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.

On June 3rd, we grafted from the tailgate of Allen’s truck.  Allen practiced on 5 cups and grafted 5 cups, Kristien grafted 15 and Liz grafted 10 cups.  On June 7th we checked to see how many grafts had been accepted by the bees.

Each of us met with success! A total of 12 grafts had been accepted and capped.  It was also an exciting day when Kristien noticed a swarm and Allen hooked up his winch and shook the swarm into a box!

On June 12th, we harvested the queen cells.  By the end of this day, we had 2 virgin queens, an incredible naturally made queen cell and 11 grafted cells.  We opened a couple cells to see what stage of development they had reached at this point.

Kristien, please fill in here how the virgins and grafts were distributed.

On June 20 we located and marked one of the Q5 queens in a nuc at Kristien’s.

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.

It turns out that the queen that KZ and I marked with my new blue paint pen, and that I was worried I had killed, is alive and doing well in hive 1 after all. I found her in the second frame in the top brood box that I looked at, which was lucky and saved me some time. I saw lots of capped brood and also some uncapped brood in all stages. I even saw the queen lay an egg. I felt as though the top brood box was busier than the bottom, so I switched them. The hope is that, she will build up the bottom box for a while and maybe store some honey in the top. I have not been feeding, but the number look pretty good. My thought was to reduce the numbers slightly in August and September, but have the queen start laying more in Sep and Oct to produce a large batch of winter bees. I guess I will start feeding in Sep. I also put a queen excluder on the top brood box, with the goal of removing one or both of the supers in the fall.

[See image gallery at www.littleluceyfarm.com]

So what of the blue marked queen that appeared in nuc/hive 5? Well, for one, she is gone now and the hive is almost empty – just a handful of bees left. I don’t know where that queen came from or why she is now gone. Easy come – easy go. I had originally imagined that the blue queen from hive 1 had somehow migrated to hive 5, but that didn’t really make any sense and, in fact, didn’t happen. Order has been returned to the universe.

So here is the revised lineup as of August 16:

Hive 1: Sally 2a
Hive 2: Georgia 2a
Hive 3: Sally 2b
Hive 4: Sally 2c
Hive 5: dead

When I pulled a frame from hive 5 there was a queen marked in blue! I’m almost certain that the banked queen was marked in yellow and it was worn mostly off. As far as I remember, there was only one queen marked with blue. Kristien was here and helped me mark the queen from hive 1 who is Sally 2a. She is the one that was lifeless when we put her back into the hive after I marked her. That might have been June 18 or maybe later I can’t remember. At least three, maybe four weeks ago. I haven’t wanted to take apart hive 1 for a full inspection. I wanted to let the blue queen recover and if she was dead or damaged, let the bees raise a new queen and wait until I could look for larvae, which I calculate to be almost exactly a month. If I do an inspection next week and find a blue queen, I will know I have lost my mind. If there is an unmarked queen, then she is a newby and the blue marked Sally 2a did in fact move to hive 5. This brings up a few interesting questions. What happened to Georgia? How did Sally 2a get from hive 1 to hive 5 and why?

So here is the new lineup since my post on queen status on June 30.

Hive 1: Sally 2a Sally 3?
Hive 2: Georgia 2a
Hive 3: Sally 2b
Hive 4: Sally 2c
Hive 5: Georgia Sally 2a

Sally 2 doing fine

Hive 4 queen

This is Sally 2 from the Q1 rearing. There was so little activity at the entrance, that I really would not have been surprised to find that Sally was gone. Instead I found a moderate number of happy bees storing honey in the top of the three brood boxes. I will do a better inspection later to see how the brood pattern looks, but for now I think things are doing well and I will hope that this hive can make it through the winter.

I didn’t pull any frames for extraction, and at the rate they are storing honey, I think this should be fine with a little feeding in the fall.

George 2 out of cell and cage

George 2 on her tummy

George 2 her back

She wasn’t quite dead yet, After looking at her closely for a few seconds I saw a little movement. For some reason the bees just abandoned her. Maybe she was too weak to make it out of the cell, but then how did the tip get opened? So many questions.

Hive 7 was a little different. The cell was not opened yet, but there were three or four bees frantically running around the cell inside the cage. Being day 18 I really don’t think this queen can be viable either, but I left it where it was and closed up the hive. Assuming that the queen is not viable, I’ll have to do something with those bees soon. They are probably headed for the weakest hive – #4.

Hive 6 only had a handful of bees with another handful of capped brood cells available. I opened the cage and I expect that she will be out by tomorrow.

[See image gallery at www.littleluceyfarm.com]

Hive 7 had more bees and lots of capped brood on both sides of one frame, but neither hive had any young brood to provide some work for the nurse bees. Perhaps this is why so many bees have fled. It did appear that hive 7 was starting to store some nectar in the frame of previously empty comb.

[See image gallery at www.littleluceyfarm.com]

I will have to keep a close eye on the number of bees and probably add some to hive 6 if not both. I have not yet started to feed so I will need to do that tomorrow.