Mana Kai Queen Rearing Operation - Grafting

Today was spent “grafting queen cells”

This is an important part of our beekeeping practice to ensure our hives have healthy, happy, hard working queens.

Check out the photos below to see the grafting process!

1) first we check out the hive, make sure it’s healthy and strong and has a good queen. We also make sure the brood (larvae) are at the right age/ size for grafting

2) Carefully select the desired larvae with a tool we call the needle

3) We then place each larva into their own queen cell

4) Can you see the Larvae that the queen has laid? Some big, some small.

5) Placing the now full queens cells into a functioning hive without a Queen. The bees know they are queenless and will start turning those queen cells into healthy queens for harvesting.

Any questions? Ask away!