Run-Away Split

MABA's August speaker, Sam Comfort, shared novel beekeeping and queen rearing practices with the club.   I was spellbound by Sam's life story and accomplishments including:

• inexpensive construction - $0.80 hive box using rough sawmill lumber and bamboo skewer as a top bar
  
• the demanding rhythm of Sam's calendar-driven queen-rearing business by grafting
• SARE grant - emergency queen rearing using Run-Away Splits, Sam's variation on Walk-Away Splits
  

In the absence of a queen, 1) open brood pheromone (versus capped brood) helps retain worker bees in both queen rearing methods (split or grafting) and 2) that new comb is desirable in the Run-Away Split method.

NCSU report compared Sam's 32 mated emergency queens to their database of all tested queens and graded Sam's emergency queens as A- (high reproductive potential).  This dis-spelled my bias that emergency queens mate poorly.

off-label use of cloake board

I purchased the cloake board with an intention to raise emergency queens, but I've drifted into off-label territory.  My success with two swarm traps catches and limited bee yard space encouraged me to combine the swarms with the cloake board.  Both entrances face in the same direction and the movable floor is removed.   For several weeks, these swarms have been connected by way of the queen excluder which is integrated into the cloake board.