I went through one hive today (1deep,2mediums). The bottom deep was packed with bees and worker brood. The top 2 mediums had 5 frames of drone brood in both boxes total 10 frames of drone brood(not as big pattern as worker brood).
All boxes have packed workers, I saw 2 drones walking around, could not find queen.
I plan on putting excluders in between the boxes tommorow and finding her in 4-5 days.
After I find her I was going to put her in a timing box (still with the colony) just excluded so I can graft the right cells.
But, if I graft 11 days after seeing these drone cells, is that too soon?
The rule is you want your drones to be developed far enough in their brood cell to have purple eyes. If your neighbors, at about a mile away, have drones with at least purple eyes when you start to graph, they will be old enough to breed with your queens.
Jim
In my location they never seem to be in the mood to raise queens until there are drones flying. Earlier never pays.
When I see a few drones walking on foundation I graft.
Fact is I grafted 100 larva yesterday.
I set up a hive for the cloake board system and installed 4 frames for the bees to polish the cell cups.
24 hours later I pulled the cell bars and some of the cell cups were almost sealed off with wax.
I scraped off some of the wax and grafted using the wet graft.
I'll check on the today to see what's been accepted.
I will move my capped queen cells to the incubator 3 days after they are capped off.
I will move Queen Cells to the mating Nucs on the 11th of April.
I should have Virgin Queens around the 12th of April.
Thanks again to all that help me. I will at least try to find her and put her in a timing area.
Well, I found her on Sunday. Took the excluded mediums that she hadn't been on for 4 days and made a double stack cell builder. Took half the deeps that she was in and made another smaller one. ( this one may had larvae in it, so they may not accept those grafts.) I will check on them Tues. If weather permits and take pics if possible. I don't want to shake or brush them off if they accepted, will they be all over them?
Well, it looks like I got 9 out of 30 my first attempt. I thought It was more, because I was looking at the cells being formed. But not every one had larvae still in it.
Good job. You did a lot better than I did and my mentor. We each grafted half of the grafts on 3 different attempts, none took. Not enough bees stayed in the nuc box.
Jim
Thanks Jim, my builder does look a bit smaller in numbers. Lots of drone brood in there emerging too. With more drones and less nurse, I think next time, I will lock them up.
Rookie,
I would remove as many of the drones as you can. Once they hatch they are putting a heavy demand on that hive for food. Food that the bees need to feed the queen larvae. If the drones have not been capped, that is even more of a demand. If the queen cells are already capped, I would not worry about it.
Jim
>Well, it looks like I got 9 out of 30 my first attempt. I thought It was more, because I was looking at the cells being formed. But not every one had larvae still in it.
9 out of 30 on your first try isn't too bad. Crowd the cell starter more and I'll bet it will improve.
O.k Thanks for all the info. I will try to build a better starter when I can, if work and weather schedules are ever in my favor.
Thanks again.
Grafting is like anything else.
The more practice you get you'll get into a routine.
What you are doing is fooling the bees into thinking they are queenless and they start making emergency queens for they think their time is limited.
Capt. I'll get more practice today. :)