So, touch wood, I currently have 3 full hives and 2 Nucs. 1 Hive I have no intention of using for queen raising, in fact I want to requeen ASAP. 1 is unknown as it was only just built up for winter and 1 I'd like to raise queens from. The Nucs will have to wait and see.

So if we assume that to start with I'll just be wanting to take/make queen cells from one colony, and was intending to use grafting as a method, what would be a suitable quantity of kit to obtain? I don't want to spend a fortune if I can help it, but I could spend a few hundred pounds.

My intention is to use the basic BIBBA/Roger Patterson 50/50 method at the moment, i.e. 50% of my colonies are good and I'd raise queens from them, 50% are grotty and should be re-queened.


I have currently 1 Nuc (3 in total) so I don't really want to have to shell out for more Nucs if I can help it.

I'm going to use Apideas on the recommendation of pretty much everyone in the other thread. How many would be reasonable to start with?

I was going to get 3-4 of those cheap chinese grafting tools as they seem to either work or they don't so getting a couple of them should cover the bases.

Cup Kits? I presume 1 bag of bits would be more than enough to get going with.

Anything else that I need to get going?