Approx. dollar amount and time to raise queens

[Shawn]

The other beek here in my town is thinking about trying to raise queens. Does anyone know the apporx cost and how much time is needed?

[TwT]

first thing he will need is plenty of hives to steal frames and bees from to make up nuc's, the rest is all the equipment needed like nuc's, frames and foundation, the what way he will use to raise the queens like grafting, jenter or nicot, sugar for syrup, it can add up depending on the size of operation (number of queens wanting to raise), the big thing is bee's, takes a lot of bee's to raise a good number of queens, just imagine he grafts 30 cells to start with and gets lucky and hits 50%, now he has to have the 15 nuc's and if they are 5 framers like I use them he will at lest need 3 frames of bee's for each nuc and this will be needed at the same time, a frame of eggs or larva, frame caped brood and a frame of honey with 2 frames foundation or drawn frames (one of each) I rather foundation it give bee's something to work

[Michael Bush]

The miller method will cost you just the price of some division boards (assuming you have bottoms, tops, boxes and frames) and some work.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesmillermethod.htm

The Hopkins method will only add the cost of building a shim and a #5 hardware cloth push in cage, or just angle the frame across a ten frame box and fill in with some old clothes and just add the empty comb to the brood nest four or five days before you want to start your queens:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesqueenrearing.htm#hopkinsmethod
http://www.bushfarms.com/beeshopkinsmethod.htm

Basic queen rearing stuff here:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesqueenrearing.htm

Some other methods here:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesoldbooks.htm

[Shawn]

Thanks. I started going through all the old post about queens and found the post that gives what methods everyone uses or likes. Sorry i didnt look hard enough the first time before I posted this.