Our May 28th (third) graft failed. There was a mated queen inside the cell raiser and she destroyed the developing queen cells. There was only one cell that survived, so we put that one into a mating nuc. At this point, all of the mating nucs have virgin queens from the first and second grafts, and one nuc has the surviving capped cell from the third graft. When we get home from the apiary, we conducted our fourth graft.
May 28, 2023
May 28, 2023
BY Bridgette Whalen,
Bridgette Whalen started beekeeping in 2016 when she was studying at Roanoke College. In February 2022, she joined The Best Bees Company and moved to Boston. Bridgette is a level 2 beekeeper currently taking the Cornell Master Beekeeping Course to attain a Master Beekeeper Certification. She is the Boston Lead Beekeeper – the person who new beekeepers come to when they first come to Best Bees to learn how to beekeep, and also someone to call when a beekeeper is seeing something in the field that they haven't seen before. She conducts data analysis of the colonies we tend to make sure they are up to the best practices and promote bee health.
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