Best way to add colonies?

[melias]

I have two colonies that will (hopefully) be coming through their first winter. I would like to add two more colonies this spring and my question is: what's the best way to do this without spending £160 for each nuc?

1) create new colonies with an artificial swarm?

2) Create my own nucs with newly purchased Queens?

3) Any other methods I'm not aware of?

 

[Finman]

.
Don't make it in Spring. Wait that hives are big, over 4 boxes.
Big hives build up faster.

Bye mated queen in Summer from professional queen breeder.

Make two 3-frame nucs: one foundation, food frame and a frame of emerging bees.

When the nuc has a capped brood farme, give it to the big hive and take from it again a frame of emerging bees. Now you have a hive which is able to build up with its own, about 5 frames bees.

 

[oliver90owner]

3) Any other methods I'm not aware of?

Whilst I would choose my time for splitting the colony(ies) for increase dependent on what I might hope for, in the way of honey crop, other easy increase would be from swarm baiting (may not work, but cost is close to zero, either way!), splitting a hive into several component parts, all with a queen cell. One way would be to demaree the hive for queen cells.

But you only want two? Aim for three or four nucs and combine later, selecting the best queens for the unites.

No 'best' way. Just plenty of choices. If you don't want a lot of OSR honey, split before the colonies are strong enough to collect a lot of it. Your choice (I would likely make my splits at the end of the OSR). Bought-in queens get them away to a faster start, but has a cost (and a risk of losing that investment), but should be more predictable than home reared queens. Choices, choices.

RAB

 

[Beezer]

.
Don't make it in Spring. Wait that hives are big, over 4 boxes.
Big hives build up faster.

Bye mated queen in Summer from professional queen breeder.

Make two 3-frame nucs: one foundation, food frame and a frame of emerging bees.

When the nuc has a capped brood farme, give it to the big hive and take from it again a frame of emerging bees. Now you have a hive which is able to build up with its own, about 5 frames bees.

Hi Finman, Would you please explain that more clearly.
Didn't understand the bit where you say:

"When the nuc has a capped brood farme, give it to the big hive and take from it again a frame of emerging bees."

Be gentle!

Out to get stamps so look in a while.

 

[oliver90owner]

When the nuc has a capped brood farme When the new queen has layed a full frame and it is capped

give it to the big hive Remove said capped frame to another hive where the capped brood are able to pupate without losses

take from it again a frame of emerging bees Swap above frame for a frame of emerging brood.

The upshot is that the nuc gets emerging brood best part of a fortnight before it would, if it had needed to wait for it's capped brood to emerge. OK?

RAB

 

[Beezer]

Ah, yes! Thank you, had just reread and see it clearly - must be the fresh air.

 

[oliver90owner]

must be the fresh air.

Might be. There again it might be 'Finnish English'. It certainly helped that I knew what he meant.

RAB

 

[Finman]

must be the fresh air.

Might be. There again it might be 'Finnish English'.
RAB

We call that phenomenom "word f***** devil", in English a mistake.
Don't make this national.

 

[drstitson]

In order to not jeopardise honey yield:

Artificial swarm
and
Bait hive(s)

and of course the ever popular.... theft!

 

[BERNIE]

almost perfect spelling on that F word Fiman but i fear you may of dropped the g from the end of the word.

 

[mbc]

3) Any other methods I'm not aware of?

A quick easy method of expansion is to let your existing bees build a second brood box and then split, either introducing a queen to the queenless box, let them raise their own queen ( classic American "walk away split" ) or wait untill they ( hopefully ) raise their own swarm cells and then split.

 

[Anduril]

A quick easy method of expansion is to let your existing bees build a second brood box and then split, either introducing a queen to the queenless box, let them raise their own queen ( classic American "walk away split" ) or wait untill they ( hopefully ) raise their own swarm cells and then split.

The good old scrub queen! Used that method on a q- colony many years ago produced a very good queen. Plenty of info on the forum about it.
I wouldn't let by bees loose with a hammer and saw to build a second brood box!

 

[Bee-Key-Pur]

When the nuc has a capped brood farme When the new queen has layed a full frame and it is capped

give it to the big hive Remove said capped frame to another hive where the capped brood are able to pupate without losses

take from it again a frame of emerging bees Swap above frame for a frame of emerging brood.

The upshot is that the nuc gets emerging brood best part of a fortnight before it would, if it had needed to wait for it's capped brood to emerge. OK?

RAB

Well done with the translation RAB, I was having a bit of trouble there myself...

 

[sugarbush]

In the US there is a technique which is called a walkaway split. Basically as Finman discribes, you pull frames from a mature colony. 2 with open brood and eggs, 3 with stores and place them in a nuc; Then you walk away and let them raise a new queen.

 

[Finman]

let them raise their own queen ( classic American "walk away split" ) or wait untill they ( hopefully ) raise their own swarm cells and then split.

You loose one brood cycle ( 4weeks) and the queen is what ever.
And during that time the nuc looses half of its bees.

That is worst you can do. That size nuc cannot rear a normal queen.

.

 

[sugarbush]

You loose one brood cycle ( 4weeks) and the queen is what ever.
And during that time the nuc looses half of its bees.
.

Breaking the brood cycle is useful in controlling mites which is one reason whi walkaways are used.

As far as the queen being whatever... It usually ends up being your and your neighbors genetics... We don't have Wild bees in the US so all genetics come out of good stock.

 

[Finman]

Breaking the brood cycle is useful in controlling mites which is one reason whi walkaways are used.

As far as the queen being whatever... It usually ends up being your and your neighbors genetics... We don't have Wild bees in the US so all genetics come out of good stock.

That is not a mite controlling. We were making a nuc.

Nothing to do genetics, but that size of nuc is not able to rear normal size queen. It is often not bigger than a worker. And mostly emercegy queen are not valid in honey production. Almost all queen larvae have not enough food. There is missing that brown stuff = extra food.

What does it help, if you have 40 frames in the hive and you kill mites in 2 frames?

Loss of time queen rearing time 2 weeks + mating 10 days minimum. = 3 weeks = one brood cycle.
.

 

[Madge]

.
Don't make it in Spring. Wait that hives are big, over 4 boxes.
Big hives build up faster.

Bye mated queen in Summer from professional queen breeder.

Make two 3-frame nucs: one foundation, food frame and a frame of emerging bees.

When the nuc has a capped brood farme, give it to the big hive and take from it again a frame of emerging bees. Now you have a hive which is able to build up with its own, about 5 frames bees.

Thanks Finman - I've saved this bit of advice; printed it; and tucked a copy into my Hooper.

 

[drstitson]

"What does it help, if you have 40 frames in the hive and you kill mites in 2 frames?"

Whether or not the queens produced are satisfactory the point is that the NUC you've set-up has a long broodless period hence the varroa control aspect. the donor hive of course is unaffected and needs normal IPM.

 

[susbees]

"What does it help, if you have 40 frames in the hive and you kill mites in 2 frames?"

Whether or not the queens produced are satisfactory the point is that the NUC you've set-up has a long broodless period hence the varroa control aspect. the donor hive of course is unaffected and needs normal IPM.

But the relevant point being made is that a "standard" nuc hasn't got the strength to make a Q worth having. Although there's always an exception...as with everything