Queen cell raising started

Today we did our first graft to produce queen cells, we use plastic queen cups attached to a wooden frame into which we graft our one day larvae from our chosen breeder colony.


We use a chinese grafting tool which is easy to use, the tip slips under the larva, then lifted from the donor frame and deposited in the bottom of the artificial queen cup by pushing the plunger on the other end of the tool which pushes the grub off into the cup


We put our grafts into queenless colonies which act as starter finisher hives. The cells will be removed after 7 days to use in swarm control and making increase.