Beginners luck ?

[NickBrown]

Having only started beekeeping on sunday morning, after a swarm decided to take up residence in the garden on saturday I have a question.

Is it possible that I have the most relaxed bees in the country ?

Not only did I unwittingly move the freshly assembled hive some 15 metres the night after I'd captured them, but I also fed them with watered down honey in an attempt to keep them happy. Obviously at this point neither myself nor the bees had read that this was not acceptable, but now at least I know not to do either.

Then this evening, on the advice of a retired keeper I removed the branch I captured with the swarm and filled the brood box with the rest of the frames and foundation, fitted the door reducer i was missing, and added a full super so they can think about a winter store. I was going to fit the queen excluder, crown board, and contact feeder, but the lady in the shop had given me some for a different size hive by mistake. I kept well within the 20 minute rule, moved slow and careful and used only a few wafts of smoke, and apart from having to brush bees off things I wanted to move and generally trying to get in the way they didn't fly round me in a cloud or try to attack anything.

Is this normal or some kind of beginners luck because there aren't many of them yet?

 

[Dishmop]

I doubt you should have a super on there yet...

Assuming you mean a super full of frames and not full of honey.

 

[enrico]

Ok, take a few steps back! All you need at the moment is a floor, on which is a brood box with a full compliment of frames, a crown board and a roof. Let them build up that brood box by drawing out the frames. This will take some time and depending on local food they may only fill that before winter now. That is all they will need to get through a winter but you may have to feed them two parts sugar to one part water in the autumn to fill the brood box with stores. Doubt you will need a super this year.
Your bees should be quiet if you treat them right. Get a good book.....bees at the bottom of the garden is a good read and will explain all the basics you need to know this year. Get more books for Xmas
E

 

[NickBrown]

Super is not quite full of frames, as the super needs 12 but the frames only come in 10's for reasons known only to retailers, so they are bunched to the front until I can afford some more.

I was told that it is easier for the bees to control their environment if they had more than just the brood box. I have to take the bits that don't fit back, so I will look out for that book. Just read Beekeeping : A novices guide, which was quite helpful for building the hive parts.

It has all been a bit of a rush as the swarm turned up before I was ready for them, but I'm glad to hear that they stay this friendly now they've settled, because they were pretty grumpy when I caught them.

Thanks for your advice.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Super is not quite full of frames, as the super needs 12

what kind of frames are they? if you haven't got castellations or spacers just space them out by eye to fill the whole box - but as Enrico - you don't need a super on yet.

 

[beebopalula]

Having only started beekeeping on sunday morning, after a swarm decided to take up residence in the garden on saturday I have a question.

but I also fed them with watered down honey in an attempt to keep them happy.

I hope the honey you fed them was not shop bought.

 

[pargyle]

Indeed, depending upon how big the swarm is you may not even need a full brood box of frames .. unless they are filling the box I would suggest that you only need a few frames and then a dummy board with the rest of the box filled with insulation (I use Kingspan but a polythene bag filled with anything insulating such as straw will do the job).

What you were told about bees needing more space to control their environment is not right .. either you were provided with duff information or you misunderstood what was being said.

So, no super, crown board and only the space they can fill at present - they need to keep the hive warm to both draw comb and rear brood and the way they heat the space (or cool it) is through their own body heat or fanning. There is obviously an optimum amount of space that they can manage .. more than this and they will have difficulty maintaining the optimum temperature.

I started my swarm (it was a small one) on just three frames and they were building frames out at the rate of one a week ... so you just add another empty frame as one gets drawn out until you reach a full hive, by which time you should have a hive full of bees with lots of stores ready to go into the winter (With lots of insulation on the hive).

As for feeding them - it shouldn't really be necessary at this time of the year and I would never feed my bees any honey from anywhere other than within my apiary - I seriously hope you didn't go and buy some from Tesco ? There have been lots of problems with bee disease (AFB is the most serious) resulting from bees catching viruses contained in imported honey ... A big NO NO NO ...

You've got a lot of reading to do ... but this is a good place for help when it all goes wrong ... or the books don't tell you what you need to do ...

Good luck with it ... for what it's worth my bees are so laid back I think they are on drugs ... my main hive has 18 seams of bees now so it's a bit colony but they still let me mess about in the hive without taking offence - and I don't use or need any smoke to subdue them ... so it is possible that yours will stay well mannered - but there again - bees will always do what they want so be prepared for them to turn into the hive from hell - plenty of stories on here about what some colonies can be like - not fun !

PS: Ahh - see BBP beat me to it with the warning about NOT feeding them shop bought honey - very important point.

 

[ratcatcher]

sometimes, even two supers are needed on a collected swarm

http://youtu.be/mTXGVcQjuNY

 

[oliver90owner]

-the frames only come in 10's for reasons known only to retailers

Is the retailer expected to know how many frames you need? Some would likely complain if they were packaged in dozens if they only needed ten or eleven.

In addition to beebopalula, if it was shop bought, you may yet need some luck. Dependent on source, you perhaps need to study bee brood disease recognition as an early priority.

If there are not many of them yet, you should not be adding a super just yet. Bee numbers will decline for the next three weeks or so. Get a crownboard fitted soonest or they might soon be affixing combs to the roof.

After reading your post I am left wondering how many frames you have in the brood box. If they are Hoffman frames there should be twelve, or eleven and a dummy. And as Pargyle, they may not need all of them available, if this was only a smallish cast swarm.

If it was the retailer who told you about the space and how much too much is good for them, find a better one -because they likely saw you coming.

 

[Cazza]

"]Not only did I unwittingly move the freshly assembled hive some 15 metres the night after I'd captured."

You can safely move a swarm so no problem with this.


"I kept well within the 20 minute rule"
Is this a local rule? Never heard of it! Please elucidate.

Have fun and good luck.
Cazza

 

[alldigging]

I want to ask about the 20 minute rule too.

It's unlikely they need a super on. The extra space isn't needed and they will have to build the brood box first.
If you put a super on they may just go up rather than filling across the brood box.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I want to ask about the 20 minute rule too.

So it's not just me then!

 

[alldigging]

So it's not just me then!

If it's don't spend longer than 20 minutes with the hive open, then it's sort of a sensible one. I have seen some people spend over an hour in their hive. Can't be good for the bees or the back.

 

[enrico]

20 minutes without coffee or alcohol?

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

20 minutes without coffee or alcohol?

Haha; tobacco not being a problem of course...

 

[madasafish]

20minutes?

I'm a 5 minute man,myself...

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Does that include foreplay?

 

[ratcatcher]

let's try to get back on track
perhaps before telling nick to remove the super, we should ask, what size was the swarm?

the video I posted on my first reply shows a big swarm I hived in our woodland, a brood box and two supers on first day, now had I asked on here, and took the advice of removing supers until the BB was filled out, I reckon the bees would have buggered off, as this is the result after 10 days

http://youtu.be/xIsTgD6SQHU

had that amount of bees been crammed into a BB, they would have run out of space in less than the 10 days,

 

[jd101k2000]

let's try to get back on track
perhaps before telling nick to remove the super, we should ask, what size was the swarm?

the video I posted on my first reply shows a big swarm I hived in our woodland, a brood box and two supers on first day, now had I asked on here, and took the advice of removing supers until the BB was filled out, I reckon the bees would have buggered off, as this is the result after 10 days

http://youtu.be/xIsTgD6SQHU

had that amount of bees been crammed into a BB, they would have run out of space in less than the 10 days,

Most of the swarms I have picked up this year would fit in a nucleus box and have space left over... One swarm not only needed a super on a 14 x 12 brood box within a couple of days, but now has a total of 3 supers, 2 of which are full. (Less than 3 weeks after the swarm.)

Good luck!

I realise that you know you should not feed honey to your bees (unless you are certain it is from a disease-free source). If the honey you fed was from a shop, then chances are it contains Chinese or other imported honey in it. Imported honey is only checked for diseases that affect humans, not bees. I believe that a significant proportion of imported honey contains various notifiable diseases. Ensure that you have an experienced bee keeper look over your brood. If your swarm was headed by a mated queen, this could be in 2-3 weeks time. If the swarm was headed by an unmated queen then it could be longer.

Best of luck.

 

[alldigging]

let's try to get back on track
perhaps before telling nick to remove the super, we should ask, what size was the swarm?

the video I posted on my first reply shows a big swarm I hived in our woodland, a brood box and two supers on first day, now had I asked on here, and took the advice of removing supers until the BB was filled out, I reckon the bees would have buggered off, as this is the result after 10 days

http://youtu.be/xIsTgD6SQHU

had that amount of bees been crammed into a BB, they would have run out of space in less than the 10 days,

I watched your video -I want to know how long they take to they draw out the rest of the brood box.
Would they have done more in the brood box if you've not put supers on?