will this work?

[achunter]

I only need 4 queens...can i start two, 3 frame nucs that are queenless with eggs pollen and honey and have each of those nucs raise a queen and wait until shes laying for a period of time. take the queens out from both nucs insert them into the hives i want to requeen and let the 2 nucs i removed the queens from raise up another 2 queens and repeat the process?

[doak]

You need a large populated colony to rear queens.
If you have more than one strong colony, you could remove the queen with one frame of capped brood, one frame of growing brood, two frames of honey&pollen and one empty frame, with or with out foundation. Put these in a five frame nuke. Put frames in the colony where you take these from. Close it up and go back in 9 or 10 days and you should have several capped queen cells. If you wait longer they may start hatching and kill each other. Pick out the best looking largest uniform ones, have your (queen less) nukes made up and put one cell in each nuke.

Check back in 10 to 14 days, It should be easy to locate the queen in the nuke. If you don't wait another 10 days then look for eggs/brood. This has worked for me.

Don't forget the nuke you made up with the queen. After 10 days, if there is a nectar flow on, it will be time to put these in a bigger hive body. 8 or 10 frame, which ever your using.

I know some one else will give you a better way but I have had this work for me. :)doak

[John Schwartz]

Excellent info... I've started into Doolittle's "Scientific Queen Rearing" and wondering if you've ever read?

[achunter]

that method sounds very effective the only thing is that i use the plastic foundation and it may prove difficult to remove the queen cell without messing it up? any ideas?

[doak]

to achunter
Trade out some frames on the outside of the cluster for some with wax foundation.

to lotsobees
I haven't read any full books on queen rearing, but have read some articles from different sources.
Roger Morse, ABC-XYZ of beekeeping, etc.

Hands on "mistakes" is a very good mentor/teacher.
I have 50 years in the bee hive, or something like that, on disc.
 :)doak.

[ONTARIO BEEKEEPER]

Read all the queen rearing books you can find, ( my favorites are by Jay Smith ), although I think he makes things more complicated than they need to be.
The # 1 rule for getting quality queens is having very strong over flowing colonies to make them. So making up a Nuc and hoping for decent queens is not the best way, they don't have enough resources. The better idea was already mentioned above, remove the queen, etc,etc. Ideally you want to mimic the natural conditions that would cause a hive to swarm.