A poll for the people who raise their own queens

[The Drone Ranger]

I don't think you need buy mini-nucs either, although I do use a few myself. You can produce queen cells easily and if you only want to make increase for yourself you just need to make up small colonies by robbing frames of brood and nurses from your others and stick a queen cell in each one.

Good point Rosie beekeeping can be horribly expensive
My wife always says "I hope you are going to get enough honey to pay for that lot"
I'm usually too busy messing around to listen
"quiet woman" "where's that antihistimine is my only reply"