Nuc as a cell raiser question

[mbc]

I've read prosperity and weather are critical to success and I disagree. Use a strong queenless cell starter amply fed for a while before hand and during cell raising and it matters not a hoot what conditions are outside the hive, give them everything they need inside the hive!
(Maybe it is easier when conditions are ideal, my point is that you can still achieve near optimal queen rearing conditions inside the hive by adding pollen and syrup liberally and confound natures attempts to thwart us)

[madasafish]

I've read prosperity and weather are critical to success and I disagree. Use a strong queenless cell starter amply fed for a while before hand and during cell raising and it matters not a hoot what conditions are outside the hive, give them everything they need inside the hive!
(Maybe it is easier when conditions are ideal, my point is that you can still achieve near optimal queen rearing conditions inside the hive by adding pollen and syrup liberally and confound natures attempts to thwart us)

That is true. But locally I found bees in mini nucs combined with bad weather (and I mean cold, wet windy and occasional frosts) make queen emergence sometimes risky if you have few bees i.e a mini nuc as opposed to a 5 frame nuc - and queen mating very risky. But you could argue the latter is a permanent risk. My experiences are that starting raising before May is locally a big gamble and usually a waste of time . But on the other hand starting early means the beekeeper has a chance to relearn skills not used for a year..and which may be rusty...

I usually start last week April and expect to fail - and am not disappointed :-(