Cloake Board: The Essential Tool for Sustainable Queen Rearing
The Cloake board lets you raise your own quality queens from a single hive — no second colony required. Invented by New Zealand beekeeper Harry Cloake, it's a 10-frame board with a slide-in metal divider and a built-in queen excluder that turns one colony into a cell starter and finisher in stages.
Features
- Wooden 10-frame board with an upper entrance and a grooved slot for the metal slide
- Queen excluder built in, so the queen stays in the lower box
- Removable metal divider to make the top box temporarily queenless
- Raise quality queens from one hive — donor, starter, and finisher in a single colony
How it works in real life
- Set the Cloake board between two hive bodies, with the queen below the excluder.
- Move frames of young larvae up top to draw in nurse bees.
- Slide in the metal divider to split the hive — the now-queenless upper box starts queen cells.
- Graft your chosen larvae, or let the bees draw emergency cells on a selected frame.
- Pull the divider to reunite the colony, which finishes and incubates the cells.
Before you order
This board fits standard 10-frame equipment and includes the wooden board, queen excluder, and slide-in metal divider. It pairs naturally with grafting cups and queen-marking tools (below). For the full step-by-step method, see our Cloake board guide on the blog.
Pairs Well With
- JZBZ Queen Cell Cups — graft larvae into these
- Posca Queen Bee Marking Pen — mark your new queens
- Metal Queen Excluder — keep the queen where you want her
Specifications
- Configuration: 10 frame
- Includes: wooden board, queen excluder, slide-in metal divider
- Weight: 5.7 lb
- Dimensions: 16.25 × 2 × 22 in
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need two hives to use it?
No — that's the point. The Cloake board lets one strong colony act as donor, cell starter, and finisher.
Does it include the queen excluder?
Yes — the excluder is part of the board, so the queen stays in the lower box.
What size hive does it fit?
Standard 10-frame equipment.
