# multiple queens from production hives



## Outdoor N8 (Aug 7, 2015)

Has anyone put queen castles sitting on their production hives? 
obviously a good queen excluder would be under the QC, separating the two

Another way to put it, has anyone used the outer two frames (each end with doors and division boards in place) in their top super to breed queens?


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## ffrtsaxk (Jul 17, 2017)

See Doolittle's book: Scientific queen rearing. He did something like that back in the late 1800's. I'm planning on trying it this year.


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## JWPalmer (May 1, 2017)

No, but last year I moved a super above the other full super to get the brood in it to emerge before extracting and put a qe under them both. The bees made queen cells on two of the frames. After they were capped, I put them in nucs. I would think the concept is similar.


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## Outdoor N8 (Aug 7, 2015)

Yes ffrtsaxk , Doolittle is exactly who got me thinking on this line, Laidlaw refers back to it as well, though notes if you were to raise many queens there are more efficient ways.

And yes, it sits right beside pulling open brood frames up and getting a virgin in your top box, JWPalmer.


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## ffrtsaxk (Jul 17, 2017)

Keep me posted on how it goes, Outdoor N8. I will probably be trying it during the summer since I ordered queens to requeen with in May. I’ll let you know how it works out for me.


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## Outdoor N8 (Aug 7, 2015)

All ready, I have figured in setting up the box (was putting boxes together this weekend and playing with QE's) exactly like Doolittle, it will up the cost $10 per box. Where putting a box on it's own base and top (queen castle configured) adds $14. The trade is one less queen with the gain of 30lb honey. 

I still would like to hear from someone who has tried this system.


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## ffrtsaxk (Jul 17, 2017)

I haven’t been able to find anyone else who even knows about it. 
I am going to use a double queen excluder to keep the two queens from trying to fight through the excluder. I overwintered in 3 deeps. So, I will just take a hive down to 2 deeps and replace the third with a queen castle with the double excluder under it.


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

ffrtsaxk said:


> I haven’t been able to find anyone else who even knows about it.


Really - not anyone ? ( http://heretics-guide.atwebpages.com/trip2017_02.htm 3-queen hive stuff - halfway down the page )



> I am going to use a double queen excluder to keep the two queens from trying to fight through the excluder.


Very sensible. Sounds like you've read (and understood) Doolittle's Appendix to Sc. Qu. Rearing ... 
LJ


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## MattDavey (Dec 16, 2011)

I use a both a Bottom and Top Entrance all the time.

With the Brood frame you move up to the Top Box for raising Queens, Notch the bottom half of a few cells with the youngest larvae you can find. 
The bees treat these broken cells as a Queen Cup. Referred to as OTS (On the Spot queen raising.)

http://www.mdasplitter.com/docs/Helpful_Tips_For_Notching-web.pdf

If the bees are not used to a Queen Excluder it takes a day or so for them to get used to it, so this is enough time of reduced Queen Pheromone to trigger emergency cells and the Notched Cells are basically a "Make Queen Cells Here".

Made some a few weeks ago, saw the Virgin Queen going on mating flights the other day.


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

The Snelgrove or double screen division board works on the same principle. I have been using it for 4 years or so to produce a few queens for splits and requeening. I dont know about using multiple queen castles though. Enjambres tried something similar with divided boxes and division boards but found some difficulties.

I foresee a posibilty that the closer the nucs are to the larger hive might decrease mating queen return success and increase robbing pressure. A single starter hive above the mother hive _a la Snelgrove_ is not problem getting cells started and queen mated.


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## ffrtsaxk (Jul 17, 2017)

Little John, finally, I am talking to someone who has done it. Are there any problems that we should be aware of that Doolittle didn't cover?


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

Not really - but although I had great hopes for BIG numbers ( >5 Nucs) using horizontal hives, the results thus far have been disappointingly erratic - so a vertical set-up producing a more modest 3 nucs over a medium strength brood box appears to be optimum.

As you will no doubt have deciphered from Doolittle's Appendix, the problem he encountered was queens coming close enough across a single barrier to threaten each other, sufficient to cause disquiet and anxiety amongst the colony, which resulted in the killing of one or both queens.

I've run a lot of experiments with two QX's back-to-back with minimal spacing - very much along the lines of the example given in Simmin's 'Modern Bee Farm' 1914, page 316 onwards, which he entitles: "Quadruple Nucleus and Queen-rearing Hive" - but as with so many of his other inventions, this didn't work any too well, for that tight spacing really isn't enough - several inches of separation being far more desirable. 

Some years ago I came across a simple pen and ink drawing of a vertical setup where two QX's were separated by a shallow box containing drawn combs which was being used as a spacer - but sadly I cannot find that source again. However, I have found the same technique repeated in http://countryrubes.com/template/images/Raising_Honey_Bee_Queens_8_30_10.pdf

The essence of which is:


> *Raising Queens in a Double Brood Hive*
> 
> A small number of queens can be raised in a queenless brood chamber established on top of a strong colony, arranged in this order:
> 
> ...


That this exact set-up has been repeated within the above link suggests to me that it has been proven to work well, and I've already modified one of my rigs to this form for this coming season.

The only possible snafu lies within the upper QX - which needs to be of such construction as to prevent queens from squeezing underneath the brood box dividers (assuming these are being employed). My own solution to this is to construct a custom floor for the divided brood box, with three QX panels inserted within it. This is a shot of the floor I'm making at an early stage of it's manufacture:

 

For this:



One bonus of using a shallow box as a QX separator is that the distance between the lower box front bottom entrance and the nuc entrances (one at the rear and one at each side) is increased to a minimum of 20 inches, so that should a virgin ever get lost, it won't be for lack of entrance separation ... 

I'll post a pic of the finished rig when it's completed.
LJ


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## ffrtsaxk (Jul 17, 2017)

Little John, thank you very much for sharing your insight! You have saved me the frustration of finding out that the double excluder didn’t provide enough distance. I was already thinking that it might not work since I read a number of articles on managing 2 queen hives for increased honey production and they typically had the queens separated by a honey super with excluders on both sides. I was also wondering about the possibility of queens going under the dividers and how to keep that from happening. The castle I have can be divided into 2 or 4 compartments. But, it sounds like I should either set it to 2 or make my own for 3.
I do have a couple more questions, if you don’t mind. Do you keep the entrances to the queen castle open all the time or do you close them like Doolittle did? Also, do the workers bring enough pollen into the castle traveling through 2 excluders and across a honey super? I have to pull my mouse guards in the spring because they knock a lot of the pollen off and was wondering if the excluders would have the same result.


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

ffrtsaxk said:


> The castle I have can be divided into 2 or 4 compartments. But, it sounds like I should either set it to 2 or make my own for 3.


Well - I'd recommend not making too much work for yourself first time out - if you already have 2's, then work with those this coming season and test the idea out using 2x nucs, before developing it further.

I've found that two nucs over a pair of QX's works well - these are a couple of divided Cloake Boards (dimensioned for two 5-frame nuc boxes over our 11-frame brood boxes), which I can either use as pukka Cloake Boards (spin the hive around, make the upper chambers queenless using slides to start emergency cells, etc) or simply rely upon the QX's without slides to stimulate supersedure cells:



There are two further compelling reasons to use an intermediate box between the QX's which I haven't yet mentioned ...
The first comes from Walter Kelly's 'How to Grow Queens' (1942-ish)



> *FUNDAMENTALS OF MY SYSTEM *
> 
> (1) Bees above a queen excluder, with the queen below, consider themselves queenless. To prove this, take any strong colony and move eggs and brood above the excluder, and they will proceed (during a honey flow) to build one or more queen cells and allow them to hatch out.
> 
> ...


[*] i.e. well before the commencement of the operation - but also physically far enough apart to achieve an effective separation ?

The second follows on from this: if queen-rearing is conducted during a honey-flow, with back-to-back QX's then the little darlings will commence storing nectar within the queen-rearing box - which hasn't yet caused a crisis with my 5-frame nuc boxes, but could well do so if I were to use smaller nucs (as I'm planning to do this year). But - a super inserted between the QX's offers them a far more suitable place for nectar storage.




> Do you keep the entrances to the queen castle open all the time


Yes(*) - protected by anti-robbing screens. In order to initially keep the through-draught to a minimum, I reduce the size of the bottom brood box bottom entrance as far as possible (consistent with the amount of traffic flow), and close the OMF (SBB). Later, when the queens begin laying - at the very first sign of bearding, I then open the OMF to provide maximum ventilation.



> Also, do the workers bring enough pollen into the castle traveling through 2 excluders and across a honey super? I have to pull my mouse guards in the spring because they knock a lot of the pollen off and was wondering if the excluders would have the same result.


That's a good question, and a valid concern. I too wondered about this, albeit with a Joseph-Clemens queenless starter-finisher (which remains queenless all season long, and so needs a QX over the entrance to stop any lost virgins from entering) - so I made-up a rig to test this.

Here is a shot of the test rig I made (with a precision QX, 4.16mm spacing), with a drawer below to catch pollen grains in the same way as a pollen trap:

 

This was then fitted to a nuc hive and left in position for 10 days:



There was a LOT of traffic during those 10 days, and yet when I pulled the drawer open, there were just two pollen grains in there. Ok, so that was a vertical QX - but I can't see a horizontal QX being any different.
'best, LJ

(*) Although Kelly talks about total worker-bee separation, I've found that in practice - as soon as the colony detects that there exists an upper entrance to the hive - a small cohort of guard bees set-up station behind each upper entrance (these being 22mm circular holes). At night - especially when chilly - I've observed these bees jammed solidly within the hole, effectively blocking it off.


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## Outdoor N8 (Aug 7, 2015)

"... the little darlings will commence storing nectar within the queen-rearing box - which hasn't yet caused a crisis with my 5-frame nuc boxes, but could well do so if I were to use smaller nucs (as I'm planning to do this year). But - a super inserted between the QX's offers them a far more suitable place for nectar storage."

So, back to the OP. Have you considered or tried using just the two outside frames _in the super_ to raise queens?


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## ffrtsaxk (Jul 17, 2017)

Little John, Thanks, you have been extremely helpful!


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## Outdoor N8 (Aug 7, 2015)

Getting back to this, bottom line is: the desired outcome did not happen.

The goal was to raise two 'extra' queens in the supper while maintaining the original queens brood nest in the bottom - thereby not disrupting mass honey storage.

To start, I was making spring cut comb, keeping the hive pushed down. Of course their response was to go into swarm mode.
Upon seeing them begin queen cells (non-capped), I selected the two I wanted and put them in a new box. They were put in slot 1 &10 with brood frames in 2,3, 8&9, but separated by vertical Queen Excluders. Each Qcell had it's own rear facing entrance with a colored disc reducer. This new box was moved to the top (#4) with a QE under it then the almost finished Cut comb box in #3, with a new drawn comb box in #2 and the original queen in the #1 but with 6 new drawn comb frames for her to lay in.

In the end, both virgins emerged. Then it went sideways. The south virgin was ignored and died, found her laying on the QE. The old queen swarmed anyway. And the North virgin ended up breed and in the bottom box.
Again, bees aren't reading the books I am...


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## Outdoor N8 (Aug 7, 2015)

Getting back to this, bottom line is: the desired outcome did not happen.

The goal was to raise two 'extra' queens in the supper while maintaining the original queens brood nest in the bottom - thereby not disrupting mass honey storage.

To start, I was making spring cut comb, keeping the hive pushed down. Of course their response was to go into swarm mode.
Upon seeing them begin queen cells (non-capped), I selected the two I wanted and put them in a new box. They were put in slot 1 &10 with brood frames in 2,3, 8&9, but separated by vertical Queen Excluders. Each Qcell had it's own rear facing entrance with a colored disc reducer. This new box was moved to the top (#4) with a QE under it then the almost finished Cut comb box in #3, with a new drawn comb box in #2 and the original queen in the #1 but with 6 new drawn comb frames for her to lay in.

In the end, both virgins emerged. Then it went sideways. The south virgin was ignored and died, found her laying on the QE. The old queen swarmed anyway. And the North virgin ended up breed and in the bottom box.
Again, bees aren't reading the books I am...


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

I've heard of some guys putting additional queens in upper boxes by just using a queen excluder between boxes. Not sure on the details, but I think they were discussing even just sticking weak colonies onto stronger colonies like that and the bees just went on as business as usual.


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

JRG13 said:


> I've heard of some guys putting additional queens in upper boxes by just using a queen excluder between boxes. Not sure on the details, but I think they were discussing even just sticking weak colonies onto stronger colonies like that and the bees just went on as business as usual.


You will have to provide drone escapes in all sections shut off by queen excluder. Just separating by queen excluder is not enough to dependably start cells. If the bees can contact each other to exchange food through the screens they also exchange queen pheremones and may prevent cell starting. 

he two screen layers in the Snelgrove board separated by a space of 5/16" or so guarantees cell starting. Usually on at least three different frames. I have not tried to take multiple cells all the way to mating by dividing the top box. Usually pull one or two frames out to individual nucs for mating. Enjambres has played with dividers in the box above the division board but found problems.

It is nice to gain the heat from box below but it limits access and being close makes returning a mated queen riskier.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

> In the end, both virgins emerged. Then it went sideways. The south virgin was ignored and died, found her laying on the QE. The old queen swarmed anyway. And the North virgin ended up breed and in the bottom box.
> *Again, bees aren't reading the books I am*..


well


> To start, I was making spring cut comb, keeping the hive pushed down. Of course their response was to go into swarm mode.


Once in swarm mode, one is going to be hard pressed to keep the old queen around with capped cells/emerging virgins, and a larger queenless hive is very tempting to a virgin vs a smaller one, QE don't isolate bees like a double screen board 


> Each Qcell had it's own rear facing entrance with a colored disc reducer


and once you have a few started cells, a nuc will do a good job finishing them. It takes 400 mix aged bees with no other jobs to rear a quality cell, less of prime age
those started cells could have bee moved to a 2 frame nuc , maybe add a shake of bees and or thinned to 2, and done well 

I respectfully suggest the issues were not on the part of the bees reading books, but a human's impression of the internet 
your in NM... warm zone 6 no reason to need heat for a hive below,Ok sure if your trying to make super early queens...maybe.. no hard and fast rules with bees
But, your talking about doing it on a comb honey flow.


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## Outdoor N8 (Aug 7, 2015)

Yes MSL, just moving frames with cells to a Coats' or better yet in my opinion a 'Palmer type' split box will make queens... really good queens if you even remotely know what your doing.

It was an experiment on Laidlaws' commentary on Doolittle, as referenced in post #4. (hence the bees don't read joke) 

I still will keep plugging on, using production hives [hives whose sole purpose is to make as much honey as possible] to raise queens interests me --verses pulling resources out to make splits/nucs. 
Yeah, I know it's akin to having your cake and eating it too. Have you ever tried raising queens this way?


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## coalsmok (Jan 27, 2017)

I done something similar this past summer successfully.
The first time was by accident. But I had read Doolittle’s book. 
I pulled the old queen out of the hive and placed her in a nuc for swarm prevention. Plan was to come back in 10 days to separate out a few frames with queen cells into two frame mating nucs. Work got in the way and I wasn’t able to get there till day 13-14.
When I opened them up I found a virgin queen right off the bat and placed her in my queen clip off to the side. Went on down setting boxes off separately looking for unopened queen cells with no luck but did find another virgin queen running around in the second brood box and another in the bottom box. I was in no way prepared for this but was not going to waste the virgin queen’s as the mother queen was one of my best two years in a row. For some reason I had a couple queen excluders in my truck with the two frame box I had brought so I pulled two frames for the mating nuc and placed the first virgin in there, left a virgin in the bottom brood box and place a queen excluder above her, then two supers that I thought were clear of virgins, and finally a second queen excluder feeder shim with entrance notch to the rear and the second brood box. I came back a few weeks later to find I had not two mated queens but 3 in this stack of boxes. This caused another mad scramble for equipment as I had only brought one extra bottom and top to separate the queens but I had learned something about Dolittle’s methods.

The second time was on purpose (Sort of/more so)and went much smoother. 
Found another colony on the verge of swarming and pulled out the old queen and a small split. Then done as above but was able to use already started swarm cells instead of virgins. One frame with a cell went into a two frame mating nuc with a frame of brood and bees from another nuc. Two cells were left in the bottom brood box. Then an excluder, three supers another excluder, feeder shim with entrance to the rear and the second brood box. Later I set the top hive on its own bottom board and added supers to both. This was done between our early spring flow and the basswood flow of summer. 
I feel that it is a good method of raising a few extra queens when you have limited equipment and your colonies are really not quite big enough to make large splits right away, and am planning to do this again. I left the second hive this way until both queens had at least one full box of brood and in the mean time they filled a couple medium supers. 
I also came to like using the two frame boxes as mating nucs for finished cells this summer. They gave me one more chance at a laying queen using very little resources. Often if they had a flow one frame of bees and a partial frame of food plus a shake of nurse bees.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

Reading my X mas presents and remembered this thread

Contemporary queen rearing, Laidlaw 1979, P 81 suggests you should put the queen in the box that goes on top of the supers and the cell in the box on the bottom board, Might work for castles, but sounds like a lot of lifting


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

msl said:


> Contemporary queen rearing, Laidlaw 1979, P 81 suggests you should put the queen in the box that goes on top of the supers and the cell in the box on the bottom board, Might work for castles, but sounds like a lot of lifting


REQUEENING HONEY BEE COLONIES WITHOUT DEQUEENING, By I. W. FORSTER demonstrated that it doesn't make any appreciable difference whether q/cells are placed above or below the existing brood box. 

"There was no significant difference between the mating and survival
rates of young queens treated by methods A and B (Table 1)."

'A' being q/cell above the brood box, 'B' being below.

FWIW ...
LJ


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## Outdoor N8 (Aug 7, 2015)

MSL , love that book, what a great Christmas present.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

> demonstrated that it doesn't make any appreciable difference whether q/cells are placed above or below the existing brood box.


yes, but that was with a division board, not a QE. So it was a vertical split, not a combined hive using the honey supers as a pheromone blocker 

with a QE and the queen up top the hive only has one entrance... 
the advantage being the virgin cant come in threw the wrong entrance, and the old queen can't swarm, 2 problems the OP had


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