How To Raise Queens With A Queen Castle - Part 1 of 2

What is a queen castle? If you want to raise some of your own queens, it’s a perfect way to get started. I thought I’d try an experiment to raise my own queens, and decided to build and stock a honeybee queen castle. It was easier than I thought and really quite successful as well. I highly recommend giving it a shot!

The most important part of a queen castle is that the individual sections must NOT have any gaps or spaces between them that would allow bees to move into a different section. Think of the sections as individual hives, and it's possible that if bees drift from section to section inside the queen castle they could end up killing any new queens that have been raised.

How To Build A Simple Queen Castle:
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1) Use an existing empty hive body, either medium or deep size (I used a medium box)
2) Decide whether you want 3 or 4 compartments (I went with 3, with a deep you may want 4)
3) Create a divider that separates the sections. It can be any material (plastic, cardboard, wood, etc) but it's important to ensure there is no space where bees could squeeze through into a different section
4) Measure and build a roof out of plywood for each section. In my version I just kept it simple and made it flush with the top of the hive body surface, and used Velcro strips to keep the roof from moving or sliding off.
5) Drill entrance holes for each section
6) Drill vent holes at the top for each section. I closed them off with hardware cloth to ensure each section only had one entrance to help reduce potential robbing.

Your queen castle is now ready to load with eggs and resources! Populate each section with one or two frames of eggs and brood (from one of your donor hives), and at least one frame of honey and pollen. Shake a frame or two of additional bees on top evenly across all the sections so they all get a similar number of nurse bees to help with the brood. Close them up and let them start making queen cells!

[solomondang-goldberg]

He seems fairly knowledgeable but I only clicked to see his arms. Was not disappointed.