Full Paul Kelly Cloake Board Method · Frosty Meadow · Spring 2026
Every single frame that goes into the cell builder must be shaken completely free of bees and inspected by two people independently before being returned to the hive. You are looking for any queen cup or queen cell — even empty ones get destroyed. Do not waste time checking whether there are eggs inside a cup. If it looks like a queen cell or cup, destroy it. No exceptions.
Paul Kelly found nine capped wild cells on a single frame alone during a routine weekly check. If even one of these hatches, that virgin queen will immediately find and destroy every grafted queen cell you have carefully raised — ending your entire batch instantly. All your work, all the bees' work, gone in minutes.
The two-person inspection protocol:
✓ Prep week — Complete
Bring two very strong colonies from other yards. Set one with entrance facing front, one with entrance facing back. Remove the weaker queen and unite the two brood chambers using newspaper. Within about a week the colonies are fully merged and ready to configure as the cell builder.
✓ Day before graft — Complete
Build the full hive stack with all five queen excluders and the Cloake board in closed position. Locate and confine the queen to the two lower medium boxes. Shake 15 frames of bees up into the upper deep cell builder box.
Upper deep box frame contents (in order):
Lower medium boxes: 6 frames brood, 1 frame resources, 3 frames foundation or drawn comb per box. Queen roams freely through both mediums.
⚠ Critical — Every frame, two people
Before any frame goes back into the hive, shake every bee off it completely. Person 1 checks and destroys all cups and cells. Person 2 double-checks independently. Tip each frame to look up into the cells from below — much easier to spot cups this way. Sort frames as you go: brood frames to one pile, honey/food frames to another. This makes reassembly faster and more organised.
▶ Monday — Cell builder prep day
Entrance configuration (Paul Kelly method): Tape shut any extra entrance holes on both medium brood boxes. Use the natural entrances of the two original colony positions — one entrance facing front, one facing back. Put a reducer on the back entrance. This creates the crowded, congested feeling inside the hive that drives swarm impulse and motivates the bees to raise excellent queens.
Confirm Cloake board is in the closed position. Fill feeder with sugar syrup. Add pollen patty if not using a pollen frame. The upper deep is now queenless and packed with young bees — ready to accept the graft tomorrow.
▶ Tuesday — Graft day
The queenless, bee-packed upper box will immediately begin drawing those cells using both swarm impulse and emergency supersedure impulse — they can't smell a queen through the closed Cloake board.
Thursday — Two days after graft
Pull the metal slide out to the halfway position. This allows the bees to begin normalising within the colony and they continue raising the queens — but now driven only by swarm impulse rather than the emergency supersedure impulse. Paul Kelly finds this transition produces consistently better results. The cells remain protected and undisturbed. Do not open the upper box.
Upcoming — Following Monday
Distribute mature cells from current batch into mating nucs. Then immediately repeat the full setup cycle: wild cell inspection on all frames, reconfigure upper box, insert new graft frame to polish, prep entrances, fill feeder. This weekly rhythm is what allows the cell builder to run continuously all season — Paul Kelly's operation runs 2-3 cell builders simultaneously producing 100-150 cells per week.
| Day | Task | Critical Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | Cell builder prep — wild cell check, reconfigure boxes, insert graft frame to polish, manage entrances, fill feeder | Two-person wild cell inspection on every single frame. Non-negotiable. |
| Tuesday | Graft day — remove polish frame, graft larvae, reintroduce within 1 hour, close up | Larvae must be under 24 hours old. Return grafted frame within 1 hour maximum. |
| Thursday | Pull slide — move Cloake board slide to halfway open position | Do not open the upper box. Slide only. |
Fit with wax cups, polished and ready. Insert into cell builder box today to be polished by bees for 24 hours before graft day.
All five accounted for. Wood-rimmed preferred — metal edges can bend and create gaps that queens slip through.
Vaseline the grooves at start of season so the slide moves freely and doesn't get propolised shut.
Tape all extra entrance holes on medium boxes. Reducer on back entrance. Front entrance open. Two entrances total — creates crowded, congested feeling that drives swarm impulse.
Pollen patties · Sugar syrup · Clean 1-gallon internal feeder
Do not attempt the wild cell inspection alone. You need Person 1 to inspect and Person 2 to independently double-check every single frame.
Four queen excluders total. The queen is free to roam through the single 10-frame deep queen-zone box at the bottom. She cannot move up or down beyond the flanking excluders. The upper deep is fully queenless. Virgin queens from outside cannot enter the upper deep through the top excluder.
Box configuration: Single 10-frame deep on the bottom for the queen zone. Plenty of room for the queen to lay and the colony to function normally below the Cloake board.
Queen excluder count: Now using 4 QEs (vs 3 last season). The extra QE above the upper deep specifically prevents virgin queens flying in from outside and destroying your cells — this is Paul Kelly's emphatic point about the upper flanking excluder.
Wild cell protocol: Two-person inspection is now a formal step in the process, not an afterthought. Paul Kelly's team found 9 capped wild cells on a single frame. This is your biggest single risk.
Entrance management: Tape all extra entrance holes. Reducer on back entrance only. Front entrance open. Two entrances, crowded feeling, drives swarm impulse.
Feeder: 1-gallon internal feeder now shown in the upper deep diagram. Amount of syrup added depends on current nectar flow — less during a strong flow, more when flow is poor.
Frosty Meadow Beekeeping · Spring 2026 · Chatham County, NC · Based on Paul Kelly / Honey Bee Research Centre Cloake Board Method