Apidea transfer

[Heather]

Hi all, I have a double apidea (brown mating variety)- on 9 little frames, and a lovely queen, safely tucked into a poly Nuc for extra insulation. I welcome suggestions as to transferring them to a National sized Nuc in the Spring. Is wiring all 9 apidea frames onto wooden national frames the only solution, or would you shake off and FEED?? Will be loathe to lose the brood which I suspect will be there in March/April (all weather dependent of course)..

 

[madasafish]

I cable tie # the frames 2 or 3 to a topbar in a foundationless brood frame.
And feed like crazy. They soon build them out. Start is a 5 frame nuc or full 10 brood box dummied down
Went from one hive like that in late April to 10 frames full by end June.

# or nylon gardening string..which they will chew through eventually.
Switch out frames and recover apidea frames.

 

[Heather]

Thought so.. have wired in before but wondered if an alternative.. trying to reinvent the wheel I fear. She is a queen i reared and is going great guns so my fingers crossed. I love doing this side of bee keeping!

 

[madasafish]

Thought so.. have wired in before but wondered if an alternative.. trying to reinvent the wheel I fear. She is a queen i reared and is going great guns so my fingers crossed. I love doing this side of bee keeping!

Me too.
Fiddly fun fettling furry insects.

 

[Elthambees1]

Hi all, I have a double apidea (brown mating variety)- on 9 little frames, and a lovely queen, safely tucked into a poly Nuc for extra insulation. I welcome suggestions as to transferring them to a National sized Nuc in the Spring. Is wiring all 9 apidea frames onto wooden national frames the only solution, or would you shake off and FEED?? Will be loathe to lose the brood which I suspect will be there in March/April (all weather dependent of course)..

I have a few like this double apidea's I cut a piece of ply same size as nuc box, cut a 50+mm hole in centre of ply stand an empty apidea with bottom slide open and pin a few pieces of wood on 3side as so it locks apidea in place .
Place a frame of emerging brood with bees +frame of food and foundation in nuc box place a small piece of plastic queen excluder on top of your ply over the hole cut out ,spray with lemongrass water place apidea with bottom slider open and leave for 24-48hrs then remove excluder and leave for 7 days once queen is established in nuc remove any sealed brood to the next apidea and so on, if last apidea wait until all brood is hatch (apidea) then remove.

 

[Ian123]

Just pull a small nuc from another hive and unite, next inspection drop the queen down on the normal frames and put a small bit of excluder into place. They’ll also build up far faster given extra bees and frames.

 

[Heather]

Ian, that sounds less fiddly, but both options will be thought through. Thank you both..