Plans for 2018 ?

[eltalia]

(edit)
One of the 'successful' queen cells gave me an odd situation.  I think she was not mated well, but the nuc accepted her as a good queen.  There were never any new eggs from her!  I gave that nuc a brood frame from another colony, but both times all brood from those frames grew to maturity and I never saw any fresh eggs or larvae, even looking with a magnifier.  There was no sign of a laying worker, no eggs at all.  The funny thing is, the entire time, this nuc behaved as if it had a laying queen.  They clustered around her, built comb, and stored honey and pollen just like a normal colony.

Even more (?) odd is what you describe recently came across my radar, from a client's woes.
Rare enough to warrant record I have posted my account here;
http://wwwdotbiobeesdotcom/viewtopic.php?t=19371
(note: the link will not set in raw mode - join the dots to go live)

What I took away from the exercise is to be astute/observant with which
virgins mated one selects. Maybe even go the longer route in banking mated queens -  over
selection and "squishing". Like if they are laying in the comb cage they get the gig.. if not,
wellll your call. The stressing worked for me without too much devil in the detail.

On topic: my planning for 2018 from 2017 is to be packaging cut comb by the carton in April/May
from my LLTBH. This to finance my all-terrain electric wheelchair in managing the bees ;-)

Bill

[bwallace23350]

I plan on making a split and that is about all really when it comes to bees. I just ordered two more plum trees, put down four more blueberry bushes, and have one apple tree on the way. I am going to plant some clover cover crops in my garden for the building back up of the soils and I am soon going to have my garden spot for next year ready for a manure dump.

[Hops Brewster]

The results of my first foray in queen making this past season were less than stellar.  I tried the Chinese grafting tool and couldn't quite get the hang of getting the tiny larvae out without damaging them.  I had a very poor success rate.

That's been my story too - and eyesight deteriorating with age doesn't exactly help.  A tip spotted during travels around the Internet is to use the smallest watercolour artist's paintbrush you can find - size 00 or smaller - and use that instead of the harder tool.  Also - to cut away the walls of the target cells, so that the angle of 'lift' is no longer quite so vertical.  If you have plastic foundation, then simply scratch the walls away with a blade, leaving the exposed larvae behind in the dimples.  Never tried any of these - but plan to try a few 'grafts' yet again this coming year ...
LJ

A couple good tips I will keep in mind.  THanks LJ.  I presume a nice, soft sable brush...  I'm also guessing that said brush would best be uses slightly dampened.
I particularly like the idea of opening the cell wall for better access. 

[Hops Brewster]

(edit)
One of the 'successful' queen cells gave me an odd situation.  I think she was not mated well, but the nuc accepted her as a good queen.  There were never any new eggs from her!  I gave that nuc a brood frame from another colony, but both times all brood from those frames grew to maturity and I never saw any fresh eggs or larvae, even looking with a magnifier.  There was no sign of a laying worker, no eggs at all.  The funny thing is, the entire time, this nuc behaved as if it had a laying queen.  They clustered around her, built comb, and stored honey and pollen just like a normal colony.

Even more (?) odd is what you describe recently came across my radar, from a client's woes.
Rare enough to warrant record I have posted my account here;
http://wwwdotbiobeesdotcom/viewtopic.php?t=19371
(note: the link will not set in raw mode - join the dots to go live)

What I took away from the exercise is to be astute/observant with which
virgins mated one selects. Maybe even go the longer route in banking mated queens -  over
selection and "squishing". Like if they are laying in the comb cage they get the gig.. if not,
wellll your call. The stressing worked for me without too much devil in the detail.

On topic: my planning for 2018 from 2017 is to be packaging cut comb by the carton in April/May
from my LLTBH. This to finance my all-terrain electric wheelchair in managing the bees ;-)

Bill

I just knew that I couldn't have been the first to ever see this phenomenon.  I simply have never seen it described in any of my reading.  thanks for the info.

[little john]

A couple good tips I will keep in mind.  THanks LJ.  I presume a nice, soft sable brush...  I'm also guessing that said brush would best be uses slightly dampened.

Spot on x2.

Apparently the brush to get is a sable 000 - really, really tiny.  Some folks dampen the brush with saliva - others wet it with royal jelly from any larvae on the frame that are too advanced for grafting, and then prime the cell cups with that jelly.  Apparently the 'roll-on, roll-off' technique is best. Here are a couple of relevant threads I've just sourced ...

https://www.nzbees.net/forums/topic/3743-grafting-technique-with-a-chinese-grafting-tool/

http://www.beesource.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-295898.html

My plan for this year is to use an ordinary utility knife blade to scrape the cell walls away from the plastic foundation which I've yet to purchase for the job (!), but use a scalpel to reduce the height of cell walls on ordinary wax foundation.  I'm a total beginner with this grafting business - but just beginning to feel a tad more optimistic about it.
LJ

[eltalia]

A couple good tips I will keep in mind.  THanks LJ.  I presume a nice, soft sable brush...  I'm also guessing that said brush would best be uses slightly dampened.

Spot on x2.

Apparently the brush to get is a sable 000 - really, really tiny.  Some folks dampen the brush with saliva - others wet it with royal jelly from any larvae on the frame that are too advanced for grafting, and then prime the cell cups with that jelly.  Apparently the 'roll-on, roll-off' technique is best. Here are a couple of relevant threads I've just sourced ...

https://www.nzbees.net/forums/topic/3743-grafting-technique-with-a-chinese-grafting-tool/

http://www.beesource.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-295898.html

My plan for this year is to use an ordinary utility knife blade to scrape the cell walls away from the plastic foundation which I've yet to purchase for the job (!), but use a scalpel to reduce the height of cell walls on ordinary wax foundation.  I'm a total beginner with this grafting business - but just beginning to feel a tad more optimistic about it.
LJ

I am not going to try any of this... I shake too much for such delicate work buuuut I butt in to say the spit on
the brush makes sense as it forms to an old rule about mating miniscus(pl).. or like attracting
like. Rule works except in homo sapiens marriages.. heh ;-)

Bill

[Hops Brewster]