This is a copy of Henry Alley's 1882 book called, "The New Method of Queen-Rearing".

We will use illustrations from Henry Alley's book to explain this method.  Alley placed special emphasis on selecting queens carefully.  They needed to be perfect in every respect and of undoubted purity and prolificness.  You can follow no better advice than this even today.

In Alley's own words, "If a large number of queens are to be reared, the mother queens should not be kept in full colonies as the risk of killing them in securing eggs for cell building is too great..."  "I do not use the combs in standard frames for this purpose, as in the course of the season a large number of nice brood-combs would be either badly mutilated or destroyed in so doing.  Small pieces of comb the size of the nucleus frames, described in another place, are generally at hand and far preferable to larger combs."

Alley used these small frames with new foundation.  He mentions that these frames need to be properly numbered and marked for use.  He says, "A good prolific queen will fill this small comb in less than twenty-four hours. The exact age of all eggs is easily and exactly determined."

For cell builders he advised, "Always select the strongest colonies for cell-building and never the weak or feeble ones."   Alley used a swarm box to get his cells started.  A swarm box is similar to a nuc box with this exception:  The top and bottom of the box are covered with wire for ventilation and once bees are placed in the box, the box is kept in a bee room.   Bee can not leave.  He says he put three pecks of bees into the box.  In today's language, you could probably get a five frame nuc box, convert it into a box with a wire screen bottom and a removable screen top.  Into this box you could place four frames that include honey, pollen, and capped brood and add two or three pounds of bees.  He says, "The bees should be kept in this box at least ten hours.  Soon after being put into it they will miss their queen, and keep up an uproar until released.  This prepares them for cell-building.   I find it a good plan to keep them in a cool, dark room, or cellar until needed, as they will keep more quiet and there is less danger from suffocation.  The bees must be kept queenless for from twn to twelve hours, else the eggs given them for cell-building will be destroyed."

The process of getting eggs to put into the cell builder.  

He destroyed every other egg.  "This gives plenty of room for large cells to be built, and the bees to work around them and also permits of there being cut out without injury to adjoining cells."   Many later beekeepers using this method, left two empty cells between cells with eggs.

The strip of comb with eggs is then fastened to the bottom of a frame of 1/2 comb to make room for the queen cells.  See the figure he used in his book below: 

"You will notice that this comb is cut with a slightly convex curve.  By putting the prepared strips in after this manner, still more room is given to each cell owing to the spreading caused thereby."

The strip I might interject was fastened to the upper comb base by dipping the edge which had not been prepared for the above into 1 part beeswax and 2 parts rosin.  Much care had to be taken to avoid getting the strip too hot.

This frame was then placed into the swarm box.  As he indicated, "Everything is now ready for the queenless bees in the box, impatient to be released and anxious to commence cell-building."   He also added, "I usually prepare the bees in the morning for queen rearing and give them the eggs at night.  By the next morning they will usually become reconciled to the new state of things and from twenty to twenty five queen cells can be started; this of course depends upon the number of eggs given them.  If not permitted to complete over twelve cells, the queens will be found as good as, if not superior to, those reared under the swarming impulse."

From this point on, queen rearing is pretty much the same.  The queen cells are built, fed, capped, and allowed to develop.  The beekeeper must plan on getting nuc's ready for each queen to be raised.  If you mark the frames with the day the eggs were laid, you know your queen cells will need to be moved on the 14th day into individual nucs for breeding the new virgin queens.