On 13 Jan 99, at 12:28, Sr. Monica Ryan wrote:
 
> May'.  To prepare the cell-building colony, a neighbour has told me to use
> either an artificially swarmed colony  or a boosted double chamber stock.
> What do people of experience see as the advantages and disadvantages of
> these methods?
 
Over the years we have tried most methods of cell builders in all of the
Queen breeder books. The overall best for cell builder we have found is a
queenless one.
                Our method, today, remove the queen from a big 2 box hive
along with some of the youngest open brood, ie make a small 3 frame
nuc, to another part of the yard.
                Reduce the cell builder to one box, and add the graft frame
complete with cell cups. Allows the bees to clean them, this is vital.
                Ideally add one frame of foundation, to give the wax builders
something to do and prevents webs from being built between cells. Or
alternatively add an empty shallow.
                Tomorrow use the cell cup frame, graft, add back to the cell
builder. 48 hours later check graft for acceptance, shake bees off
remaining frames one at a time and check "thoroughly" for emergency
and other stray cells and "remove" them.
        Sounds easy? Took us years before we got it right, now we
"occasionally" get 45 out of 45 accepted.
 
 
 
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