Hello, i am from Santarém, Portugal. I am trying to rearing queens, and so I have two hive with about 20 cells queen. In hive A I have graft 20 eggs (obviously with 1, 2 or 3 days). And in hive B I have graft some larvae with 4 days (right after egg). In every information about "rearing queens" I have read, almost all said that grafting could only be possible with larvae state (with 4 days) and not an egg!
Question:
Why can we graft an egg?
Sorry 'bout my english :(
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I have read about eggs. I think that they are guite easy to violate and there is no advantage to use them.
I think that eggs are easy to dry in open air when you move them.
When eggs hatch, bees feed larvae 3 days with queen milk. So the the age is not criticall but he time how much queen milk will stored in queen cells.
In practive you get good queens when you use as young larvae as you can.
It have been changed larvae after feed have filled queen cell with milk. But queens are not better after change operation.
To start with eggs, there are other methods for that and you need not to move them.
I have got big queens when I change larvae in swarming cells.
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>Why can we graft an egg?
I have a Jenter system where I can transfer the plugs anytime. I have done eggs often when I had a few extra spaces on a bar and no larvae. I've never seen the bees turn the egg into a queen. They have only accepted the newly hatched larvae.
[Why can't we graft an egg? ]
Because you will break it in transit.
Can you raise a chicken from a broken egg? Nope.
Same is true of bee eggs.
Hope that clarifies why.
-Jeff
But I can transfer an egg with the Jenter system and not damage it at all. The problem is they still won't use it.