It's great to read his posts on Beesource, Vermont seems to be a hotbed of quality beekeepers, so much information freely given. I know that we've a few good people in this country but the ones who post tend to be far less open about the nuts and bolts -or their sarcastic nature's stop them from elaborating on what they see as (too) simple questionsOriginally Posted by mbc
A good cloak board overview here:
Sue Cobey's Cloake Board Method of Queen Rearing and Banking
Thanks for the info, my woodworking skills have made me some usable crownboards and apiguard/feeder ekes, can't see that a cloake board is all that complicated, but first, I think, understand the method before making, otherwise I may find it won't work!
Yes interesting thanks, for those without big double boxes in May. Any thoughts on using the Ben harden box above the cloake board for smaller colonies
OK, I'll ask.... what is a Ben Harden box exactly?! (Totally serious question).
I'm pretty sure he means the upper box of the 'Ben Harden Method', a name that embarrasses Ben as it is really the Wilkinson and Brown method, but that largely came from commercial practice in Royal jelly production in France. Mike Brown talked about this to SBA members in Inverness this year. The paper also mentions Doolittle as developing queen-right cell raising methods, not sure how similar his was to this.
The paper is here. https://secure.fera.defra.gov.uk/bee...ment.cfm?id=36
The method is the workhorse of several on this list and is simple and fairly reliable if you note the comments on the state of the colony, feeding etc. Sometimes it fails but so do all methods as far as I can see. If it does, the colony is strong, and you've been feeding and nothing else is wrong, you could try isolating the queen. Take her out to a nuc, slip in a solid board with a gap to create a new floor between the two boxes (a day after remaking the Demaree so that the young bees go up to the brood). However I wouldn't do this with a weak colony, just try a stronger one.
No need for complex boards. I guess Nemphlar was thinking of a Cloake board (floor based on a Q excluder with a divider that slides in) so that he could slide in a divider after that first day. Sounds reasonable, but often not necessary.
Last edited by gavin; 04-12-2013 at 09:59 AM.
Thanks. I've seen lots of mentions of the method but have been a little on the lazy side regards actually looking it up for myself.
There seems to be a few different approaches some of them hoping to harness the emergency queen cell response and some the creating conditions of a failing queen so superceding impulse
In some colonies or strains the sight of a larva in a vertical cell seems to be all the stimulus they need to get going
In another thread I mentioned the swarm I captured this year on old combs
I wanted to get them underway on wax building so added some foundation and did a bit of rearranging (after there was brood in a couple of frames
They went right on to make a couple of queen cells
The nest wasn't split by foundation or anything just one drawn comb
I had a dilemma but harvested the two cells for elsewhere and left the original queen
She went on to lay up a really fine broodnest and they drew out lots of new wax (lucky)
That left me thinking bees which have swarmed are in a trigger happy state where they build cells first and ask questions later
Last edited by The Drone Ranger; 04-12-2013 at 01:09 PM.
John Summerville who is one of the best bee breeders in Ireland is a big fan of the cloake board. Not sure how it would work with smaller colonies.
This allows the cells to be started under queenless conditions and as soon as the cells are underway the board is manipulated to allow free movement of bees as in the Ben Harden/Wilkinson and Brown system.
He demonstrated this at one of the queenrearing events I was involved with but I was taking a separate group at the time so I missed his demo.
It's pretty common for a swarm queen to be superseded relatively quickly as she is often getting long in the tooth if it is the prime swarm.That left me thinking bees which have swarmed are in a trigger happy state where they build cells first and ask questions later
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