Hi Peter,

Peter take a little time and read Jay Smith's book "Better Queens", it is a book well worth reading. His method will allow you to create lots of queens from larvae just the right age easily without grafting or more correctly transferring and according to him even really good nurse bees are not the newest of worker bees but bees of a correct age. Check out what Jay says about nurse bees and what makes good nurse bees, go to pages  Nurse Bees…56 , Old Bees Good Nurses…57 ,  You might be surprised that old bees can be really good nurse bees. Like Mr. Bush says on the web page and I agree "I wanted this book available because I think Jay Smith was one of the great beekeepers of all time and one of the great queen breeders of all time. There are many queen breeding books by scientists or small-scale breeders, but this is by a beekeeper who raised thousands of queens every year. I think that is much more applicable to practical queen rearing. It is also a method that does not require grafting,"

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesbetterqueens.htm
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesbetterqueens.htm#Nurse%20Bees
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesbetterqueens.htm#Old%20Bees%20Good%20Nurses

 Hi Mike,

>I really don't understand why beekeepers want to raise queen cells with a
>non-grafting method.
>

Below is a quote from "Better Queens" 

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesbetterqueens.htm#The Grafting Method
"The Grafting Method
The object of Better Queens is to be helpful to all who rear queens and not to criticize those who use the grafting system. After all, I am criticizing the method I taught in Queen Rearing Simplified, so it is perfectly legitimate to criticize oneself! Many who now are using the grafting system and who want to rear better queens will want the two systems compared. As most beekeepers know, by the grafting method we mean the method in which the larva from a worker cell is transferred to an artificial queen cell. We used that system for 33 years. Not one of those years did we get the fine large cells which are necessary to produce full developed queens throughout the whole season. We found that when there was a light honey flow with plenty of pollen coming in, and if we kept the cell builders up to great strength, we could get a very high percentage of good queens. Even at its best we had to cull cells and virgins and frequently to discard laying queens that were not fully developed. Even then a few inferior queens would get by us which we had to replace. This never happens with our present system. We never have thrown away a cell for being too small, for all are alike. With the present system we have yet to see an undersized virgin. When using the grafting system, when there was no flow, it was well-nigh impossible to get good cells even though we fed sugar by the ton. Not one of those 33 years passed in which I did not long for a system with which I could produce those fine large cells which I had observed in colonies preparing to swarm, a system by which I could produce cells in quantities throughout the entire season." 

And;

" Queen Rearing Simplified

In 1923 my very good friend Geo. S. Demuth, asked me to write a book on queen rearing and Queen Rearing Simplified was the result. It was the best that I knew at the time but with the passing of more than twenty-five years we have made so many radical changes for the better when quality queens are desired that now we use practically nothing described in its pages. However, it has given me much satisfaction to receive letters from beekeepers all over the world thanking me for the help given in that book. It is my belief that Better Queens will receive a greater degree of appreciation. If this is true I shall feel amply paid for all the effort and expense I have been to in preparing this volume. With the passing of the years there may be minor changes in our system of rearing queens direct from the egg but the main feature will always remain if quality of queens is desired. With our present system all cells are as large and as well supplied with bee milk as are the cells produced by the bees during swarming or supersedure in nature, and let no one tell you he can beat nature in rearing queens. All we claim is that we can equal nature and that is enough."


 . ..   Keith Malone, Chugiak, Alaska USA

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