>methods best suited for a someone
>trying to raise perhaps a dozen queens for the first time

Hello Jack and everyone,

I do a lot of grafting and occasionally I use the Jenter system for back-
up, but for just a dozen queens, I'd just use some swarm cells.  Of course, 
if you're wanting to play around, I'm sure you'll learn a lot by trying to 
raise cells by grafting.

But if you're just wanting twelve good quality queens, I think it would 
probably be easier and the quality of the queen would depend much less on 
your expertise if you just used swarm cells.  You'll probably have plenty 
of cells anyway, but if you avoid or do the opposite of the practices 
recommended for swarm prevention (perhaps on selected breeder colonies) 
you'll get more cells.  Especially as a beginner, I doubt you'll improve on 
the bees natural system.  They'll raise cells when they're strong enough 
and the conditions are right, and if they choose to raise the cells then 
they're almost certainly in the right mood to feed and care for them well, 
too.

So if you want to use swarm cells, just go through the hives you'd like to 
use cells from about once/week during swarm season.  If you see a cell on a 
frame, take the whole frame and put it in a new box with plenty of bees and 
maybe a couple extra frames of pollen and honey.  Use more than one frame 
of brood if you want to.  I would try to transfer the cell about the time 
it gets capped, so that it's fed by the strong parent colony but removed 
before they swarm.  If you find a cell that's further along, all the 
better.  If you place the new box above a double screen board instead of on 
its own stand, you won't have to worry about the weather and the 
transferred brood frame getting chilled.

That's my vote for a simple method for raising quality queens on a small 
scale.

Eric
Wilkes Co., NC

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