few questions as I plan for spring

[tom8400]

Hello all

Well my colony that found me as a prime swarm seem to be doing well. they are in a standard brood although I let them use the second super as brood if they wished as it seems a very strong colony. and I was kind and left them with two supers one was full of capped honey at the time and some where they took syrup the second was extra filled with sugar syrup where I was winter feeding, yes adding the second was a big mistake .

So there is very few dead being dragged out and on a nice day a few make flights plus when I added the mouse guard I didn't get a friendly welcome I take all of that as a good sign. They are also insulated.

I'm thinking I wont need to feed but should I edge of the side of caution and put a fondant block on top of ground board in the insulation or a insulated eke?

the real newbie question i'm wondering when will I need to send the queen back to the bottom and put a excluder back in april time?

lastly I plan to do a split of this hive to increase, and to prevent swarming, I do have a empty deep national that I could use but the different frames would make this a pain. I can't exactly see from all the youtube videos and what I read the advantages for using a 5/6 frame nuc opposed to another brood box other than keeps them a bit tighter, so what would you do build a 5/6 frame nuc box or buy another standard brood box and use the other components from the second national hive? this also makes me wonder should I put a swarm in a 5/6frame opposed to a full brood?

Thank you for your time if you managed to read to the end

 

[For want of a better word]

Take it you have not left a QX in the hive.
Leave them in the hive as they are and leave well alone till spring ( perhaps a block of fondant over the crown feeder hole in late February)?

When flying well and it it at least T shirt weather.... move the super below the brood and let them move up into into the brood box, anything left in the super will be moved up.
Could even put a couple of laths between the boxes to give the bees an entrance they find difficult to defend to speed clearing of the super up a bit.

once in one box and loads of brood you could consider a split.***
.. possibly into a nuc.. but do feed well even if their appears to be plenty of forage around.

*** the queen will be in one box or the other... check for eggs in 3 days after split... box with eggs in will contain the queen.. other one will hopefully raise themselves at least one new one!!
Good luck... and enjoy your beekeeping... it is supposed to be fun!

( despite the leg pulling on this forum... all in the best possible taste!)

Nos da

 

[tom8400]

Thank you for the reply, that gives me something to go by.

Took the excluder out, didn't want her left behind although I think they will still be safely in the middle

for a split would you say a 5/6 frame nuc? or use another standard national brood box with the 11frames? Trying to get all the bits here ready while I have plenty of time dark evenings and all.

I can't get my head around the time to use a nuc box opposed to a normal brood box

 

[Curly green fingers]

Take it you have not left a QX in the hive.
Leave them in the hive as they are and leave well alone till spring ( perhaps a block of fondant over the crown feeder hole in late February)?

When flying well and it it at least T shirt weather.... move the super below the brood and let them move up into into the brood box, anything left in the super will be moved up.
Could even put a couple of laths between the boxes to give the bees an entrance they find difficult to defend to speed clearing of the super up a bit.

once in one box and loads of brood you could consider a split.***
.. possibly into a nuc.. but do feed well even if their appears to be plenty of forage around.

*** the queen will be in one box or the other... check for eggs in 3 days after split... box with eggs in will contain the queen.. other one will hopefully raise themselves at least one new one!!
Good luck... and enjoy your beekeeping... it is supposed to be fun!

( despite the leg pulling on this forum... all in the best possible taste!)

Nos da

I like your idea of using lath in between the supper and brood
I put my supper underneath my hive in the autumn with stores could you do this with the lath in the autumn to ? And also I'm going to do a split via AS in the spring and was in the mind I could use a national brood for the split with dummy frames either side and perhaps a bit of insulation to fill the gap either side of the dummy boards until they had produced there own queen , and then when the hive starts to expand remove dummy boards and replace with drawn comb ? Cheers mark

 

[colinc]

Nuc is for a smaller colony so they can maintain heat.
If you have a prolific colony as indicated by two full supers to leave them this year then you could wait until they make swarm prep and move the queen and some stores to your deep and leave on the original site and move brood and QC to new site as a standard AS to make increase. The queen from your colony can then build up the deep and when they draw new frames and lay up move them to the outsides of the box and remove them. They will get burr comb on the bottom but you can do this reasonably quickly over a few weeks in spring and summer. Then you have a standard brood new colony and your current queen on a deep box.


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[Curly green fingers]

Take it you have not left a QX in the hive.
Leave them in the hive as they are and leave well alone till spring ( perhaps a block of fondant over the crown feeder hole in late February)?

When flying well and it it at least T shirt weather.... move the super below the brood and let them move up into into the brood box, anything left in the super will be moved up.
Could even put a couple of laths between the boxes to give the bees an entrance they find difficult to defend to speed clearing of the super up a bit.

once in one box and loads of brood you could consider a split.***
.. possibly into a nuc.. but do feed well even if their appears to be plenty of forage around.

*** the queen will be in one box or the other... check for eggs in 3 days after split... box with eggs in will contain the queen.. other one will hopefully raise themselves at least one new one!!
Good luck... and enjoy your beekeeping... it is supposed to be fun!

( despite the leg pulling on this forum... all in the best possible taste!)

Nos da

Would you still put the supper underneath if the queen has been laying in the first supper ? She could even stay in that supper no ?

 

[drex]

Seems like you have done Ok so far. In my early days I too would make plans, but now subscribe to brother Adam' s " let the bees tell you" .
National brood with two full supers on top are unlikely to run out of stores, but hefting or weighing will tell you. Fondant on top as an insurance is OK, but bear in mind the queen will need empty cells in which to lay, and if they are all stuffed with stores, she will have no space.

I agree with the advice above about rearranging, aiming to get the queen and all the brood in the brood box to start off. I run double brood throughout the year, and often in spring will swap the brood boxes over. This is said to aid delay swarming and encourage the queen to lay more. However in so doing I will most likely have split the brood nest. Timing is critical. I need to ensure the colony is strong enough, with enough bees to cover the brood. Bear this in mind if you put a super containing brood under your brood box, possibly under a QX. The brood in the super will emerge, and that super can be removed. HM will be laying where you want her in the BB - if you have made sure she is up there, before you rearrange. A super containing sugar syrup will similarly be emptied.

How prolific are your bees? I doubt whether you will know at this point. Will HM lay up 1,1.5, or 2 boxes, or what are your plans? Do you want to run brood and a half, which in my opinion is an abomination.

Timing of any splits is also critical. The colony needs to be strong enough that each half will have enough bees to be able to thrive ( not just survive). The number of bees will determine the size of the box you put your split into. Fewer bees = smaller box. I.e. A nuc

 

[For want of a better word]

Agree entirely with the above posts... many ways to skin a cat.
Early season splits into brood boxes or even nucs can be dummied down with thick dummies made full frame size from Kingspan/ Celotex etc... Frame of hatching brood, one of eggs and unsealed larvae, one of pollen and stores and one of stores + feed, feed feed.

Get drone foundation into your breeder colonies as soon as you can.

Yeghes da

 

[colinc]

The issue will be you never know how they will do. If you don’t need aggressive expansion of colonies you don’t need to force the bees to do anything.
Personally a full colony in your situation is likely to look to swarm if it outgrows it’s home between late May and July. Have a plan and kit ready and split them when they show signs of a proper nearly capped populated queen cell. Then you get a well fed queen who is more likely to be a success in a new colony. If you split and force an emergency cell you could create a colony with a scrub queen.


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[colinc]

Others will say different.


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[SDM]

Get drone foundation into your breeder colonies as soon as you can.

He's got 1 hive

 

[Curly green fingers]

Hello all

Well my colony that found me as a prime swarm seem to be doing well. they are in a standard brood although I let them use the second super as brood if they wished as it seems a very strong colony. and I was kind and left them with two supers one was full of capped honey at the time and some where they took syrup the second was extra filled with sugar syrup where I was winter feeding, yes adding the second was a big mistake .

So there is very few dead being dragged out and on a nice day a few make flights plus when I added the mouse guard I didn't get a friendly welcome I take all of that as a good sign. They are also insulated.

I'm thinking I wont need to feed but should I edge of the side of caution and put a fondant block on top of ground board in the insulation or a insulated eke?

the real newbie question i'm wondering when will I need to send the queen back to the bottom and put a excluder back in april time?

lastly I plan to do a split of this hive to increase, and to prevent swarming, I do have a empty deep national that I could use but the different frames would make this a pain. I can't exactly see from all the youtube videos and what I read the advantages for using a 5/6 frame nuc opposed to another brood box other than keeps them a bit tighter, so what would you do build a 5/6 frame nuc box or buy another standard brood box and use the other components from the second national hive? this also makes me wonder should I put a swarm in a 5/6frame opposed to a full brood?

Thank you for your time if you managed to read to the end

Hi, tom I just wanted to say I'm in the same sort of situation as you . having one hive .
Sorry in advance if I'm jumping on the band wagon.
Mark.

 

[tom8400]

The main hive is currently 1 and 1/2 but it was not knowing that led to this it is a bit of a pain for inspections which is why I bought the deep hive as I thought this would be better. I'm thinking if I did a split I could put the original hive back to one brood box or perhaps add another brood box opposed to using a super.


Perhaps you'd all know as it's easy to say what suits someone may not work for someone else. But double brood seems hard work, however I'd imagine double brood if both standard brood would be far better than 1 1/2 as this means I can't move frames for splitting quite as easy as if they were both the same. Or should I move to deep? My reasoning for disliking double is when I take the top one I'm worried il lose the queen or accidentally squish her, however I can certainly see a lot of benefits for running double.

It's all a learning curve they certainly are fascinating


Thanks Tom

 

[colinc]

I run doubles haven’t squished a queen yet and regular brood boxes work well as they are easily lifted. Queen invariably is in the middle of a frame especially when you crack boxes to let light in.
I lift supers off put on upturned roof then use an empty box put the top brood on that at 45 degrees, then examine the bottom box first. Put the top brood back on for exam and Queen is usually in top brood.
If you inspect top box of double first you drive all the bees into the bottom box and it’s a nightmare to inspect.
Double helps if they fill the top box wall to wall the bottom usually has more room, flipping the boxes the opposite way up can buy time from swarm preps.
If you have the same frames in both boxes you can move frames to redistribute too which you can’t do with big single boxes or brood and half type configurations.
And if you get a queen laying slowly you leave her on single brood.
Finally you can overwinter the colony on double brood and they have room for stores.

But do your planning keep your options open and pay attention to the bees, don’t try to force them to conform, they will destroy your best plans


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[drex]

I run doubles throughout the year. No need to worry about stores in winter. I exchange the position of the boxes in spring, provided the colony is strong enough. I have plenty of solid crow boards . The top brood box goes on top of an upturned crown board for inspections. If I need to find the queen, the bees behaviour after just a few minutes tell me the box she is in. I found brood and a Half a PITA. 14x12 I find too heavy and the frames unwieldy.

 

[tom8400]

Sounds like doubles is favourable, I guess I could get another brood and make the national a double as one of this years jobs. And if all went to plan and I can increase I could use the super that was brood on the deep if needed.


I'm going to make a couple of nucs up ready perhaps I could use them as traps unless I need them. Although that won't help me get some guaranteed buckfasts.

I'm hoping the spring beans will make the hive thrive even if I spilt it, the bees seemed to love them last year.

 

[enrico]

Only if you have a field full
E

 

[For want of a better word]

He's got 1 hive

Hopefully Tom will have 2 or even three next season... of well tempered and productive local bees ( or bought in from a local breeder!)

Yeghes da

 

[SDM]

Hopefully Tom will have 2 or even three next season... of well tempered and productive local bees ( or bought in from a local breeder!)

Yeghes da

He wants buckfast so no doubt they'll be well tempered and productive.

 

[masterBK]

I run all my colonies on double broods and favour this system as it allows me to Demaree for swarm prevention, use cloake board for queen rearing not forgetting checking for swarm cells only takes a few seconds (by tilting up the top BC and looking for cells on the bottom of the frames). However I am used to handling large colonies but a relative beginner this might present a challenge as it can be quite intimidating to manipulate very populous colonies especially when they don't behave themselves.