Miller method

[hfrysinger]

I also want to raise just a few queens - say 5. I planned to try the Miller method - any feedback on this would be most helpful!
I have a deep frame that I put small strips of foundation into, each about 2 to 4 inches long. Idea is to give lots of edges, I assume. I plan to put that in the hive with the good queen, in the middle of the brood once it is warmer. Then I will check every 2 days, looking for eggs and very young larva. Then I've been told to cut off any of the comb so there are newly hatched larva along the edges - removing the eggs. Any idea why I need to do that? What tool cuts the wax easiest? I'll take that frame and put into a new queenless nuc with lots of younger bees, then 10-11 days later cut out the queen cells and put into small nucs.
I have seen where the queen cells are looked at with a bright light - just to see if the queen looks fully developed?
I've had bees for a long time, but after reading the ideas on this site, I feel pretty inexperienced!

[Michael Bush]

>Any idea why I need to do that?

It incites them to make them into queen cells and it gives them the right age larvae.

> What tool cuts the wax easiest?

Take a pot of boiling water and put a knife in it. The hot knife will cut the new wax very nicely. A good sharp knife will work without the heat, but the heat helps.

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

[Dale Hodges]

A queen cell built on the "edge" is so much easier to remove. If you don't trim the edge you could get q-cells built up on the comb, much harder to dig out.