# Mini-nuk .vs. Queen Castle



## rw3212

I am thinking of breeding queens next season. I am torn between the two concepts. I lean toward the castles for the sake of standardization and possible less handling.

Pros and cons:


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## bleta12

rw3212 said:


> I am thinking of breeding queens next season. I am torn between the two concepts. I lean toward the castles for the sake of standardization and possible less handling.
> 
> Pros and cons:


Is there a question there? From here it looks more like a statement.

Gilman


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## jbford

queen castles are on sale now. Anybody like them better than using nucs for raising a queen or two?


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## Michael Palmer

rw3212 said:


> Pros and cons:


I like the minis I use because they are in a more cubical form than the queen castle. I winter my mating nucs when they are finished with the mating process for the year. The Queen Castle is 2 frames in a cavity...long and narrow. The mini-nucs are 4 combs in a cube...that can be expanded to 8 minis...still not long and narrow.


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## jeff123fish

is long and narrow a bad thing? :scratch:


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## mgmoore7

I am doing some queens this year and decided to build my own queen castles. I used a deep and cut some grooves before assembly for dividers. I have 4, 2 frame nucs each with their own entrance, ventilation, and sugar syrup source. I liked keeping the frames standard and I can even use these boxes as two 5 frame nucs or 1 full size hive if need be. For my small operation, this seemed to make the most sense and was much more economical as well. For the dividers, I am using plastic corrogated sign board.


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## Chef Isaac

Both work well. In Palmers case, he has enough equipment of the same (with the minis) to make it work great. If you plan to use the minis, make sure you get a few of them or at least have a clear understanding on how you are going to let them expand and into what equipment. 

I used some of the queen castles last year and to be frank, they are easy to make. I like them because it is all standered equipment. They over winter really well. 

So does the minis though.


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## Chef Isaac

matt: Nice and clean web site!


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## sc-bee

I have a castle by one company and the dividers are not very sturdy. If they get wet at all I feel they are a gonner. They would be better if they were plywood. I know another beekeeper who has the same castle I have and says he has a hard time keeping them from crossing around the partitions.

Another problem I have is, shb seem to take over two frames fairly easy in my area!

If you have an extra hive body make one of your own if you have the saw.
I don't have the equipment (saw) so I bought. Keeping the equipment standard I think works out better for someone who just wants a queen or two.


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## Michael Palmer

jeff123fish said:


> is long and narrow a bad thing? :scratch:


Just my opinion. I want to imitate the cavity type that bees prefer. I think that with two standard frames, the bees could get stuck at one end with a small cluster and winter poorly. With the minis, they are encompassing the comb space...just my opinion.


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## rw3212

*more input*

I was planning to do all overwintering in either full size nuks or 8 frame equipment. (I don't use 10 frame at all any more.) 

MP: I understand what you are saying about taller space as compared to long and skinny, but taking the wintering out of the mix do you still feel there is a big advantage to the minis?

Also I am only looking to provide my own queens, maybe 20-30 anually.


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## Michael Palmer

rw3212 said:


> MP: I understand what you are saying about taller space as compared to long and skinny, but taking the wintering out of the mix do you still feel there is a big advantage to the minis?


I still like the minis for ease in finding queens. If I didn't care about wintering, or only wanted to raise 20-30 queens, I might use standard frame nucs...or a Castle. You can use them to raise a couple rounds of queens, and then have nucs for requeening or whatever, with the last round of queens.


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## Gene O

*queens castle*

Hi all I saw that the queens castle with one of the supply houses and never done any queen raising but will build some Q C and try my hand at raising queens . I have about 20 5 frame nuc i built a few years ago. they are just going to waste. My question is do i need to make separte enterance on in front and one in back. and maybe vents also. Will use 3/4 board to seperate, will be 2 two frame will have a little more room in it. Need some pointer from some of you ole timers. Heck i 74 years old and been at it for 7 years.


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## SL Tx

*"queen castle" pros/cons*

A plus to the "queen castle" is that you can pull a frame with a queen cell when you find it and put it between partitions with a frame of nectar/honey. You easily raise a new queen and perhaps relieve overcrowding and prevent a swarm.


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## sc-bee

Just used my queen castle a few weeks ago. Move four frames with cells to each compartment. I added a frame of honey to each. I now have three mated queens. One did not emerge.


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## Sundance

Does anyone have a link of a "castle"? Plans?

Thanks


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## Michael Bush

A note on mating nucs. In my opinion it makes the most sense to use standard frames for your mating nucs. Here are a few who agree with that:

"Some queen-breeders use a very small hive with much smaller frames than their common ones for keeping their queens in till mated, but for several reasons I consider it best to have but the one frame in both the queen-rearing and the ordinary hives. In the first place, a nucleus colony can be formed in a few minutes from any hive by simply transferring two or three frames and the adhering bees from it to the nucleus hive. Then again, a nucleus colony can be built up at any time or united with another where the frames are all alike, with very little trouble. And lastly, we have only the one sized frames to make. I have always used a nucleus hive such as I have described, and would not care to use any other."--Isaac Hopkins, The Australasian Bee Manual 

"for the honey-producer there seems no great advantage in baby nuclei. He generally needs to make some increase, and it is more convenient for him to use 2 or 3-frame nuclei for queen-rearing, and then build them up into full colonies...I use a full hive for each nucleus, merely putting 3 or 4 frames in one side of the hive, with a dummy beside them. To be sure, it takes more bees than to have three nuclei in one hive, but it is a good bit more convenient to build up into a full colony a nucleus that has the whole hive to itself."--C.C. Miller, Fifty Years Among the Bees 

"The small Baby Nucleus hive had a run for a while but is now generally considered a mere passing fad. It is so small that the bees are put into an unnatural condition, and they therefore perform in an unnatural manner...I strongly advise a nucleus hive that will take the regular brood-frame that is used in your hives. The one that I use is a twin hive, each compartment large enough to hold two jumbo frames and a division-board."--Smith, Queen Rearing Simplified 

"I was convinced that the best nucleus that I could possibly have, was one or two frames in an ordinary hive. In this way all work done by the nucleus was readily available for the use of any colony, after I was through with the nucleus...take a frame of brood and one of honey, together with all of the adhering bees, being careful not to get the old Queen, and put the frames into a hive where you wish the nucleus to stand...drawing up the division-board so as to adjust the hive to the size of the colony."--G. M. Doolittle, Scientific Queen-Rearing


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## Gene Weitzel

Michael Bush said:


> A note on mating nucs. In my opinion it makes the most sense to use standard frames for your mating nucs........


In SHB territory, you have to populate standard nucs with many more bees to keep them protected, so mini-nucs work a little better because it takes less bees to keep them strong enough to fight the SHB. I use frames that are essentially 1/2 of a medium so I can put a strip down the center of a medium and put my mini-nuc frames in it to get them drawn and filled with brood in my big hives. Then I can populate my mini-nucs with sealed brood and bees making them stronger in the beginning and able to fight off the SHB during the lag while the queen is maturing. Its a little more trouble but I use fewer bees from my strong hives and can evaluate the new queens a little quicker in the smaller nucs, but the main advantage is fewer losses to the SHB.


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## Broke-T

I took some deep hive bodies and divided 3 ways to make 3 3 frame spaces. 10 days ago I pulled frames with Queen cells and added 1 frame with honey and 1 frame of foundation. 

Checked them yesterday and found 2 of 6 with queens. Feel like others have virgin queens but couldn't find them. One was very crouded so moved them to hive body.

Problem was that when I moved the three frames a large number of bees were left in Queen castle. If it had been nuc I could have turned upside down and bumped them into hive. Ended up putting hive entrance as near to castle entrance as possible and letting them move over on theif own. Today still some bees in castle.

How do ya'll go about moving bees out of castle?

Johnny


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## Pooh

I've run a "castle" which was a deep divided into four chambers (two frames each) with removable mason board dividers and an entrance on each of the four sides. I pull two of the dividers to make two five frame nucs side by side to overwinter selecting the best queen from each side. In the spring if I want to step up these nucs I will move the castle and put two deeps side by side with entrances matching those of the castle, transfer over the frames (making sure queen goes across), and then bumping out the rest of the bees (one side at a time) into the appropriate hive. I want to try a medium divided into three chambers this year. Has anyone used mediums and if so how many frames?


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## Michael Bush

All my mating nucs are two frame mediums. I divide the ten frame boxes into four two frame nucs and the eight frame boxes into three and the five frame boxes into two.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesqueenrearing.htm#matingnucs


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## bnatural

*Queen Castle vs. Mating Box*

This year I bought two Queen Castles from Brushy Mountain and two Mating Boxes from Kelley. Figured I would try both designs and either decide which one I like better for future purchases, or decide on a combination of features and maybe take a crack at making my own. The Mating Box is three chambers of three frames (redesigned this year), and the Queen Castle is four chambers of two frames. Overall, I like the design of the Mating Box better. The dividers are very solid plywood, whereas the dividers in the Queen Castle are very thin material that does not seem like it will be very durable. Also, I think ventilation is better in the MB with the screened holes in the sides, rather than the thin gaps between the slats in the floor of the QC. I can see the latter getting plugged up with debris and propolis pretty quickly. I like the four chamber concept of the QC better, since I think it is more flexible, but was told by Kelley that they changed to three chambers at the request of beeks, who wanted to add a division board feeder in the third slot. Sounds reasonable. Unfortunately, the DBF I just bought from Mother Lode Apiary does not fit. Bummer. I had to remove a divider to make room.

I was planning to use the QCs and MBs for splits later this year, but ended up using one in a hurry, when I discovered that an overwintered and overcrowded nuc I was transferring to a new hive had made swarm cells. I took two frames from the nuc, once with a swarm cell, and put them in a Mating Box. When the division board feeders arrived a few days later (timing is everything in life), I tried to add one, only to find it did not fit, as noted above. So, that group is in a larger space than originally planned. I may try a different DBF design, like the one from BetterBee, and see if it fits. The other three frames I just left in the nuc (yes, with replacement frames added), so they can raise their own queen from the remaining swarm cells.

So, in my case, I was really glad I went with queen rearing equipment that enabled me to swap out frames from my regular equipment. Maybe it doesn't make sense for the Big Guys, but for a Little Guy, like me, it is nice to have that flexibility. Sorry, that was the whole point of my long-winded story (can I type any other kind?)

Bill


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## sc-bee

I agree about the dividers> The queen castle is very poor. _I _Like the Kelly dividers. Don't like what you said about three --- 3 framers. Keeps from having two fives in a box.


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## bnatural

sc-bee said:


> I agree about the dividers> The queen castle is very poor. _I _Like the Kelly dividers. Don't like what you said about three --- 3 framers. Keeps from having two fives in a box.


Agreed. One of the things I wanted was the flexibility to set up two five-frame nucs in each box, in case I had extras to overwinter.

If I ever make my own, I might consider metal dividers the thickness of the Queen Castle dividers. Then, they would be durable, yet thin, and there could still be two, frame nucs, if needed.

Hey! If I were to make ONE new cut in the middle of the Kelley Mating Box, I could fit a divider in place. Then, I'd have the best of both worlds - solid dividers AND the flexibility of five-frame nucs, if needed. Would just need to cut new inner covers to fit the design. That should be easy. And plug one entrance, also easy. I guess I have to think about how to make the cut in the walls and floor of an assembled box. Bummer. Maybe, I could use my Dremel by rigging up some kind of depth control jig and mini rip fence combo......

Bill


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## D Coates

I made a queen castle that holds up to deeps. I can break it into one 11 frame deep, two 5 frame nucs or 2 3 frame and 2 2 frames nucs for queen breeding. Insert or remove inserts from grooved slats and you can increase or decrease the hive size. So far it's worked well for me as I can steal any frames I find with queen cells I find and start nuc colonies. I had one colony with capped supercedure cells on five frames. One frame with a queen cell, add another frame a brood and nurse bees from a donor hive and you've got a nuc with a fresh queen. I'm planning on using it as a double 5 frame nuc for overwintering as well. I like the deep size because it allows me to add or remove whatever full length size frames I want.

I have no experience with the mating box though. I raise only a limited amount of queens every year.


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## Docking

when you place frame in the QC to keep a queen... Do you keep swapping out frames to keep the QC from getting too populated?


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## Broke-T

I took some extra deep boxes and turned them into queen castles by nailing on bottom and putting in two partitions to give 3, 3 frame spaces. There was 3/8 space under frames so bee space was ok. 

Problem was when I found frames with swarm cells they often stuck below bottom of frame as much as 3/4 inch. If I put this frame in my QC it would squish the queen cell. 

So if your going to make QC out of standard box you need to add 3/4 shim to bottom of box before putting on bottom.

Johnny


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## Miss Bee Haven Bee Farm

I have used regular nucs and queen castles and went with regular full size nucs, for keeping queens. When the nuc starts geting to full I move the bees to a regular full size hive and presto I have another hive of bees. I then take a split from another hive on the yard to fill the empty nuc with and let them make there own queen once again (I own 12 nucs). I do this all year until about October. Also the nucs seem to do good thru the winter verses everything in the queen castles usually dies.


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## winevines

We have had great luck rearing queens from queen cells found in hives and putting frames in the queen castle. First time doing this- this year. 

We also have had great luck overwintering nucs in the queen castle.

A few lessons learned on the queen castles:

1) If you OW nucs, put the feeders on the outside walls. Otherwise come Spring if you take them out, you can lift up the masonite divider without realizing it.

2) If you convert the queen castle back into 4 chambers, the bees will likely have propolized the dividing grooves, and you will need to scrape them out in order to get the divider out. Plan on that otherwise you will be frustrated in the bee yard when you are trying to get that divider back in there.

3) For the overwintering nucs (which we started in July) we canned the closed bottom board that comes with the castle and modified a screened bottom board that we could close up with a mite tray. We also made shims to provide ventilation hole and room for sugar or pollen patty if need be. i have photos if anyone is interested. If I were handy with wood and a router, I would say just make a divided deep.


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