Tag Archive for: Beekeeping Equipment

A Guide to Beehive Styles for Different Beekeepers

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For a beekeeper, choosing the right hive is as important as selecting the perfect honey extractor. It’s not just about aesthetics (although those quaint wooden boxes are undeniably charming), it’s about finding a style that matches your experience level, apiary setup, and beekeeping goals. So, let’s dive into the world of beehives and explore the options buzzing with potential!

Langstroth Hive: The Classic Choice

The Langstroth hive is the undisputed king of the beekeeping world. Invented in 1851 by Reverend Lorenzo Langstroth, this design features standardized, removable frames that make inspections, honey harvesting, and colony management a breeze. Its modular nature also allows for easy expansion as your bee colony grows.

Pros:

  • Beginner-friendly: Easy to manage and inspect.
  • Widely available: Parts and equipment are readily accessible.
  • Versatile: Can be used for various honey production styles and bee breeds.

Cons:

  • Can be expensive: Initial investment for a complete setup can be high.
  • Heavy and bulky: Moving and transporting can be challenging.
  • Limited natural comb building: May not be ideal for beekeepers seeking a more hands-on, natural approach.

Top Bar Hive: A Return to Nature

For beekeepers seeking a more natural and bee-centric approach, top bar hives (pictured above) offer a fascinating alternative. These horizontal hives feature long, removable bars instead of frames, allowing bees to build comb in their natural, vertical orientation. This can lead to healthier brood and increased honey production.

Pros:

  • Natural comb building: Promotes a more natural beekeeping experience.
  • Cost-effective: Can be built with readily available materials.
  • Minimal intervention: Less manipulation of the bees is required.

Cons:

  • Steeper learning curve: Requires more knowledge and experience to manage effectively.
  • Harvesting can be messy: Extracting honey from the natural comb can be challenging.
  • Less efficient honey production: Typically yields less honey compared to Langstroth hives.

Warre Hive: Sustainable and Productive

The Warre hive, developed by French beekeeper Abbé Émile Warre in the early 20th century, emphasizes sustainability and colony health. These hives are stacked vertically, with each new box added as the colony grows. This eliminates the need for artificial queen exclusion and promotes natural swarming behavior.

Pros:

  • Sustainable: Encourages natural beekeeping practices and minimizes waste.
  • Low maintenance: Requires less frequent inspections and interventions.
  • Good for swarm control: Promotes natural swarming, which helps prevent overcrowding and colony stress.

Cons:

  • Not beginner-friendly: Requires advanced beekeeping knowledge and experience.
  • Limited honey access: Harvesting honey can be more difficult than with other styles.
  • Swarming can be inconvenient: Managing swarms requires additional effort and knowledge.

Flow Hive: Innovative Honey Harvesting

The Flow Hive is a modern marvel of beekeeping technology. This innovative design features special honeycomb frames with channels that allow honey to be extracted by simply turning a lever. This eliminates the need for messy, traditional methods like spinning or straining, making honey harvesting a breeze.

Pros:

  • Easy honey harvesting: Minimal effort and mess required to extract honey.
  • Gentle on bees: No need to remove frames or disturb the bees during harvest.
  • Visually appealing: Transparent panels allow for observation of the honey flow.

Cons:

  • Expensive: Flow hives are significantly more costly than other types.
  • Limited availability: Not as widely available as traditional hive styles.
  • Less hands-on experience: May not appeal to beekeepers who enjoy the traditional aspects of beekeeping.

Choosing the Right Hive for You:

Ultimately, the best beehive for you depends on your individual needs, experience level, and beekeeping goals. Consider factors like your budget, apiary setup, bee breed, and desired level of involvement when making your decision. Remember, there is no one-size-fits-all answer, and the most important thing is to choose a hive that you feel comfortable and confident managing.

The Father of Modern Beekeeping

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As we approach Fathers’ Day at Wildflower Meadows, we want to take this opportunity to honor the “Father of Modern Beekeeping.”

François Huber (1750-1831) was a Swiss naturalist and entomologist who and widely considered the father of modern beekeeping.  Huber’s most important contribution to beekeeping was the development of the “leaf hive.” This hive allowed him to observe the behavior of honey bees without disturbing the hive. The leaf hive consisted of a series of frames that could be removed from the hive without destroying the comb. This allowed Huber to study the development of the brood, the production of honey and wax, and the behavior of the queen bee.

Before François Huber invented the leaf hive in 1789, beekeeping was a much more difficult and haphazard practice. Beekeepers used a variety of hives, including skeps, log gums, and box hives. These hives were all fixed-comb hives, meaning that the bees built their combs directly on the walls of the hive. This made it difficult for beekeepers to inspect the hive or harvest the honey without destroying the comb.

The invention of the leaf hive by François Huber was a major breakthrough in beekeeping. The leaf hive was a movable-frame hive, meaning that the frames could be removed from the hive without destroying the comb. This made it much easier for beekeepers to inspect the hive, harvest the honey, and manage the colony.

Huber’s work paved the way for the development of modern beekeeping methods. His leaf hive was the precursor to the Langstroth hive, which is the most widely used hive today. Langstroth hive is based on the same principle as the leaf hive, with frames that can be removed from the hive without destroying the comb. This allows beekeepers to inspect the hive and manage the colony without harming the bees.

Huber’s observations revolutionized our understanding of honey bees. He showed that the queen bee is the only female that can lay eggs, and that the drones (male bees) are only used for reproduction. He also showed that the worker bees are responsible for all of the other tasks in the hive, such as gathering food, caring for the young, and building the comb.

Huber’s work was published in two volumes, “New Observations on Bees” (1809) and “Further Observations on Bees” (1814). These books were translated into many languages and became essential reading for beekeepers around the world.  Today’s beekeepers owe much to François Huber. His pioneering research laid the foundation for modern beekeeping and helped to make honey bees a valuable part of our ecosystem.

Three Sizes of Honey Supers – Which is Right for You?

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In beekeeping, the boxes placed on top of a beehive used exclusively for honey collection are called “supers.” There are three sizes of honey supers commonly available: shallow, medium, and deep. The only difference between the sizes is their height, which affects how much honey they can store. Supers are can be made smaller than regular deep bee boxes, meaning that they weigh less and are easier to maneuver. Shallow supers are 5-5/8” in height; medium supers are 6-5/8”; and deep supers are 9-5/8”. Respectively, each size can hold approximately 30, 50, and 70-80 pounds of honey.

Shallow supers are the smallest of the three sizes, and they are typically used for collecting comb honey. Comb honey is honey that is still in its natural honeycomb cells. Shallow supers are also a good choice for beekeepers who are just starting out, as they are easier to manage than medium or deep supers.

Medium supers are the most popular size of super, and they are a good all-around choice for beekeepers. They are large enough to store a good amount of honey, but they are still relatively easy to manage. Medium supers are also a solid choice for beekeepers who want to produce both comb honey and extracted honey.

Deep supers are the largest of the three sizes, and they are typically used for brood rearing. Brood rearing is the process of raising new bees. Deep supers are also a good choice for beekeepers who want to produce a lot of honey, as they can store a large amount. However, deep supers are also the heaviest of the three sizes, so they can be difficult to manage for some beekeepers.

The best way to choose the right size of super for your needs is to consider your own needs and limits. If you are just starting out, a shallow super is a good choice. If you are looking for a versatile super that can be used for both comb honey and extracted honey, a medium super is a good choice. And if you want to produce a lot of honey, a deep super is a good choice.

Here are some additional factors to consider when choosing the right size of super:

  • The size of your hive
  • The type of honey you want to produce
  • Your own physical strength

Supers are a crucial piece of equipment in beekeeping, and they can be used in a variety of combinations based on your needs and preferences. The most common arrangement for a basic hive is 2 deep boxes, placing the honey supers on top for honey collection. The second most common arrangement is 1 deep box on the bottom paired with 1 medium, with the honey supers on top for honey production.

Wood vs. Plastic Frames

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Beekeepers have been using wooden frames in their hives for over a hundred years. Yet, while some beekeepers still remain loyal to wood, many have migrated to plastic. Nowadays, the majority of commercial beekeepers, as well as many smaller-scale beekeepers, choose to use one-piece molded plastic frames instead of wooden frames.

When it comes to durability and general ease of use, not only are plastic frames more lightweight than wood, making them easier to move when full of honey, but they’re also more efficient and cost-effective since they come fully assembled and ready to use. Plastic frames typically outlive wooden frames by a long shot. Plastic frames have an additional advantage in that they generally can’t be destroyed by pests and parasites. Pests such as wax moths can’t burrow through or eat through solid plastic as they can with wood and wax.

Plastic frames are available in both white and black. Black frames are fantastic for brood chambers since they make it much easier to identify eggs in the hive. At Wildflower Meadows, we appreciate how a black background makes it easier to spot the right-aged larvae when grafting and raising queens.

With that being said, there are still plenty of advantages to using wooden beehive frames. Sustainably sourced wood frames are both eco-friendly and bee-friendly, allowing bees to adapt to new frames quickly and easily. Plus, if you’re a handy beekeeper, wooden frames are easily repaired if they do eventually break. For beekeepers who prefer using a traditional old-school pure beeswax foundation, wood is really the only choice that will accommodate a traditional beeswax foundation.

Whereas wooden beehive frames stand up well against the forces of the extraction process, plastic frames can sometimes warp or bend after being put through extraction. This can make plastic frames a little difficult to work with when extracting subsequent batches of honey. Wood frames, on the other hand, are unlikely to warp.

How Many Frames Should be in a Langstroth Beehive?

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When it comes to the standard beehive, known as the Langstroth beehive, beekeepers have two box sizes available to choose from – an 8-frame and a 10-frame box. The 10-frame is the standard box that most beekeepers use. The 8-frame box has the same function as the 10, but it is narrower, lighter, and easier to handle. This is an excellent option for beekeepers who may struggle to lift a heavy 10-frame beehive when it is full of honey.

This seems straightforward enough, except that many beekeepers – especially commercial beekeepers – use 9 frames. Why is that?

Honey producers sometimes choose to use 9-frames in a 10-frame box to create extra free space for their bees to fill in with more honey. Nine frames, counterintuitively, can often result in a higher honey yield than if the bees worked a box with 10 frames. This is because with 9 frames there is more space per frame to pack in honey.  In a good honey flow, the frames in a 9-frame setup become fat and heavy with honey.

Many beekeepers also prefer to use 9-frames because it provides extra room for handling and removing the frames, whereas 10-frame setups can be tightly spaced and sometimes challenging to work with.

While a 9-frame setup has the advantage of maximizing honey production, the extra space between frames, if not evenly distributed, can be a disadvantage. Precise spacing is very important to honeybees. The space that they inhabit between their honeycombs is a universally standardized distance called bee space. Bee space needs to be larger than 4.5mm and less than 9.0mm — no matter what. Honeybees will not tolerate any space outside of this range. If the space between combs is less than 4.5mm the bees will close the gap, usually sealing it with propolis. If the gap is wider than 9mm, the bees will build an additional honeycomb to bring the gap back to the acceptable and precise space that they desire.

Because of how it is designed, a 10-frame box naturally spaces the frames properly. With 9-frames, however, it’s important to consider proper spacing. Beekeepers need to avoid creating large gaps between the frames that are wider than the bee space. Large gaps will cause the bees to build comb between the frames which will create an unnecessary mess. Most beekeeping supply companies sell metal frame spacers that create the perfect size gaps due to the spacing issue that can be caused by using 9-frames. These spacers are made to hold nine frames perfectly within bee space.

So, when would a beekeeper use all 10 frames?

First, when building out a new foundation, nearly all beekeepers will use 10 frames, since frames containing only foundation are particularly thin and ideally fit 10 to a box. Pollinators, bee breeders and many hobbyists also usually utilize all 10 frames. Using 10 frames allows 10% more capacity for brood laying than 9 frames would. At Wildflower Meadows, since we are more focused on queen and bee breeding than honey production, we prefer to use 10 frames per box. This keeps things simple and allows our queens the maximum amount of real estate to lay both worker and drone brood.

Harvesting Honey Supers

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When it comes time to harvest honey – that magical moment that you have been waiting for! – there are several methods available to get the job done. While no one method is necessarily better than another, some methods are better suited to hobbyists, whereas others are more appropriate for commercial or larger-scale beekeepers.

The basic goal of honey harvesting is to separate the bees from the honey and to remove a honey super off the beehive without taking any bees with it. The bees store honey in the super – it’s where they cure and maintain the honey. In any strong honeybee colony, there will be bees inside working on tasks such as maintaining the temperature of the colony and building beeswax to coat and preserve the frames of honey. Your goal when harvesting is to clear them out so you are not carrying bees back to your house or facility.

The first and most commonly used method of removing the honey super is with what is known as a fume board. It is used by both hobbyists and commercial beekeepers alike, including us here at Wildflower Meadows. (The beekeeper in the photo is gathering his fume boards.)  A fume board is typically coated with a chemical repellant that drives the bees downward, away from the frames of honey. It’s placed on top of the honey super, clearing the box of bees below.

If you are a backyard beekeeper and only have one or two honey supers to harvest, another simpler method is to use a basic bee brush. A bee brush is an inexpensive and invaluable tool used by all beekeepers, which works great if you only have a small amount of honey to harvest.  When using a bee brush, simply pull the honey frames out one by one and gently brush the bees away. This method is more time-consuming than other methods, but it is perfectly effective for a small-scale hobbyist.

There is one thing you should be cautious of when using a bee brush, however. If you have not placed a queen excluder below your honey super, there is always the risk that the queen may have wandered up into the honey super. You do not want to brush a queen honeybee and risk potential injury to her abdomen or damage to her sensitive reproductive system. If you are not using a queen excluder and are brushing bees off your honey frames, you will want to look for the queen on the frames you are pulling first. If you find the queen, it would be best to carefully place her back into the hive by gently picking her up by her wings or thorax.

Another popular honey harvesting method used by hobbyists is using a device called a hive escape board. This is a one-way entrance that allows bees to fly out of the honey super but not back inside. This is an easy and stress-free way of clearing bees out of a honey super, however, it is time-consuming, usually requiring at least 24 hours to be effective.

We have experimented with various escape boards over the years, but generally have been disappointed. The main disadvantage of an escape board is that the honey super itself must be in pristine condition, with no holes or cracks where the bees can reenter.  Sometimes the bees will escape through the escape board and simply reenter through a nearby hole! Or worse, the bees escape through the board, only to have robber bees enter through a hole, starting a robbing episode.  Another concern with escape boards can be that ants and small hive beetles can quickly gain the upper hand as bees disappear from the super. In a healthy colony, guard bees are guarding the honey for a reason. If they are drained out of the honey super with an escape board, there will be few or no guard bees remaining to protect against infiltrators, leaving pests free to run amok.

Many commercial beekeepers who have thousands of boxes of honey to harvest, have no time for brushing frames, using escape boards, or often even for fume boards. Instead, some of these no-nonsense beekeepers choose to go for the most efficient and speediest method of honey harvesting – the bee blower.

A bee blower is basically a glorified leaf blower that literally blows the bees right out of the box!   While some mechanical blowers are specifically marketed for beekeeping, a beekeeper could literally use an actual leaf blower to blow bees during honey harvesting. Beekeepers who use blowers typically tip a honey super on its side before they powerfully blow the bees right out of the super, either in the direction from top to bottom, or bottom to top.

Although this is fast, efficient, and effective, it also is loud and obnoxious. Bee blowers quickly destroy the natural ambiance of an apiary and have the unfortunate side effect of making bees, (and peaceful beekeepers alike) angry and annoyed. Realistically, bee blowers are another method where beekeepers should use queen excluders. Without a queen excluder, the queens could be blown all across an apiary and lost for no reason!

What Color Should You Paint a Beehive?

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As a beekeeper, you’ve probably noticed that bee boxes tend to be painted in different colors.  Many beekeepers, especially commercial beekeepers, tend to paint their boxes a standard white color.  This is the most familiar look for a beehive and is perfectly acceptable.  However, some beekeepers – particularly backyard hobbyists – prefer to let their artistic side run wild! Either choice is fine; but as always in beekeeping, there are a few basic guidelines to consider.

Should you even paint your beehive? The answer is yes.  There are several reasons why bee boxes should be painted—for both, the benefit of the bee colony and for the beekeeper.

Paint helps your boxes last longer. After a season or two exposed to the elements, you can expect your bee boxes to experience some wear and tear. Environmental forces like sun, rain and temperature changes can warp, crack, rot, or otherwise deteriorate the wood. A good layer of paint will help protect the wood by minimizing damage from weather, keeping your bee boxes looking great for longer.

Painting your bee box can also help with temperature regulation. Light paints, such as white, can help reflect sunlight and keep the hive cooler in hot temperatures. Dark paints can help absorb the sun’s warmth and keep the hive warmer in the winter. Depending on the climate you live in, you may wish to choose either light or dark paint for your bee box.

Sometimes beekeepers choose to be discreet about their beekeeping endeavor – not all neighbors are a fan of bees after all.  Painting the beehive the color of the surrounding buildings or environment can help camouflage it from unwanted attention from neighbors, vandals, or other prying eyes.

There are a lot of options for painting a beehive when it comes to color. You may wish to stick with plain white, or you may prefer to get artistic and paint fun designs on your bee box — anything goes! If you prefer the beauty of the natural wood grain, you can also use a clear coat to protect your bee box without changing its color.

While the choice of color is solely up to each beekeeper, we do have a couple important recommendations. For instance, sticking to light pastel colors or white will help keep your hive cool during warmer months.

Also, painting different colors may be helpful if you are raising your own queens, and are painting two-way or four-way queen rearing boxes for queen mating. Using different colors, one for each side of the box will assist with the mating process.

Whichever color you choose for your bee box, make sure the paint you choose is safe for the health of your bees. It’s best to use a non-toxic, water-based paint that is low in volatile organic compounds (VOCs ) – which are toxic chemicals that can release as the paint dries. Since the box will be outdoors, be sure to choose an exterior-grade paint that is meant for outdoor use. Always allow enough time for the paint to fully cure before introducing any bee colonies to the box. This will prevent your colony from encountering any VOCs or sticky wet paint. Finally, and importantly, only paint the exterior of your bee box. Never paint areas where the bees will walk or live, which includes the inside and entryways to the box.

Small Hive Beetles

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In the world of beekeeping, there seems to be no end to pests and adversity for both bees and beekeepers alike. Here at Wildflower Meadows, it seems to us that exotic pests and parasites really took hold in American beekeeping sometime during the late 1990s and early 2000s.  First came tracheal mites, then varroa mites, then African Bees.  Subsequently, at some point came colony collapse and along with it a multitude of exotic viruses that practically no one had heard of before – and virtually few still understand today.

In the midst of all this, it can be easy to forget about the small hive beetle, which arrived roughly around the same time. The small hive beetle, also known as the Aethina tumida, was first found in South Carolina in 1996 – though, it’s thought to originate from Southern Africa. A few years later, scientists discovered this new pest in Florida, where the beetles are believed to be responsible for killing thousands of honey bee colonies. Although it’s unclear exactly how the beetle made it to the United States (though public transport may be to blame), we do know that it has wreaked havoc ever since.

Beekeepers often see adult small hive beetles around the lid or bottom boards of colonies.  The adult hive beetles themselves are not much of a problem to beehives – they are really more of a nuisance.  While adult small hive beetles can be easily spotted by beekeepers and controlled by strong beehives, their disgusting larvae are actually much more dangerous and troublesome.

Adult beetles lay their eggs in the small cracks and gaps of a beehive.  When the subsequent larvae emerge, they track through the hive, eating honey, pollen, and pollen substitutes. As they burrow through the comb they defecate in the hive, which destroys and ferments honey.  This fermented honey becomes foamy and takes on the odor of rotten citrus fruit, often leaking from the comb and creating a horrible mess.

Many commercial beekeepers have come to refer to this revolting damage simply as “slime.” This mess can happen inside the hive or in the beekeeper’s stored equipment.  The potential damage of the small hive beetle larvae to the beekeeper is three-fold – loss of comb, loss of honey, and potentially loss of bees.

Not all beehives suffer from the presence of small hive beetles however.  Much of the time, strong colonies can control and corral the adult small hive beetles and limit their population inside the hive, thus limiting their egg-laying and subsequent larvae damage.  It is the weaker and less populous colonies that generally suffer from the small hive beetle.

Since these weaker colonies don’t have the strength of numbers to control the adult beetle population, they suffer the effects of too many larvae.  Conditions inside these hives can sometimes deteriorate past the point of no return, creating too much damage and fermented honey.  This can cause the bees in the hive to abscond, leaving nothing but a slimy mess inside the equipment.

At Wildflower Meadows, we first started noticing the occasional small hive beetle around 2012.  However, small hive beetles have never really gained a foothold in most areas of California, including ours – thankfully.   Around here, small hive beetles sometimes appear for a month or two during the wet season, never causing damage, then disappear for months, or sometimes years at a time.  If the small hive beetle has a vulnerability, it is that the larvae eventually must leave the hive to burrow in the ground and pupate. Here in California our ground is generally dry and hard for a long portion of the year, and the hive beetle larvae can’t flourish under these conditions. Thank goodness for our long, hot, and dry spells – no one here is complaining!

 

Overwintering Honeybees In A Single Deep Super

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In the height of winter, beehives shut down to varying degrees.  In Southern California, however, many of our beehives remain active, though to a much lesser extent than during the spring or summer months.  During winter, the bees wait for the relatively mild weather, which reliably comes along from time to time.  When a pleasant day does arrive, the bees can be found out on the go, foraging on the many winter blossoms such as jade and eucalyptus.

Most North American beekeepers overwinter their colonies in a “double deep” configuration, meaning that the colony heads into winter with two deep supers.  The colder and longer the winter, the more stores of honey are needed for the colony to ensure survival.  In the northern parts of the United States, most beekeepers like to have the top box solidly filled with honey to minimize the risk of starvation.  This top box, heavy with honey, also provides a layer of insulation from the cold.

Here in Southern California, however, the wintering conditions are much milder.  Because our bees have the year-round opportunity to forage, and we have the availability to feed our bees, if necessary, during winter, we often prefer to overwinter our colonies in a “single deep” configuration – compressing the bees into one deep super.  California bees seem to overwinter well in a single hive body.  This tight configuration minimizes empty air space and condensation, allowing the bees to control their brood temperatures when stormy weather and cooler nights prevail.  In a single box, they keep their cluster tight, and have plenty of population packed around the winter brood nest.  This tight space also keeps the bees relatively compressed around the entrance, affording them better protection against robber bees and other pests.

As humans, we might find such crowded conditions completely unacceptable.  As insects, however, honeybees generally have no problem with these slightly crowded conditions – especially in winter.  When the weather is cold, bees actually seem to enjoy the company of their sisters and thrive in their tight living spaces!

How To Bank Queens

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When you have more queens on hand than you know what to do with, then it’s probably time to think about banking them.  Banking queens is a way to keep queens healthy over the long-term before they are placed inside their actual colonies.  Although at Wildflower Meadows we typically sell our queens quickly after pulling them, we still nevertheless need to maintain queen banks throughout the season.  As in any queen rearing operation, there are always queen bees coming and going.  When a Wildflower Meadows’ queen is standing by for shipment, she sometimes needs a comfortable ‘bed and breakfast’ to temporarily be housed safely and professionally.  Afterall, she is royalty!

Whether you are banking a hundred or more queens at a time, or just one or two, the principals of successful queen banking are always the same.  The key to your success, and by far the most important component of your banking system, is that you maintain a strong, healthy banking colony that is both well-fed and queenless throughout the period of banking.

Traditional beekeeping advice often says that you can bank queens in a colony that has its own queen as long as you keep the queen bank over a queen excluder.  However, at Wildflower Meadows, we do not subscribe to this view.  This approach often results in worker bees attacking the banked queens, which can unnecessarily cause stress or losses to the queens in the bank.  We have found that it is best that the banking colony has no queen of its own, as this makes it very receptive towards caring for and properly attending to the banked queens.

Your banking colony should always be well fed.  At Wildflower Meadows we never stop feeding our banking colonies.  The syrup flows from March through September and it never stops.  This ensures that the attending bees inside of the banks always have more than enough resources to take excellent care of the queens.  If you are banking queens for more than a week or two, you also will need to maintain your queen bank by removing any natural queen cells inside the bank, and by continually adding brood.  You always want a good supply of young nurse bees on hand in your bank, because these are the bees that focus on taking care of your precious queens.  When you are banking queens, nurse bees are your friends.  If you don’t keep adding brood, you will quickly run out of nurse bees, and your queens will suffer the consequences.

Once your banking colony is well fed, strong and queenless, it is ready to receive the banked queens.  You will want to have some system for storing the queens inside the colony.  The first thing is to make sure that the banked bees have no access to releasing the queens!  If you are banking just a few queens, the easiest approach is to place a piece of heavy-duty tape around the bottom of the cage, blocking any access to the candy or cork.

There are different methods for placing the queens inside of the banking colony.  At Wildflower Meadows, we use what is known as a “banking frame,” which is a specialized beekeeping frame that is designed to hold 132 queens at a time.  This frame takes up the space of two normal Langstroth frames inside a deep hive body.

You don’t necessarily need a banking frame, however, to successfully bank queens.  If you are banking for a relatively short amount of time and don’t mind cleaning up a little extra burr comb, you can simply remove two frames from your banking colony, and creatively place your queens inside the gap you’ve created, making sure to leave enough space for the bees to attend to the queens.   If you have wooden cages, you could assemble “groups” of ten queens or so with a rubber band, and stack them inside the gap.  Always keep in mind that your nurse bees need to have easy access to the queens.  If possible, you should also place the queens towards the center of the colony, well below the lid, as excessive heat may cause damage.

Best practices call for banking queens without any attendants inside the cages.  Theoretically, this is to keep the bees in the bank focused on the queens directly rather than on the attendants in the cages, which may have different pheromones and repel or fight with the banking colony.  In our experience, however, this is rarely the case.  Usually, the attendants inside of the cages combine forces in a friendly manner with the attendants in the bank and work together harmoniously to take care of the queens.  Nevertheless, to be safe, especially when banking over the long term, it is always better to bank queens without attendants inside the individual cages.