Billy Davis’ Quiet Box for bees.
At the Mid State Beekeepers “Bees in the Backyard” event, while inspecting a hive, I had a question about where the best place is to place a removed frame with a queen on it. Would I lean it against the side of the hive? At the time I was not in my bee yard so I just said that the queen would stay on a frame of larvae. In fact I’ve never seen one leave a frame of larvae unless I placed it back into the hive and she went to another frame. But, when in my own bee yard I use a quiet box for such occasions. In fact, I use my quiet box any time I am doing any in depth inspection into the brood nest area. My first frame comes out and, with bees attached, it goes into the quiet box. Should I find the queen on a frame then the she and the frame she is on also go into the quiet box. If I start to find queen cells – quiet box again. One of the biggest advantage I find is that I know where my queen is and fragile cells if I find any. Once the queen is in the quiet box I can pretty much move through the hive at will and concentrate on reading frames. Here’s an excellent video on using a quiet box and how one is constructed.
