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Reply from Steve Clifford. The larvae, when grafted, are feeding on a small pool of Royal Jelly.....when you transfer them, the bit of jelly sticks to the cell cup.

Reply from Steve Clifford. You're too kind....except for the old part....but thanks!

Kind words, Dan, thanks very much!

Sounds like you're doing fine....exactly where are you?

@@stevesleep1939I am in Grapeland Texas. Southeast Texas not fay from where Steve Clifford started in bees. I have 250 acre farm down here. I’m a retired UPS Airline Captain. 67 in November. Raise Wagyu cattle with some Angus crosses. And my bees. Frowning my bees. Quickly. Caught 17+ swarms so far this year and have split some of them. Anyway. Nice videos y’all should do many more. I’m going to start my channel soon

@@stevesleep1939my bee company is Blue Diamond Apiaries, LLC

We are in the planning stages of a video on making mini nucs. Hopefully shoot in the next week or so.

@@stevesleep1939 keep me posted. I should put together all the different things I have shot to give a teaser to swarm traps. Or mine at least. They are different than everyone else’s but work great. Also my bee keeping adventures some here and there

Curious.....we used to do 9 dayers in my years in Texas, but only when we had to. We commonly put 9s in the incubators and grafted into the cell builders again. Hope your breeder survived.....virgins can slip thru an excluder.... Steve

Reply from Steve Clifford. Only variable can be the size of the larvae you grafted. I've just finished two rounds of queen cells here on the BC Coast.....I grafted on a Sunday and took them out Wednesday, grafted Tuesday and took them out Friday, no hatching. I checked a couple of the nucs I celled and they had hatched. I've done it this way for 40 some years. Sorry you had trouble.....my advice is to not graft the tiniest larvae you can see, but the next size up. Good luck and all the best in your efforts. Steve

Reply from Steve Clifford Really nice to hear, thank you, Randy! It was my good fortune to learn from the late great beekeeper Larry Gunter. This is my 51st year with the bees, and I put in my first graft yesterday. Thanks again!!

10 days it's ripe, not counting grafting day.....put them in the morning of day 10. Allow 14-15 days to mate and start laying, if weather is good....allow a few more days if it's not.....I've seen 20 days to mate and start laying under really poor mating conditions. Thanks!

Reply from Steve Clifford. Well, thanks....practice, I guess. Marking queens is a big help in finding them, but I've never liked it. If you use nail polish (we used to go to the pet store and buy the poodle stuff, thinking it was better suited) the bees would chew away at it.....made me think it wasn't the best practice. Thanks again!

@stevesleep1939 You're very welcome and thank you for what you do to educate others on taking care of one of the world's most important creature.

Reply from Steve Clifford. Kind words, thanks very much. I don't know what else I could have spent my life doing that would have been as satisfying and challenging as keeping bees. I've worked bees in North Dakota, Texas, California, New Zealand, Hawaii, produced honey in Saskatchewan for 40 years, and now am semi retired in Beautiful British Columbia. When I rough it out I've produced somewhere around 4 1/2 to 5 million pounds of honey in my time. I'm still involved in bee politics, one of the stickier parts of the business, pardon the pun. My newest challenge is writing a book about my 50 years as a beekeeper. Please wish me luck! Thanks again! Steve

@stevesleep1939 damn, impressive. Good luck and I would bee your 1st customer on the book.

Thanks....wasn't without ups and downs, but mostly good! Thanks!

Reply from Steve Clifford When an egg is laid in a worker cell, it has been fertilized with a sperm and can become a queen. It will hatch into a larva after three days, and it is then given a feeding of Royal Jelly. It grows quickly, and soon it's feed becomes less rich and it called bee bread. It can be grafted into a queen cell within its first few hours of hatching into a larva. Look for a comb with eggs laid in worker cells and you will probably find larva ready to graft.

@@stevesleep1939 thank you so much Do you have social media so I can follow your work? Instagram etc.

So are you're tryna say every egg can raise as queen be I'm I right? Sorry for my English

Every worker egg,,,,,,the drone eggs cannot. Parthenogenesis.....life without father.....the drones are not fertilized and therefore have haploid chromosomes instead of diploid.

Thanks so much.....was fun to do and have had lots of positive comments.....Thanks!!

Hey, Bill....I've heard the term "cloak board" but darned if I know what it is....can you describe it for me? Thanks! Steve

@@stevesleep1939 hey Steve. Changed my name and channel. Trying to figure this all out. Um, well. If I can attach a video of one I will. But essentially it’s this: It is a frame with a Queen excluder built into it as well as a metal slide that can slide in or out of the top of the Queen excluder. As well it creates, right there where the slide is, an upper entrance You essentially create a bottom board that has a front and rear entrance that can be both closed or one or other open. This way you can create essentially, I think what you’re doing without having to move boxes. You just do the manipulations from the top making sure the queen stays in the bottom box with whatever she needs there. Open brood and the graft cells can be kept in the top. I suppose you have to move boxes once in the beginning but then none at all. Just go in and Out of the top box as needed. Just another way to manipulate. The. Screen bottom board is a wonder as well. This just closes the nursery bees off completely as well as movement is capable I think I am going to make a combo Queen excluder/cloak board/screen bottom board-snelgrove except you don’t need the screen just the six entrances. That would be cool. Thanks for talking to me. I am a retired UPS Captain. Used to fly up to all parts of Canada. British Columbia etc. wish I would have found you then would have come up for a visit. Easy to travel free back then. Bill

Well, Bill, sounds like it should work alright, but when you get long in the tooth old habits are hard to break. I'll probably just keep fixing those old double screens and doing it the tried and true way I've gotten used to. I have only been in BC for 7 years, I guess....kept bees in NE Saskatchewan for 40 years.....some of the best honey country in NA. Thanks and Cheers! Steve

@@stevesleep1939 I understand. It’s hard for me to change something I’ve been doing all my life and it works. Anyway, just thought I’d share. I did my first serious grafting and only got 23 out of 45. But maybe it was me or didn’t TV have enough bees. Did it the Randy Oliver way. Very similar to yours but used a swarm board instead of a double screen board. Also did it with three boxes. Of course Queeny is in the bottom box with an excluder on her, but second box had five frames of the food and comb from another box. Then a swarm board which was a top cover with the middle hole covered and the little 1” X 3/8” slot on board is cut out to 3” x 3/8”. Then a box on top of that had a frame of pollen, open brood with either a pollen or drawn comb. As many of all these boxes bees plus some more up there. The exit by the way is opposite of the bottom Queen box. So all the foragers can go home. Left queenless a day then grafted from a frame actually from the Queen below that was up there also. Then graft went in the middle on the top box and the next day saw the take of Queen cells. Then you take and remove the middle box and remove swarm board and the top grafted box sits on the excluder on top of the Queen and the other boxes frames ANC bees go around and next to the top five frames which brings it back to ten frames. It is now a Queen right finisher. Like yours. You should watch that video. Just for kicks. Ok bud thanks for all. Later….

Fed them too.

Reply from Steve Clifford. Thanks for the kind words. I was very lucky, I learned from very good teachers. Thanks again. Steve

Kind words, William, thanks so much. I got lucky early in my bee years and fell in with the late great bee man Larry Gunter. I bought into a 1,500 hive outfit in NE Saskatchewan with Larry and worked with him in SE Texas for 11 winters. Thanks again. Steve

Hey, Willam, thanks for the kind words. I started out in ND, got a hive, worked for Powers, then got a job as a state field inspector for ND. I answered an ad for bees for sale, went to the guys house end of the afternoon.....Larry Gunter came out with a 6 pack in hand, he squeezed into my little Mazda truck and we went out and made a deal on 20 singles I think. Larry & his brother Dick ran 9,000 in ND in those days. We went for a steak, and on about the third beer he says " why don't you come up to Canada and run a bee outfit for us?" Two years previous they'd bought a 1,500 hive outfit in NE SK, some amazing bee country. I bought in with them, and headed to SE Texas, Sour Lake, to work for the winter. When grafting time came, he said "c'mon, Clifford, I'm going to make a queen man out'a ya". We raised cells for 10,000 nucs, we had a few hundred baby nucs, we raised queens for about 2,000 packages for me, and as time went along we raised more and more cash and carry cells for smaller migratory beekeepers. At the end of my 11 winters there we were selling thousands of cells out the door. Bumping into Larry at age 26 or so was truly a lucky day for me. I ran bees in SK for 40 years, and when the border closed in US packages and queens in 1987, I was suddenly selling a few thousand cells in SK every year. I'm mid-70s now, have moved to the West Coast of British Columbia, still keeping 50-60 hives, still raising cells, and am president of our local bee club and am on the executive of the BCHPA. Am also past president of the BC Bee Breeders Assn. Don't know what else I could have spent my life doing that might have been better. Thanks again! Steve Clifford

Reply from Steve Clifford. No.....both units need to be able to fly....the screen has to be thick enough so queen substance can't be shared. Thanks. Steve

Hi. We recently posted a new version that shows a lot more detail on the process including making splits. I think it will answer your question and give lots more info on the process. Cheers. Here is the link. th-cam.com/video/2XiY67rhbGc/w-d-xo.htmlsi=UCfYo5JCTcZFlY68

@@stevesleep1939 just watched it. You two are a great team! Really enjoyed both videos.

Reply from Steve Clifford Kind words, John, thanks very much. I was so very lucky to get involved with the great beekeeper Larry Gunter early in my beekeeping career. I worked with Larry for 11 winters at their winter quarters in SE Texas, and bought into their new outfit in Nipawin, Saskatchewan. Larry and his brother Richard made 9,000 nucs for their North Dakota outfit every Texas spring, and 1,500 packages for me. Larry put me to work in the queen yard from the very start, and we sold thousands of ripe cells to other migratory beekeepers. I was so very lucky indeed. Thanks again.

Reply from Steve Clifford The double screen isolates the queenless broodless starter box enough to urge them to rear the grafted cells. The young nurse bees in the starter that had been feeding brood are suddenly without anything to feed....when the grafted larvae go in they are happy to jump in and feed them. Yes, emergency plays a part....the bees suddenly isolated with no brood and no queen are up the creek, no paddle....the grafted cells are their only hope to get back to normal. When they are reversed 24 hours later they simply go ahead and keep rearing the cells to their maturity. A queen excluder would not spur them to feed the cells the way the double screen does. I like to double queen honey producing hives, and the double screen works well for that purpose also. Thanks for your interest.

@@stevesleep1939 thanks for the prompt and clear reply. good luck