# How to commercially sell queens



## klakak (Apr 9, 2013)

I looked everywhere on here, I have the basics down with grafting, timing, ect, but they all seem to just be for hobby/sideliners. If I was wanting to sell quite a few queens, how do you all go about doing that?
I see people graft 40+ at a time, but where do you put each of those cells? and then where do you put each virgin queen to mate? if you have 100 cells, do you have to have 100 nucs/hives to put them each in to get mated, then take them and mark them, and put them in a queen cage? then refill the queenless hives/nucs with new queen cells?


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## BeeCurious (Aug 7, 2007)

Yes


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## westernbeekeeper (May 2, 2012)

Yes.


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## rainesridgefarm (Sep 4, 2001)

Add a few 00s to your numbers and then you will be closer. most of the larger producers have thousands.


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## klakak (Apr 9, 2013)

rainesridgefarm said:


> Add a few 00s to your numbers and then you will be closer. most of the larger producers have thousands.


I understand that, I was just wondering how commercial bee queen sellers are able to produce thousands of queens. The must have thousands of nucs that they put the queen cell grafts/virgin queens in, then remove the mated queen and then start over again in each of those queenless nucs.


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## hpm08161947 (May 16, 2009)

You might like to visit a commercial queen production outfit.... it's a pretty amazing experience.


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## klakak (Apr 9, 2013)

hpm08161947 said:


> You might like to visit a commercial queen production outfit.... it's a pretty amazing experience.


None that I know of near me, plus I have work and school, so no time either


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## beegeorge (Apr 19, 2012)

yes you are right, the commercial guys have thousands of mating nucs. one near me grafts up to a thousand a day,,


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## klakak (Apr 9, 2013)

beegeorge said:


> yes you are right, the commercial guys have thousands of mating nucs. one near me grafts up to a thousand a day,,


Wow, I would love to see a commercial operation in person, that sounds so neat!


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## djastram (May 1, 2011)

Nice video of a commercial queen operation.

http://youtu.be/TmukiN_btGw


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

klakak said:


> If I was wanting to sell quite a few queens, how do you all go about doing that?


Learn how to grow quality queens and they will sell themselves.


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## klakak (Apr 9, 2013)

Michael Palmer said:


> Learn how to grow quality queens and they will sell themselves.


Oh I'm totally onboard with the quality over quantity, but was curious how a ton of queens are made vs several dozen.


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## RAK (May 2, 2010)

Many producers with large quantity have very good quality queens.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

It's really nothing more than scale. Larger scale dosent necessarily mean poorer queens nor does it mean better queens. While there are some labor saving ideas and inventions that have increased productivity somewhat, beekeeping, and particularly queen raising, still remains largely what it has always been, a hands on labor intensive operation. Want to raise a lot of good queens? Find a lot of good help.


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

As far as marketing goes for a sideliner - a friend of mine who produces open mated VSH queens using breeders from Glenn and VP sells all he can produce - before he can produce them. He's *always* sold out. Word of mouth and his somewhat minimal website gets it done. He runs less than 100 mating nucs I think. 

It's apparently almost a case of "build it and they will come..." for those who do good work and keep their word.


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## BMAC (Jun 23, 2009)

David LaFerney said:


> It's apparently almost a case of "build it and they will come..." for those who do good work and keep their word.


Emphasize on good work and keeping word.


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