I set it up in the morning and the same afternoon grafted 18 larva from my new Pennsylvania overwinter Queen from the breeder in PA (I call her Pauw). I had dipped the plastic cups in wax and moulded extra was around the cups. The cloak slider was on until tuesday evening, so just 48h. The bees were taking a quart of food and it was pretty busy in the hive, though not as full as with Q6.

On tuesday, 7 cells were started and were a good length. On one of the brood frames, the bees found eggs and larva on the bottom rows that were young enough to make more queen cells: 7 more, not very big, but ah…

I kept feeding the hive every day for the first week. The cells were capped on july 29th, with the exception of a few of the natural cells.

In Q5 we had seen that queens in natural cells can emerge before the grafted ones. Maybe better thermoregulation? To avoid these queens from getting to the grafted once, I borrowed a queen excluder from Liz and installed that frames with one other brood frame in yet a third deep. Feeder op top.

I reduced the feeding to every other day, occasionally checking the cells. They were all intact!

Today, august 5th, day 10 after grafting, I harvested the cells. No queens had emerged, all cells were still intact.

I had set up 2 nucs with frames of brood from one of my Q5. I counted on being able to use the frame with natural cells and one more for 2 more nucs. That worked for me. The first Pauw cell that I tried to take of the bar got crushed. I decided not to use it anymore and took the opportunity to open it to check the state of the queens. This one was no longer white, with purple eyes, but not yet moving. Liz and I saw the same in Q5 when we opened cells. Those queens hatched fine later. I installed 3 Pauw queen cells in my nucs. Of of these nucs must have had a small opening, as it was being robbed. Mel did not have his nucs ready, and it was to crazy in his yard with bees and trenches to attempt to do that in the middle of the day (way to hot, and I fell in the trench once).

I used nail scissors and cut out two natural Cleo’s, thinking to used these for Liz. That was not easy. I messed one up. The next, I cut around more generously. Stuck the piece of comb with the queen cell in a halve drawn frame, using a tooth pick. Installed the rest with the whole frame in one of my nucs.

Off to Todd’s, who had prepared a really nice nuc with two frames of brood and stored. Classic, beautiful. We installed a Pauw cell in his hive. He took some pictures which I hope he will add.

Next, Liz’s yard. Liz had set up 3 compartments in her queen castle, on top of one of her hives. In two, we had installed a frame with a modest amount of capped brood and bees last sunday. Those compartments were empty. Emerging bees were abandoned.

Liz had set up a third compartment that looked much happier: bees, stores, but the bees were not very docile. I installed a Pauw cell, took some photo’s and closed it up. I did not fill the feeder; there was enough honey and nectar on the frame.

At that point I was still left with the two carved out cells and a Pauw cell, so I drove back to the farm and re-united these with the nurse hive: Pauw in the second story, Cleo cells in the third, each separated from Cleo mother and each other  with queen excluders.

After that, I decided that I needed more nuc boxes to be able to have double story nuc hives, so I drove to Mr Martin. He had a few. I also bought some in hive frame feeders.

Just got back. Ate dinner, drinking a (alcohol free) beer.

Good day for me. Have not yet figured out how to get the photo’s from my phone to the computer.

On June 30th, we met a Kristien’s and grafted from Cleopatra stock.  We then went to the farm and placed the cells in a cut out area of a frame of comb.

Our colony ready for the grafted cells. We have a denser population than we have had on previous attempts.

Liz’s grafts on the way in!

Kristien’s grafts on the way in!

On July 2nd, I removed the cloak board and checked to see how many cells have been accepted.  The cells are somewhat chaotic.  Only 5 of 14 were accepted.  None have been capped and they just look a little stubby.

Liz’s accepted cells.

Kristien’s accepted cell.

Close up Kristien’s accepted cell.

Here’s a shot of the food.  I don’t know what the food levels were on Tuesday when we placed the cells.

Syrup level 48 hours after graft cells introduced.

The bees were sure crowding into the upper box, which was not without bees to begin with. There are a couple of frames with emerging brood. Mel has offered a frame of eggs on Sunday, so we will graft about 20 cups and stick them into the upper box. There is syrup and a protein patty on the hive, just to keep everyone well supplied. For the cups, I, for the first time, dipped the cups into molten wax up to the lip and then pushed them into the bar. I will also give a few some royal jelly substitute, which I understand to be 1:1 plain yogurt and water. We have some new and some previously used cups, let’s see if that makes a difference.

Big day is tomorrow.

Tuesday afternoon, Liz will remove the cloak slider and then the bees will be re-united with the queen pheromone. Theoretically, that should put them from a swarming impulse to a supersedure impulse. And should get the bees to keep feeding the limited number of cells with copious amounts of royal jelly. Remember, they have very little other open brood to care for by that time, as most is capped over by then. They also should make nice long queen cells, utilizing the extra wax that they were supplied with. Let’s hope they all read that book too.

Best case: many big, well fed queen cells

Worst case: many big well fed queen cells torn down after removal of the cloak board.

If anyone is available to help Liz on Tuesday, that would be nice. If you lift the feeder and peek into the hive to check the queen cell bar, we at least know what we had, even if we have nothing left later. I am hoping on Todd for this. The task is simple: lift feeder off, lift  queen cup frame out, take picture, put back together gently. NO SMOKE. Smoke would be too disruptive.

Next sunday, it is time to harvest.

Mel had a Q3 nuc with George offspring that made it well through the winter. Mel put the 5 frames in a full size hive this spring. George did not like that, began to fail and Mel saw a supercedure cell. I took that hive to the farm last Tuesday and started feeding it. I gave it a frame of honey, some syrup and a megabee patty. Today, I also added to frames of capped brood with bees. I saw that the supercedure cell was open. I did not see a virgin or brood, but the hive was active and even bringing in pollen. I exchanged the frames with plastic foundation for frames with comb because the hive’s population is too small to draw out combs right now. I will keep feeding this hive until they stop taking the food and in 4 weeks check for brood. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Today it was sunny (as opposed to the prediction for Thursday and Friday) so I started step 1: find the queen and confine her in the lower box. The queen in the hive is Cleopathra, from Mel’s lineage. She wintered fine, with fall feeding, has not been treated and has a 2 deep hive going strongly with brood. There are drones present and queen cups. No queen cells. Last year, she had a yellow mark. When I found her today, that mark was barely visible, so I gave her a bright green dot over top. She is now in the lower of the two deeps, with the queen excluder/cloakboard above her. She has a mix of open brood, capped brood and 2 completely empty combs in her box. This hive is being fed syrup and megabee patty, already for 2 weeks. The Cloakboard slider is out at this point, the hive is still one unit. In the upper box are young open brood, capped brood, 2 frames almost full of pollen, some capped honey from last year and an empty comb.
On top of that, the patty, and the feeder. The young brood in this box will be more than 3 days old by the time I will add grafted cells, this Sunday.
This is the plan (and I will need some helpers with this if you are interested):
Today is day -4: set up
Saturday: -1: insert the cloak slider and rotate the hive, open the cloak board entrance and close the original entrance (bring entrance reducer)
(AM)
Sunday (midday) Day 0: graft cell and bring to the hive. Insert bar with cells
Tuesday or Wednes day: Day 2 or 3: pull out cloak board slider to reunite the boxes
Add extra syrup and protein patty.
Monday (day 8): harvest cells into nucs?

What I have not decided is where to get the young larva from for grafting. What you you think. We do not have a lot of lineages left at this point. Mel’s line is very good I think, so we could graft from the lower box, from Cleopatra. Or the hive in my yard, also originally from Mel, but much bigger.

And I did not mention yet: the Q4 hive is at the Garst Farm, on Staufer road.

1.Allen’s nuc: died (I think this queen was not very suited for this area, there was never a good buildup of brood and the nectar collections was not robust)

2. Split from Mel, created before we started any of our queen rearing: doing well. Living in a deep.

3. Hive with Lisa, used for queen rearing round 3, wintered with Bill last year. Doing well. Feels heavy. 3 mediums.

4. Topbar hive, dark green: alive, but very light (swarm from Allen).

5. Topbar hive, light green: alive, but very light (swarm from Allen).

6. George hive, from split from uniontown. doing well, good stores. 3 mediums.

7. Q3 George: 2 deep 5 frame nuc boxes stacked. Very active, not a lot of stores.

8. Q3 George: 2 deep 5 frame nuc boxes stacked. Very active, not a lot of stores.

at the farm:

9 lost Q1 to a late season swarm

10. lost Q2 early december, was without any activity today.

11. Hive with Cleopathra, early spring split from Mel. Living in single deep. Active, but not a lot of honey stores.

It looks like none of us have any of the q1 or q2 queens left. Those must not have been reared well. Let’s hope for better for next year!

ps. Liz’ hive at the farm was very busy!.

On the same stand is Cleopatra’s sister, a second split from Mel’s stock. This one is doing very well, and lives in double deep. The top box is 70% full of honey, and LIz and I could not imaging lifting that off to go into the brood box. Everyone seemed happy. I will call this queen Peo, just in case we ever use her for grafting. Peo has just about enough space and with the dearth coming (but looking at the Garst farm hives, not there), I will leave it for now. I interspersed empty frames in between the full frames of honey for extra space for now. Peo is not yet marked.

Update: July 18, 2014

Liz and I went over to the Garst farm this evening to see if one of the Q2 queens had survived. This is not a given, as when many queens emerge, they can kill each other, leaving no one standing. Normally, queens hatch sequentially, and the first hatchling will try and kill the others before they hatch. During swarming season, the workers may protect some cells so that there are virgins for several waves of swarming.

We opened the hive and there was fresh brood: larva in an ok pattern. And some capped brood. There were plenty of bees. There were plenty of stores and everyone seemed content. We did not see the queen: this is much more difficult in the evening when the hive is so full of bees.

So there is one Cleopatra Q2. Waiting to be marked and photographed.

We also looked into Liz’ nuc and I tried to take a picture with my phone, but could not focus. I am sure she will post about here results.