I have used a Cloake board to create a cell-builder then cell-finisher hive and this has run successfully.
My concern is the drones in the lower brood area of the hive – reference to them seems to be absent from all the guidance I've come across.
The drones have been sequestered in the lower brood boxes (there are 2 below and 1 above the Cloake board as this colony is huge) since the slide was first put in and the 'back door' at lower level closed. If I leave the queen cells until they go into their mating nucs, with the Cloake board in place, the drones will not have flown for 10 or 11 days.
Does this cause them any harm? These are some of the drones I hope to inseminate some of those fine young virgins as their sisters are such prodigious foragers.
Bookmarks