# What are the dis-advantages of the (Cobey) Cloake Board method ?



## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

For me, I've never used the cloake board method. However I've read up on it, it seems a perfectly good system there is no reason why done properly, it should not get you good results. 

Just remember the basics which are plenty of bees and plenty of food, you should do well.


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## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

Good post Ken, I am in the same positon as you are..queen rearing springtime adventures and lots of choices. 
Some differences I see may be due to climate, changing time of year and variety of bees too. Might keep other factors in mind other than methods. I would expect an early spring raised queen to be potentially raised slightly differently than a fall raised queen. Just like an emergency queen over a well planned graft in a queen right colony. 
What part does pressure on the bees play in queen quality? I'm sure there are experienced folks with observations about that and I look forward to reading their posts!

My goals for this year are:
- to try several different queen rearing methods, keeping good notes and trying to consider all factors. 
-Getting my mini frames drawn out -use them for mating, then filled with honey late in the summer for 2013's feeding frames 
- having enough really good queens for my fall requeening needs, 
-making strong mini nucs for overwintering experiments

I have no other comment except to say have fun and good luck!
Lauri


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## kjbann (Jun 30, 2009)

Oldtimer,
I sure enjoy reading your posts on this forum. I plan to try your graftless method for getting larvae. I have an excluder layed out to bend up to confine the queen. I may also make up one of your banking frames. I'd like to find some California mini cages and build the frame for those, but I don't know of a source at the moment without buying 1250 from Koehnen. Have you generally used a queenless finisher?
Thanks,
Ken


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## kjbann (Jun 30, 2009)

Lauri,
All good points.
I sure admire your woodworking talents as I'm sure many here do. It looks like you still have all your fingers too, which is a good thing. I could see you making a re-designed Cloake board with a few new bells and whistles. My Cloake board is pretty standard, but I modified a Brushy Mountain SBB with a closeable rear entrance and small porch so I don't have to rotate the hive or shift it forward.
Thanks for the input.
Ken


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

I bet you can get good results from any of the methods you mentioned - quality is likely to be more effected by you (or time of year) than by the system.

To make a good choice you have to consider how many cells you want to produce and how much work you can invest in setting up and maintaining the system you use. If you can only make up 10 mating nucs, then you don't need a system that produces 40 cells.

Plan to use a lot of cell cups - that's how you learn.


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## concrete-bees (Jun 20, 2009)

I got to say Im very lucky to have the Joy of working with Sue Cobey - she has TONS of information and her method of queen rearing and queen Breeding are by far the best that ive ever seen - 

on the cloake board method - this works great but you will need a LOT of bees in a double cell builder hive - about 10-12 lbs of bees shoved in the two boxes - we start about 90 grafts per builder 

but if you just need a few dozen queens i would think more in the terms of a five frame starter hive with about 3lbs of bees (young bees) and then use a strong queen-rite as a finisher 
if you need any details on the way to make a cloake board divider let me know i can send you pictures and sizes of things 

hope this helps 
if you would like queens from Sue this year let me know also we are going to start the process here in Mt Vernon Washington in May 
she is in UC Davis now getting queens breed for this year and ill start grafting early May and will ship mated queens,cells and virgins on a first come first serve basis 
Laters 

Seth


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## kjbann (Jun 30, 2009)

Seth,
Your comments have me thinking about if/how to reduce the top box to a 5-frame nuc. This could be done with a reducer board above the Cloake board, but is it likely to induce swarming? Also, I'm wondering how to super the hive then. Could it be supered under the Cloake board?

Does Sue have any recent info available online? The articles I have probably go back to the 1980's.
Thanks,
Ken


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## concrete-bees (Jun 20, 2009)

ken 
Sue has ubdated stuff in ABJ - 
we dont super the queen rearing hives - they use a lot of resources to make queens and asking them to make honey is just over doing it 
as for the nuc on top of the full size seems over needed - just move the grafted frame to a stong queen rite hive -just place it in the center and pull it on day 10 and move the cells to mating nucs or to requeening hives


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

One of the best articles on using the Cloake board was written by Vince Doyle in the December 1993 issue of Gleanings. 

The advantage of the Cloake board is that it can be used commercially as noted above or it can be used by the hobbyist to produce enough queens for a few colonies. I take advantage of a graftless system with mine which is just a modification, instead of grafting, I cut comb strips and wax them onto a cell bar frame. If you are a hobbyist, you can start a round of queens and then convert the colony back to honey production. This does require some timing, but it can be done fairly easily. This is not an option if you are expecting a colony to produce a few hundred cells over a few weeks. If you just need 15 or 20 queens, then you can manage it. The key is to take advantage of bees natural cycles. In the spring, they will readily build queen cells as they prepare to swarm. Don't try to start queens when you have only 4 weeks to the spring nectar flow. You won't have time to convert the bees back to honey production. If you can start roughly 5 or 6 weeks before the spring flow, then you will have time to get a single round of queens and then move the colony back to production.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

The disadvantage is that you have to make a cloake board. 

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


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Advantages... Works well with a single hive or two.

Disadvantages... Another piece of equipment and more manipulation of hive and combs.


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## broodhead (May 30, 2009)

There are no dis-advantages of the Cloake Board Method, it actually has worked well for me and I find it easily worked and productive. What I did was use this method with a five frame nuc system, it actually makes it easier and extremely productive. From your post you have stated that you altered the entrance that requires no turning of the hive, this is very good and eliminates a little work. Just make sure that you have plenty of healthy bees and food. I usually throw a feeder jar on top with a 2/1 sugar syrup ratio and add supplements to that solution. My cells are big and healthy and the end result is a big fat healthy girl.


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## Maddox65804 (Dec 29, 2011)

The Cloake board method works great. And, you don't have to manufacture a cloake board. I use a piece of cardboard. Slip it in between the two boxes for the 2-3 days as they start the queen cells. Remove it and lay it in front of the hive to keep weeds down. You don't even have to lift the box to remove the cardboard. Just tip it up and pull the cardboard Cloake board out. Cardboard is easy to come by and has so many uses. I use it to make quick and easy follow boards, entrance reducers, weed mats, .....and I just throw it away when it gets too battered and cut a new one (takes seconds).

Instead of trying to modify a full box into a 5 frame nuc, simply use a follow board to reduce the size of the larger box. An advantage here is that you don't have a bunch of nuc boxes laying around for 10 months of the year when you're not using them. Just a few follow boards. Since I use cardboard for that as well, I don't even have the follow boards to store. 

just a few ideas.


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

They don't chew up cardboard? I guess it makes sense - they sell cardboard nucs. Learn something new every day... thanks, good tip.


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## Maddox65804 (Dec 29, 2011)

Sorry I was out of state for a few days so this response is late. No, they don't chew up the cardboard because it is only on the hive for 2-3 days acting as a cloake board. The board is only on the hive while the queen cells are being started (so the queen cells are started in a queenless state). Then it is removed so the cells are finished in a queen-right state.


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

Maddox65804 said:


> ...they don't chew up the cardboard because it is only on the hive for 2-3 days acting as a cloake board. The board is only on the hive while the queen cells are being started (so the queen cells are started in a queenless state). Then it is removed so the cells are finished in a queen-right state.


It occurred to me that if you use a political sign it isn't an issue anyway. Now that I can try it without even having to have a Cloake board I might give that a try. Excellent.

I can see one big advantage - I can use one of my best (potentially best anyway) honey hives to produce a good batch of queen cells without sacrificing the honey crop - and without too much stress to it.


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## spunky (Nov 14, 2006)

Maddox65804- Do the bees have an entrance for those 2 or 3 days when you do this or are they sealed in ?


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## pwadstein (Mar 24, 2012)

spunky said:


> Maddox65804- Do the bees have an entrance for those 2 or 3 days when you do this or are they sealed in ?


I was thinking about that too??


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## fish_stix (May 17, 2009)

Nurse bees don't need an entrance; they're not going anywhere!


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