Queen Banking and making the cages

I have been reading a forum and it referred to some instructions on building a queen bank for a bee hive. So I thought I would have a go. Sadly there are only pictures so a lot of guess work was involved in regards to measurements. A queen bank by the way, is a concept of keeping queens but with out the need for a colony for each queen.

The description is here


I started by making the frame where the queen banking cages would sit.

This is the complete unit sat next to a national frame. It has three shelves and there is a little trim on each shelf to stop the queen banking cages (these are hives runners), on the images in the above link I think there is a little wooden lip nailed on instead but it is not clear to me.

This next shot shows the ends. I had to add a little piece of wood to attach the runners as in hind site I had not made the three shelves wide enough. Otherwise two cages would not fit in back to back

These are the first cages I made with 1inch x 1 1/2 inches pieces of 8mm ply, They look great but I am not sure if they are large enough for the queen, as in the link it is references that the cages need to be large/deep enough to stop worker bees poking through and pulling the queens apart. It is also relevant to mention that I made the little lids out of ply on these cages and that was very awkward for attaching two nails in to form hinges as thy ply kept splitting... most annoying which on mark II, I used really wood for the hinged lids.

These are mark II, they do not look much different but the dimensions are 1inch by 2inch with a wooden lid hinged, slightly taller

This is a close up of the lid. when closed it is flat with the top. These cages were constructed using an air nailer but when attaching the lids, I drilled the holes on either side and nailed in two frame nails which made good hinges, When attaching the mesh I used a stapler but did not staple it to the lid other wise movement was restricted. this is my assumption here as any way I could not see how it would work.

You see here the 4 example queen cages I made up. Two 1 1/2 inch high cages and two 2 inch high cages. What I have so far took about 2-3hours to knock together, I am not sure how many cages it will hold but I feel a lot wouldn't be far off. Making more cages is very easy. The mesh I used is very fine and I acquired it from a local farmer / garden supply shop at about £3 per square meter

It is also worth mentioning that I think the frames in the link are Langstroth and I use National sizes. National brood frames are 14inches x 8 1/2 inches and Langstroth brood frames are 17 5/8 inches x 9 1/2 inches (per below). So my cages might still not be large enough at 2 inch high. I don't know.

The weather in Wakefield today is cold and dry.

Click here to view my gardening forum