Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum

BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => EQUIPMENT USAGE, EXPERIMENTATION, HIVE PLANS, CONSTRUCTION TIPS AND TOOLS => Topic started by: AllenF on May 23, 2010, 08:46:20 pm

Title: Queen castle feeders
Post by: AllenF on May 23, 2010, 08:46:20 pm
So I have a couple of queen castles and they work real great and today I moved the frames from a couple of sections to 3 nucs with division board feeders to feed them.   They were booming and can use the space also.   The question I have is to the people that use queen castles, do you use any type of feeders with them.  I have not last year or this year yet, but want to push the bees some more for faster growth.   Sometimes it is hard to find a full deep of honey to feed each section.   Would one deep of brood work with one frame of a division board?   
Title: Re: Queen castle feeders
Post by: Robo on May 24, 2010, 10:56:49 am
I put a pint mason jar in the top of each section cover and put an empty deep with cover around them.
Title: Re: Queen castle feeders
Post by: AllenF on May 24, 2010, 08:52:13 pm
Did you cut out for the mason jar in the 1 by tops that come with it or did you cut out for the mason jars in thinner plywood tops on each section of the queen castle.
Title: Re: Queen castle feeders
Post by: Robo on May 25, 2010, 01:55:41 pm
I have my own version of the queen castle

 http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php/topic,16515.0.html (http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php/topic,16515.0.html)

Although the pictures don't show it.   I cut the holes for the mason jars in the individual compartment covers (middle picture)  and put #8 hardware cloth on the bottom.   The just add another empty deep on top of that with the cover.

Title: Re: Queen castle feeders
Post by: AllenF on May 25, 2010, 06:50:33 pm
Thanks for the info.  I like your set up there.   The entrance holes look good.   I should be making them myself instead of spending that money.   I do have mine painted with 4 different colors on each side to keep the bee drift down.
Title: Re: Queen castle feeders
Post by: Michael Bush on May 26, 2010, 02:36:40 am
Capped honey works great.  A conical dixie cup with a tablespoon of syrup works ok. Just deform it to fit between the frames and fill it with syrup...
Title: Re: Queen castle feeders
Post by: sc-bee on June 15, 2010, 12:23:42 am
Robo do you still use the coroplast as dividers. How is it holding up. My castle from Brushy has masonite board, I hate it. Is the coroplast vertical or horizontal for the dividers. I kinda got lost in the old post about vertical or horizontal, but it don't take much for me to get lost.
Title: Re: Queen castle feeders
Post by: Robo on June 15, 2010, 09:21:46 am
Robo do you still use the coroplast as dividers. How is it holding up. My castle from Brushy has masonite board, I hate it. Is the coroplast vertical or horizontal for the dividers. I kinda got lost in the old post about vertical or horizontal, but it don't take much for me to get lost.

Coroplast is still working great.    If you have a dado in the bottom, then direction of coroplast doesn't matter.  If no dado, horizontal works best, but depending on the size sheets you have, you can still go vertically and just but a small block or brad on the floor on both sides to hold the middle of the coroplast in place.