Beekeeping Techniques: A long horizontal hive to produce queens all year around under tropical conditions 

William Ramirez Benavides

Three commonly used methods of inducing honey bees to rear queens consist of placing artificial queen cups containing grafted larvae into either: 1) a queenless 'swarm box' containing nurse bees; 2) a queenless colony reinforced with young bees and; 3) a queenless super without young brood over a strong queenright brood chamber. Usually commercial queen producers use two hives, one as a cell starter, the other as a cell finisher, and in some cases a third one for cell incubation and yet another for a queen bank.