Hot and humid days

It has been over a month since my last post.

During the last week of June I placed 13 queen cells into queen-less nuc hives. These queens, once emerged, would mate naturally and start to lay eggs in about 14 days and build new colonies.

Above:  Four mating nucs ready for queen cell introduction.

The jars will be filled with sugar syrup to feed the nucs.

Unfortunately this year’s early spring lead to early hot and humid weather.

The main honey flow stopped a month early, and because we were feeding sugar syrup to the nuc colonies, robbing ensued. Many of the mating nucs and new queens were destroyed by strong colonies that came and killed bees while robbed them of their honey and syrup.

Only 3 mated queens survived.

Left:  Virgin queens in queen cages.  These queens are being taken care of by nurse bees.  They have been placed in a queenbank colony.

As part of an experiment I had taken eight of the queen cells and arranged them so the virgin queens would emerge into queen cages. These cages were placed into a queen-less, brood-less hive. The queens emerged into the cages and were taken care of by the surrounding nurse bees. Because the virgin queens would be in the cages, they would not be able to mate.

Right:  A closer view of the banked queens.  A special frame with wire guides hold the cages in place.  The plastic cell cup seals the top of the cage.







I have had some success over the past two years rising queens. One of my strongest hives this year is lead by a queen I produced last summer. She is the daughter of the queen from my strongest hive the previous year. I have noticed that the most uncontrollable part of queen rearing is the mating process.

Above:  You can see the open queen cell inside the cage

as well as the queen.  Nurse bees surround the queen and

feed here through the cage openings.  I'm sure they are trying

to find a way to get her out!

You can pick the best stock to breed from, graft the youngest larva, place them into the strongest cell starter colony, then place them into the largest cell builder, move the cells at the right time into mating nucs, have the cells emerge successfully….. Only to see your beautiful large, genetically selected queens fly off to mate with…. Well, any drone that comes along!

It is all left to chance at that point.

Above Left:  A screw lid jar is used to put the queen to sleep with carbon dioxcide.  It only takes a few minutes       
                                                     
Above Right: CO2 is dispensed through water so the flow can be seen and regulated.

It is apparent that the week link, the place where you loose control, in the process is mating. So I started looking into the process of instrumental insemination of honey bees. With II the breeder can control the mating process and select the specific genetic material to mix with the genetics of the virgin queen.

Above:  Insemination device I have been working on.  CO2

is fed through a hose to keep the queen asleep.

My intent was to take the caged virgin queens and use them to learn about the instrumental insemination process.

Above:  Working out the "bugs" in the system

Need smaller hooks and glass tips.

For several months I have been learning, designing, and building the equipment I believed to be required. I read books, blogs, web pages, and watched videos.

Left:  This queen was put to sleep, placed in the instrument, manipulated, but not inseminated.  She woke up about 15 minutes later.










Needless to say my first attempts have had some successes and many failors….

Right:  Second queen was put to sleep, manipulated, and woke up.  She was not inseminated.






But I have learned a lot.

I will share more in future posts.

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Queen Cells and Counting

In my previous post I described the steps I am taking this year with my queen rearing project.

As of my last post I had managed to get queen cells into cell builder colonies.

Above:  18 queen cells being removed from a queen-right cell builder colony. 

Some of these cells will be placed into queen-less mating nucs

Sunday afternoon I moved the queen cells from the cell builder hives into individual queen-less mating nucs. Usually I move the queen cells on day 14 (10 days after grafting, and two days before emergence on day 16) to the individual nucs.

Above:  As an experiment I kept 3 of the cells in the queen-less cell starter colony. 

As you can see I ended up with larger cells.

I moved them a day early (day 13) this year, because, last year I had 16 cells destroyed when one of the cells emerged early.

Step 7 Continued:

Ok, So at this point I had 21 cells, 18 in a queen right cell builder colony, as I described last week. On the 14th day (10 days from grafting, and two days before the queens emerge) the cells should be individually placed each into its own queen-less mating nuc.

Left:  By adding a frame of brood to the queen-less cell starter colony, I converted it into a queen-less cell builder colony that built larger cells.







Most of my mating nucs are regular deep hive bodies that I have divided into four compartments, each with its own separate entrance. Each compartment will hold two frames. Each compartment has a cover and a sugar syrup feeder.

To make up the nucs I take frames of bees and open larva from my hives and place them into the nucs. The nurse bees will stay with the brood to take care of it.

Above Left:  Cells from the queen-right cell builder.  Right: Cells from the queen-less cell starter.


\I place one frame of bees and brood, and one undrawn frame into each compartment. I then introduce a queen cell (with cell protectors) into each nuc.

You can see that it takes a lot of bees to raise queens. If you have 10 queen cells you need 10 mating nucs. If you have 50 queen cells you will need 50 mating nucs.

Above: One of the cells from the queen-less cell starter, converted to a cell bulder. 

You can see that there is still alot of royal jelly in the cell.

Step 8: Wait and allow the queens to emerge. Each queen will emerge on day 16 (10 days from grafting) into a nuc.

This nuc will become a little colony.

The bees will take care of the new virgin queen. In about a week she will take mating flights and mate with up to 35 drones (male bees). She will fly back to the hive, and if successful will start laying eggs in about another 7 days.

Above:  Cells from the queen-right cell builder

You can see there is no royal jelly in the cell.

Did the workers rob the royal jelly to feed to worker larva in the queen-right colony?

All the cells came from the same cell starter.  All the cells were over filled with royal jelly before they were placed in the cell builder colonies.  There is a difference!

This year I did not move all the cells into the queen-right cell builder. I left three cells in the queen-less cell starter colony. By adding a frame of emerging brood (no eggs or larva) to the cell starter I converted it into a cell builder colony. It was interesting to see that the queen-less cell starter colony built much larger cells than the queen-right cell builder colony.

It is obvious that the large number of nurse bees in the queen-less cell starter colony made a big difference in the quality of the cells. I expect I will get larger queens from the larger cells. In the future I plan to abandon the use of the queen-right cell builder in favor of a queen-less cell builder assembled specifically to build cells.

Right:  Red plastic cells and yellow plastic cells each contain larva grafted from different queens.  The cell color tells me which queen mother the cell is from.

Additionally I took eight of the cells and arranged them so the virgin queens will emerge into queen cages. These cages have been placed into a queen-less, brood-less hive. It is my hope that the workers will care for the emerged virgin queens.

I have plans for these eight virgins I may share with you at a later date.

Tomorrow 21 queens will be emerging. This weekend I will look in on them to see how the new queens are doing.

I’ll let you know.

Queen Season

Father’s Day. A holiday to commemorate all the hard working fathers. The perfect time of year to raise queens.

Generally, on Cape Cod, at this time of year, a colony will have built itself up to about 30,000 or 40,000 bees. Over the next month they will continue to increase in numbers to about 60,000. As the bees start to get crowded they start thinking about swarming.

Above:  Queen cup frame just pulled from my cell starter hive. 

After 36 hours the bees have started building queen cells. 

You can tell the accepted cells by the wax that has been added to the cell.

24 cells have been accepted out of 28 grafted cells

Swarming involves building queen cells. A beekeeper can use this natural tendency of the bees to raise his own queens.

It is always easier to work with the bees rather than against them.

Above:  Close up of the started cells

Here’s what I have been doing.

Step one.

Create a cell starter hive. Take a strong colony and locate the queen. Place her and the frame she is on aside. Now take all the frames that have open larva and shake the bees into a 5 frame nuc (at least 5 frames worth of nurse bees). What you are doing is shaking nurse bees into this nuc since they would be found on the frames with open larva. There can be no queen or they will reject the cells you put in the nuc later. That is why we located her and put her aside. To this nuc add one frame of pollen, one frame of nectar, and a wet sponge. The bottom of the nuc should be screened so the bees will not over heat. The entrance must be closed so the bees cannot return to their original colony. Put the cover on the nuc for now.

Above:  A well fed queen cell which is 36 hours old

You can see how the larva has grown in a day and a half!

Step Two

Choose the hive (queen mother) you plan to raise queens from. You will need her eggs! Of course you will select the strongest, best behaved, active, honey collecting colony you have to pick from. Locate the queen and put her aside. Also locate a frame of eggs and young larva (newly hatched) and brush all the bees off of it back into the colony you are taking it from. If you shake the frame you will also move the larva from the center of the cell it is in.

Step Three

Graft newly hatched larva, 3 days old, into primed plastic queen cell cups. I prime the cells with royal jelly I saved (froze) from the previous year. You will also have success if you prime the cells with a mixture of 50% plain yogurt and 50% water. Just a small drop in the center of each plastic cell will help you float the larva off the grafting tool. The larva should look like a comma. If it looks like a full C shape the larva is too old. Use the youngest larva you can find. Use a damp hand towel to cover the grafted cells so they do not dry out. Graft two bars of 14 cells each, that will be 28 cells all together.

Step Four

Place the queen cup frame into the cell starter hive you created earlier. Place the grafts between the two frames, pollen frame to one side, open nectar frame to the other. Now leave them alone for 24 to 48 hours. Place the frame of larva you took the grafts from, back into the hive you stole it from.

Above:  Same cell with wax removed.  See all the white

royal jelley in the cell?  I will harvest this and freeze it

for use next queen season

Step 5

Prepare a queen right cell builder hive. Open the hive and find the queen. Place her in the bottom hive super with all the empty and capped frames of brood. Place a queen excluder over the box with the queen and put all the open larva, pollen, and nectar in the box. Leave an open space between open larva and a frame of pollen to place your started cells. Leave this colony over night while your cells are in the cell starter hive. This will allow time for all the nurse bees in that colony to move to the upper box. It will be 3 days before any eggs the queen lays in the lower box to hatch and require nurse bees.

Step 6

After 24 to 48 hours open the cell starter hive and remove your grafts. You will be able to tell which cells have been accepted by the bees by the work they have started on the cell. Excepted cells will have wax being added to them. This year the bees started 24 cells out of 28 grafts. Not bad. Take the queen cell frame and place it into the cell builder hive you prepared the day before. This hive will feed and build the cells.

Above:  Just a side note.  I was pleased with the very

large crop of peas we produced in the garden this year.

Thanks polinators!

Step 7

Wait and count. It takes 16 days for a queen bee to be created. Remember that the larva you grafted is already 3 or 4 days old. The queens will hatch at 16 days old, only twelve days after you graft them. Before that happens you will need to move the individual cells into queen-less mating nucs, or a queen-banking hive.


More on that next time.......

If I knew then what I know now

This blog post will be an examination of my queen rearing attempts over the past three years with conclusions regarding correct and or incorrect processes.

My queen rearing project began out of a desire to see my bees survive the damp cape cod winters. I had been experiencing a 50% to 80% loss of colonies from year to year.

Left:  Example of bee larva of various ages.

I along with many beekeepers have noticed that over the past 30 years it has been harder and harder to keep bees. I have seen winter hive looses, not to mention summer hive losses, increase year after year.

I remember when I was 17 years old with my first hive of bees. They were Starline hybrid bees, and I knew next to nothing about keeping them. The hive survived for years on its own. Now that would seldom if ever happen. A hive that is not carefully kept and attended to will probably die the first season. Trachea, and Verroa mites along with the small hive beetle, as well new bee viruses, not to mention colony collapse disorder have devastated the bee population.

Right:  Queen Pupa of the development age from different size queen cells.  These queens were grafted on the same day.  Their developmental variation is probably due to the age of the larva at the time they were grafted.

In breeding and mass production of queens have weakened the genetic quality of our bees. Queens that would once last four or five years need to be replaced every two.

 Left:  A steady hand is needed to transfer the fragile larva from the comb into the artifical cell

 So what have I done about it? Well three years ago I started learning how to raise queens of my own. With both success and failure.

2007 (year 1). I experimented with two methods of queen rearing. The miller method, and the Doolittle method. I quickly became apparent to me that the Doolittle method allowed me much more control over the queen rearing process.

Right:  Larva after being grafted.  These larva should be only three days old.  Their various ages can bee seen by the degree of curviture of the larva.  Three day old larve look like a comma.  Some of these grafts appear to be 4 or 5 days old.  This would result in poor quality queens.

Positive

I learned how to graft (I was dry grafting at the time) larva into artificial cells.

I learned how to create a cell starter colony

I learned how to create a cell builder colony

I learned how to create queen mating nucs.

I was able to have 10% of my grafts accepted by the cell builder colony (9 out of 90 grafts)

Good size queen cells were created by the cell builder colony

I had 8 queens emerge

Queens were of adequate size.

I had 3 queens mate and start laying

 

Left:  Two days after grafting and being placed in a cell builder, you can see the larva floating in a pool of royal jelly.  You can also see how the nurse bees have started to add wax to the plastic cell as they start creating the queen cell.

Negative

Only 10% of my grafts were accepted

No queens survived into 2008

2008 (year2). I continued to experiment with the Doolittle method of queen rearing. I started to learn more about bee genetics and the importance of the Drone (male). I took a queen rearing class and discovered that if the artificial cells were primed with royal jelly, or even plain yogurt, better grafting results could be obtained.

Left:  My first queen cells from 2007.  You can see how large they are.  This is due to the proper age larve being grafted into the cell, and the fact that only 8 cells were accepted and fed by the nurse bees.  The cell builder colony was not over whelmed by the number of queen cells.

Positive

I raised queens three times that spring.

Wet grafting of larvae improved my acceptance rate to 90%

Grafting 90 cells yielded 80 queen cells.

I raised 15 mated queens that season.

Negative

Queen cell size was very small. This was partly due to my over whelming my cell builder hives with too many queen cells. I believe that I also grafted larva that was 4 or 5 days old not 3 as I should have. This resulted in smaller cells and smaller queens.

I had a problem creating nucs. I was not as organized as I should have been. I attempted to make splits from nearby colonies. 50% of the nucs created returned home to the mother hives abandoning the queen cells and brood placed in the nuc. The previous year I had used relocated bees to create the nucs. That method worked much better.

Right:  Queen cells from 2008.  You can see how small the cells are.  This was probably due to the number of grafts placed in the cell builder and the age of the grafted larva being too old.

I had problems with small hive beetle larva infesting two of the nucs creating a situation where the bees abandoned the nuc. This was probably due to the low numbers of bees remaining in the nucs thus creating stress within the nuc colony.

Queen quality was poor due to the small cell size. I did not attempt to over winter any of the queens.

2009 (year 3). I continued with the Doolittle method of queen rearing. It was an extremely cold wet spring. The colonies would not buildup and missed the main honey flow (May, June, and July). All the colonies were starving in August, a time where there should have been 60 pounds of surplus honey on each hive. Since there was no promise of honey that season two of the colonies were used for queen rearing.

Left:  Grafts from 2009.  Better cell size, but still too small.

Positive

I continued having great success with grafting and acceptance of the grafts. This improved to a 95% acceptance rate.

I learned how to create and use, with success, a queen right cell builder colony.

Grafted three cycles of queen cells over a two month period.

Raised 25 queens.

Learned how to bank queens.

One queen was overwintered and has survived.

 

Right:  More small queen cells

Negative:

Queen cells were small again. It became apparent that I was grafting larva that was too old. During one cycle, queens emerged two days before the expected age of 16 days old destroying 19 queen cells.

I had the same problems with creating mating nucs. Many queens were lost because the workers returned to the mother colonies.

I became allergic to bee stings

2010 (year 4). We will see, won’t we!

The queens are coming the queens are coming

Well this is my first blog entry of 2008.

It has been a very difficult beekeeping season for me. We started the winter with nine very strong colonies with young queens. By May we were down to four. That’s over a 50% loss of hives. Of those four, one is very weak, two are average, and one is extremely strong.



Left: A dead hive. This hive was lead by one of the queens I raised last summer. Most of the time you can never figure out what happened. This hive stayed in the bottom box and never moved up to the upper box where there was plenty of honey and candy feed. They starved to death inches away from abundant supply
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That’s beekeeping. Everything was picture perfect in the fall, by spring the story changes.

Of the six queens I raised last year, only two have survived. One survivor was given to a local beekeeper last fall. The other is leading the week colony in our bee yard.


Left: A cell builder hive with two cell cup holding frames installed. These bees do not have a queen, and will quickly turn the grafted cells into queen cells.
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The honey flow is occurring here on Cape Cod, it started about two weeks ago. The bees are quickly storing nectar in the cells, ripening it into honey.

I have been watching my colonies closely for signs of swarming. So far all I have seen are queen cell cups, the cells that queens could be raised in. There have been no attempts by the bees to swarm this year. I have found that if you stay ahead of the bees, and provide them with young queens (introduced in the fall), and plenty of room ahead of schedule, they stay contented in their hives.

I have had no signs of disease or mites in any of the colonies this spring. That’s encouraging. You can see from past blog posts that last year we battled the worst infestation of verroa mites I have ever seen. It is interesting to note that the worst infested hives last year are the strongest this year, even though all the hives were treated.

Right: A frame of young eggs and larva from my strong hive. These young female larva are the offspring from my strongest queen. I want more queens like her.
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With swarm season on, we received our first call to collect a wild swarm of bees from the local conservation area. The swarm was hanging off of the corner of a picnic table. You can’t find an easier location than that!. We just put a hive under them, and they dropped right in. This will help make up our winter losses.

Right: Some of the 75 grafted queen cups I made today. They were installed into the cell builder shortly after this picture was taken.
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With swarm season on, it is time to try my hand at queen rearing again.
Last week I set up a “Cell Builder” hive. A cell builder is a queenless hive which contains emerging bees, nurse bees, brood, pollen, and nectar. In other words a strong young hive which does not have a queen. Since they do not have a queen, and no young larva to use to raise a queen, they will be primed for my grafts. Grafting is a method of queen rearing where you transfer four day old larva into special cells. These special cells are then built into queen cells by the bees.

Today I inspected all the hives, took young larva from my strong hive, and graft 75 cells cups. These cell cups were then installed into the cell building hive. I’m sure the bees were happy to see the young larva, and have the opportunity to raise some queens.



Left: A closeup of the grafts. You can see the small 4 day old larva floating on a layer of royal jelly.









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In 24 hours I can look to see how many of the larva they accepted, and decided to grow into queens.

The Queen has returned

After introducing the queen cells into mating nucs 10 days ago, I finally got to the mating yard to look at the results of my grafting attempt of July 1st.
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Left: The mating yard offered to me by two fellow beekeepers, Paul and Claire.
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With much anticipation I opened the first mating nuc, and pulled out the queen cell and queen cell protector. It had emerged!

My next step was to inspected the two frames of bees in the mating nuc to see if the queen had successfully bee accepted as part of the hive.

In order for her to have been successful she would have to have completed the following.
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Right: Opening the first two frame nuc to see if the queen had emerged from her cell. You can see the plastic cell protector resting between the two frames of bees.
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1. Successfully emerge from the queen cell.
2. Be accepted by the bees as leader of the hive
3. Conduct two to three mating flights where she would have to successfully mate with up to 15 male bees (drones)
4. Finder her way back to the hive without being lost or eaten by a bird
5. Start to lay fertilized (female) eggs.

Sure enough I found her on the first frame I checked. Could she have begun to lay eggs? Sure enough she was on a frame containing eggs and very young larva. Success!
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Right: An unmarked mated queen was found in the first mating nuc. 6 mated queens were produced from my second grafting attempt.
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Needless to say I was pleased.

I had brought yellow paint (the marking color for 2007) so I could mark any queens I found, but as I attempted to pick her up to mark her back (Thorax) with the paint, she flew away onto a bush. I rushed over and tried to pick her up, but she flew out of my hand into the grass. I quickly went to grasp her but she flew into the dirt, I went over and picked her up, and she flew away into the cranberry bog.

I was not pleased.

Would she return? Was she lost forever?

Sure enough after a few minutes she returned, and I was able to mark her. I guess she was not about to go through all that work only to have me mess it up.
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Right: A marked queen. The newly produced queens are marked in yellow. Yellow is the standard queen marking color for 2007.
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I continued to check the other mating nucs. Out of 9 queen cells 6 hatched and mated successfully. One of the mating nucs had an empty queen cell, but no bees or queen were found inside.

Perhaps they did not like their new home and decided to find a new place to live.

Of the 7 queens, 6 are large healthy looking queens. One however is on the smaller size.
Here is the summery of the July 1, 2007 grafting attempt
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Left: A closeup of the marked mated queen.
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July 1: >90 grafts are made into plastic queen cups.
The queen cups are placed in a queen cup frame and placed into a cell builder
hive

July 3: >Queen cups are inspected. 10 cells have been started from the grafts.

July 15: >8 cells are introduced into two frame mating nucs containing bees. Two cells are
destroyed. One accidentally when removing it from the cell cup frame, the other
is dissected to see if the queens are developing

July 22: >7 queens successfully emerge, mate, and start producing.

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Right: Activity outside the mating nucs. Four, two frame mating nucs are contained in one standard deep super. Each two frame nuc has a seporate entrance.

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Now we will watch and evaluate them. Over the next two months they will show their true colors.

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I will be looking for a nice brood pattern (laying pattern), and a quiet disposition from her offspring.

The "mother queen's" daughter

This weekend I checked the nucs to see if the queens had mated. Neither of the two miller frame queen cells were accepted by the nucs. At least the queens were no where to be found.

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One of the two queen cells produced from my first attempt at grafting. 2 out of 30 cells were accepted.

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It was obvious that the queens had emerged from the queen cells, but the queens did not return from their mating flights. I did find one emergency queen cell in one of the mating nucs. These bees must have rejected the queen in favor of one that they are raising themselves.

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My first mated and laying queen. She is the only daughter from my best queen who went missing a few weeks ago. This daughter will be introduced into her mothers hive.

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Of the 30 grafted queen cups placed in the cell builder hive, only two queen cells were produced. That is less than a 10% acceptance rate. This is not as good as I expected, even for a first try at grafting. Since the queen cells were capped I placed them in cell protectors and introduced them into mating nucs consisting of two deep frames of bees each. These grafted queen cells are scheduled to emerge on July 4th or 5th.

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A frame of eggs and larva. Newly hatched larva was taken from this frame and grafted into queen cell cups.

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One happy discovery was to find a mated queen in the third mating nuc. This queen was raised by the bees from an egg from the mother queen which has since gone missing. Since she is the only daughter produced by my favorite queen, I am introducing her into her mothers hive (which is still queenless, and now broodless). With in a few days she should be accepted by the hive and be laying. To introduce her I placed the frames of bees from the nuc into a deep hive body. The hive body was then placed over two sheets of news paper above the queenless colony. The bees will chew a hole in the newspaper within a day or so. By that time the new queens scent will be distributed in the hive and with any luck the bees will accept her as their new queen.

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90 grafted queen cups

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Since the cell builder hive is now without any queen cells, I added two frames of brood an bees, as well as two grafted frames holding 90 grafted cell cups. If I only have a 10% acceptance rate I should end up with at least 9 queen cells if not more.

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A closeup of the grafted cells. You can see the very young larva floating on a drop of royal jelly

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48 hours will tell.