Well, I tried it

[Beeboy]

I tried my hand at grafting last saturday. Some of you guys make it sound so easy, I just had to try.

I put an old cloth on top of a deep box. A excluder on top of that with an entrance/exit hole. Then another deep box on that. (I have had that excluder on all summer, so I know the queen is in the bottom box). I did this on Thursday evening.

As early as I could on Saturday morning I grafted 15 cells. I checked it on Monday, & only had 2 of 15 cells take. That's terrible I know, but for my first time, I'm happy with it. It was not nearly as easy as I thought it would be, but I was starting to get the hang of it, by the time I got done. So I will try again this week/weekend, but I think I"ll make a queen less nuc & try to get those started in there.

I'm excited about it, & I want to thank all who made it sound so easy, thus encouraging me to try it. I'm sure I'll be like I was about beekeeping. I though I might enjoy a couple of hives to get my own fresh honey, & now I'm at 7 hives & wanting more. So, you never know. I might actually start raising queens to sell at some point.

[efmesch]

That's NOT terrible.  Only practice makes perfect.
Try out different methods and choose the one that works best for you.
Remember that if you work slowly, drying out it a possibility for grafts that were done well.

[Beeboy]

I was worried about drying them out. I had a damp rag I was keeping over each cell as I finished them. It's pretty neat to do.

[Dunkel]

That sounds like you are figuring it out.  Congrats on the first sucess

[Jen]

Way To Go Beeboy! Like your positive attitude 

Hey! That must be why your honey tastes sooo goood 

[apisbees]

There are so many factors that go into queen rearing. Grafting technique, age quantity and quality of cell builder bees and how long they were queen-less to begin with. Graft into polished cells. The time of year, bees are not into raising a lot of queen cells for swarms now that the days are getting shorter. Most queens produced naturally at this time of year are for emergency queens, so a queen-less hive is content to raising 3 or 4 cells not 10 to 15. Honey and pollen flows will also effect the outcome. Genetics can also effect the cell building of a hive. I was out in the queen yard of a queen producer and the bees in his cell builder were much nastier than any of the queen I have seen from him and his other hives. I mentioned that this hive was not as calm as what I expected and that I thought he didn't have any aggressive defensive hives. He pointed out that he keeps them as they are his best cell building hive.
At this time of year I would not consider 2 drawn a failure, Had this bee done the same way in may the results could have been a way better. Keep practicing and do every thing you can to maximize your success in queen rearing. Every cut corner or mist step will cost in the success of the final out put when it comes to queen rearing.
Analise you cell bars You graft from left to right are the first 12 cells not drawn and 2 of the last 3 are? could be the larva dried out, or your technique improved and you aren't damaging the larva during the grafting.

[Papakeith]

two is two more than you had when you started.
you are at the tail end of queen rearing  for this year.  Your efforts will help prepare you for a good start in 2015.

[Beeboy]

Thanks guys! I appreciate all the comments.

Jen, I'm glad you like my honey. I don't know if I told you or not, but I sold some honey to a guy in Florida! That makes me coast to coast now! I should advertise as such!

Apisbees, thanks for the reply. I am thinking that my technique improved as I went along, because those two queens are on the end that finished on. Plus I really felt like I was getting the hang of it as I went along.

I was pretty bummed out every time I had to buy queens. I felt like it took the free out of free honey, so I am really excited to add this skill to my arsenal. I'll be raising my own queens plus queens for my brother, and if I have any left I'll think of selling them. Of course all of this will happening next year.

[LazyBkpr]

Of course all of this will happening next year.

   Yeah, the waiting is such a pain!! Is it next year yet?   

[Jen]

Beeboy- "Jen, I'm glad you like my honey. I don't know if I told you or not, but I sold some honey to a guy in Florida! That makes me coast to coast now! I should advertise as such!

   The first thing I do when sampling new honey is give it a couple of whiffs and then a taste. The first thing I detected was a lovely suttle maple scent. It also pours nicely. Guess what we had for dinner?...  waffles 

Beeboy- "Yeah, the waiting is such a pain!! Is it next year yet?

    OMG Beeboy... after the holidays are over it gets pretty crazy around here, nothing to do but wait, and wait, and wait, take pictures of ourselves waiting. Iddee lets us get away with a little more joshing around. It's Fun!    

[Beeboy]

Well, that didn't work out that great.

I printed out the calendar that is linked on this forum, & followed it to a tee.

So according to the calendar I was supposed to make up some queen less nucs on Tuesday, & install the queens on Wednsday (yesterday), & they were supposed to hatch Thursday. (today)

So on Tuesday I checked the queens & made sure they were still incubating well, (they were) so then I made up two nucs. I got home yesterday & went to get the queens & install them into the queen less nucs. (I'm sick of auto correct chaining nucs to nuts) The queens had hatched out since yesterday! Both of them! I took the whole hive apart & couldn't find them anywhere, I looked & looked & couldn't find them.

The would't already be on their mating flight would they?

Why did they hatch out a day early?

Should I bump everything up one day from the calendar says from now on?

[LazyBkpr]

5 day old instead of 4 day old larvae.  I move them on day 13 instead of day 15  JUST in case..