apideas , what next?

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burren

House Bee
Joined
Jun 12, 2010
Messages
247
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Location
Ireland
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
5 nationals/ 3 apideas
Hi everybody
I am a fairly newbie, and have 2 apideas on the go ( one is mine and the other another bk)(1st time trying them) I am due to check today whether there is any laying going on. My question is 1. if q is there, and laying,and
2.if they need more space, can i just transfer "all" into a nuc on the same spot, there and then???? And what is the best way to do that? Many thanks, help please:eek:
 
:confused::confused:Can anyone advise me please?!!
 
You'll get more attention in the evening when beeks are back from their hives.

I've no experience of this so can't help I'm afraid.
 
I knew u were going to say that!
 
Hi

I'll try and help but this year is my first attempt with them as well, hopefully you may find some of it help full.

I have 2 set up and have so far bred 6 queens in them, some were cells and some were virgins I was given from the local BKA.

I have taken mated queens out of the Aipdeas and added them in a cage, into nucs and after 24-48 hours they have been released by the workers, chewing the fondant away, and laying.

Another method I have tried that was successful, was in a hive I had split, which was double brood with QC's in and the queen hatched and disappeared, this ended up with a laying worker, I took the hive 200m from its stand and shook them all out then returned to the stand and set it up, took out some of the worse frames with drone in them, tried to remove the rest of the drone brood from the others, then after setting it all back up, I put another brood box above the crown board put a sheet of paper over the holes in it and poked some small holes in that, then closed the entrance of the apidea and slid the floor back and placed on the paper, after 3 days they had eaten through the paper and the queen was down stairs laying. I did move this hive in to a nuc though, as there were not enough bees in it for a ful size brood box. This was 2 weeks ago now and it is doing well.

Do you want to re-queen with them or make Nucs up?


Hope this has helped a little.

Cheers

Mark.
 
thanks for that Mark, yes I want to make it in to a nuc. The paper method sounds good, I dont have any supers for the nuc though,( to close in the apidea) so how would I close the lid( top up)?
 
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thanks for that Mark, yes I want to make it in to a nuc. The paper method sounds good, I dont have any supers for the nuc though,( to close in the apidea) so how would I close the lid( top up)?

I would make a simple frame out of ply to house the apidea in that was the same size as the nuc, then put the lid on this, you wouldn;t need to treat the wood as it would only be temporary. Or even put a few bricks, or some 3x2 wood built up to the height of the apidea, on the crown board at end of the apidea and the roof on them, its only for a few days so should be ok.

HTH

Mark.
 
Building up an mini nuc to a full nuc is not that straightforward.

You are looking at a TINY colony. If you add a full brood box to it it s times goodness knows how much volume and it is far too much for them to cope with.

Think baby in crib suddenly given the volume of a house to keep it warm and ponder....

I made up a four super frame unit from insulation sheet, and added that on first, and when they were established in it I moved them on to a full nuc. It took months and at this time I very much doubt you have time to do it.

Mini units are not designed to produce nucs. They are purely meant for mating queens.

PH
 
an apidea is purly a mating hive and the sole purpose of it is to have a spare mated queen and not to be confused with a nuc of bees.the bees in it are expendable,or can be united back to a stronger hive. i usually unite all my apideas to my weakest nuc at the end of the summer.
there is only about 300ml of bees in an apidea box. and are not capable in building up to sufficent numbers to get them throught the winter, maintain heat in the winter cluster and out the other side. even if you had your apidea mated in earliest time in the year, it still would not build up enough.
people have tried to bring through the winter their spare stong double apideas , but i have not heard anyone succeed.......... keith
 
I've brought apidea colonies on a few times into full sized colonies, but as PH has said time is now against you. Using a standard apidea with only three mini frames is just making things harder for yourself, go and get an apidea super and a feeder. That way you'll have a possible 10 frames to use.
I've cut slots in a standard BS frame top bar, so that the apidea frames fit in the slots without any gaps and cable tie them in position. using this method a 10 frame apidea will give you a 3 frame BS shallow size of brood with an apidea frame left over, I wait until a lot of this brood is due to emerge before transfering them into a standard 5 frame nuc and they normally develop nicely.

I'll try to take some pics to show what I mean...lot easier that trying to write it.

The one good thing about this, and a couple of other beeks have commented on it, is that because it takes the colony a good while to build up, there isnt the explosive growth you get with a bursting 5 frame BS nuc that normally intimidates beginners.

Also it only takes a mug full of bees to start the colony off, so doesnt drain bees like splits and other forms of increase take (very usefull if you've only come through the winter with say only one colony left!)
 
I've brought apidea colonies on a few times into full sized colonies, but as PH has said time is now against you. Using a standard apidea with only three mini frames is just making things harder for yourself, go and get an apidea super and a feeder. That way you'll have a possible 10 frames to use.
I've cut slots in a standard BS frame top bar, so that the apidea frames fit in the slots without any gaps and cable tie them in position. using this method a 10 frame apidea will give you a 3 frame BS shallow size of brood with an apidea frame left over, I wait until a lot of this brood is due to emerge before transfering them into a standard 5 frame nuc and they normally develop nicely.

I'll try to take some pics to show what I mean...lot easier that trying to write it.

The one good thing about this, and a couple of other beeks have commented on it, is that because it takes the colony a good while to build up, there isnt the explosive growth you get with a bursting 5 frame BS nuc that normally intimidates beginners.

Also it only takes a mug full of bees to start the colony off, so doesnt drain bees like splits and other forms of increase take (very usefull if you've only come through the winter with say only one colony left!)

I am finding this an interesting thread and looking forward to seeing the pics.

Not wishing to hijack thread - just in a similar position if somewhat further ahead.

I have a mini nuc / mating hive from Modern Beekeeping, had set it up as a back-up as had a couple of queen cells.

Now have a laying queen and first capped brood due to emerge in the next couple of days. (in the mini nuc)
Kept feeding throughout the past three weeks - removed internal feeder to add the additional frames making it six frames and set it up outside the hive entrance and spooned feed onto top of frames every other day.

Couldn't find anybody that made a box for sitting on top of this to expand the brood space so made one up and put in 8 top bars with foundation strips.

Added another internal feeder - a take away dish on spacers on top of original frames - bees have now produced comb on five of these top bars giving me 11 as per last night.

Removed feeder dish last night to allow them to draw the last 3 top bars, still feeding at entrance.
I was intending to leave them for another few weeks to encourage a build up of bees before trying to move into a different nuc / hive

Questions:

Should I make the move sooner rather than later?

I was thinking of making up a box to take bs super frames with a roof. solid floor, dividers and well insulated.
I was thinking I could cable tie my current frames to a longer top bar and have around four to five super frames worth to start, put an un-drawn frame down each side and keep feeding.

Or

Should I leave them for another month until they have had a chance to build up and then move them to this box for overwintering (would put in an OMF)

Or

Rather than making it the size (height) of a super, should I double height / make it 14 x 12 size and put frames in two high and put in 14 x 12 frames down each side?


Cheers,

Thebhoy
 
I would move them to the super and yes zip tie in the frames to give them a good start.

I made my sup box out of insulation and I would suggest you do the same with the refinement of cladding the inside with 4mm ply to protect it.

PH
 
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