Step Three: Grafting Larvae

Today I grafted larvae from a frame found in the Worker Bees... hive. The queen in this hive came from a queen cell I brought back from my queen rearing course last summer at the University of Minnesota. After grafting, I placed the frame in the top box of Bee Glad... which I made queenless yesterday by inserting the slide into the Cloak Board. Hopefully, the queenless young workers will start raising a few queens.

Drones Are Flying!

Drones have begun to fly out of Beelandia during the day. I will take this as an indication that my queen rearing project can begin. On Friday, I will turn the bottom entrance of Bee Glad... around 180 degrees, move the queen to the two bottom boxes, place a Cloake Board between the second and top boxes, and move frames of open brood into the top box. This weekend, the process of grafting from the Worker Bees hive will begin in earnest.

I plan simply to walk-away splits to the top bar hives when and if queen cells appear in either hive.


For more information on queen rearing, check out the following books: