Author Topic: Queen rearing for hobbyists or beginners by David Lafernly.  (Read 13093 times)

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Offline Dunkel

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Re: Queen rearing for hobbyists or beginners by David Lafernly.
« Reply #20 on: March 05, 2016, 09:30:26 pm »
Tried grafting, I found something else I can't do.  The wife was a natural though ;D  I used an old magnifying lamp combo that I wired to hold position and the light didn't work.  I wanted to get one of head set deals but she wants another setup like she had, I guess we know who win out.  Chinese tool was out for her but the jzbz tool worked. I picked up one of the german ones to try this year.
 
I liked experimenting last year and going to give it another shot or two in a month. I like the cloake board for getting the number I raised. Going to be more prepared this year and making a few changes. Grafting made raising queens from the hive I wanted easy.  Swarm cells rounded out the other additions. Going to try to go into next winter with fresh queens and some nucs for replacement.

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Re: Queen rearing for hobbyists or beginners by David Lafernly.
« Reply #21 on: March 06, 2016, 08:54:41 am »
Tried grafting, I found something else I can't do.  The wife was a natural though ;D  I used an old magnifying lamp combo that I wired to hold position and the light didn't work.  I wanted to get one of head set deals but she wants another setup like she had, I guess we know who win out.  Chinese tool was out for her but the jzbz tool worked. I picked up one of the german ones to try this year.
 
I liked experimenting last year and going to give it another shot or two in a month. I like the cloake board for getting the number I raised. Going to be more prepared this year and making a few changes. Grafting made raising queens from the hive I wanted easy.  Swarm cells rounded out the other additions. Going to try to go into next winter with fresh queens and some nucs for replacement.
I plan on trying a few experiments myself. Currently I use a Chinese grafting tool. Tearing down part of the cell wall before attempting to pick up the larvae was one of the tricks that helped me. I want to try a different grating tool this year.
I tried the cloake board method with moderate success and currently use an 8 frame deep w/ 6 frames and a 1 gallon frame feeder. I'm finding that grafting is not the biggest challenge, rather having a cell builder that is producing large amounts of royal jelly.

Offline Lburou

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Re: Queen rearing for hobbyists or beginners by David Lafernly.
« Reply #22 on: March 06, 2016, 11:01:14 am »
BC, you might consider befriending a person in your local area using a Nicot or Jenter system.  The reason I mention these non-grafting systems, is that the DVD's accompanying the kits give good overviews of the queen rearing process, skipping the grafting part of course.  For my learning style, it helps to see the overall picture and then assimilate, step by step, the kernel points of the process before starting out.  Make friends with a local queen producer.  Once you actually 'see' what it entails, you will know how far you want to go in that direction.

Tec mentioned details.  This cannot be overstated.  One little slip up in procedure, or timing, will often result in total failure in the queen making process.  Be advised too, that there are factors out of your control that affect the process, i.e., weather, viruses, location, etc..  It is indeed a very good feeling when you have assisted the bees to produce good queen cells!
Lee_Burough

Offline Lburou

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Re: Queen rearing for hobbyists or beginners by David Lafernly.
« Reply #23 on: March 06, 2016, 11:04:30 am »
...Tearing down part of the cell wall before attempting to pick up the larvae was one of the tricks that helped me...
FWIW, If your larva are in freshly drawn comb on rite cell foundation, you can take a hive tool and scrape all the comb away and have a clear shot at the larva.  :-)
Lee_Burough

Offline Dunkel

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Re: Queen rearing for hobbyists or beginners by David Lafernly.
« Reply #24 on: March 06, 2016, 12:39:59 pm »
Lburou, your one of those people that when they comment I try to pay close attention to what they say. ;D
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Offline Lburou

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Re: Queen rearing for hobbyists or beginners by David Lafernly.
« Reply #25 on: March 06, 2016, 01:45:42 pm »
Something I just learned this week!  You can attach a pdf to a post here...

Look what I found after reading Tec's last post:  Sue Cobey's article on the Cloake Board, I have attached it.  :)
Lee_Burough

Offline Lburou

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Re: Queen rearing for hobbyists or beginners by David Lafernly.
« Reply #26 on: March 06, 2016, 01:48:30 pm »
Another queen rearing pdf...attached
Lee_Burough

Offline Lburou

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Re: Queen rearing for hobbyists or beginners by David Lafernly.
« Reply #27 on: March 06, 2016, 01:51:02 pm »
BC, since you are a beginner, you may not know about the Penn State _Field Guide To Honey Bees and their maladies_, its attached.  :)

The web site software rightly restricts the size of attachments, so I took three posts to do this, sorry.  :)
Lee_Burough
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Offline iddee

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Re: Queen rearing for hobbyists or beginners by David Lafernly.
« Reply #28 on: March 06, 2016, 01:55:10 pm »
Don't be sorry. Post 3 more with that kind of info. That's what makes a forum.
“Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me... Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.”
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Offline Dunkel

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Re: Queen rearing for hobbyists or beginners by David Lafernly.
« Reply #29 on: March 06, 2016, 04:22:56 pm »
Thanks Lburou, nice to be able to find that information in one place. This internet thing is really good for something.  I believe it will catch on. :) :laugh:
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Offline Lburou

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Re: Queen rearing for hobbyists or beginners by David Lafernly.
« Reply #30 on: March 06, 2016, 07:49:52 pm »
Well, here are two three more, one two about queens and one about beginning beekeeping that Tec recommended some time ago...

An easy queen calendar can be found HERE.
Lee_Burough
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Offline Lburou

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Re: Queen rearing for hobbyists or beginners by David Lafernly.
« Reply #31 on: March 06, 2016, 08:05:16 pm »
Pdf's about _Small Scale Queen Rearing_ by Dr. Larry Connor, and _Raising Quality Queens_ from U of Arkansas, are attached.

The Ben Harden method of queen rearing is HERE, and HERE.

P.S. HERE is a podcast about Backyard queen rearing with Dr. Larry Connor.
Lee_Burough
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Offline Zweefer

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Re: Queen rearing for hobbyists or beginners by David Lafernly.
« Reply #32 on: March 06, 2016, 08:48:45 pm »
Thanks for the treasure trove of reading material Lburou.  Should give me something to do at the gym for a session or two!
Keeping of bees is like the direction of sunbeams.
Henry David Thoreau
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Offline Bee Commander

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Re: Queen rearing for hobbyists or beginners by David Lafernly.
« Reply #33 on: March 09, 2016, 08:38:31 am »
Thanks, Lburou for all the links,
I have read a lot of Sue Cobey's stuff. I'm bummed she went to Washington as she used to be at UC Davis which is really close to me. I love the queen rearing calendar and have used that since last season.
Thanks again

Offline capt44

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Re: Queen rearing for hobbyists or beginners by David Lafernly.
« Reply #34 on: March 12, 2016, 07:29:04 pm »
I will start grafting larva Monday 3/14/2016. I will setup the hive using the cloake board method Sunday and let them polish the cell cups overnight.
Monday morning I will go take 2 frames of larva and bring it in to graft from.
I use the wet graft method using the German Grafting Tool.
I plan on grafting 200 this first time then around Thursday or Friday I will graft another 200 or so.
I will have my Incubator on standby in case it comes a cool spell.
I'm starting out with 400 mating Nucs this season to start.
I usually have a 90 - 95% success rate early in the season.
Capt44

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Re: Queen rearing for hobbyists or beginners by David Lafernly.
« Reply #35 on: March 13, 2016, 11:43:35 am »
Capt 44,
1.Wet grafting, meaning you dilute royal jelly? 
2.Do you do anything special to the hive you pull the larva from to increase the rj production in the cells?
3. Besides changing the entrance to the cloake set up, any preps for that hive before hand?
4. Any feeding on the cloake hive or just stores? 

Just trying to find any way to improve the quality of my cells from last year. The cells I grafted from seemed very dry and the cloake board hive pulled lots of wax around each cell, I blamed that on feeding syurp during the process instead of before.