blackcavebees
Field Bee
- Joined
- Sep 21, 2011
- Messages
- 640
- Reaction score
- 0
- Location
- Antrim Coast, Northern Ireland
- Hive Type
- National
I worked with 7 of Hivemaker's design mini nucs this year for queen rearing, just feeling my way, but got great results and will be doing a lot lot more next year. Thanks Pete for sharing your design. Already built another 8 and will do more over winter. Problem this year was getting enough bees to fill them after my big winter losses.
Query 1 is about the feeder. I had used cut bottom of 2l milk carton behind a Qex for both fondant and syrup (with float). I had problems with a lot of dead bees in feeder, even with fondant. With the hotter weather we had in July fondant seemed to melt a bit and have a liquid film on top.
What do other guys use for floats? What would be good / what could be harmful?
(I do not want to stress the bees more than they will be already in a small nuc).
I have a lot of pittosporum, would a handful of leaves be ok with syrup poured over? What about woodshavings? Or what do you recommend?
Is the inside of the milk carton too smooth (like those cheap T****s frame feeders a couple of years ago)? If so what can be done? I do need the container as the nucs, unlike Pete's cedar craftsman editions, are made from recycled timber, pallets, ply, whatever I can get, and wouldn't be easy to seal with pva (if that is an option)
Query 2 is about size. After using them for a season, do you guys feel that a scaled down version with 2 instead of 3 frames would work? Or not advised? Reason for thinking this way is solely number of bees needed to run them initially.
Query 3 - any other observations / comments after a season of use? Any tips, what would you do differently?
Thanks
Stephen
Query 1 is about the feeder. I had used cut bottom of 2l milk carton behind a Qex for both fondant and syrup (with float). I had problems with a lot of dead bees in feeder, even with fondant. With the hotter weather we had in July fondant seemed to melt a bit and have a liquid film on top.
What do other guys use for floats? What would be good / what could be harmful?
(I do not want to stress the bees more than they will be already in a small nuc).
I have a lot of pittosporum, would a handful of leaves be ok with syrup poured over? What about woodshavings? Or what do you recommend?
Is the inside of the milk carton too smooth (like those cheap T****s frame feeders a couple of years ago)? If so what can be done? I do need the container as the nucs, unlike Pete's cedar craftsman editions, are made from recycled timber, pallets, ply, whatever I can get, and wouldn't be easy to seal with pva (if that is an option)
Query 2 is about size. After using them for a season, do you guys feel that a scaled down version with 2 instead of 3 frames would work? Or not advised? Reason for thinking this way is solely number of bees needed to run them initially.
Query 3 - any other observations / comments after a season of use? Any tips, what would you do differently?
Thanks
Stephen
NOT
