jelly can be bottled and kept in perfect condition from one season to another. I have practiced this to advantage, and find one of the great difficulties of queen-rearing is thereby removed.
If you have no royal jelly on hand, a colony may be made queenless until they build queen-cells, when you can get the jelly from them. After the first grafting, some of the jelly in a few cells you have produced may be used; but, in this way you continually destroy good queen cells.
As a container for royal jelly, I use a small porcelain jar with a screw cap. A piece of waxed cardboard in the cover makes it air-tight. Let me offer a suggestion as to where you can get one of these jars. Make a raid on your wife's manicuring outfit, and, if luck is with you, you will find one of these jars. To be sure that luck will be with you, better do it when she is out. This jar usually has some pink dope in it. Take this out, put it into a tin can, present it to your wife with your compliments and make off with the jar. Thoroughly sterilize this jar by boiling, for the bees seem to object to the funny smell that comes with it. If your wife does not have this, or if you do not have a wife, you can go to the drug store and find just the size and style that suit you. The dope looks as though it might be of use if you put it into the grease cups of your flivver, but I do not want to suggest too many dangerous experiments for you to try all at once. For a jelly spoon, I prefer to make one out of the bone handle of a toothbrush, which also may be found in the manicuring outfit. Break off the brush and whittle down the small end until it fits nicely into a worker-cell. This jelly spoon and the jelly jar are to be carried in the pocket of your trousers or dress, whichever you wear. While working with your bees during the season you will be running across colonies that have royal jelly to spare. Whenever a swarm issues, just take out the jar and spoon and get the royal jelly. I have found that I come across enough in my regular work so that I never have to make any special hunt for jelly. It is well to have two of these jars; keep one in your pocket and the other in the grafting room. "--Jay Smith, Queen Rearing Simplified
Later he wrote:
" We used to prime our cells with bee milk but, after careful examination, believe it was a detriment, for the first thing the bees do is to remove all the milk we had put in. Grafting in bare cells is better-or rather not so bad."--Jay Smith, Better Queens
i've got a hive that keeps a queen cell around all the time. i tear it down and use it when i graft but that's kind of limiting. once this round is mated i'm going to graft a bunch and sacrifice them for the royal jelly so i can graft more than a handful at a time.
Quote from: Michael Bush on April 19, 2013, 05:29:01 PM
I used to collect it and saw no difference in acceptance. Here is HOW from Jay Smith:
http://bushfarms.com/beesqueenrearingsimplified.htm#c6 (http://bushfarms.com/beesqueenrearingsimplified.htm#c6)
"Before grafting, a supply of royal jelly is necessary. Some very successful queen-breeders report they get satisfactory results without its use; but I have never been able to procure as large acceptance or as good strong queens without it. J.W. George of El Centro, California, gave to the beekeeping fraternity a valuable little kink when he explained that royal jelly can be bottled and kept in perfect condition from one season to another. I have practiced this to advantage, and find one of the great difficulties of queen-rearing is thereby removed.
If you have no royal jelly on hand, a colony may be made queenless until they build queen-cells, when you can get the jelly from them. After the first grafting, some of the jelly in a few cells you have produced may be used; but, in this way you continually destroy good queen cells.
As a container for royal jelly, I use a small porcelain jar with a screw cap. A piece of waxed cardboard in the cover makes it air-tight. Let me offer a suggestion as to where you can get one of these jars. Make a raid on your wife's manicuring outfit, and, if luck is with you, you will find one of these jars. To be sure that luck will be with you, better do it when she is out. This jar usually has some pink dope in it. Take this out, put it into a tin can, present it to your wife with your compliments and make off with the jar. Thoroughly sterilize this jar by boiling, for the bees seem to object to the funny smell that comes with it. If your wife does not have this, or if you do not have a wife, you can go to the drug store and find just the size and style that suit you. The dope looks as though it might be of use if you put it into the grease cups of your flivver, but I do not want to suggest too many dangerous experiments for you to try all at once. For a jelly spoon, I prefer to make one out of the bone handle of a toothbrush, which also may be found in the manicuring outfit. Break off the brush and whittle down the small end until it fits nicely into a worker-cell. This jelly spoon and the jelly jar are to be carried in the pocket of your trousers or dress, whichever you wear. While working with your bees during the season you will be running across colonies that have royal jelly to spare. Whenever a swarm issues, just take out the jar and spoon and get the royal jelly. I have found that I come across enough in my regular work so that I never have to make any special hunt for jelly. It is well to have two of these jars; keep one in your pocket and the other in the grafting room. "--Jay Smith, Queen Rearing Simplified
Later he wrote:
" We used to prime our cells with bee milk but, after careful examination, believe it was a detriment, for the first thing the bees do is to remove all the milk we had put in. Grafting in bare cells is better-or rather not so bad."--Jay Smith, Better Queens
IMHO The priming of queen cells is a waste of time and resources.
BEE HAPPY Jim 134 :)
What Jim said!
I've only primed the cup once 'cause I thought it might help...didn't notice any difference.
Scott
Its kind of expensive but, here's a place if you feel you need it. http://www.stakich.com/ (http://www.stakich.com/)
I've never felt the need to prime my cells.
Good article on royal jelly in one of the bee rags' last month (ABJ or BC, I get both). Basically, you graft dry and then go back and harvest the RJ that's been deposited. They used a small vacuum that was pretty neat and it looked like they actually got a fair amount from just a couple of graft bars. But, as Jim stated, it's a lot of time and resources that I would think could be bypassed by simply slipping your fresh grafts straight into a VERY stocked and WANTING cell starter. At the local health food store they sell all of the bee products; pollen, RJ and propolis and after scrutinizing where just about all of it comes from you'd think twice about using it. I'd think that for grafting using your own harvested RJ would be the way to go for quality sourcing, if you're going to us it at all.
As always....just my .02....
I like what NCB said about 'scrutinizing'. I bought my own pollens catchers control my dietary source
According to this list of contents from a marketer of bee pollen my bees no longer suffer from toxic overload, diabetes mellitus, gastrointestinal problems, asthma, neuralgia, migraine and tinnitus, and high cholesterol ... ('tongue in cheek')
begin excerpt:
From http://www.alternativescentral.com/beepollen.htm (http://www.alternativescentral.com/beepollen.htm)
Vitamin B1 (thiamine) 9.2 mg.
Vitamin B2 (riboflavin) 18.5 mg.
Vitamin B6 (pyridoxine) 5.0 mg.
Nicotinic acid 200.0 mg.
Pantothenic acid 27.6 mg.
Folic acid 5.0 mg.
Nicotinic Acid (Nicotinamide) - Acts on the formation of blood, is used in the treatment of toxic overload, diabetes mellitus, gastrointestinal problems, asthma, neuralgia, fights migraine and tinnitus, and lower cholesterol.
end excerpt
From http://www.draperbee.com/info/beepollen.htm (http://www.draperbee.com/info/beepollen.htm)