benifits of grafting

bluegrass · July 15, 2007, 08:38:05 PM

I haven't ever grafted, but am thinking I will start. I have a colony from a cut out that has five med. brood boxes. I decided to raise all my queens off of it this year. I saw the queen the day I did the cutout this past spring. I caught and caged her and a few days later removed the cage from the hive. She lays really well and they draw out frames faster than any of my other hives. I tried seperating every box and going through it, but there are so many bees that all I end up with is bees all over the outside of each box as I go through and am unable to find the queen.
I am thinking that I am going to forget about finding the queen and just pull frames and try grafting fresh hatched brood. So what I do know is that I can pull swarm cells and use the royal jelly to prime my cells. Can I dilute the royal jelly and what do I dilute it with?

TwT · July 16, 2007, 06:28:14 AM

you can delute it with water but slightly, if you was to buy royal jelly 1/2 - 1/2 works but dont think so out of a cell, I prefer dry cell grafting, you get some royal jelly from the cell when you graft anyway, just feed when you graft whether there is a flow going or not.

bluegrass · July 16, 2007, 06:40:03 AM

I looked around and the only place I have seen it for sale is the health food store.....will this food grade processed royal jelly work? Its kinda expensive, like 40.00 for an ounce.

TwT · July 16, 2007, 06:49:38 AM

this is where I know a few that prime cells buy there's, 12 0z. for 100 bucks, you can get 4 oz for 23 bucks.

http://www.glorybeefoods.com/gbf/Shop_List.cfm?PC=21&PSC=36&P=&S=&Sale=&New=&StartRow=21&Token=207.144.135.4:{ts_2007-07-16_02:45:35}-119290

peggjam · July 17, 2007, 09:40:05 AM

I dry graft all my cells. I havn't found it nessarcery to prime the cells. But if you really want to, you could pull some rj out of cells that have older larva in them, and use that. :)

Michael Bush · July 17, 2007, 08:02:22 PM

I've tried priming and not. I see no difference. I would not bother. Jay Smith by Better Queens had come to the same conclusion.

bluegrass · July 18, 2007, 06:52:32 AM

So I shouldn't bother priming.....Less steps is good. I think I remember Robin mentioning a class on grafting, I should look into taking, but in the mean time I plan on just winging it :-D
My plan is to go through the hive and pull two frame of eggs, moving them to the top box so I can watch for them to hatch and then grafting out of them.....Good or bad Idea? I really don't want to shake down this whole hive to find the queen.....I have harrassed them enough in the past two weeks looking for her and I don't want to risk it anymore.

Michael Bush · July 18, 2007, 07:41:44 AM

Smith also gave up double grafting which is similar in results except that it's even fresher food:

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesbetterqueens.htm#What%20Promised%20to%20be%20a%20Bright%20Idea%20Proved%20to%20be%20Very%20Dim

smallswarm · July 23, 2007, 08:17:45 AM

Mr. Bush, I read Better Queens on your site. You have been using Smith's method with your feral stock, right? It makes good sense to cut out a strip of some brand new comb for the bees to form queen cells, but I wasn't able to understand exactly how you attach the new comb with eggs to the top bar? How do you do it on your farm? Thanks.

Michael Bush · July 24, 2007, 09:16:29 PM

>Mr. Bush, I read Better Queens on your site. You have been using Smith's method with your feral stock, right?

Not really.

> It makes good sense to cut out a strip of some brand new comb for the bees to form queen cells, but I wasn't able to understand exactly how you attach the new comb with eggs to the top bar?

Smith attached it with some melted beeswax.

> How do you do it on your farm?

Mostly I use a Jenter box and transfer the larvae. Sometimes I graft when the queen didn't lay in the box to my satisfaction or I didn't get the chance to confine her. I have also done the Hopkins method, which doesn't require cutting the comb into strips:

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesqueenrearing.htm

Mici · July 25, 2007, 04:40:02 AM

a quickie...
How long can larvae live outside the hive, without incubator and stuff, at room temperature.
are the eggs any less sensitive to changes?

Michael Bush · July 25, 2007, 10:54:35 PM

I have never seen them raise queens from eggs in cell cups. They just remove them. You need just hatched larvae that is swimming in royal jelly.

I don't know what the outside limit on larvae is, but I haul them into the house to graft and it takes me 30 or 45 minutes to get it done and put them back out and most are accepted.