# General beekeeping > Queen raising >  Swiss grafting tools

## drumgerry

Was talking about these with a few club members today and, as some may know, it's my weapon of choice on the larva lifting front.

But.....where to get them in the UK now that Buzzybeeshop has gone?  We have a QR course in a couple of weeks and if anyone wanted to use one it'd be good to tell them where they can get it.  Mine's a left handed one so no use to most people.

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## gavin

Switzerland?   :Smile: 

Thorne: http://www.thorne.co.uk/queen/grafting-tools

Not quite as far as Switzerland:

http://www.honingraat.eu/en/grafting...iss-model.html

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## Black Comb

Also

http://www.beehivesupplies.co.uk/ind...products_id=57

Also
http://www.beehivesupplies.co.uk/ind...roducts_id=121

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## The Drone Ranger

depends the shape you want try ebay dental picks/scalers
much cheaper than same thing sold as grafting tool

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## GRIZZLY

> depends the shape you want try ebay dental picks/scalers
> much cheaper than same thing sold as grafting tool


Which ones do you use DR ?

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## drumgerry

Sorry guys I should have been more specific.  The ones I mean are often described as "professional" Swiss grafting tools.  Being a rank amateur I should maybe be using something else!

Swienty have them here  http://www.swienty.com/shop/vare.asp...&vareid=112102

Problem is the price - 45 Euros!!  When I bought mine from Buzzybeeshop it was about £20.

The thing that's really good about them is the arm of the tool is cranked off to the side of the wee spoon thingy so it makes it easy to see what you're doing.  Plus they come in right and left handed models and being a leftie I like that.  The crank is to the left in the leftie model and to the right in the rightie.

I tried various of the standard tools (not including the sable brush it must be said) and never liked any of them till I tried the Swiss one.  Was hoping there's a UK supplier to be found.

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## drumgerry

A couple of pics to make it clear what I'm on about.  The leftie version of course.  Rightie is yellow

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## Bridget

Hmm maybe a bit expensive Drumgerry.  Think I'll get a bit more basic one first and see how it goes


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## Jon

larva on brush.jpg

000 sable paintbrush, 75p!

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## drumgerry

Yep Bridget I'd take Jon's advice.  45 Euros is ridiculous and that's before shipping!  Never tried the paintbrush but maybe there's a trick or two to it Jon?

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## Jon

I am crap at grafting with anything other than the brush.
The only trick is to make sure the larva is picked up on the tip of the brush as in the pic above otherwise it is difficult to get off.
To place the larva in the cup, always the tricky part, I carefully touch the base of the cup with the larva and then slowly remove the brush rotating clockwise and pulling it away slightly. This usually leaves the larva sitting in the base of the cell cup. No more rocket science than that. I don't wet the base of the cup and I don't prime with jelly.

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## gavin

The ones I bought in Thorne's 'conventions' sale were of that design (but with a blue handle).  Not sure if they still sell them but the price was much less than that.

Bit vague today, no time to check. Just back in with some virgins in matchboxes (a Galloway Amm stock, not mine) destined for nucs when I can prepare them.

G.

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## gavin

Found them, still have two here.  They were £3 and are very like the picture with cranked shaft but are blue (and right-handed - phew!).  If anyone is selling them at £20 they're having a laugh.

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## drumgerry

No sign of anything blue handled on the Thornes website Gavin.  £3??!!  Cracking bargain if they're anything like the Swissie and if you're right handed!

I'll just need to take extremely good care of my leftie - 45 Euros to replace it doesn't bear thinking about!

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## The Drone Ranger

Hi grizzly.
I use the chinese grafting tool but I dismantle it and use wet and dry to make the reed more flexible.
I like a bit of cell punching as well  :Smile: 
The dentist tool you want is a small scaler with a little flat on each end couple of quid no point paying more

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## prakel

Not in the UK but if it's the same item (assuming that they'll post to Scotland at a sensible price) this seems like quite a good deal:

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rc...HiWKu09O8aiAQA

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## Bridget

Wow thanks Prakel.  It's ordered, +4 euros postage.  Bargain so hope they don't suddenly discover they have made a mistake in the price.


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## prakel

It's an interesting site with a couple of items I've not seen before. Let us know how the order goes  :Smile: .

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## Bridget

Dispatched this afternoon, so they say. 


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## busybeephilip

Reading this I too was tempted to try a swiss style tool and maybe set aside the carefully honed saliva and royal jelly covered chinese tool.  As you say, despatched and on its way.  Tried the brush , Jon's preferred method, but could never master getting the larvae to stick to the end, something to do with the knack of twisting.... - Jon do you give lessons on your brush technique? :Smile: , as you know I am not that slow with the chinese scooper tool, we could have a race

I got to look at the convertible nuc/apidea wooden box at the UBKA conference, its very well made and the frames are ingenious too, could easily make one if you had time on your hands.  They are sold out so must be popular down south.

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## fatshark

I think part of the secret of getting larvae _onto_ the brush is to use one with very short bristles. Usually the 000 or 00 sable brushes have bristles about 5-6mm long  when wetted with saliva these form a sharp point which can be just slid into the jelly under the larva (certainly don't think the brush needs rotating at this stage), lifted up and out into the new cell cup, touch the tip to the base of the latter and _then_ rotate  clockwise or anticlockwise, doesn't matter  :Wink:

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## busybeephilip

Yep, have a 000 brush i bought specially for the job but could never master the technique although I have no probs with the chinese tool.  Using the swis tool I believe involves a different technique again that is pressing down into the wax under the larvae then removing the larvae by pressing again (into wax cups was how it was originally used) not sure how well this will work with plastic cups but a rotating motion will have to be learnt.

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## Jon

> Tried the brush , Jon's preferred method,


I did about 60 grafts this afternoon into three queenless colonies at Minnowburn. Best use for the queenless parts of an artificial swarm.
As fatshark says, the twist is only to leave the larva in the cup. I just push the brush under the larva to pick it up. Th critical thing is to keep it just sticking to the tip of the brush rather than half way up it.

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## drumgerry

Philip - I'm reasonably adept with the Swiss tool and I do it not quite as you describe.  I use the spoon as a spoon and scoop the larva up from behind - I don't really press down into the wax of the cell as such.  At the other end it's an easy enough motion of sliding the larva off into the cup.  No rotation needed really unless it's a very subtle motion I'm not really aware of - and I'm using plastic (Jenter) cups.

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## Poly Hive

I failed to find my double cranked grafting tool this season so begrudgingly bought the Thornes one. Hmmmmm.... the working tip is at a very strict right angle to the shaft and thus the wrong angle. I found it very awkward. By chance looking through a box of bits I found a tool I had bought oh at least 20 years ago and it has just the right angle on it so all was well. 

I ordered some side bars from Thornes and mentioned the angle of the tool to the girl on the phone and it is going back as not fit for purpose. Just a heads up. 

PH

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## Jon

Try the 000 sable brush. 75p and works perfectly.

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## Beeman

I agree that the sable brush is best tho of course it's personal choice-also feel it is a more gentle method of handling larva

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## The Drone Ranger

I think the main problem with the Chinese grafting tool is that they are not very well made.

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## busybeephilip

Hi DR,

I use the chinese tool all the time, I bought a load of them cheap on flea bay.  The thing about them is to get a good one you need to take the reed off and make it thinner on an oil stone, when its nice and thin and bends easily it will pick up the larvae with ease and before long, with practice,  setting up 10 grafts in the shed takes less than a minute.  My secret weapon is short sight with focal length of around 4-6 inches makes it very easy to see the young larvae !   I set up 30 yesterday so I'll see how they are this evening.  Could easily set up 100 very quickly if everything is at hand and ready to use but then you would need to have loads of nucs ready to receive cells/virgins.

Also discovered another useful thing regarding cupkit stuff.  The roller cages in my incubator I place directly on a sliding drawer so if i have a load of cages any movement will make them fall over with a domino effect, as it transpires, the brown part of the cell holder can be attached to a wood bar (eg bar on the grafting frame) and used to hold the cages at the end that opens, ie wood bar attached to brown cup, closed cage, cream cup with cell.  So dead easy to take out 10 cages at a time for examination (new to me anyhow)

If you recall the photo of the single frame nuc i posted and the dead queen, when the nuc was requeened the bees dumped out the dead queen which I retrieved, very strange as she had holes (naturally occurring)  on her 1st and 2nd abdominal segments on the upper side - never seen this before I'll try get a close up macro picture


I think I've cracked a way to clean brown cups, soak them in cold water overnight (not hot as this turns any jelly into a sticky mess) then use a toothbrush with an extended end, like longer bristles at the tip, to stipple and stirr under slow running cold water.  I set up 30 yesterday morning to acclimatize, grafted in the evening so will see tonite how well it has worked

the swiss tool that was mentioned somewhere else sold cheap by irish bee supplies is a load of tat rubbish, the working end is too think and very rough, mine arrived in a plain envelope and got bent in the post (postage was supposed to be £4 but was in reality was much less than that ?) even so on straightening out to the correct shape and polishing the rough ends I still prefer the chinese tool

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## gavin

I've been a user of Chinese grafting tools for years and - occasionally - bitten grass stems.  This year I tried the Swiss grafting tool (right handed  :Smile: ) and then a sable brush I had lying around.  I'm converted to the brush  ... did 30 yesterday from Colonsay stock (thanks, Jeff).

If only I could locate my reading glasses I expect that I could speed up a bit and improve.

Jon - where do you buy them so cheaply?  Sable brushes, not specs.

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## fatshark

Remember that you need to specify a *right handed* brush Gavin … Jon may have quoted you for the southpaw model. Certainly the price was very good. There are a few on Amazon around £2.20 when you buy a set of 5, but £3 is often the price.

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## The Drone Ranger

My fav one[IMG][/IMG]
I dismantled and thinned just as you suggest 
when you buy them they are so stiff they just punch though the cell base  
I'll give the cup cleaning another try being a skinflint 
I haven't the knack of using the brush Gavin so gave up on that pretty quick.
I somebody made a decent Chinese tool it would sell like hot cakes.

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## busybeephilip

[QUOTE=busybeephilip;30655]
I think I've cracked a way to clean brown cups, soak them in cold water overnight (not hot as this turns any jelly into a sticky mess) then use a toothbrush with an extended end, like longer bristles at the tip, to stipple and stirr under slow running cold water.  I set up 30 yesterday morning to acclimatize, grafted in the evening so will see tonite how well it has worked


not bad - only one failed !

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## Jon

I got 12 for £9 on ebay. Just check offers for 000 sable

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## Jon

key thing with grafting is neither the grafting implement nor the grafter. It is the state of the cell starter colony.
If the starter colony is right they will start almost everything.

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## mbc

> key thing with grafting is neither the grafting implement nor the grafter. It is the state of the cell starter colony.
> If the starter colony is right they will start almost everything.


Can't argue with that, I like to shake a few frames of nurse bees into the top half of my cloak board set up at the same time as sliding in the divider, the top box has already been separated from the queen for nine days at this point so with nothing to feed they'll pounce on the first larvae offered after an hour or two of the divider being in. Last few grafts have been near enough 100% acceptance.

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