Hi all
In the 1980s I sold queen cells by the thousands. I always purchased wax cups with wide bases, as these were well accepted by the bees, and had a nice base which makes them easy to attach to the bars. I would simply touch the base to a hot knife for a second and stick them to the bars. 

The base makes them easy to remove and handle. I never liked plastic cups though friends of mine swore by them. I purchased wax cups from Rossman; they still sell them and at about 3 cents apiece, they are certainly cheap enough. But lastly, they are malleable so that the bees can resize them as they see fit. 

Ratnieks & Nowogrodzki state: 
> Artificial queen cups. These are small cups of beeswax that duplicate the queen cups found in honey bee colonies, although the mouth is somewhat wider and deeper. 

Ratnieks, F. L., & Nowogrodzki, R. (1988). Small-scale queen rearing by beekeepers in the Northeast. INFORMATION BULLETIN 209 A Cornell Cooperative Extension Publication

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html