Is there anything a hobbyist beekeeper can do about swarms?

[Beedogg]

Yes, buy over winter and prep frames in spring, avoiding the need to make them in season (my job today).

Here goes with a list of food for thought, but before the boxes begin arriving, identify storage space!

I like Abelo poly hives because they're light, more thermally efficient than wood and ready to use straight from the box. Other poly makes have design drawbacks. Abelo is made to standard National dimensions, so compatible with wood National boxes you may pick up. If you choose wood, look at English cedar in the winter sales, rather than Western Red Cedar. English may be knotty but is better value, though accurate assembly is vital.

2 x Abelo National Ashforth hives (floor, 2 x brood, Ashforth feeder as permanent feeder & crownboard, deep roof)
8 x Abelo National poly supers
4 x BS* National poly nuc boxes (use 2 as 6-frame boxes or for swarm collection, 2 as 3-frame twins for mating spare QCs)
2 x wood-framed queen excluders
2 x split boards (make yourself) for economical vertical AS splits

60 x Maisemore 2nds DN4 frames
90 x Maisemore 2nds SN4 frames
500g Challenge 20mm gimp pins available widely; use a 4oz pein hammer

60 sheets DN wired foundation. KBS is consistently good quality
90 sheets SN unwired foundation (cheaper than wired; extract slowly in year 1)

Note:
1 * Maisemore nuc boxes are equally good, though 6 frame only; brood and super extensions etc are available & extension boxes are compatible with BS boxes
2 No dummy boards needed
3 No crownboards needed

Dadant smoker.
A decent hive tool: more difficult to find because some cheapies are good value and greater expense does not lead necessarily to better quality. Jero (a Portugese knife manufacturer) is the best in my experience but no longer available in the UK since Park Beekeeping closed, but I suggest you seek the necessity of a slim blade made of quality steel.

Long-cuff nitrile gloves allow sensitive handling and can be machine washed; Marigold last longer but the fit can be looser, which you will want to avoid.
Washing soda, lots of it. Wash your suit in it, wash your tools in it regularly.
Two buckets with lids: one for waste wax, one half full of water+half a bag of washing soda+one of these.

PS: don't buy a cheap suit unless you really have no option. These are the best.

Have you found the poly hives durable enough?

 

[Swift Nick]

I have four colonies that up to last week had made no swarm preps. I’m dreading what I might find today. Hastily making frames up. Don’t want to nuc queens on the cusp of a flow. Have only enough kit for two Demarees. Never done one this late. Or might do what Pete little recommended. I have already done two. Seems to work.

I am interested Dani why you wouldn’t want to nuc a queen on the cusp of a flow, there would be plenty of brood to follow on, the brood gap would come later. I know you know your bees, so I am probably missing something. Does nuc’ing the queen effect their foraging?
I ask because I have just nuc’d two queens at the start of the blackberry flow.

 

[Erichalfbee]

I just don’t like interrupting the cohesion of the colony once they are busy in the summer.
There is a manipulation described by somebody whose name escapes me where the queen is removed from the colony at the beginning of the flow on purpose so that the bees forage instead of rear brood. I don’t know enough about colony dynamics regarding nurse bees full of fat hypo pharyngeal glands transitioning to foragers.
So my reply us unscientific.

PS. David Evans has a bit about this here
https://www.theapiarist.org/queen-rearing-miscellany/

 

[Erichalfbee]

It’s an interesting observation
I wonder if anybody does it to maximise honey flow.

 

[Swift Nick]

It’s an interesting observation
I wonder if anybody does it to maximise honey flow.

Thank you for your explanation and the link, it is an interesting observation, I have four similar hives two Q+ & two Q-, so I will see how the get on with the blackberry. But even if the observation was scientifically proven, I wouldn’t follow it, it would just be another stressor for the bees.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Thank you for your explanation and the link, it is an interesting observation, I have four similar hives two Q+ & two Q-, so I will see how the get on with the blackberry. But even if the observation was scientifically proven, I wouldn’t follow it, it would just be another stressor for the bees.

I agree. Though I like having honey and I’m disappointed if the season is bad it’s not the end of the world for me.

 

[ericbeaumont]

Have you found the poly hives durable enough?

Yes.

I began using poly twelve years ago and they're all still good, except the Swienty, which is softer poly and was chewed by bees (it also has significant practical design faults). Poly hives were first used in Europe and have lasted 40 years.

A dropped poly will break but can be glued with polyurethane such as Gorilla and clamped; wood boxes can break if dropped and repaired with wood glue and screws, so not much difference.

 

[BeeKeyPlayer]

Not sure what you mean: using Hoffman's, or eye?

Decision to include a board depends on the box you use: the internal layout of a wood box was decided donkey's years ago when prevailing wisdom dictated a dummy board essential, and to make life more interesting, in the intervening aeons manufacturers will have used wood of different thickness, and so tweaked interior dimensions.

One truth in beekeeping is that standardisation of equipment saves time and energy, and so working with a mixture of wooden boxes that take 11 or 12 with or without a dummy board is not ideal. Problem is that most of us work with a mixture of wooden boxes acquired piecemeal - I have some boxes (retired) which must be 80 years old - and so dummy boards may be necessary in some boxes and not in others.

To save the making, the material, transport, cleaning and storing of dummy boards I prefer the Abelo box, which replicates the National wood spec. in all respects bar the need for a board.

Last Sunday in a training apiary we showed beginners the variations and they agreed that dummy boards in Abelo boxes were pointless, so out they came and in went frame number 11. Had the beginners gone into a wood box, the decision would likely have been different.


Do you mean to space Hoffman frames by eye to fill the box without a board? That would lead you down the road to chaos, because bees would fatten the combs to reduce the gaps and you would lose the freedom of frame management - moving frames to any other place in the same box. Only flat combs made by tight Hoffmans give that option.


Yes, it's surprising how many beekeepers pay for Hoffman frames and then don't use them, leaving gaps between Hoffmans at the end of a check. By the next visit the combs will be fatter, perhaps brace comb will appear between top bars and propolis between Hoffmans.

Lever frames tight together: if the resulting endspace demands a dummy board, so be it.

Thanks for your thoughts. Lots for me to consider.

I've always pushed my Hoffmans together in wooden Nationals, and filled the space with a dummy board. Then when I started looking after someone else's bees as well, and found no dummy boards. I asked him to order some. Now I feel like a dummy for doing so!

Without dummy boards, the bees have expanded the comb of course, and perhaps this does cause problems for comb management. I hadn't thought of that, but I haven't noticed the problem either. I've had to learn to space frames by eye and finger width. I take care doing this, and things seem to be okay. In the array of equipment in the hives I look after, there are some frames which are not self-spacing and don't have 'plastic metal ends' (or castellations).

Many will know that some beekeepers use castellations in the brood box. I don't fancy that but perhaps it makes the point that there's nothing inherently wrong with giving an extra 2-3mm space (I think that's all it is) between frames when not using a dummy board. I haven't noticed an increase in comb between top bars and propolis between Hoffmans compared to my own hives with tight Hoffmans. They all get glued in place.

Ten frames in supers are a different matter and sometimes random or double layer comb appears. I would prefer to use 11 frames to get comb drawn but it's not always possible, eg with Manley frames.

I quite like spacing by eye. But in the hives I look after (rather than own), there's a mix of top and bottom bee space. Frames in the box above resting on the tops of the frames below are a real bummer.

 

[BeeKeyPlayer]

A division board fits tight against sides etc of box, hence divides it. A dummy board is same size as a frame.

Very clear. Thank you!

 

[BeeKeyPlayer]

have a stack of dummy boards made from offcuts of 8 and 10mm ply/OSB saves a lot of time, and hassle getting the first frame out - if you just left the gap there, you would soon get it filled with brace comb.
Only a dummy would think they were a nuisance of any kind

I agree, but I'm really talking about hives where the bees have expanded the comb and managing to fit in a dummy in at all is not easy. I think I'm a dummy for trying to do so!

 

[ericbeaumont]

Without dummy boards, the bees have expanded the comb

No, bees expanded combs in response to the beekeeper buying Hoffmans and not using them. Once Hoffmans are pushed up tight, the need (or not) for a dummy board will become apparent at the end of the box.

 

[Swarm]

Thanks for your thoughts. Lots for me to consider.

I've always pushed my Hoffmans together in wooden Nationals, and filled the space with a dummy board. Then when I started looking after someone else's bees as well, and found no dummy boards. I asked him to order some. Now I feel like a dummy for doing so!

Without dummy boards, the bees have expanded the comb of course, and perhaps this does cause problems for comb management. I hadn't thought of that, but I haven't noticed the problem either. I've had to learn to space frames by eye and finger width. I take care doing this, and things seem to be okay. In the array of equipment in the hives I look after, there are some frames which are not self-spacing and don't have 'plastic metal ends' (or castellations).

Many will know that some beekeepers use castellations in the brood box. I don't fancy that but perhaps it makes the point that there's nothing inherently wrong with giving an extra 2-3mm space (I think that's all it is) between frames when not using a dummy board. I haven't noticed an increase in comb between top bars and propolis between Hoffmans compared to my own hives with tight Hoffmans. They all get glued in place.

Ten frames in supers are a different matter and sometimes random or double layer comb appears. I would prefer to use 11 frames to get comb drawn but it's not always possible, eg with Manley frames.

I quite like spacing by eye. But in the hives I look after (rather than own), there's a mix of top and bottom bee space. Frames in the box above resting on the tops of the frames below are a real bummer.

Once they are too fat, trying to get them closer is a chore but if you have some 11 slot castellations spare, why not make some frame spacers? Taper the corners using tin snips and either use as they are or tack them to a piece of wood, gives a nice 11 frame spacing.

 

[enrico]

Or just use plastic spacers. They fit all frames, are slightly wider than Hoffman. I use them loads. You can even use different colours for different things. I use red ones on frames that need changing. Green ones for Hoffman frames etc.

 

[Newbeeneil]

As many here know I come from a very niche part of Sussex where castellations are used as a matter of course in brood boxes. Bees do enlarge the depth of the stores at the top by a few mm but this has never caused me a problem. I now tend to use DN4's rather than the DN1s that I used to use (DN1's are cheaper!) so if I supply someone with a nuc they don't think they are being short changed without the "little sticky outy" bits on the side bars.
If you place the wider drawn DN4 frames onto a stand runner and ease them together (without squashing bees) I find the bees resize the frames by moving the stores and creating bee space between the stores again.

 

[BeeKeyPlayer]

As many here know I come from a very niche part of Sussex where castellations are used as a matter of course in brood boxes. Bees do enlarge the depth of the stores at the top by a few mm but this has never caused me a problem. I now tend to use DN4's rather than the DN1s that I used to use (DN1's are cheaper!) so if I supply someone with a nuc they don't think they are being short changed without the "little sticky outy" bits on the side bars.
If you place the wider drawn DN4 frames onto a stand runner and ease them together (without squashing bees) I find the bees resize the frames by moving the stores and creating bee space between the stores again.

I've just realised that I was assuming that 11-frame castellations gave a wider spacing than Hoffmans butted together, and you've confirmed that is so. I checked just now and the gap between the 'sticky-out bits' is 2-3mm. The article on spacing of frames on the Dave Cushman website (by RP in this case) is amusing, showing the different dimensions that exist across the range of modern hives. The detail went over my head.