Epic fail

[Skyhook]

Going back to basics, Pagden (generally) works, and your method seems not to. Looking for the differences between the two, they are principally the amount of communication between the two halves.

I can understand the logic of the mesh panel if you intend to recombine, but I don't understand the logic of the open feed-hole. You say With transit allowed between top and bottom, flying bees migrate to bottom box, nurse bees remain in top BB with brood.- but this is exactly what would happen without this. If you close the feed hole and open the rear entrance from the beginning, you have a vertical pagden. If you intend to persevere with this method, I would suggest that is the first thing to change. You may wish to add a feeder on the top box until they have their own foragers, depending on the amount of stores in the BB.

It may be worth fitting the mesh over the feed hole, then covering it solidly, so they know exactly who is where. You could then remove the solid covering a few days later when the excitement has died down, to prepare them for combination.

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[Adie]

I use this (Horsley board) type method too and use a small plastic childrens table to put the top box on while I am inspecting the lower boxes. This way you can keep it higher off the ground and pointing the same way while you work on the other boxes. I have had mine swarm from the bottom too, but I have put this down to a swarmy queen. I find that you have to watch you don't have too much brood in the top to start off with or they can swarm from the top box if you leave a couple of queen cells; I like the idea of removing a few frames for a nuc from the top at the queen cell stage as someone has just mentioned.

Worth noting that this technique produces really strong colonies and if you get it right and you are in a good forage area the you can expect yields of 100+ pounds per colony. It is also a good way of producing queens. Also worth noting that if a large colony like this becomes queenless they can also get quite quite agitated and demanding!

 

[Illo]

Thanks everyone for your responses.

I think ultimately I'm not sold on this method. I may experiment some more with my rural colonies, but the two urban ones...it's Pagden for them in the future. Keep it simple!

LJ