Swarm Box for Queen Cells

This box can be used in the first phase of the Doolittle method of raising queens.

Start by shaking about 5 pounds of nurse bees from frames with open brood, pollen and nectar frames. Grafted larvae are added a few hours later.

Nurse bees will then start the cells which are transferred in 24 hours to a finishing colony and the nurse bees transferred back to their hive.

One well-stocked swarm box can start around 100 queen cells.

The use of the swarm box is described in Successful Queen Rearing by Marla Spivak and other queen rearing texts.