Brilliant,
Thanks for the replies, interesting system there Robo, I'll have to re-think the whole nuc starter/finisher and opt for one of my full hives. Only interseted in this system as I feal you cannot do the bee's juctice without having queens availible to re-queen and to increaes my stock of bee's.
I payed €300 odd for 3 nuc's of bee's here in Ireland and you won't buy them now for anything less than €120 and can pay up to :shock:€150 :shock: for a good nuc. So you can see where I'm coming from when I say I'd like to get a handle on queen rearing for myself.
Micheal you said:
The reasons for splitting the two out is for someone producing a lot of queens.
Is this to do with the quantity of queen cells verses bee's or maybe not to stress one hive out by making them over work starting/finishing alot of cells?
Is there a ratio for bee's/frames to cells?
ie: would 4 frames of bee's start/finish 5 queen cells, 8 frames start/finish 10 cells, 12 frames start/finish 15 cells. I think you see where i'm going.
Thanks,
Greywulff