# john harding method



## crofter (May 5, 2011)

I think is not too popular because of the need for a special setup and equipment alteration. The queenright stacks would need close watching not to swarm. The original author was a promoter of the black bee in Ireland. 

The bee psychology seems sound and I am sure it would work. I thought about it before I adopted the Snelgrove Board. The Cloake Board system is another good alternative to get good cell starting and rearing conditions.


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## psm1212 (Feb 9, 2016)

Frank: I don't want to hijack the OP's thread. But I want to read about your Snelgrove board methods. Can you link me to an existing thread where you have discussed it in detail? Thanks.

psm


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

My guess is the Harding method should give _ongoing _queen cell starting conditions.

The snelgrove will get at least 5 or 6 queen cells started on existing eggs. These frames with started cells can be pulled after a week and new frames with eggs from another colony (or a frame with grafted eggs) inserted and those young bees will still be in the mood to start another round of cells. I have done it with frames from other selected hives since I do not graft.


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## johnbeejohn (Jun 30, 2013)

i have used coake board for last few years the only problem for me is as soon as i pull the cells out they are so strong i have to split them down and then start all over with another strong hive
im looking for somthing that i can graft into every 10 days or so 
im wandering how well they draw cells when the flow is off


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

johnbeejohn said:


> as soon as i pull the cells out they are so strong i have to split them down and then start all over with another strong hive
> im looking for somthing that i can graft into every 10 days or so


The cloake board sure crowds the upper box; not surprised that they would be like to swarm afterwards since really you have not pullled any resources from them.


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## ABruce (Dec 27, 2013)

I am just reading about this John Harding queen rearing method. It seems simple enough to me. I do not mind the idea of creating three purpose built boxes if I avoid having to shake down hives, manipulate frames ec on an ongoing basis. t. Has any one used this system? Built there own equipment ? Pros? Cons? lessons learned/
thanks


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

FWIW - I started to build a Harding system but midway through the build decided it was unnecessarily complicated and decided to make and use a Morris Board instead.

The Morris Board in turn proved to be unnecessarily complex in practice, but I did like facility of using one of two nuc boxes each run - so I duly modified the Morris Board to operate as a divided Cloake Board, which worked so well over several seasons that I made another two boards and, with a turntable under each stack to make the procedure effortless, I can now create queen cells all season long, providing I feed whenever there's a dearth of nectar.

I also create nucs in this way, so that pulling these regularly off the stack helps to keep the population from getting too large which has thus far always prevented swarming.

I think it's the steering of the whole forager population into one single 5-frame nuc box (which provides the main stimulus to draw q/cells) which appears to be the key to the success of using divided Cloake Boards.
LJ


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