The Cell Builder "Explained"

I really love raising queens, so, Heres a video of how I make my queen cells in my cell building apiary in Brittany France.

I base my cell building on The Michael Palmer method of the 10 over 10 cell builder. Taking an already very strong colony of bees nearly at the point of swarming, and adding 10 Frames of brood, Harvested from other colonies, that are designated colonies for this purpose. Also known as "brood factories" these dedicated "Nucs" are essential in a path to being sustainable as possible. Raising all your queens and bees, from your own queens and bees.

Although this Method is nothing new, i wanted to show others how easy it is to have a go!
Plan your forthcoming years production to included, if resources permit, some queen rearing from your best stocks. If not, then work with a few other beekeepers . Mutual planning can result in a few small back yard beekeepers, pooling their combined resources and bingo, you raise some great Queens , made by yourself, in your own apiaries.

There are different aspects of this process that are slightly modified to suit my needs. I need a lot of queens after the spring and Summer flows, so for me, Personally, i dont reassemble the cell builder with its now adjacent original queen on day 5,and use it as a finisher, instead, i have run it 2 or 3 times, as a "hopelessly queen less" starter.
A more classic use of this cell builder would be to reassemble and reunite the hive with existing queen on day 5 or 6, when cells are sealed over. if you only need a few cells, say 30, this may be a better option for you. for me, i like to go in and remove started cells 12 to 24 hours after grafting and stick in another load. I am just highlighting, with this method, you have several options.
My other Strong Brood factories act as my finishers, so it all works really well for me like that!!!
By making the colony really strong and combing the Swarming instinct, with the Emergency response and suddenly making the colony hopelessly queen less (with no eggs or larvae available to make a new queen from under the emergency impulse) i then , add my grafts!
This Colony has a very High population of Nurse bees that have no choice but to use the cells i give them and also their so hopelessly queen less and so overwhelmingly populated and well fed, that that can do anything else but draw up beautiful Queen cells, under almost perfect conditions.
Thats what you want, maximum stimulus, with maximum resources available to the bees at a time when the bees would naturally be doing the same. All I am doing here is enhancing normal queen rearing process that carries on in a normal colony during the normal beekeeping season.
Work with your bees, do what the bees do, when they do it, only give them the best!!!
Hope you enjoy the video. Have fun rearing your queens. You can do it, just carefully planning and organisation.

01/03/2018 : Questions and answers video on this video available here    • The Cell Builder explained: Q and A  

Enjoy, go make some great cells!!!