Anti Idiotype Production

[John]

I am interested in preparing an anti-idiotype monoclonal 
antibody to a murine monoclonal raised in BALB/C mice.

I would appreciate advice as to:
 the strain of mice to use to raise the anti-id, 
how many mice to start with, 
the best assay(s) of the serum, 
what titer to require before proceeding to fusions,
the best fusion partners,
the number of clones I should expect to have to check, and
the optimum screening assays.

Any help (or leads to help) will be appreciated.

Thanks,

John Bergmann