Hello John,
        There are a few flaws in your queen rearing I'll point them out below.
 
John Iannuzzi wrote:
>
> Pleez ignore the beeginning of the (fwd) message.
> The rest is for those interested in an easy way of raising
> their own queens, altho I will bee the first to admit that
> I've never raised a queen, nor requeened, in 37 consecutive
> years of apiculture. I prefer letting the bees do it
> themselves, since they have millions of years practice.
> jack
>
> **John Iannuzzi, Ph.D.
> **38 years in apiculture
> **12 hives of Italian honeybees
> **At Historic Ellicott City, Maryland, 21042, U.S.A. (10 miles west of
>    Baltimore, Maryland) [9772 Old Annapolis Rd - 410 730 5279]
> **"Forsooth there is some good in things evil
>    For bees extract sweetness from the weed" -- Bard of Avon
> **Website: http://www.xmetric.com/honey
> **Email: [log in to unmask] [1jan981031est]
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 08:42:20 -0500 (EST)
> From: John Iannuzzi <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: How 2 Raise Queens at Home
>
> Your question: Now what do you think about bees and sheep mixing?
> My answer: The offspring is a <shepbee>.
>
> New topic.
> You asked about queen-raising at home. Here's an
> easy method dug out of the <British Bee Journal>, sep 97, p 167:
> [thanks to John Romanik, BeeBeard King of Maryland w/ 111 performances]
>
> Take 4 frames from a broodchamber: one w/day old eggs, one w/developing
> brood (that is, capped and uncapped), a two w/pollen and honey--making
> sure that the queen is NOT taken in the process. Replace the 4 removed
> w/drawncomb.
 
This works well if you can be sure you have eggs all the same age, in
the real world you will have eggs and lavae in all stages of
development. The bees will pick up to 6 cells per frame to make a queen,
the problem is that they will use different stages of larvae to produce
their queen. The first one out wound'nt be as good as the ones still in
there cells, but she will kill all others in their cell. The larvae used
must be under 24 hours old to become good queens, the bees could use
larvae up to 3 days old ( see the hive and the honey bee page 996).
 
Best way to get the best queens in this way is to go into the nuc
between 3 to 4 days and destroy all sealed Q cells, killing all the
lousy ones. The ones left ( not yet sealed) will be very good queens
that won't be superseded when under a strong honey flow.
>
> Put the frames into a 4-frame nucleus.
> Shake bees, from the parent colony, into the nuc
> until it is nearly full, again making sure the queen
> is not shaken in.
>
> After a week, the bees in the nuc will have raised 2 or 3
> emergency queen cells. A feeder of weak syrup is put on
> the nuc. Presto! After about 3 weeks the nuc is full of
> bees and a young queen!
>
> On Wed, 11 Feb 1998 [log in to unmask] wrote:
>
> > Do bees and sheep mix?
> >
>
> **John Iannuzzi, Ph.D.
> **38 years in apiculture
> **12 hives of Italian honeybees
> **At Historic Ellicott City, Maryland, 21042, U.S.A. (10 miles west of
>    Baltimore, Maryland) [9772 Old Annapolis Rd - 410 730 5279]
> **"Forsooth there is some good in things evil
>    For bees extract sweetness from the weed" -- Bard of Avon
> **Website: http://www.xmetric.com/honey
> **Email: [log in to unmask] [1jan981031est]