Remove queen cells to prevent half-caste queens?

[Grid]

I was at a beekeeping meeting this past summer, and an old timer explained how he helps his home-grown "emergency" queens be the best they can be.  It involved the number of days before the bees cap the queen cells.  Queens started from older larvae would be capped before younger larvae or eggs.  I forget the exact number - 4 or 5 days? - but essentially, you make sure the hive is queenless and has the materials to make a new queen, and then return _exactly_ 4 or 5 days later and cut out any capped cells.  He was pretty insistent on the exactly part.  And of course I cannot remember the number of days!

Anyone know of this method?  Anyone use it?

Grid

[Finski]

I was at a beekeeping meeting this past summer, and an old timer explained how he helps his home-grown "emergency" queens be the best they can be.  It involved the number of days before the bees cap the queen cells. 

I cannot name that habit any queen breeding.

When emergency cells are 2 days old, they have allready queen milk inside. Then change the larvae and bees have 2-3  days more to feed them.

Often emergency larvea do not get enough food, because it has been all eaten. There are normally in  queen cells dryed food when the queen emerges. In emergency cells it is often missing.

Try to forget that system, what ever it is.

.

[D Coates]

Is it called double grafting?  If it is I read about it recently in and older Dadant book (originally written in '52?) and it seemed like a whole lot of work without documented results.

[Grid]

When I start a nuc or do a split, I often let the bees raise their own queen.  My observation hive last year raised a tiny little black half-caste, and it seemed that if I had been able to cut her cell out, one of the other full-queens would have had a chance, rather than be killed by the early emerging half-caste.

Just thinking and wondering.

Grid

[FRAMEshift]

When the hive goes queenless, the bees will make queens from larvae that are 0-6 days old because the larvae are capped at 6 days.  You don't want a queen made with older larvae so if you come back in 4 days and remove capped queen cells and discard them, you will then have queen cells made from larvae that were 0-2 days old.  And that's what you want.  But this could backfire if there were no 0-2 day larvae when the queen was removed.  Then you will have a queenless hive.  

So first, before you remove the queen,  make sure that you have available honey, pollen and fresh eggs or young larvae in relatively new comb so it can be reshaped easily into queen cells.  Then you have a good chance of having some quality queens and you will be able to use the 4 day removal if you want to.

[Robo]

Is it called double grafting?

What I know as double grafting is putting 2 eggs in the cell cup and the bees will keep the best one and remove the other.  That way if you injure an egg grafting, there is still another in the cell that can be raised.  Theoretically it should improve your grafting results.

[Acebird]

If you can tell the difference between 3 day larvae and 6 day larvae why not just wipe out the old ones?

[BjornBee]

I have heard several things be called "Double-grafting".  ;)

[Countryboy]

Who knows more about how to raise queens - you or the bees?

Bees often tear down queen cells because they feel something is wrong with the queen.  Why do some people feel the need to remove queens instead of letting the bees get rid of it if there is a problem with it?  Do they not trust bees to do what the bees have been doing for centuries?

[Grid]

That is a valid point, CountryBoy.  I know I tend to over intervene, and not just with bees.

That said, if they got it right the first time, every time, then why did I end up with a half-caste queen when I know there were eggs in there, not just older larvae?  If older larvae are all that's available, then a halfe-caste queen is better than no queen, and she can be superceded later once she has laid some eggs to make a better queen with.  However, a simple manipulation after 4 days seems to be fairly benign and seems like it can only help.

Then again, maybe I'm justifying my desire to intervene when I should leave well enough alone.  Still, it is interesting to have FRAMEshift's explanation (thanks!) even if I never use it.  But letting the bees choose and raise their own queens, with a 4-day cull, is a lot more letting-the-bees-do-it than say grafting, where every single larvae is chosen by the humans.

Cheers,
Grid.

[Robo]

But letting the bees choose and raise their own queens, with a 4-day cull, is a lot more letting-the-bees-do-it than say grafting, where every single larvae is chosen by the humans.

If you want "letting-the-bees-do-it"  (ie.  what is naural to them)  then stop doing splits,  it is not what the bees do.

I quoted Michael Palmer once today,  but I can't help doing it again.

"Bees make better beekeepers than beekeepers make bees"

[FRAMEshift]

If you can tell the difference between 3 day larvae and 6 day larvae why not just wipe out the old ones?

There might easily be 6 thousand larvae ages 3-6 days old at any given time, scattered across several frames and intermixed with  4500 0-2 day old larvae.  Do you want to sort through those 10000 tiny larvae and try to decide which are which.  Or do you let the bees make the decision about which ones to use?  And then if you must intervene, you only have to check 15-20 emergency queen cells and remove those that are capped.

[Bee-Bop]

" Double Grafting "

" USDA, ABJ, May 2009 "

" This is a labor intensive practice were the larva is placed into a cell and the bees start to feed her, usually for 36 to 48 hrs. At that time the first larva is removed and a second younger,12-24 hour larva is put in her place."
"The idea is that this insures the final larva is extremely well fed throughout her life, and especially well fed during the first few hours in the queen cell."

Bee-Bop

[Finski]

If you can tell the difference between 3 day larvae and 6 day larvae why not just wipe out the old ones?

Bees feed larvae with queen jelly during first 3 days.  3 days old larva is possible to rear a real queen, but often the cell is short of jelly when bees cap the cell. The larva eates after that jelly and often to finnish.

One day old larva is the smallest what you may see on the bottom worker cell.

Emergency queen lays and surely works well, but suits not to me.

Another style is to make 4 frame split which make its own queen. That is often more miserable queen, but it is good for those who do so.


I use swarming cell to rear queen. I take larvae from a good hive and change the larvae in the cells.
It is easy job to rear 15 high quality queens.

[Michael Bush]

The number would be four days.  But I find the main thing is that you have a strong hive with lots of resources.  Feeding is what makes good queens.

As far as how old the larvae is, I think even if they start one from older larvae they will tear it down later.

http://bushfarms.com/beesqueenrearing.htm#jaysmith

Emergency queens:

"It has been stated by a number of beekeepers who should know better (including myself) that the bees are in such a hurry to rear a queen that they choose larvae too old for best results. later observation has shown the fallacy of this statement and has convinced me that bees do the very best that can be done under existing circumstances.

"The inferior queens caused by using the emergency method is because the bees cannot tear down the tough cells in the old combs lined with cocoons. The result is that the bees fill the worker cells with bee milk floating the larvae out the opening of the cells, then they build a little queen cell pointing downward. The larvae cannot eat the bee milk back in the bottom of the cells with the result that they are not well fed. However, if the colony is strong in bees, are well fed and have new combs, they can rear the best of queens. And please note-- they will never make such a blunder as choosing larvae too old."--Jay Smith

C.C. Miller's view of emergency queens

"If it were true, as formerly believed, that queenless bees are in such haste to rear a queen that they will select a larva too old for the purpose, then it would hardly do to wait even nine days. A queen is matured in fifteen days from the time the egg is laid, and is fed throughout her larval lifetime on the same food that is given to a worker-larva during the first three days of its larval existence. So a worker-larva more than three days old, or more than six days from the laying of the egg would be too old for a good queen. If, now, the bees should select a larva more than three days old, the queen would emerge in less than nine days. I think no one has ever known this to occur. Bees do not prefer too old larvae. As a matter of fact bees do not use such poor judgment as to select larvae too old when larvae sufficiently young are present, as I have proven by direct experiment and many observations."--Fifty Years Among the Bees, C.C. Miller

[Finski]

When something  laying queen has been crushed, then I must find a new emergency queen. Sometimes they are almost as small as workers.

[Acebird]

Do you want to sort through those 10000 tiny larvae and try to decide which are which.

Nope.  You win.  I am going to let the bees decide.

[hardwood]

I never destroy queen cells.

Scott

[VolunteerK9]

I never destroy queen cells.

Scott

Me neither. I learned that one the hard way which is the usual way that I learn something.

[Acebird]

which is the usual way that I learn something.

It's a more perminent method of remembering.