# Easiest type of cell builder for a beginner



## Margot1d

I have bee studying up on Michael Palmer/Brother Adams cell builder and I am trying to visualize myself doing all of the steps. I want to try grafting when my eyes are still good. I am wondering if I should consider making cell starter box, if this method might be easier. I like the idea of keeping the large hive together but I am wondering if I have the skills to find the queen cells and do all the manipulations I need to do. I guess I am wondering if I am biting of more then I can chew with taking on grafting and making the monster hive. Any thoughts from those more experienced would be helpful. Thanks!


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## johng

The easiest way is to just use a 5 frame nuc box, 1frame honey 1frame pollen, cell bar and two empty frames, put as many bess as you can fit into the nuc box. Keep the bees closed up in a cool place with a feeder on top. Once the cells are started in about 48hrs you can move the cells above a queen excluder in a queen rite hive to get them finished off. Or if you want real easy you can just leave them in the five frame box until they are ready.


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## zhiv9

I like a 10 frame starter - after 48 hours you move the whole thing on top of a queen excluder on a queen right single.


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## drlonzo

zhiv9 said:


> I like a 10 frame starter - after 48 hours you move the whole thing on top of a queen excluder on a queen right single.


Now this method makes good sense to me. No fuss, worries or anything. The colony that gets the starter gets a needed boost (if the bees didn't come from it to begin with) and all is well in the end.


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## ABruce

zhiv9 said:


> I like a 10 frame starter - after 48 hours you move the whole thing on top of a queen excluder on a queen right single.


Could you explain how you do the excluder, I have read some people use one, and others use two excluders with a spacer in-between. The explanation being if a queen cell hatches she doesn't meet the old queen thru the excluder. 
I hope to use the 10 frame finisher and then move the capped cells to a queen castle till they are mated. 
thanks


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## WBVC

zhiv9 said:


> I like a 10 frame starter - after 48 hours you move the whole thing on top of a queen excluder on a queen right single.


Do you also put newspaper between?


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## drlonzo

WBVC said:


> Do you also put newspaper between?


The addition of a newspaper would be defeating the purpose of putting them atop a queenright hive. You do so in order to allow the bees to mingle and get more help from the nurse bees that are in the hive already to feed your QC starts. Putting in a newspaper between two queen excluders would cause the bees not to be able to mingle freely.

The idea is to remove the QC's a day or two before they emerge, otherwise a virgin will kill out the other cells, then go through the excluder in some cases if she's smaller, and find your good mated queen and kill her too.


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## jim lyon

WBVC said:


> Do you also put newspaper between?


I have actually done this (in effect using newspaper as a cloake board) when I wanted to start some cells and walk away from them for a week or so. A couple layers of newspaper will effectively block the queen pheromone to get the cells started and within a couple days the newspaper is pretty well cleaned out and you have a pretty normal hive albeit one with cells above an excluder.


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## Margot1d

zhiv9 said:


> I like a 10 frame starter - after 48 hours you move the whole thing on top of a queen excluder on a queen right single.


I have seen info about the nuc box with ventilation below and the Michael Palmer's method but not much about the 10 frame starter. Do you have any links to more info? Do they need ventilate like with the nuc style box? What would be the set-up? Same as the Michael Palmer starter but with bees nurse bees from other hives shaken in? Move them after 48 hours? Why so soon? What is the benefit of the 10 frame over the 5 frame?


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## Harley Craig

Margot1d said:


> I have seen info about the nuc box with ventilation below and the Michael Palmer's method but not much about the 10 frame starter. Do you have any links to more info? Do they need ventilate like with the nuc style box? What would be the set-up? Same as the Michael Palmer starter but with bees nurse bees from other hives shaken in? Move them after 48 hours? Why so soon? What is the benefit of the 10 frame over the 5 frame?



the benifit is you just lift the box and set it on top of a colony..... no digging through frames moving them over. If you run 8 frame equipment you could use an 8 frame starter with the same concept


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## zhiv9

ABruce said:


> Could you explain how you do the excluder, I have read some people use one, and others use two excluders with a spacer in-between. The explanation being if a queen cell hatches she doesn't meet the old queen thru the excluder.


I use just one excluder and remove the cells before they hatch.


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## zhiv9

WBVC said:


> Do you also put newspaper between?


No the starter really on consists of nurse bees, so newspaper isn't required.


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## zhiv9

The theory behind putting the starter above a queen right colony is that it switches the bees from "Emergency Cell Building" to "Supercedure Cell building". In the former, the bees are rushing to produce a queen as soon as possible, but it's a great way to get them start lots of cells. In the latter they are producing better quality queens as there is no need to rush with them already having a queen.

The starter is setup in a new box on its own stand the day of or the day before grafting. Frames are arranged something like this:

H-CB-CB-P-GF-OB-CB-CB-P-H

H=Honey, CB=Capped brood, P=pollen, GF=grafting frame.

A high density of bees is really important, you will need to shake a lot more nurse bees than were already on the frames.

The queen right finisher should be a fairly weak colony so it doesn't swarm.

This mostly comes from Ontario Beekeepers Association queen rearing course.


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## Snowhitsky

Out of curiosity, once you've produced and removed the queen cells what do you do with the bees? Do you keep the double deep together or do you split them into mating nucs and give them a queen cell?

Also, I assume every batch of queen cells will require a new queen starter to have young nurse bees?


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## WBVC

So...I do understand why no newpaper but unless combining with the original..which would make sense..would you not get fighting? Ahhh...if mainly nurse bees acceptance is good


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## RayMarler

jim lyon said:


> I have actually done this (in effect using newspaper as a cloake board) when I wanted to start some cells and walk away from them for a week or so. A couple layers of newspaper will effectively block the queen pheromone to get the cells started and within a couple days the newspaper is pretty well cleaned out and you have a pretty normal hive albeit one with cells above an excluder.


That sounds to me like a great idea Jim, that would reduce the cell builder hive checking and manipulations needed.


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## zhiv9

I usually leave it as a double, but if you were running all singles you could easily break it up.


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## Margot1d

This is very helpful, thanks!



zhiv9 said:


> In the latter they are producing better quality queens as there is no need to rush with them already having a queen.


Interesting, I thought they thought they weren't queen right but your saying they know that they have a queen and will continue building the cells anyway.



zhiv9 said:


> H-CB-CB-P-GF-OB-CB-CB-P-H


Is OB open brood? If so, why? I thought you wanted no other brood or eggs.

So they are okay without extra ventilation?


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## kramerbryan

You will also want an open frame up top otherwise all of your queen cells will be joined together with wax. They need a place to build.


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## WBVC

Where does one put the open frame in relation to the graft frame?
Do others rub pollen in open cells as Michael Bush does?


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## drlonzo

If I had any I would surely do so. I take the time since i'm still small and find a good pollen comb from the other hives or use a pollen sub if one cannot be found. This year I forsee myself with a good Sundance Pollen trap on one of the hives.


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## Brad Bee

Margot1d said:


> I thought you wanted no other brood or eggs.


Me too. So a frame of open brood goes in the cell builder??? Not an empty frame they can draw out?


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## jim lyon

Brad Bee said:


> Me too. So a frame of open brood goes in the cell builder??? Not an empty frame they can draw out?


You sure don't need any brood in a swarm box to initially build cells and open brood would actually be detrimental. When you do want brood is to hold bees if the cell box is placed above an excluder as a finisher.


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## squarepeg

jim lyon said:


> You sure don't need any brood in a swarm box to initially build cells and open brood would actually be detrimental. When you do want brood is to hold bees if the cell box is placed above an excluder as a finisher.


thats what i do with my cloake board. a couple of frames of capped/emerging brood to encourage plenty of nurse bees in the upper builder/finisher box, and a frame of open brood that is removed when the grafts are first placed in order to channel all available jelly to the grafts.


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## jim lyon

squarepeg said:


> thats what i do with my cloake board. a couple of frames of capped/emerging brood to encourage plenty of nurse bees in the upper builder/finisher box, and a frame of open brood that is removed when the grafts are first placed in order to channel all available jelly to the grafts.


Yup, in a Cloake board setup you need to rotate brood upstairs about every 10 days to insure that the nurse bees don't abandon the cells on a cold night. It's a bit of a balancing act getting some open brood upstairs but too much can be a detriment to cell building.


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## Brad Bee

@Jim Lyon, okay I think I've got it now. The open brood is put in the box prior to the queen cups to keep the nurse bees where you want them. Or do I have that all wrong?


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## Brad Bee

I didn't read far enough down. Thanks for the reply squarepeg.


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## kramerbryan

I grafted today and did not have any pollen to rub in, so I put a pollen pattie on the top of the frames. I had some half frames of pollen I put adjacent to the grafted frame. I have seen Palmer do the pollen rub and will be trapping pollen this year to copy that next spring. I just added an empty frame to the outside edge of the box.


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## squarepeg

kramerbryan said:


> I grafted today and did not have any pollen to rub in, so I put a pollen pattie on the top of the frames. I had some half frames of pollen I put adjacent to the grafted frame. I have seen Palmer do the pollen rub and will be trapping pollen this year to copy that next spring. I just added an empty frame to the outside edge of the box.


michael is placing 60+ grafts at the same time. that's a whole lot of royal jelly needed so he has maximum pollen in place. i'm putting in 20 hoping for 15 and those partial frames of pollen like you describe are what i have used so far and they have appeared to been adequate. 

how many cells did you place in your builder today?


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## zhiv9

kramerbryan said:


> You will also want an open frame up top otherwise all of your queen cells will be joined together with wax. They need a place to build.


Yes, I missed that.


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## squarepeg

i pretty much follow this variation on the cloake board method:

http://threeriversbeekeepers.com/documents/CloakeBoardMethod.pdf

the paper also talks about banking queens but i don't bank any myself. all cells have been going into five frame nuc with three frames of bees and resources and two empty frames for expansion.


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## beepro

And don't forget to feed them too when they are building these cells.
Many hungry mouth to feed them all.
The cloak board method makes my mind spinning from opening and closing all these
exit and entrance at a certain day for manipulation.


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## jim lyon

beepro said:


> And don't forget to feed them too when they are building these cells.
> Many hungry mouth to feed them all.
> The cloak board method makes my mind spinning from opening and closing all these
> exit and entrance at a certain day for manipulation.


That link has lots of good info but I think it is unduly complicated. I use the Cloake board method a lot and don't do nearly that much manipulation. The basics are a very strong and well fed double able to, in effect, maintain 2 seperate brood nests with a primary entrance above the board to catch enough field force for the upper box to be crowded. When cell raising conditions are good the board need only be put in a few minutes before placing the grafts in.


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## Matt903

zhiv9 said:


> I like a 10 frame starter - after 48 hours you move the whole thing on top of a queen excluder on a queen right single.


What an awesome idea! I think you just changed the way I raise queens this season.


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## squarepeg

jim, since the double i was using wasn't exactly 'packed' with bees i had hoped that the extra manipulations would temporarily boost the population in the upper box. i can see how it wouldn't really matter that much if the hive was breaming over with bees.

adam, interesting that you can just place the starter over the finisher without newspaper like that. does anyone else do it this way?


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## zhiv9

Margot1d said:


> Interesting, I thought they thought they weren't queen right but your saying they know that they have a queen and will continue building the cells anyway.


They are queenless for the first 24-48hours and queen-right when you put them on top of the single.




Margot1d said:


> Is OB open brood? If so, why? I thought you wanted no other brood or eggs.


Yes OB is open brood. You don't want eggs, but a frame of open brood will have nurse bees attached ready to feed your grafts and help attract more nurse bees to the grafting frame. I made a mistake in my original frame order post as I missed a frame of foundation. The frame of foundation will help keep them from building comb on your grafting frame. It should have been something like:

H-F-CB-CB-P-GF-OB-CB-CB-H/P



Margot1d said:


> So they are okay without extra ventilation?


There are free flying through this whole process.


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## zhiv9

squarepeg said:


> adam, interesting that you can just place the starter over the finisher without newspaper like that. does anyone else do it this way?


I don't think a sheet of newspaper would hurt - thought you might want a to entrance of some type for ventilation. Basically when you setup the starter any foragers fly back to their donor hives and you are left with a box full of nurse bees and emerging brood.


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## WBVC

Reading through this thread is helpful. I may have it very wrong but the basis of cell starters/finishers etc seems to be manipulating conditions to what happens when bees make emergency cells...except the beek chooses the larvae they will use not the bees.

So....

One picks a hive to graft from

Chooses or sets up a hive to grow the grafts in. If using a 2 box set up one could confine the Queen below an excluder, move capped brood and some open brood above the excluder. Then wait a week or so the capped brood can emerge and the younger larvae get beyond the qc stage. When you are ready to graft put something over the excluder to divide the hive. Shake in more nurse bees into the top box if you feel the need. Check for any missed qc starts. Make certain you now have honey, pollen and open frame in the top box. Leave a cental hole for the graft frame with pollen close by. Have an entrance for both the top and bottom box.

Do your graft, place your graft bar in the center slot. Put on feed and close the box.

After 48 hours check for qc starts. Check there are no qc in the top or bottom box. 

Remove the board dividing the 2 hives but leave the qc in place. Have a frame of open brood...no eggs or day old larvae, no extra qc...in the top to hold more nurse bees in this area. A day before calculated qc emergence move the qc to mating boxes.

This system really doesn't seem so much different from making sustainable splits. Except in that you leave eggs and young larvae in the top box for the bees to choose the qc larvae and you move the top box off the bottom box just before the qc is ready to emerge making a new colony from the first.

All this seems to be us taking advantage of the bees natural instincts.

Please correct me quickly if my thoughts are nonsence!


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## beepro

jim, will it works if I only direct the foragers into the top
box where the grafted cells are at? And at the same time closed
the bottom entrance leaving a 2nd exit behind the bottom box.


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## kilocharlie

Peg - Thanks for posting the three rivers link to Dr. Cobey's paper on Harry Cloake's Method. I usually combine the best of Cloake's Method with Michael Palmer / Brother Adam's Method.

Although the separate, queenless Cell Starter Colony CAN be made up much smaller, I don't see the benefit of doing so in a 5-frame NOR a 10-frame box. Michael / Adam's method is all about maximizing Royal Jelly production, so 2 or 3 boxes boosted with 8 to 10 frames of imported capped brood 10 1/2 days before grafting is a better idea.

You're going to be making a HUGE Cell Finisher colony anyways, so might as well make it a combined Starter / Finisher. 

The Cloake Board really simplifies control over exactly when they are queenless vs. queenright, it does not make them more complicated, and it saves my back. Michael does not use a Cloake Board because he wants more control over his Cell Builder. 

The same level of control can also be accomplished WITH a Cloake Board, and in doing so, less disturbance of the hive is done, possibly avoiding a bump with sensitive queen cells present. The difference? If you have a Cloake Board, you can use it, but you don't have to. I usually use the Cloake Board on a 4- or 5-box tall colony, or Michael Palmer / Brother Adam's method on a 3-box-tall colony. (I newspaper combine colonies to prepare for my Cell Builder Colonies).


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## Margot1d

zhiv9 said:


> They are queenless for the first 24-48hours and queen-right when you put them on top of the single.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Yes OB is open brood. You don't want eggs, but a frame of open brood will have nurse bees attached ready to feed your grafts and help attract more nurse bees to the grafting frame. I made a mistake in my original frame order post as I missed a frame of foundation. The frame of foundation will help keep them from building comb on your grafting frame. It should have been something like:
> 
> H-F-CB-CB-P-GF-OB-CB-CB-H/P
> 
> 
> 
> There are free flying through this whole process.


I think I will try this method. The Micheal Palmer/Brother Adams method intimidates me because you are setting up a swarm and looking for stray queens/queen cells in a huge hive does not sound fun in a community garden. I only want to make about 8 cells and it will be a one off. Adding a cloak board in will just confuse me completely.

I did not realize they stayed open vs. the nuc box being closed with ventilation. I assume the setup is the same in regards to setting it up and walking away for a few hours, then grafting. Can I set them right next to the original hive with out them abandoning the cell starter? Will it work fine with medium boxes? Can I return it to the mother hive above an excluder and below supers (with some open brood added)? Is the cell building time frame still 48 hrs before you move it to the finisher? Thanks this is very helpful. :thumbsup:


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## jim lyon

beepro said:


> jim, will it works if I only direct the foragers into the top
> box where the grafted cells are at? And at the same time closed
> the bottom entrance leaving a 2nd exit behind the bottom box.


We leave a small entrance on the bottom box with a lid in front of it so the majority of the field bees return into the top box. If you don't start with either a really exceptional double (I feel it takes at least 10 frames of brood) or a combine of two good singles, it can be tough maintaining that bottom box through multiple cell raising operations because it often runs short on nurse bees and the queen can have trouble maintaining the egg laying needed to keep an adequate hive population.


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## Matt903

QUOTE=Margot1d;1239883] I only want to make about 8 cells and it will be a one off. 

Margot,
If you only need eight cells, there are easier methods than grafting and cell staters and cell finishers. Just take a frame of fairly new comb, make sure it has very young larve and/or eggs, and put it in the middle of a nuc box with some honey and pollen frames, some capped brood, shake in some nurse bees (make sur you don't shake in a queen) and then leave it alone for 12 days or so. Just make sure there are plenty of bees in there. It should make at least eight cells if not more. Around day 12 or so cut out the cells you need. That is unless you just want to tackle grafting for the experience of it. I think M. Bush explains this better than I just did on his website.


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## zhiv9

Matt903 said:


> Margot,
> If you only need eight cells, there are easier methods than grafting and cell staters and cell finishers.


Matt is right. Even if you want to graft for eight cells I don't think you really need a full sized starter. The one I described was for a full grafting frame of 45+ cells.


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## zhiv9

Margot1d said:


> Can I set them right next to the original hive with out them abandoning the cell starter? Will it work fine with medium boxes? Can I return it to the mother hive above an excluder and below supers (with some open brood added)? Is the cell building time frame still 48 hrs before you move it to the finisher? Thanks this is very helpful. :thumbsup:


You can set them up next to the original hive - it is the nurse bees that are important. Medium boxes are fine. You can return it to any queen right hive. As suggested, newspaper can't hurt when combining. 24-48 hours is fine. You can also check the success or your grafts at that time.


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## kramerbryan

squareperg I grafted 45 larvae. I had my nine year old daughter help.


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## squarepeg

nice! hope you get a good 'take'.


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## beepro

Whether it is 45 or 8 cells grafting, this will enable you to have some exceptional
well fed queens. The more resources available the better for the queen cells. They may not
feed on all the RJ (royal jelly) but these queens will bee well nourished and beautiful. If you can provide then why not.


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## mgolden

Matt903 said:


> Margot,
> If you only need eight cells, there are easier methods than grafting and cell staters and cell finishers. Just take a frame of fairly new comb, make sure it has very young larve and/or eggs, and put it in the middle of a nuc box with some honey and pollen frames, some capped brood, shake in some nurse bees (make sur you don't shake in a queen) and then leave it alone for 12 days or so. Just make sure there are plenty of bees in there. It should make at least eight cells if not more. Around day 12 or so cut out the cells you need. That is unless you just want to tackle grafting for the experience of it. I think M. Bush explains this better than I just did on his website.


Are you using wax foundation or plastic? 

I tried using a clay pottery tool to remove queen cells from plastic foundation. Seemed hard not to damage queen cells when removing them from plastic foundation.

Any tips out there for tools and techniques?


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## Margot1d

beepro said:


> Whether it is 45 or 8 cells grafting, this will enable you to have some exceptional
> well fed queens. The more resources available the better for the queen cells. They may not
> feed on all the RJ (royal jelly) but these queens will bee well nourished and beautiful. If you can provide then why not.


I played around with lots of queen cells from swarm attempts last year and that was great but I want to try grafting and getting some fatty queens. I think the 10 frame is the way to go for my goals. A lot of it is about learning how to do it. I really don't know what I will do with all the queens I make. I only need to requeen maybe three hives. I will probably keep some around for fun. I love keeping a nuc on hand and I had good success over wintering two this year. @ zhiv9 Thanks for answering all my questions! The Michael Palmer method was really overkill for my needs.


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## beepro

Yes, it is very important to learn from doing. That is the only way to experience
beekeeping. The extra queens you can pick the best one to head your hives. Or you
can give them away on CL. Make some nucs to overwinter is good too. The purpose of
having more nurse bees is to make sure all the qcs are well feed whether it is 8 or 50 at a time.
Though it is nice to see what the 8 cells will look like. This is how the exceptional queens are different
from the average queens are made.

For removing the qcs from the foundation I would try using a sharp one sided razor blade. Use the tip of
the blade to gently scrape away the wax at the bottom of the cell to loosen it after cutting all the sides out first.
Have to bee extra careful on this process because the razor is sharp and the qcs are very soft at the bottom.


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## Colobee

Grafting is easy. Not grafting is easier. A cloake board and any variation of the Hopkins method will usually work great. It can be as simple or complicated as you like. I've found that the bees usually do an amazing job with minimal effort on my part.

Provide the right density of nurse bees with 3 day old eggs/just hatching larvae and just let it happen.


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## Buzzsaw2012

man i hope my 3 overwintered hives survive this last month or so of poopy weather so i can attempt this !
so far they look good and have sugar on top yet and have been able to fly a couple days .

my 3 nucs that were caught swarms all perished , even tho i fed them all they would take from august 15 until it got too cold and had 15 lb sugar blocks on top.

Lee


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## David LaFerney

Lots of good ways to do it, but the question was *Easiest* - which is probably almost surely a strong queenless hive to both start and finish.


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## beepro

The easiest way is the old fashion way using a 5 frame nucs that is queen less with
lots of nurse bees from the other hives shaken into one. Then put the frame
that you would like some queen cells from into this nuc. And feed them syrup and
patty until the cells are capped. Preferably the new comb that the queen just laid in with
lots of new eggs for the timing and the bees to choose. Which method is simpler than this one?


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## kilocharlie

One yard had 4 colonies. I combined the weaker two (removed the weakest queen), and gave them a frame of brood from the strongest. Now I have 3 strong colonies (each either 3 deeps or 5 mediums tall), each drawing out a comb on which to isolate the breeder queens. Just barely strong enough to raise queens in one with 2 support colonies for brood. Breeding from all 3 remaining queens. If the nectar flow holds out, they may tolerate 3 or 4 runs of 48 to 64 queen cells. Hoping for 1 more good rain soon!


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## beepro

You can also import other support frames from the other yards too if
you have the bee resource to make these builders much more stronger.
And can always break them down again into nucs when you are finished.
There are so many variation with flexibility that one can do. That is why I like
so much about beekeeping. So much fun!


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## AstroBee

Margot1d said:


> I only want to make about 8 cells and it will be a one off.


8 queens and only once per season, yeah no point getting fancy.

1) Give your breeder queen a frame with just a starter strip of foundation. Let them work on that for about 5 days. Make sure to feed if there is no flow.
2) make up a queenless nuc lots of nurse bees, no open brood - sealed brood is good. Shake in extra nurse bees. leave a slot for 1 additional frame (see step 4)
3) wait 24 hrs
4) pull frame in step 1 and place in nuc. Make sure there are eggs present on this frame.
5) place feeder on nuc.
6) 10 days later cut out queen cells and break apart nuc to help in making up mating nucs.


You should easily get 8 decent cells with this approach.


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## beepro

Astro, how come some keepers in step 2 when making up the nucs to put in
a frame of open brood so to get the Royal Jelly flowing. Then on the day to put in the
eggs frame, swap the eggs frame with the open brood frame. Will this process help with making
the qcs bigger?


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## David LaFerney

AstroBee said:


> 8 queens and only once per season, yeah no point getting fancy.
> 
> 1) Give your breeder queen a frame with just a starter strip of foundation. Let them work on that for about 5 days. Make sure to feed if there is no flow.
> 2) make up a queenless nuc lots of nurse bees, no open brood - sealed brood is good. Shake in extra nurse bees. leave a slot for 1 additional frame (see step 4)
> 3) wait 24 hrs
> 4) pull frame in step 1 and place in nuc. Make sure there are eggs present on this frame.
> 5) place feeder on nuc.
> 6) 10 days later cut out queen cells and break apart nuc to help in making up mating nucs.
> 
> 
> You should easily get 8 decent cells with this approach.


I used to do it exactly like this and never could get those impressively large cells that everyone likes to show off - Until Ray Marler suggested putting a frame of open brood in the space where the cell bar will go. It gets them really primed to do their thing apparently. I've played with it some since then and now I put a good bit of open brood in when I make up the starter/finisher and just make sure there are lots of bees and lots of food.

The thing is you don't really need those giant sized cells - great queens can come out of completely average cells. They do look good in pictures though.


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## Adam Foster Collins

http://doorgarden.com/11/simple-honey-bee-queen-rearing-for-beginners

I used this method, written by David, and I really like it for smaller numbers. A well-presented how-to that I'm thankful to have bookmarked as a resource.

Adam


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## AstroBee

David LaFerney said:


> I used to do it exactly like this and never could get those impressively large cells that everyone likes to show off - Until Ray Marler suggested putting a frame of open brood in the space where the cell bar will go. It gets them really primed to do their thing apparently. I've played with it some since then and now I put a good bit of open brood in when I make up the starter/finisher and just make sure there are lots of bees and lots of food.
> 
> The thing is you don't really need those giant sized cells - great queens can come out of completely average cells. They do look good in pictures though.


Agree! 

I suggested not inculding open brood just to keep it simple and reduce the chance of rouge cells for the beginner. But yes to get those picture perfect cells, open brood is very helpful. Actually, I utilize a variant of this very often. What I do is to place the frame I plan to graft from into the cell starter for 1 day with a feeder and a pollen patty. This frame has lots of eggs and 1 day old larvae. This helps in 2 ways. It gets the nurse bees primed to make RJ, and gets the larvae very nicely filled with RJ, making grafting much easier. I pull the frame, graft and place the cell bar back in the same slot. Nurse bees jump on the graft and typically make beautiful cells. A strongly stocked 5 frame nuc with feeding (sugar water and pollen) can easily make 12-15 VERY nice cells per round. Anything beyond 15 cells is really pushing their capacity.


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## Colobee

If that frame of open brood comes from your "breeder" queen colony, you have the best of both worlds. "Rogue cells" may be utilized instead of destroyed, should you choose to...


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## David LaFerney

AstroBee said:


> Agree!
> 
> I suggested not inculding open brood just to keep it simple and reduce the chance of rouge cells for the beginner. But yes to get those picture perfect cells, open brood is very helpful. Actually, I utilize a variant of this very often. What I do is to place the frame I plan to graft from into the cell starter for 1 day with a feeder and a pollen patty. This frame has lots of eggs and 1 day old larvae. This helps in 2 ways. It gets the nurse bees primed to make RJ, and gets the larvae very nicely filled with RJ, making grafting much easier. I pull the frame, graft and place the cell bar back in the same slot. Nurse bees jump on the graft and typically make beautiful cells. A strongly stocked 5 frame nuc with feeding (sugar water and pollen) can easily make 12-15 VERY nice cells per round. Anything beyond 15 cells is really pushing their capacity.


*That* is a good plan!


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## David LaFerney

Adam Foster Collins said:


> http://doorgarden.com/11/simple-honey-bee-queen-rearing-for-beginners
> 
> I used this method, written by David, and I really like it for smaller numbers. A well-presented how-to that I'm thankful to have bookmarked as a resource.
> 
> Adam


Thanks Adam. It's been almost 4 years since I started writing that article and I've tried other methods - but that is still how I raise my few queens, and how I teach other people to do it. It's just hard to beat for a simple method that works for the hobbyist with a dozen (or 3 dozen) hives who needs a few homegrown queens. 

My next choice would be some variation of the Cloake method, but even that is considerably less simple - especially if you want to do several small batches of queens.


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## McCoslin

David LaFerney said:


> Thanks Adam. It's been almost 4 years since I started writing that article and I've tried other methods - but that is still how I raise my few queens, and how I teach other people to do it. It's just hard to beat for a simple method that works for the hobbyist with a dozen (or 3 dozen) hives who needs a few homegrown queens.
> 
> My next choice would be some variation of the Cloake method, but even that is considerably less simple - especially if you want to do several small batches of queens.


David,

This is my second year at trying to be a beekeeper. I am raising my own queens now for increase. I tried the Cloake board method and had mediocre results. I read your article on the five frame nuc (cell builder) with open brood 4 days before grafting. Wow! What a difference. Monster cells and monster queens right off the get-go. I pulled the frame of open brood which had started queen cells. I destroyed the queen cells and harvested the RJ using it to prime my cells for grafting. I checked one of my new hives yesterday; the queen started from this method is tremendous. Thanks for all that you do!


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## David LaFerney

McCoslin said:


> David,
> 
> This is my second year at trying to be a beekeeper. I am raising my own queens now for increase. I tried the Cloake board method and had mediocre results. I read your article on the five frame nuc (cell builder) with open brood 4 days before grafting. Wow! What a difference. Monster cells and monster queens right off the get-go. I pulled the frame of open brood which had started queen cells. I destroyed the queen cells and harvested the RJ using it to prime my cells for grafting. I checked one of my new hives yesterday; the queen started from this method is tremendous. Thanks for all that you do!


Wow. Thanks. I'm glad you found it helpful.


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## David LaFerney

AstroBee said:


> What I do is to place the frame I plan to graft from into the cell starter for 1 day with a feeder and a pollen patty. This frame has lots of eggs and 1 day old larvae. This helps in 2 ways. It gets the nurse bees primed to make RJ, and gets the larvae very nicely filled with RJ, making grafting much easier. I pull the frame, graft and place the cell bar back in the same slot.


I just grafted from a frame using this tip today, and it works exactly as you say. I'll add this advantage to it - you don't have to waste any time on grafting day looking for material to use. You only open the cell builder, do any prep and there you have your grafting stock all primed and ready. Good tip - I'll do that every time from now on.


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## squarepeg

excellent tip ab, and thanks for the confirmation david, can't wait to try it. did you place an empty frame of brood comb in the hive you wanted to graft from a day or so before moving it to the starter? do either of you move the grafts to a finisher hive?


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## David LaFerney

I do put a frame of empty comb in the brood nest sometimes, but in this case I didn't. 

The queenless starter/finisher is pretty reliable and works for the number of cells that I usually want to do in a batch. And it's less work, so that is what I do. But the real beauty of it is that you can keep it going for weeks and graft some more cells or just use it to start cells on frames of brood to make splits with. And when you are finished just let it make a queen. 

It's like a little box full of beekeeping fun.


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## Colobee

David - nice article - it does sound like _the easiest way _to get a few ( or a few dozen) nice queens. I've always used some variation of Cloake, and it_ is _a little more involved. 

I'm a bit confused with one paragraph in your article (The Joseph Clemens Starter/Finisher System), which begins with

"You can use this system over and over throughout the season without having to repopulate the starter/finisher hives..."

and ends with 

"...because you give it fresh brood about once a week none of those problems crop up – it just gets really strong and stays that way all season long."

I don't see this as much of an obstacle, or difficult - I just keep re-reading it to see if I'm missing something...?


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## David LaFerney

It's pretty straightforward - every week you inspect it, remove queen cells, and replace frames where the brood has mostly emerged with new brood frames which have at least some open brood on them. You can do this with very few hives and not stress any of them much at all. 

As long as you don't let a queen hatch out and you give it plenty of fresh brood on a regular basis you can keep using it as a cell starter/finisher all season long without ever rebuilding it from scratch. If you want to take a break from grafting you can just let it build big beautiful cells on the brood frames and use them to start nucs with. 

When you do finish with it just let it make a queen or break it up into mating nucs for your last batch.

Of course if you get a hot dry dearth in July and August it will get more challenging to keep them motivated - all things have a season, and high summer isn't really it for queen rearing - but still if you do your part they pretty much will too.

BTW, just in case anyone is wondering when to start this kind of endeavor - it's Now in mid TN. It don't get much better than this.


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## AstroBee

David LaFerney said:


> I just grafted from a frame using this tip today, and it works exactly as you say. I'll add this advantage to it - you don't have to waste any time on grafting day looking for material to use. You only open the cell builder, do any prep and there you have your grafting stock all primed and ready. Good tip - I'll do that every time from now on.



Thanks for the follow-up and the review. Glad it worked out!


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## cristianNiculae

I think the best thing is to first understand the principles then you can easily choose what you like best. I personally prefer Michael Palmer's method because it's straight forward, but I've also used swarm or superseedure cells. Just make sure you have enough gear around.


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## Flyer Jim

cristianNiculae said:


> I think the best thing is to first understand the principles then you can easily choose what you like best. I personally prefer Michael Palmer's method because it's straight forward, but I've also used swarm or superseedure cells. Just make sure you have enough gear around.


:thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:


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## David LaFerney

Do you ever *really* understand anything before you do it?


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## cristianNiculae

Good point. 

Most of the times principles come afterwards but the bagage of information helps with practice.


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## Flyer Jim

David LaFerney said:


> Do you ever *really* understand anything before you do it?


The principles, yes, everything, no.


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## Buzzlightyear

What's the best ratio of feed? 1:1 Plus pollen patty? Or do you go a little thicker on the sugar? How often do you rewet the sponge? Every day?


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## Margot1d

Hey Folks,
I am getting ready to execute said plan and I have a few questions. 
- I am going to Demaree a hive that tried to swarm last year and at that point put in the black plastic drawn foundation for the eggs. I am going to use the cells they create above the demaree for royal jelly to prime the cells if the timing works out.
- three days later I am going to set up the 10 frame medium box as stated in the thread and I am going to move the egg frame to the box.
- The next morning I am going to pull the eggs and graft* Do I have to make the box eggless, packed with bees for a few hours or can I pull the frame, graft, and put it back in right away?
*- 2 days later I am going to move the box to the top of a hive. *Do I want to use a strong or weak hive? I have heard both. Do I have to have a box between the queen excluder and the grafting box? That would confine the queen to the bottom, should I use my Demaree hive or will they swarm?
-* 7 days later I am going to make the mating nucs out of medium nucs split in half. They will on have two frames Do I put a frame of honey and a frame of brood and walk away? Do I need to feed them?
Thanks you all. This is a lot to keep straight and this has been a very helpful thread! MD


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