At our last bee club meeting, a researcher presented how he raises
queens.  He traps the queen on an empty comb with some screen or queen
excluder material for 12 - 24 hours, then grafts the eggs and royal jelly
from these cells into queen cell cups for a queenless nuc to raise into
queen cells.  (Trapping the queen gets all the eggs to be the same age.)
 
    He uses queen cell protectors to introduce the queen cells to
(queenright) hives, saying the protector keeps the queen from attacking
the cell, and when the new queen emerges, she always wins the fight.
 
My question:  Why graft the eggs into new cells?  It seems like an
awfully delicate operation, with plenty of opportunity to damage the egg.
 Why not just put the frame she laid them in into the nuc and let them
draw out queen cells from that, cutting out the area around the cell to
introduce it?
 
Comments?
 
   I just tried grafting today, and of course, thought of it _after_ I
was done.  I gave them the extra frame anyhow and will letchya know how
they turn out!  I would think the undisturbed cells will do better.
Would a small cone of window screen do if the cell protectors don't get
here in time?
 
Thanx muchly!
Gerry Visel, northern Illinois, six hives