There are now concerns about mating nuc sizes but this has more to do with the arrival of small hive beetles than any other consideration.  Early on baby nucs work fine and if the site is rock or hard dirt and grassless you can extend their use a bit longer.  At some point in time I tend to go toward full size frames and the use of queen castles with my own preference here being a ten frame box divided into 3 slots.

As to queens I buy the management at the top of the operation is important since they set the tone and the insistence on quality (or not) However, I have long though it was the experience of the queen rearing crew that determined the final quality of the product you buy.

The one commercial queen rearer I know fairly well allows the first batch of queens to lay for a while before they are caught and ship and has most to do with the keeping these small population of bees going for added rounds of queen mating.  

Gene in Central Texas...   

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