From full to half frame - relocation

[abenjamin]

Hi,

This is my first year in bee keeping and I've just bought 2 new families.
Currently they are on full size frames and I want to relocate them to half frame supers.

My question is:

Is it worth doing it? Would you advice on how to achieve this.

If it is not worth doing it, should I just leave their brood nest on the full size frames and use half frame size for honey supers?

I must also note that these families have a very high population and I would like to avoid swarming.

Thank you very much.

Alex

 

[Robbo8916]

Hi,

This is my first year in bee keeping and I've just bought 2 new families.
Currently they are on full size frames and I want to relocate them to half frame supers.

My question is:

Is it worth doing it? Would you advice on how to achieve this.

If it is not worth doing it, should I just leave their brood nest on the full size frames and use half frame size for honey supers?

I must also note that these families have a very high population and I would like to avoid swarming.

Thank you very much.

Alex

Hi,

Why are you wanting to move them onto smaller frames? If you want to avoid swarming then shrinking down the size of the brood nest would have, in my opinion, exactly the opposite effect and potentially encourage swarming.

The whole point of having deep frames for brood boxes is to create a large enough brood nest for the queen on a single footprint whilst allowing the bees to store their honey crop above. Super frames are smaller for many reasons, weight and ease of extraction being a couple.

Its all about increase not decrease, or at least thats the way it is done in the UK

 

[jimmybee]

I think you need to read a little as you go. Also I would get sum help because it seems your going to end up in a mess.

 

[Finman]

.
Let them be first in full size frame. Colony develops better there,
.
When you add more boxes, add then those Low boxes.

 

[jeff33]

Agreed with all above! restricting space of a species that is conditioned to expand will end in tears!!

 

[Swarm]

What hive type are you using in Hungary? Langstroth? Is this a lifting issue?

 

[Madge]

Agreed with all above! restricting space of a species that is conditioned to expand will end in tears!!

Abenjamin only wants to use shallow boxes. He is not planning to restrict their ability to expand. There are plenty of hives using shallow boxes. He might look at the Alpine hives as an example.

I've overwintered a few colonies on shallow frames. Up here in Aberdeenshire it's still too cold to inspect the colonies, but I have opened a few - one of them being such a colony. That specific colony on shallows was doing very well although they haven't yet used the lower box. When I check them again, if the queen hasn't moved down, and the brood is nicely spread from top to bottom in the frames, I will switch the boxes around, re-arranging the frames so that some brood frames are in both boxes because the queen, as Finman said, might initially be reluctant to cross the gap.

 

[MuswellMetro]

My granfather used a single box system at his out apiaires using national supers ( He did not every year have to bring brood boxes, floor or rooves in his small austin 1000 van

A double super would suffice for his brood box giving a space about the size of a 14x12 and swarm control was done with again two supers of foundation and a snelgrove split board in a demarree tower style AS

once set up an apairy only needed each a couple of foundation supers for the swarm control with split boards

inspects tended to be split the brood box and pear underneath the frames for QC

 

[jimmybee]

Alex do what you feel is best for you, but you'll be checking 60 odd frames for queen cells come june (over two hives) and as its your first year. I would stay as you are until your happy with what your doing.

 

[Madge]

Alex do what you feel is best for you, but you'll be checking 60 odd frames for queen cells come june (over two hives) and as its your first year. I would stay as you are until your happy with what your doing.

I assume you think the brood area will expand to cover three boxes of ten frames each. Maybe, maybe not - but he doesn't have to look through all three boxes - only the top box, so that's about ten frames per hive. He only needs to go deeper if there are queen cells in the top box and he'll have to do that anyway on that occasion as he'll need to do an artificial swarm.

Kitta