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Erichalfbee

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Cheeky question here......any bee farmers on here?
Do you shook swarm your colonies in the spring?
Please.......
 
Thank you gentlemen
I am amidst a thread on shook swarming elsewhere
It’s like a car crash
I can’t bear to be on it anymore it makes me so annoyed that beginners are being taught that it’s the done thing and the latest justification is that bee farmers do it !
 
Thank you gentlemen

I am amidst a thread on shook swarming elsewhere

It’s like a car crash

I can’t bear to be on it anymore it makes me so annoyed that beginners are being taught that it’s the done thing and the latest justification is that bee farmers do it !



Now I know where your talking about! Total nonsense talked!! Pulling brood from a colony that’s desperately trying to change bees and produce nurse bees, then wax builders and new foragers, only just to kill them! Complete madness!
Beyond sensible logic!


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Its painful over there sometimes.
 
No
This time of year remove any older outer black combs and replace with new foundation on prepared boiled frames from previously prepared frames during floor change/ clean/ removing mouse guards and replacing with entrance blocks.

Or remove the two old empty outer frames end of the year to leave empty space for aid of ventilation and avoid mould and push the frames to outside in the spring inspection and make up with fresh foundation frames near the centre but leaving the brood area undisturbed.

Its a gradual and on going program with no stress to the bees.
 
Its painful over there sometimes.

And there are people who cannot even get the price of sugar correct, quoting Morrison's prices which are 6 months out of date.
Given how easy it is to check on sugar prices...
 
Rolling frame change is so easy too. As for using a shook swarm to get varroa isn’t it really easy to engineer a brood free period in each of two splits at swarming time then get the varroa in one hit ?
 
Rolling frame change is so easy too. As for using a shook swarm to get varroa isn’t it really easy to engineer a brood free period in each of two splits at swarming time then get the varroa in one hit ?

I don't know! :D
Can you explain please?
Ta.
 
Thank you gentlemen
I am amidst a thread on shook swarming elsewhere
It’s like a car crash
I can’t bear to be on it anymore it makes me so annoyed that beginners are being taught that it’s the done thing and the latest justification is that bee farmers do it !

They will have found ONE person who calls themselves a bee farmer who concurs with their ideas and adopt them with zeal as 'beefarmers' as if we all do it.

This situation happens often. Had the same experience recently when the folk organising the event at the Eden Project got ONE bee farmers to support their ideas. Immediately it apparently had the support of the BFA...........who had actually never been asked....and the response would have been rather unlikely to meet with the approval of the event organisers.

Ask if, by accepting their instructions to do this, they accept some liability for colony deaths that will result?
 
Thanks Erichalfbee for your question and to whom you directed it. Where I come from so called 'spring cleaning' was carried out every year to ones house. Perhaps this should be introduced into this country so that the bees are left alone.
I have done one shook swarm purported to get rid of chalk brood, but it did not work. Bees were not impressed and tried to abscond - voting with their feet so to speak. No chalk brood this spring though on the two colonies that had it last year.
 
Thank you gentlemen

I am amidst a thread on shook swarming elsewhere

It’s like a car crash

I can’t bear to be on it anymore it makes me so annoyed that beginners are being taught that it’s the done thing and the latest justification is that bee farmers do it !



Remember that group last year.........
 
I don't know! :D
Can you explain please?
Ta.

When you do a Pagden put a frame of drawn comb in with the frames of foundation and transfer the queen without moving brood. You can then vape the colony in five or six days or remove the first capped brood frame. The parent colony that is requeening itself will likely not have any capped brood from your laying queen for a month so you can vape them when they are brood less.
 
When you do a Pagden put a frame of drawn comb in with the frames of foundation and transfer the queen without moving brood. You can then vape the colony in five or six days or remove the first capped brood frame. The parent colony that is requeening itself will likely not have any capped brood from your laying queen for a month so you can vape them when they are brood less.

Very cunning. :)
Yes, it really easy to engineer a brood free period in each of two splits at swarming time then get the varroa in one hit. :D
Thanks.
 
They will have found ONE person who calls themselves a bee farmer who concurs with their ideas and adopt them

There is one on there who fits that description, although how much surplus honey he produces I don't know as he seems to spend his time washing his bee suit between apiaries, shook swarming and feeding the honey back to the bees.
 

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