Full nuc trying to swarm?

[Erichalfbee]

bees aren't stupid - they, and ivy have been around for millions of years without human interference - if it was that unmanageable without cutting with syrup - do you think they would be still be so hellbent with collecting it?

Day off yesterday as it persisted all day but the trees are humming in the drizzle this morning and hive entrances are busy. Lovely to be able to watch them knowing (hoping?) there's nothing for me to do till spring

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

If it wasn't for the warnings about Ivy from experienced bee keepers I wouldn't have worried. After all, as you say, they've been living together for millennia. We're also more paranoid as it's our first winter with them, hopefully future years we'll leave them to it.

The super is mostly nectar honey, bramble I expect. My understanding about feeding was to fill up space in the brood frames but then we still had lots of brood and eggs when the ivy opened.

I'd rather this colony overwintered and we re-queened if necessary in the spring as the other two colonies are from the same stcok, all from the same queen in our original nuc. That may well be another question once we've read up a bit - do swarmy strains exist or is it the fault of the keeper or both!

Well it sounds like you're going in; good luck. While you're at it if the other boxes have enough stores you could nick the super for personal consumption.

Swarmy strains and random offspring do exist but of course they get diluted (and dilute back depending where they take up residence) each generation so it all reverts to the mean. What you should seek to do is influence that mean over time by choosing the mothers of your Qs rather than letting the swarmy ones do it for you. I take the point on diversity in the interim but your other Qs are already only partly related so reQ-ing from them will not create excessive concentration (assuming as I think is fair that you are in an independent cloud of drones, rather than your own cloud). But from the way you describe this colony it may be worth taking a bit of swarminess for a lot of vigour. Which gives you an excuse to go in and look for QCs. Decisions decisions...

<ADD> Based on @Erichalfbee above, hefting is essential; might as well start now. But based on my overwintering double _ASSUMING POLY_ nucs in a similar environment, 40lbs of stores would be MASSIVE and they would be wall-to wall. You would need to leave that super on. But this is a learning process for you and we can't do it for you. Good luck, as I say; the odds are strongly in your and the bees' favour in terms of bringing a strong colony into spring (which is when they will eat most of the stores).

 

[user 6228]

The "amount of stores required "advice from a wooden beekeeper doesnt really hold for poly hives. They require a lot less as the thermal conductance is about half. Poly nucs have less thermal conductance than poly hives. So advice that is based on wooden hives is not really that useful. Luckily bees know how to work in nests with even lower conductance after millions of years of practice in trees.

 

[Erichalfbee]

The "amount of stores required "advice from a wooden beekeeper doesnt really hold for poly hives. They require a lot less as the thermal conductance is about half. Poly nucs have less thermal conductance than poly hives. So advice that is based on wooden hives is not really that useful. Luckily bees know how to work in nests with even lower conductance after millions of years of practice in trees.

Thanks Derek that's very useful. Too easy to trot out mantra about stores. I must say that I have had to pull the odd full frame of stores in the Spring and supposed it was because of prevailing winter conditions. The obvious answer as per your reply is that poly hives need less.
On the same note I would have considered 40 lb not excessive for a twelve frame colony but I'm happy to revise that and learn something new every day

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

If it wasn't for the warnings about Ivy from experienced bee keepers

But is it sound advice from observation and experience or just rolling out the same stuff handed down from goodness knows where based on assumption and 'my great grandad told me so?
I have a nagging feeling that beekeepers, when faced with a spring deadout just assume it's due to the ivy and blame the easy target to assuage a feeling of guilt rather than look more closely to find the real cause of the failure (which may well be their fault and no other).
Remember - it's 'experienced' beekeepers who still insist on leaving vents in roofs, and gaping holes in crownboards already propped up with Bryant and May's finest.

 

[user 6228]

....
Derek, yes our bees have access to a vast amount of ivy. We have been told, by more than one experienced bee keeper, that ivy honey can cause problems as it can set hard and the bees find it hard to access in a harsh winter (i.e. they can't get out to get water). This is why we've been advised to feed, to give some thinner honey next to the brood.

Now we're not in a cold part of the country so perhaps we're worrying too much but do you or other people not get any problems with ivy honey during the winter? Long term we'd would prefer not to feed the bees.

We overwinter on ivy - no problems. All we do is put a small piece of fondant (200gm) in very low profile insulated eke (a cutout in piece of 25mm recticel) after the ivy.
The bees usually ignore this fondant until around march. This is just for our peace of mind and as an indicator that the colony is on the move in spring.

Remember typically a wooden hive is also acting as a dehumidifer compared to polyhive. The cold walls remove water from the hive lowering the relative humidity in the bulk of the nest. This means you cannot take advice about honey crystallisation/reconstitution from one to the other.

 

[Erichalfbee]

At a slight tangent and talking of dead outs an interesting piece of info surfaced in the link pargyle gave on the insulation thread..... that isolation starvation is more easily avoided by putting your frames warm way for winter.

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

Ah: one thing I forgot. Beef up the roof with a slab of Celotex or similar to reduce condensation (from massive to tolerable). You will get condensation in the <ADD> side </ADD> feeder as well. I got a lot last year but it's not a sweat (booboom); in the worst case it will overflow through the QE and run out of the hive. Whether they access it I have no idea.

<ADD> Unlikeliest bit of kit repurposed to beekeeping? A Seeley (good name - Sealey really...) vacuum extractor. http://sealey.co.uk/PLPageBuilder.asp?gotonode=ViewProduct&method=mViewProduct&productid=8516 . I looked at reversing it to feed nucs (weaker ones than this!!) but settled for a jug...