Apidea transfer

Heather · Nov 2, 2021

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 · Nov 2, 2021

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 · Nov 2, 2021

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 · Nov 2, 2021

Heather said:
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 · Nov 2, 2021

Heather said:
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 · Nov 2, 2021

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.