Beekeeper in East Herts

[olriley]

Hi, I have got a few hives on the Rose system and recently joined East Herts BKA as we moved to the area.

I've had a few years enjoyable but topsy turvy experience with beekeeping...


Story so far
2013 I did a beginners beekeepers course at Grantham BKA. Great club. Wanted to try beekeeping but was skint. So I built a horizontal Top Bar Hive. Caught swarm and hived it. It was never a strong colony and was lost in winter.
2014. Started again. Two swarms caught. One in TBH, one put in a Rose Hive. Both survived (and are still the ancestors of current colonies).
2015. Personal black swan event meant couldn’t access or tend to the hives. Swarms in my absence. In Autumn I was able to retrieve them, moved the hives to Yorkshire and overwintered there.
2016. Could access hives only intermittently. Rose Hive #1 swarmed and captured, established RH2. TBH swarmed and established RH3.
2017. RH1 swarmed and caught to make RH4. RH2 moved to Bayford, Herts, swarmed and caught to make RH5. TBH still going.

Now
I decided on Rose hive system for now, simply because I like the idea of one size of box and frame, but it's in all other respects like a National. However I am not sold on all of Tim’s colony management ideas just yet. For instance, splitting the brood nest during build up, operating without a Queen Excluder and using ‘local’ bees. Time and experimentation will tell. I try to keep an open mind with beekeeping
My mistakes in the past have been many, but the worst were inattentiveness in swarming season. I hadn’t appreciated what a set-back to honey production this has. Also I never questioned the capability of my ‘local’ (i.e. mongrel) bees.

I have decided after a few years that the Top Bar Hive is not for me. The bees just never thrived in there. We also find inspecting more stressful. I do like the ideas of natural cell sizing, but you can do this in a framed hive of course.

Plan for next year
I will transfer the TBH colony into a Rose and move all the hives to my home apiary.
I have never had significant yield, mainly due to building stocks (by accident), so now I would like to try a couple of production hives in earnest. So swarm observation/control will be attended to for starters.
Next year I am going to try some breed experimenting. I intend to make up a couple of 6 frame nucs and head them up with bought-in Queens (maybe F1 Buckfast) in the next few weeks for overwintering.

I will run some hives with a QX too (on two or maybe three Rose boxes as brood chamber).

I have just read "Beekeeping at Buckfast Abbey" by Brother Adam, and am immediately re-reading it. Fascinating and enchanting stuff. Never stop learning!

 

[olriley]

I also have a blog where you can see a few pics, can't work out how to showthem...
Edit. Probably am in nursery so can't even link. Oh well, you'll have to use your imagination

 

[JWF]

Welcome olriley. Welcome to the forum. I've never used the rose hive system but it looks interesting, apart from having to manipulate all the boxes to add new space at the bottom (which I think is how the system works?).

Would like to read your blog but we'll have to wait until you're able to post links

 

[olriley]

Thanks! Forgot to add my name is Oliver.

Not quite right on the Rose method, Tim advocates adding space in the middle of the brood nest until mid June, then effectively under-supering afterwards. OSB systems themselves are not unusual, seem to be used a lot on the continent.