Hello all,
 
I've been reading the queen rearing posts with great interest.  I'd like
to raise some of my own queens this year (approx.40 to 60) and have been
reading 'Contemporary Queen Rearing' by Harry H. Laidlaw, Jr. (Dadant
Publication) which I find very interesting.
 
My intent is to graft some larvae from eggs laid 3 days earlier by one
of my better queens (prolific, overwintered and good honey producer,etc)
into 1/4 inch wax cell cups (I'm going to make myself), attached to
small 'chips' which are further attached to crossbars in a frame (3
crossbars/frame).  I then plan on placing the grafts (two frames with 90
cups each) into a swarm box as described in Contemporary Queen Rearing
with 5 to 6 lbs of nurse bees, a good frame of pollen and two of
honey.....feeding sugar syrup for the next 24 to 36 hours.  Then from
there, the frames of cells will be moved, one each to the top brood
chamber of two strong colonies with the queens below an excluder in the
bottom chamber, and frames of young brood moved to the top, placing a
frame of young brood on one side of the frame containing queen cells and
a good frame full of pollen on the other side, again feeding sugar syrup
to the hive.  On the 9th day from grafting, I intend to move the cells
to an incubator I plan on making using a picnic cooler and aquarium
heater in which they will be kept at 92 F in a humid environment until
they start to emerge on the 11th or 12th day.
 
When the first queen starts to emerge, I plan on placing the cells in
mini queen nucleus' fitted with 3 small frames of foundation and a feed
container of sugar syrup and about a cup or slightly more young bees,
from which they will hopefully go out, mate and make it back and start
laying in the following couple of weeks...(weather and other factors
permitting.)
 
I have some questions about some points here though, which I'm sure some
of you in the know can help with or better yet, improve upon.
 
1.  Here in southern Manitoba, Canada, is it too early to start grafting
by the middle of May?  I realize the drone population has to be up by
the time mating is to occur and I realize everything in general depends
on how Mother Nature decides to treat us at this time.  Depending on how
well the hives are building up, maybe waiting well into June would be
better, although there's a bit of a dearth here at that time which may
affect things.
 
2.  In theory, another method the book describes to deal with an
emerging queen, is to place one brood box, of a 2 body hive, containing
the queen to be replaced above a couple honey boxes and queen excluder
and to introduce the new about to emerge queen in the bottom brood box
below a queen excluder....essentially creating a two queen hive....both
top and bottom brood boxes having their own entrances.  Once the new
queen is seen to be laying (properly), killing the old queen and uniting
the two brood boxes again below the honey supers.  In practice does this
work?  I heard from another beekeeper that he tried this and it seemed
to him, the new queens were not leaving to mate!?!  Using the small Nucs
seems to me to be the way to go, but this other way sure sounds easier.
 
3.  In using a mini queen nucleus, is it o.k. to have only wax
foundation in the frames, or is it a necessity to have drawn out comb?
 
Any comments or suggestions on all of this would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
 
Tom