Nectar Meadows Apiaries
Offering Great Honey, Honeybees, and Queens for Sale
Home of natural sweets!
Located in Chippewa County Wisconsin
Naturally Reared and Mated Queens
Part Two
Part Two
Naturally reared and mated Italian Queens... Continued
First I want to share with you a couple paragraphs quoted from the book "better queens by Jay Smith"
"Shortcomings of the Grafting Method
When Dr. Phillips was head of the bee culture laboratory in Washington, he wrote me that the word "grafting" was an improper term and that they did not graft but transferred. I wrote him it was refreshing to know there was one department in Washington that did not graft! In using the grafting method the larvae are left in the worker cells for two days where they are sparingly fed, for the bees are making workers of them. If much younger larvae are used they will perish, for they cannot stand such rough treatment. If you will examine the larvae two days old you will see very little bee milk around them. In fact, they are being "rationed." My experience has proved without a shadow of a doubt that such larvae have been starved in such a manner that they will never become fully developed queens no matter how lavishly they are fed after that. But wait-that is not the half of it. In grafting, you take the larva away from the starvation ration it has been getting and place it into an artificial queen cell, unless you have committed hara-kiri on it in the operation. Things are already bad enough, but putting it into that artificial queen cell!!-well, that is just about the blade of timothy that fractured the spine of the dromedary! We used to prime our cells with bee milk but, after careful examination, believe it was a detriment, for the first thing the bees do is to remove all the milk we had put in. Grafting in bare cells is better-or rather not so bad.
The Grafting Method
The object of Better Queens is to be helpful to all who rear queens and not to criticize those who use the grafting system. After all, I am criticizing the method I taught in Queen Rearing Simplified, so it is perfectly legitimate to criticize oneself! Many who now are using the grafting system and who want to rear better queens will want the two systems compared. As most beekeepers know, by the grafting method we mean the method in which the larva from a worker cell is transferred to an artificial queen cell. We used that system for 33 years. Not one of those years did we get the fine large cells which are necessary to produce full developed queens throughout the whole season. We found that when there was a light honey flow with plenty of pollen coming in, and if we kept the cell builders up to great strength, we could get a very high percentage of good queens. Even at its best we had to cull cells and virgins and frequently to discard laying queens that were not fully developed. Even then a few inferior queens would get by us which we had to replace. This never happens with our present system. We never have thrown away a cell for being too small, for all are alike. With the present system we have yet to see an undersized virgin. When using the grafting system, when there was no flow, it was well-nigh impossible to get good cells even though we fed sugar by the ton. Not one of those 33 years passed in which I did not long for a system with which I could produce those fine large cells which I had observed in colonies preparing to swarm, a system by which I could produce cells in quantities throughout the entire season."
When I made my first splits with swarm cells from my best colony I could not believe how great the queens were! They were all large queens and laid up a storm with the best brood patterns I had ever seen. Colonies made no attempt to supersede these swarm cell queens like many of the mated queens I had purchased in the summer months. I have had as much as half or more of my colonies insist on superseding grafted queens. The rest is history. I purchase queens for new genetics each season and get some great queens. Once the weather is warm enough for good mating to occur, I prefer swarm cell queens produced naturally in my apiaries over any I can purchase. Please continue to the next page.
First I want to share with you a couple paragraphs quoted from the book "better queens by Jay Smith"
"Shortcomings of the Grafting Method
When Dr. Phillips was head of the bee culture laboratory in Washington, he wrote me that the word "grafting" was an improper term and that they did not graft but transferred. I wrote him it was refreshing to know there was one department in Washington that did not graft! In using the grafting method the larvae are left in the worker cells for two days where they are sparingly fed, for the bees are making workers of them. If much younger larvae are used they will perish, for they cannot stand such rough treatment. If you will examine the larvae two days old you will see very little bee milk around them. In fact, they are being "rationed." My experience has proved without a shadow of a doubt that such larvae have been starved in such a manner that they will never become fully developed queens no matter how lavishly they are fed after that. But wait-that is not the half of it. In grafting, you take the larva away from the starvation ration it has been getting and place it into an artificial queen cell, unless you have committed hara-kiri on it in the operation. Things are already bad enough, but putting it into that artificial queen cell!!-well, that is just about the blade of timothy that fractured the spine of the dromedary! We used to prime our cells with bee milk but, after careful examination, believe it was a detriment, for the first thing the bees do is to remove all the milk we had put in. Grafting in bare cells is better-or rather not so bad.
The Grafting Method
The object of Better Queens is to be helpful to all who rear queens and not to criticize those who use the grafting system. After all, I am criticizing the method I taught in Queen Rearing Simplified, so it is perfectly legitimate to criticize oneself! Many who now are using the grafting system and who want to rear better queens will want the two systems compared. As most beekeepers know, by the grafting method we mean the method in which the larva from a worker cell is transferred to an artificial queen cell. We used that system for 33 years. Not one of those years did we get the fine large cells which are necessary to produce full developed queens throughout the whole season. We found that when there was a light honey flow with plenty of pollen coming in, and if we kept the cell builders up to great strength, we could get a very high percentage of good queens. Even at its best we had to cull cells and virgins and frequently to discard laying queens that were not fully developed. Even then a few inferior queens would get by us which we had to replace. This never happens with our present system. We never have thrown away a cell for being too small, for all are alike. With the present system we have yet to see an undersized virgin. When using the grafting system, when there was no flow, it was well-nigh impossible to get good cells even though we fed sugar by the ton. Not one of those 33 years passed in which I did not long for a system with which I could produce those fine large cells which I had observed in colonies preparing to swarm, a system by which I could produce cells in quantities throughout the entire season."
When I made my first splits with swarm cells from my best colony I could not believe how great the queens were! They were all large queens and laid up a storm with the best brood patterns I had ever seen. Colonies made no attempt to supersede these swarm cell queens like many of the mated queens I had purchased in the summer months. I have had as much as half or more of my colonies insist on superseding grafted queens. The rest is history. I purchase queens for new genetics each season and get some great queens. Once the weather is warm enough for good mating to occur, I prefer swarm cell queens produced naturally in my apiaries over any I can purchase. Please continue to the next page.
