Emily and I also both conducted another graft today, and we each had 80% take!

Today, we took the cups that are developing and put them into the incubator. Then we drove to our research apiary and checked on our mating nucs, to make sure they are queenless and can support the developing queen cells.…

After 48 hours, we had 28 takes → 73%, great outcome for our first real graft. We left them in the cell raiser until 8 days later.  

Since our first practice graft on April 3rd, we’ve been conducting practice grafts every Monday and Friday. Today was our first real grafting with putting the queens that developed into queenless nucs in our research apiary so they can go…

We do their first practice graft! Practice grafts don’t go to mate – actually, here let’s take a second and explain the process of grafting. First, I go to a hive, take out a frame, and scoop out three-day old…

Emily and I make a map of all hives within a 5 mile radius to get an idea of the drones the queens would be mating with. 

Emily and I sit down with Nate Reid, our Head Beekeeper at the time, and Caitlin Duennebiar, our Boston Regional Operations Manager, and officially propose the schedule and formalize the plan. The schedule is edited and we end up deciding…

Emily and I come up with a queen rearing plan for Boston; I proposed a queen rearing schedule that started in April and ended in August. 

Emily and I start talking about queen rearing in Boston because I took the They Keep Bees queen rearing course over the summer.