I rear my own queens and have been using a stainless steel grafting tool
for 35 years.  My 'take' seems to come and go with the seasons and weather
but is usually pretty good, though it is always a struggle to get good
acceptance in hot weather.  I stumbled across a 'Chinese' plastic grafting
tool last week and did two grafts and got much higher acceptance than
normal.  This makes me wonder about how many larvae I was damaging with the
stainless steel tool.  I use a drop of water placed in the bottom of the
cell to float the larvae off into with the stainless steel tool. It didn't
hurt that the grafts I did with the Chinese tool were in the middle of a
strong honey flow in the NC mountains, but I had forgotten how the Chinese
tool scoops up the larvae in a pool of royal jelly.   Comments anyone on
grafting tools and hot weather grafting tricks?

Bill Lord
Louisburg, NC

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