Whether raising 10 or 10 000 queens, the following recipe should
work.

Make your own cups from wax, 15 in a row, at each dipping. Fix the
cups onto 15mm wooden dowel sticks about 20mm long that have
been attached to a bar of wood (normally a bottom bar). To attach the
cups, use a large pear shaped syringe bulb with a long nozzle
(available from pharmacies), filled with hot wax. During ops, keep the
wax reservoir for cups and wax syringe in a 70 celsius oven. Attach the
bottom bar with cups (after grafting) to a normal frame with terry clips;
one to four bars per frame.

Use a wooden queen cage with three holes covered with stainless
gauze. The side hole should be drilled around 16mm so it can fit over
the ripe queen cells onto the dowel sticks, enabling the virgins to
emerge in the cage. This cage can ALSO be used for shipping AND
introduction.

Grafting tools? There are many and many expensive ones. Use the
Chinese tool; it's cheap, the fastest and it transfers food with the
larvae. Being metal-free, it’s also one of the safest tools. Use a fibre
optic light when grafting. Transfer larvae at about 12 hours old, i.e.,
when still transparent. Regulate conditions in the grafting room with a
vaporiser and heater/air conditioner. Aim for high twenties (celsius)
and about 50% humidity. Dryness is a bigger enemy than incorrect
temperature. Aim to absolutely minimise the time between taking
frames from breeder queens and dropping grafts into the cell
builders.

Cell starters and finishers - the best system (per personal opinion, of
course) is the Cloake method:

www.beekeeping.co.nz/info/cloake.htm

Absolutely ensure you keep one or two frames of open brood in the
middle of the top chamber. This draws nurses upwards (you need
200 nurses for each queen cell). Transfer the larvae frames to another
colony when you drop the queen cells in. This means lots of nurse
bees for the royal larvae, with food to go. There should be sealed
brood in the top chamber at all times. Ensure there is a frame or more
of pollen alongside the queen cells. Bees move honey around a hive;
they do not move pollen, and nurse bees will not "travel" for pollen.

Absolutely check for and destroy natural queen cells in both chambers
on pre-determined dates, according to the race of bee. Every ten days
should be good for Eurobees.

The Cloake system is very "natural" and the double brood chamber
creates a "large" micro environment more stable than most cell
builders offer. If maintained with military type precision, a single
Cloake starter (which can also be used to finish cells) can build 180
queen cells in a single graft, but insert 50 for truly superior technical
quality queens. The Cloake system should be adapted to your race of
bee. For example, with the African bee, I move each Cloake unit about
10m every fortnight. The field bees are drained into a hive on the
original site supplied with some brood and honey, and a caged queen
to be introduced. The original unit is fortified by brood from donor
hives. Field bees are essential in cell builders, but their numbers can
sometimes create a nuisance factor - they have no role in the brood
area. Also, with African bees, I never (totally) close the back entrance
of the bottom chamber. African bees raise drones all year, and the
bees need an exit for cleaning the bottom chamber.

You would have seen that the only "extras" you need for the Cloake
system are a rim and a sheet. I use an aluminium rim and stainless
steel sheet. These have to be precision made and are expensive, but
do the job.

So far, queen breeding has been easy!!? Nothing has been said
about selection and genetics. Notwithstanding that, environmental
conditions have to be ideal. The ideal conditions for queen breeding
comprise a light nectar flow and a heavy pollen flow. Heavy nectar
flows induce an “all hands to the deck” attitude. Long sunny days and
relatively small variations in daily temperature help. When aiming for
top technical queen quality, nothing but fresh natural food will suffice. If
you don't have such conditions, migrate to another site with ideal
conditions. Or sit it out, but don't raise runts and think you have
achieved something worthwhile.

For me, the only book that has ever been written about queen
breeding is Laidlaw and Page's "Queen rearing and bee breeding." It
seems surprisingly difficult to come by; try amazon.com.

When you’ve bred the queens, you need to know how to utilise them in
the best possible way. But that’s another story.

Good luck!

Barry Sergeant
Kyalami
South Africa