# Two Queen Castle Questions



## NorthMaine (Oct 27, 2016)

If you look at Michael Palmers videos, he shows where he has the hive body split with mini frames on either side. Then he has division board feeders in the middle making 4 compartments, but he uses deeps rather than mediums. . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vA3yiNoAh4o You can see the box with feeders at 2:59 pretty good.


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

I have used mini's, but we are using a deep divided 4 ways with 20 half size frames. We have a divider that splits the box in half and acts as the frame rest, then follower boards that I use to split each side. It works well for us, I've got 3 set up that way and our current system puts new cells in one box each week, then leave them for 3 weeks before we harvest queens. We didn't bother with foundation in the mini frames, just let the bees draw out the comb freehand with popsicle sticks for starter strips. For me, the biggest hassle was getting comb drawn into the first batch of frames, set the box on top of a fairly strong colony and they just didn't move up and start drawing comb on the mini frames, they probably would have gone up and started drawing comb if I had foundation in the frames. After 10 days I took a more drastic route, caged the queen in that colony, shook all of the bees into one side of the divided deep and moved the frames from the deep below into other colonies. that worked well, and within a few days we had a bunch of frames well on the way to being drawn out, looked like this:-










After they had 8 frames drawn on one side, I moved a bunch to the other side and started another colony there. A couple weeks later both sides had 6 or 8 frames drawn out, I put in the followers and split it into 4. By fall all 4 quadrants were fully combed. We used a 1 inch shim packed with damp sugar and wintered queens that way. Worked well. In the following year I decided this worked well so I wanted more. Once the mini's were well populated in the spring, I made 6 quadrants out of 4 by moving brood etc into another box, then a couple weeks later made 8 out of 6 and so in till I had bees in all 12 quadrants of 3 boxes.

For us, the biggest hassle of going this route was getting frames made at this size. I've been considering trying out a smaller box where I can just order mini-frames from Mann Lake and use those in a divided medium.

For dealing with entrances on the 4 ways, I have them on a solid bottom, simply a piece of plywood. The box has a hole drilled on each side providing access to one compartment, so all 4 entrances face in a different direction. This has worked well, I am not worried about bees finding the wrong entrances and we dont have the different sides painted different colors. In fact, it can be helpful at times. When one quadrant fails raising the new queen and the population starts to drop off, just rotate the box 90 degrees and that quadrant will get all the foragers coming back to that entrance after setting new cells in place.


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## KevinWI (Mar 18, 2018)

Not sure if you're interested, but I built double mating nucs last year...they work well...and are versatile...made more this winter:


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## Muenster (Feb 19, 2018)

Thanks for the info Grozzie. The frames that go in a Mann Lake double mini are medium in depth. That's why I'm converting a medium super. I'll probably cut down frames (in length) since I have a box of unassembled medium frames, but I could order them from Mann Lake if i got real lazy. I'm trying to get out of mediums and move to intermediate/western depth. If this works out I may splurge on some more of their styrofoam nucs. The main concern I have is that the queens I raise will be too aggressive. 

Kevin. I'm trying to not have to use a lot of resources from my hives in the form of frames/bees for getting these queens mated. I do have a couple of three section castles made up that hold three frames (western depth) per section if I want to use some cells for increase


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## KevinWI (Mar 18, 2018)

Muenster said:


> Kevin. I'm trying to not have to use a lot of resources from my hives in the form of frames/bees for getting these queens mated. I do have a couple of three section castles made up that hold three frames (western depth) per section if I want to use some cells for increase


Two frames per colony is NOT a lot of resources. It's one frame of brood/bees and an empty undrawn frame. Beauty is these frames are interchangable with your other equipment. But...to each their own.


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## Muenster (Feb 19, 2018)

Well that is a point, but the truth is I think the little frames are kind of cute, lol. I'll see which way I like better. My main worry is that the queens will be too aggressive


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

KevinWI said:


> Two frames per colony is NOT a lot of resources. It's one frame of brood/bees and an empty undrawn frame.


I would argue it is... the OP needs at least 12 mating nucs to handle their goal of 6 cells a week.
Using a single frame of brood that has been 60% layed out, and covering bees that's a spit ball 6,000 bees per nuc, vs 600-900 bees to start a mini nuc

That's about 20.5 pounds of bees for the 2 framers vs 3 pounds of bees for the minis, you quickly see why minis are often the queen producers 1st choice, especially when they only have a few cycles of time to fill their orders and need to max out their nuc count 

To me that 17.5#s of bees is a lot of resources that could be better used, say by seting up 3 brood factory's to provide combs of brood to start nucs using the mated queens and provide brood for the cell builder.

but as Steve points out, to each their own. Every ones goles and situation is different and every system has pros and cons


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## KevinWI (Mar 18, 2018)

msl said:


> I would argue it is... the OP needs at least 12 mating nucs to handle their goal of 6 cells a week.
> Using a single frame of brood that has been 60% layed out, and covering bees that's a spit ball 6,000 bees per nuc, vs 600-900 bees to start a mini nuc
> 
> That's about 20.5 pounds of bees for the 2 framers vs 3 pounds of bees for the minis, you quickly see why minis are often the queen producers 1st choice, especially when they only have a few cycles of time to fill their orders and need to max out their nuc count
> ...


ah....but you don't see that this nuc gets added back anywhere you want it once the queen is mated and laying...you are out zero bees and gaining a frame of drawn out comb. ...to each their own.


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

KevinWI said:


> ah....but you don't see that this nuc gets added back anywhere you want it once the queen is mated and laying...you are out zero bees and gaining a frame of drawn out comb. ...to each their own.


That's only if you are doing one, and only one queen round per nuc, and even then, they are unlikely to build that frame of comb until well after the queen is mated and laying unless its started with a significant amount of capped brood. If you are running successive rounds in the mating nuc, then that unit spends half of the time without a laying queen and doesn't grow very much. I also disagree with the above statement of needing 12 nucs to do 6 queens a week. That is indeed the case if everything works out perfectly with respect to timing, but we dont live in a perfect world. 2 days of bad weather at just the wrong time, and the two week mating nuc still has a virgin queen when you go to harvest. I leave them in for 3 weeks after planting the cells, so to do 6 queens a week I'll need 18 nucs running in sets of 6 each staggered by a week from the prior set. That will give 6 a week assuming you have a 100% return rate of mated queens for the cells you plant, again a somewhat unrealistic expectation.


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## Tom Sullivan (Oct 12, 2014)

Muenster, 
I have been queen rearing using the Clemens method for a few years now. Can’t help you on the question concerning the mini frames. I use all deep frames for the cell builder and mating nucs because they are interchangeable with my other hives. I hate having specialized equipment that I can’t use for other purposes. 

On your other question, helping virgins make it back, I have found that nuc placement is the biggest factor. If possible, place your mating nucs in a different yard away from your production hives. If that is not possible at least place the nucs as far from your other hives as you can. Place the mating nucs at different angles so each has a unique orientation. If possible, spread them out so each has shrubs or other objects that the virgins can use to orient. When I did those things, as opposed to putting nucs in my main yard and painting different colors at their entrances, I found my rate of successful mating went up. 

Oh, one other thing. I agree you should plan for 18 mating nucs if you plan to produce six cells per week. In an ideal world each virgin could hatch, mate and begin laying in two weeks but that often does not happen, especially when you are first starting out. One of the nice things about the Clemens method is that you can re-use both the cell builder and the mating nucs several times. That really increases the efficiency of this system.


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## AAIndigo (Jun 14, 2015)

Muenster,
I'm not one for adding specialty equipment such as mini frames. I take a 10 frame deep with 3 dividers and run 4 mating chambers with an entrance for each on one of the four sides. The queens almost always find their way back after mating. I have a separate mating yard and robbing isnt an issue. I pull one frame of brood with the queen after 3 weeks, add a frame of drawn comb or comb with bees (if the chamber is light) and move to a production hive in another yard. A queen cell is added later that day or the day after. Keeping track of feeding and nectar flow is key to this set up. I feed light in June and monitor weekly. I pull the 2 outer dividers at the end of my queen production (late July) and let them build as production hives with robbing screens on till I wrap in December.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

> I also disagree with the above statement of needing 12 nucs to do 6 queens a week


agreed, but the OPs stated gole was to place 6 cells a week.
as for the 18 vs 12, as I noted I was talking about minimums to make a point on the resource drain.. Had I sad 3 weeks, 18 mating nucs and 30+ pounds surly some one would have come back with you only need 12...lol
in many miny nucs a 14-17 day catch cycle is common as the queen will quickly out run the space.. "mini" can mean any were from four or five 1/2 deep frames to the 3 tiny 1/8 deep fames in the small foam nucs, so going by minumis seems the best bet 

Muenster you mite want to take a look at Liz Huxter's quad system, she is using shallow 4 ways
https://vimeo.com/161651142
as well as https://www.beesource.com/forums/sh...mating-nuc-that-you-use&p=1518441#post1518441
for ideas


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## KevinWI (Mar 18, 2018)

grozzie2 said:


> That's only if you are doing one, and only one queen round per nuc, and even then, they are unlikely to build that frame of comb until well after the queen is mated and laying unless its started with a significant amount of capped brood. If you are running successive rounds in the mating nuc, then that unit spends half of the time without a laying queen and doesn't grow very much. .


No offense, but your comment is not factual even in the slightest... Quite obvious you are guessing and dogmatic. .but to each their own....I have no more time to spend on a pointless discussion.


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

KevinWI said:


> No offense, but your comment is not factual even in the slightest... Quite obvious you are guessing and dogmatic.


I am only relating my own experiences from having done these things for some number of years. Feel free to post the photos of your experiences that dictate otherwise. I stand by my comments, every one of them comes from 'been there, tried that, this is how it turned out' perspective, there is no guessing involved, simply experience at having tried various routes. If your experiences show other outcomes, please do show in what way.

Disparaging comments as above really do make one sit back and start asking self, why do we even bother anymore?


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

grozzie2 said:


> Disparaging comments as above really do make one sit back and start asking self, why do we even bother anymore?


yep, a youtube blogger who hasn't kept bees alive for a full year yet, telling us all how it is.
Biting the hand that feeds is likely why there is a shortage of content here from experienced beekeepers, that and the onslaught of chaff that just becomes too tiring to correct 

Lets try this another way
Hi, My name is Seth, I have been beekeeping sense 2009 
2018 I did 30+ grafted queens in a 4x4 starter finisher and used 2 and 3 F castles, 4F stand alones, wood minis started with a cup of bees, 2 and 4 F KTBH, and Comfort style boxs as mating nucs
2017 I did a similar number using FBS and cut cell strips
I had EFB issues last year and slow build up/lacking resources I am adding foam minis to the mix in the hopes of getting an earlier start and thus an extra round for the season. The big plus is i can start them with out any (possibility infected) drawn comb and a shot of OTC to give them a clean start, and insure they safe to move off the site to a uninfected mateing yard. I feel my past experience is relevant to the topic at hand

Kevin one of your videos made it sound like you may have only mated out 2 queen in 2f nucs last year?, how may grafted queens did you produce?

Grozzie what did last years queen rearing look like for you?


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## Muenster (Feb 19, 2018)

Thanks again all for the answers above. I've been keeping bees for 15 years but have never tried to purposely raise queens. I bought the double mini nuc a few years ago as a way to raise QC's if I found them. Never used it for that but I have "parked" a couple of old Q's in it while I waited to be sure her replacement was accepted in the main hive. I'm building two four chamber queen castles for the medium depth mini frames (they're about 1/3 the area of a full sized medium frame by my guess). And have two castles that hold three chambers of three western depth frames. I'm a little reluctant to use a nuc with less than three frames as I worry about the bees being able to cover all the brood. My three frame western depth nucs are probably about the same comb area as two deeps however. My plan is to use Q's from mini nucs to requeen full size hives and those from the full sized three framers to make up increase. I'm really excited to try my hand at this starting in a few weeks now (elms just opened up today here, 85 degrees).


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## JWPalmer (May 1, 2017)

Muenster, not sure if this is what you are envisioning. A pair of the ML growing boxes, pn IN-165, will fit nicely on a modified 4 way queen castle bottom board. Each section will hold 5 of the half frames although the fit is a little tight once you cut a dado for and install the divider boards. This will be my first year using the double mini mating nucs and your post comes as I am getting ready to put my growing box and 20 frames on a pretty strong hive. I am shooting for about 8-10 queens each week through June. After then, the dragonflies seem to get fat.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

forgot to add some medium 4 way stuff
http://michiganbees.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Mini-Nucs_20150130.pdf


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## Sharpbees (Jun 26, 2012)

not sure if they still sell them but Kelley's did sell something along those line.


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## JWPalmer (May 1, 2017)

Betterbee still does.

https://www.betterbee.com/mating-nucs-and-other-queen-rearing-supplies/qmn-queen-mating-nuc.asp


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

msl said:


> Lets try this another way
> Hi, My name is Seth, I have been beekeeping sense 2009
> 
> 
> Grozzie what did last years queen rearing look like for you?


Hi, my name is Gerry, and I've only been keeping bees since 2011. We started as a backyard hobby thing with only 3 colonies, but, in 2013 due to a change in my wife's employment we moved to a new area, and when we moved, we bought a farm. We've been growing the apiary ever since.

In 2018 we only did 2 rounds of queens, ie 2 dozen. We stopped that and many other things early in the season when during first week of June we found out that our last living parent was moving to palliative care. We made a conscious decision to lighten our workload in many areas so we would have time for Dad in his final days. We switched from a mode of apiary expansion to 'minimum maintenance' for the rest of the season. We stopped the weekly grafting schedule and I stopped doing any form of swarm controls on the full size colonies. We just moved them out to the summer yard and basically said 'see you in September'.

We have spent the last 5 years trying different concepts and finally settled on a system that works well for us and our overall schedules. Our system includes weekly grafts to populate 1/3 of our mating nucs each week, and during the early part of the season we are also placing more cells into splits if we dont have enough mated queens.

2014 - we started out just using standard 5 frame nucs for mating queens. It's not efficient in that it uses a lot of bees and frames per queen. If you harvest queens regularly from them, they dont really build up well, then later in the season as we head into dearths, the full size colonies view the nucs as feeders. The main lesson was that we are better off using 1/3 of the nucs on a staggered weekly schedule instead of trying to do them all at the same time. With the staggered schedule there are always queens available while doing them all at the same time means we go thru periods of 2 weeks where we have no queens available, then suddenly we have a lot and maybe no place to put them all.

2015 - Tried a couple 2 frames to reduce the drain on brood frames. The lesson learned, a late frost leaves you with chilled brood in the unit and it withers completely. 4 frames dont have this problem, but almost the same resource drain as 5 frame units. I was using Bee Briefs for the 4 frame units, and once again they became 'feeders' for the big colonies during summer dearth. The Bee Briefs are great for transporting nucs, but, unsuitable for wintering small bee colonies.

2016 - We tried 4 way deep with half size frames. The lessons learned. With more 'internal' comb they cluster nicely, survive a mild frost without issues, build out nicely. With only a very small hole for an entrance, they can defend well during the late summer dearth and they winter well if properly prepared. We decided this is the correct path for us going forward. First year to try wintering in the 4 ways, we had bees in two of them that winter. Weekly grafts didn't work to well, didn't have enough mating nucs.

2017 - We had some spare queens in April because they wintered in the mating nucs. April queens are a very valuable resource in our part of the world, to early to make new ones and impossible to source queens from commercial sources, they simply are not available. We expanded the mating nuc counts and went with weekly grafts. This was the year of 'proofing' our system, weekly graft to populate one 4 way each week, 3 of them in the system so we would be set up to harvest weekly. By the end of the season we had run 4 rounds thru each mating quad and the 5th was comfortably stored in the nucs for the winter. That's only 60 queens, a dozen wintering in mating nucs, another dozen wintering in nucs, a mix of duplexes and standard 5 frame units. The most important lesson of the year, with lots of spare queens in inventory at any given time, I learned that it's not a big deal to pinch an under performer. The other thing, and most valuable tidbit, after a few years refining the process, we now have a system that works consistently and we can use it to grind out another graft each and every week from late April thru till July.

2018 - Started out great, with intentions to continue growing out queen production. All of the plans changed in the first week of June for the above mentioned family related reasons. We shelved all our growth plans for the year and switched to a mode of 'do the minimum to keep bees alive'. The mini's didn't fare so well this winter, mostly because the beekeeper neglected them thru the late summer. Still a couple alive, but some boxes have been moved into storage to re-populate in the spring. Our first two rounds went well, but we essentially called it quits after that. I'm not going to apologize for re-organizing our priorities last summer, we did what we had to and I'm the first to admit that the bees suffered for it.

For 2019 we will do between 70 and 100 queens, mostly for our own use. We'll start out doing a dozen at per round, then more as we get more mating nucs combed out. 

Like you Seth, I'm still waiting to hear how many queens our new resident expert has raised over his time with bees, and what systems worked for him consistently over a number of seasons, some with great conditions, others where a protracted dearth made rearing good queens somewhat more challenging. I'm always willing to learn something new from the folks that have experience in trying other things, who knows, maybe we can find a valuable tidbit in it.


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

Gerry,

Some nuggets of gold in that post. Thanks for sharing it with us!


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## Outdoor N8 (Aug 7, 2015)

opcorn: don't mind me, carry on!


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## JWPalmer (May 1, 2017)

Well, I put my growing boxes on my strongest hive yesterday above the brood boxes and the upper entrance (this hive uses the UE a lot). Filled the hive top feeder with 1:1 and am trying to simulate a flow. The frames are all made with starter strips so there is a bunch of open space on top. Not sure how they will respond, but experimenting is part of the fun. For comparison, I also put a 5 frame super with Acorn foundation on my strongest double deep nuc and refilled their mason jar feeder too. Fingers crossed. Pollen is coming in now and activity at the pollen sub feeder has slowed dramatically. Very excited about trying out the Styrofoam double minis in a month or so.


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

JWPalmer said:


> Pollen is coming in now and activity at the pollen sub feeder has slowed dramatically.


I saw lots of fresh nectar last weekend and my nucs have really slowed on syrup. Things are starting to percolate.


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## drm1963 (May 30, 2016)

Just our $0.02 on queen castles for what it may be worth to someone.

Create your own out of an old brood box, add a 3/4" shim between the box and the solid bottom so you will leave room and not squish your queen when she runs to the bottom of the frame you are putting back in.

Paint each side a different color or paint a different pattern on each side so the queen and bees can find their way home easier.

Check out our plans where we did add 2 more slots to allow for a greater variation to the inside layout and watch placement of entrance holes so as not to leave any closed off sections without holes!

TNHB Queen Castle 


and see them in action!


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## Muenster (Feb 19, 2018)

I had hoped to be making my first grafts about now but the weather hasn't been very cooperative. After the first week of Feb. I don't think they bees had five days of flying weather. Now we're looking at two days with lows in the teens, not how most people envision March in Texas.... I did make some mating nucs to hold the half medium frames that fit in the Mann Lake double mating nuc (I already had one of those). Also made a four way mating nuc from an old medium super that takes those frames. It should warm up late this week. I'll stock some of these with a couple of nucs I overwintered with small colonies (assuming they don't freeze in the next two nights) to draw out some frames, and then set up a cell builder next week. Or maybe a week latter, I'm not in a huge hurry. 

What size entrance hole do most of y'all drill for small mating nucs? I made them 5/8" but that looks a little small.


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## drm1963 (May 30, 2016)

Muenster said:


> What size entrance hole do most of y'all drill for small mating nucs? I made them 5/8" but that looks a little small.


All of the boxes I drill holes into are 3/4" holes with the only exceptions being my swarm traps which I drill 1 1/2" holes in then install gates I can close and that I 3D print.

TNHB FB Post


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## Muenster (Feb 19, 2018)

Well my first shot at grafting went better than I thought. Now I have twelve cells to place on Sunday. I think I'll make some deep splits (to sell later) and a half dozen on the mini frames to requeen full size hives this spring. So far I've really enjoyed the process, hopefully the queens mate out well and are productive. They'll certainly bee a lot cheaper than store bought queens (well assuming my time isn't worth anything)


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## drm1963 (May 30, 2016)

Muenster said:


> They'll certainly bee a lot cheaper than store bought queens (well assuming my time isn't worth anything)


In the long run they will be a lot cheaper and you will only get a little better each time you graft.

Gives you a source of queens you know the genetics of as well as some to sell if you wish too!!


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## Muenster (Feb 19, 2018)

If only I was better set up to control the drone population. I grafted from really gentle queens in the hope that after they mate with a few of the local hot heads the daughters will still be ok. About one in five local swarms is meaner than I want to deal with so starting with puppy dog larvae I think I have a good chance of getting docile colonies, I guess I'll know by June or July


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