Apidea frame holder

[MJBee]

I currently have 4 Apideas out and am trying to be patient - Oh Lord give me patience but I want it NOW.

My thoughts turned to the perfect outcome - all 4 virgins mated and laying, brood pattern good and all worker. Fertile mated queen dispersed not what to do with the sealed brood?

I found that 4 small saw cuts will modify a standard National super frame to hold 3 Apidea frames which can then be placed in a super to emerge simples A small notch in the side bars will take the apidea top bar and allow the middle apidea to fit between. Increasing the depth of the bottom bar notch means that the bottom bars hold all 3 frames tightly in place.

There that's another morning closer to 3 weeks only 8 days to go Mike

 

[mbc]

I get six in a modified langstroth frame but this looks simpler. Well done

 

[steve1958]

Now thats clever

 

[darrenperrett]

Now thats clever

 

[Max]

I had 14 virgins in their respective mating hives 5 days after they emerged, and they have been on there mating flights over the weekend, I saw 2 disorientated and lost, guess they never made it back to the own hives.

The result of all this activity was 5 mated queens out of 14 made it back from their mating flights, very disappointing.

I hope the second batch are more successful, fingers crossed.

 

[Beechcomber]

Good idea. Think I will do that to get the foundation drawn out. Thanks.

 

[Poly Hive]

What assistance have you given them Max?

Painted them different colours?

Marked them with strong marks like squares and circles, diagonals?

Takes all sorts of ID aid to help them back home.

It is not useful to keep them all the factory issue brown.

PH

 

[RoofTops]

I had 9 out 9 mated and all the mini-nucs were painted the same colour of green. However, the mini-nucs were well spread out, pointing in different directions and there were plenty of features like bushes, corners of buildings, hedges etc to help the bees orientate. Painting will certainly help but orientation and points of reference are also very effective. A combination of both must be best - covering all bases.