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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

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Subject:
From:
Peter Detchon <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 8 May 2006 08:00:46 +0800
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Bryan's problem in visualising young larvae of the correct age for grafting, ie 12 hours post hatching, is quite common and has been the trigger for many beekeepers adopting the removable plug type systems such as the Jenter system. However, the advent of black plastic foundation and the use of the soft tapered quill type grafting tool (Chinese-type) has made grafting sooo much easier! The rules are very simple. 1) Confine your breeder queen for 12 hours to a single frame which has been cleaned and polished by workers in another part of the hive and is ready for her to lay in. 2) Feed this colony throughout the process with thin sugar syrup (2 parts water : 1 part sugar) starting 12-24 hours before you graft. 3) Use this frame to graft from on the 4th day after grafting, and you don't even need to see the larvae you graft! Just slide the extended tip of the tool down the side of the cell to the bottom. It will curve around the cell base under the pool of royal jelly on which the tiny larva is floating. Then lift the tool out and reverse the process in your cell cup using the bamboo "pusher" to move the royal jelly (and larva) off the tool and onto the base of the cell cup. When you have finished grafting your cell bar of 8 to 12 cell cups you can then move it to the angle required to see your tiny larvae floating on the surface.

Obviously there are many other aspects of the queen rearing process which need to be addressed correctly for a good result, but Bryan has drawn attention simply to his difficulty with grafting due to the visualisation problem.

A final tip...practice makes perfect...keep at it Bryan.

Peter Detchon
Western Australia

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