Drone frame.

[B+.]

Teach PE

School of Rock ?

 

[BMH]

School of Rock ?

That's it. I couldn't remember where it was from!

 

[Finman]

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To Mazzamazza

I did not mentioned. I try to have 15 worker frames and 2/3 drone frame.

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[keith pierce]

Its funny how you ask a question and you get 20 Tyre kickers and only one answer.
when i started my bee improvement i started putting in 2 drone frames into my best hives to give me more quality drones.
What i found was if you give them a frame to rear drone brood then they are generally happy with that amount and don't start putting drone comb in most of the other frames and destroying the frame beside it by protruding out too far. My bees generally start to draw out drone come in early April as soon as the first flush of nectar come in with the dandelion and stop drone production in June some time. As soon as i see this then the drone frame is removed to the back of the hive and on the next visit the comb is removed, cut out and put in the solar wax extractor. The frame is cleaned and stored for the next year when the bees will draw out fresh wax that if free from chemicals and l improve their fertility. I still find that using the hoffman brood frame that i am still getting damage to the adjoining frames and i am trying to avoid this totally as it affects worker production. Hoffman frames are 1"3/8 while the Manley frame is 1" 5/8 and i was thinking along the lines they the bigger side bar might fit my needs better. I have looked on the internet for natural depth of drone comb but cant find anything so far.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

just use plastic frame spacers on your drone frame and the neighbouring ones - that will give you the extra spacing you need.

 

[keith pierce]

No, its just more ***** to be kicking around the place.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I don't like them either - but that was a quick fix for you, you could keep hoffman's in the rest of the brood so it wouldn't be a big problem - do you really want to be faffing around with two frame formats? I'd have thought Manleys in the brood box would be a right PITA too.
The other option is to go eleven frame castellations in the brood - I believe that's what Hivemaker has.

 

[charlievictorbravo]

As long as it's not some misguided attempt at drone culling to control varroa - another method found rather pointless by LASI

That's the second time in the last couple of days that you've quoted LASI but from previous threads I got the impression that you thought the boss at LASI was a bit of a t*sser. So what's the story JBM? Are you a secret Ratnieks admirer?

CVB

 

[Hivemaker.]

eleven frame castellations in the brood - I believe that's what Hivemaker has.

Like hell I have, I use hoffman 38mm spaced frames, as opposed to the *******ized 35mm version more commonly used in nationals.
This hoffman 38mm spacing is also good for drone combs.


In the shallow super boxes I only use ten space castellated.

 

[Finman]

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To me drones have been a natural event in hives. Never become into mind that it needs own castellation.

If the hive makes the whole frame of brood, I destroy such frames.

If you have out there 60 hives per square kilometre, quality drone hive does not help much then.
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[Finman]

That's the second time in the last couple of days that you've quoted LASI but from previous threads I got the impression that you thought the boss at LASI was a bit of a t*sser. So what's the story JBM? Are you a secret Ratnieks admirer?

CVB

LASI has not published much practical beekeeping researches so far. It is good now that it has started. And with huge advertising.

When you have a manure fork in your hand, every problem looks like manure/chip.

LASI revieled the secrets of worker layer. But it took 10 years by beekeepers to understand what the results mean. However most of beekeepers continue the old "shake far away" tricks.
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[Hivemaker.]

It is good now that it has started.

Why is it good?

 

[Finman]

Why is it good?

To use those millions what your government gove to beekeeping. Otherwise UK bees are vanishing.

So far number of hives are rising globally, but some day they will be vanished.
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[keith pierce]

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To me drones have been a natural event in hives. Never become into mind that it needs own castellation.

If the hive makes the whole frame of brood, I destroy such frames.

If you have out there 60 hives per square kilometre, quality drone hive does not help much then.
.

It does if you have 30 in the one apairy

 

[Finman]

It does if you have 30 in the one apairy

I have just now in my cottage yard 30 hives. And it makes no difference. And they are up to middle of June in this yard.

In main yield the hives are in 3 hive apiaries. The queens I rear in another places.

I do not use excluder and the queen may lay drones in every box if it need to. Picking drone brood from 6-8 boxes is impossible.

There are drone brood mostly in GAPS between supers. Most important is that bees do not ruin the combs. Drone brood in caps between boxes is a good choice.

I do not make a problem from drones after 50 years beekeeping. Not worth of it.

It is problem when I take the hives to outer pastures and wild Carniolan drones spoil the virgins. Wild Carniolans live in empty rural houses. Those crossings are mad to swarm but without swarming they are the most productive colonies. From those I can see that hybrid vigour is great.

I do not mind much about quality drones. Inbreeding problerms will come sooner or later in small apiaries. It is better to buy every now and then new queens from 500 hive owners.
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[keith pierce]

I found this on an American site and the measurements were taken from wild comb.

The average brood comb cell depth was 11 mm for worker cells and 12.5 mm for drone cells. Honey comb cell size was variable with cells of various diameters and depths.

 

[mazzamazda]

What i found was if you give them a frame to rear drone brood then they are generally happy with that amount and don't start putting drone comb in most of the other frames and destroying the frame beside it by protruding out too far.

Exactly. I have found the same. You get some really stunning huge worker brood frames. If you move the drone frame to either end after they have their fill of drones, if its a strong colony they still produce a few but mainly fill it with honey.

 

[Finman]

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I have as supers 50 year old furnitures. They have a good gap between boxes. I have use to work with them and they are better than new modern spaces. Too tight spaces crush bees. Dimensions in interrior are not what they are in theory.

In this forum there are habit to optimize every single detail in beekeeping like guys do not have nothing else to do in their life.. But they do not have time to make their own frames. And least time to extract honey. ....Strange goals in bee keeping..

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

That's the second time in the last couple of days that you've quoted LASI but from previous threads I got the impression that you thought the boss at LASI was a bit of a t*sser. So what's the story JBM? Are you a secret Ratnieks admirer?

CVB

No, I still think Ratnicks is an ignorant, dogmatic pompous ass ('I'm a professor don't you know' was one retort he used in his talk) but a lot of their findings were good - apart from ratneiks insistence on ripping the brood apart every five minutes over the winter.

 

[Finman]

Exactly. I have found the same. You get some really stunning huge worker brood frames. If you move the drone frame to either end after they have their fill of drones, if its a strong colony they still produce a few but mainly fill it with honey.

With natural combs you have your aspects things in hives.

My hives fill too the drone combs with honey after middle summer. But when they rear those unlimited drone brood, it is away from foraging power of main yield.