BILL.HEARD
House Bee
I have been a member of this forum since February this year. I have been keeping bees for nearly 50 years and have just come back to it after an absence of some 8 years.
I have aways keep bees on single or double brood chambered commercials, and just wanted to make a few observations on how things appear to have changed over the last few years and the sort of questions on the forum.
I note that a number of new beekeepers use a lot more in the way of pollen substitutes and fondant as well as starting to feed very early in the year.
Ten years ago when I had a number of colony's we fed in the autumn to ensure each hive had some 45/50 lbs of stores, we checked the weight of each hive when giving clean floors in the spring but would rarely have to give syrup until April earliest, we never gave the bees fondant or pollen substitutes. My view is that to much early feeding is leading to early swarming and large populations at the wrong time. It could prove very expensive if the current weather turns cold and wet over the next few weeks, large colonies could soon go through any new honey collected and then be on the verge of starvation.
Some of the new beekeepers seem to want to make increase much to early and without a sufficient viable drone population and trying to raise queens from what seem like very small stocks.
I would build up a suitable colony with a double brood chamber and wait until there are some 15/18 frames of brood, this you can do something with and make some decent nucs and raise some queens. I made some 40 nucs using this method once each with three combs and a ripe queen cell from a selected stock. They all came through that winter and made some fine stocks the following summer, not one swarmed.
I see some new beekeepers are still using a brood and a half, this system I found is so messy, brood should be kept in brood chambers not in supers.
These are just my view on things and I don't wish to offend anyone, my bedside reading was 'Bee Farming' by Manley and books by Ted Hooper and Brother Adam.
I have aways keep bees on single or double brood chambered commercials, and just wanted to make a few observations on how things appear to have changed over the last few years and the sort of questions on the forum.
I note that a number of new beekeepers use a lot more in the way of pollen substitutes and fondant as well as starting to feed very early in the year.
Ten years ago when I had a number of colony's we fed in the autumn to ensure each hive had some 45/50 lbs of stores, we checked the weight of each hive when giving clean floors in the spring but would rarely have to give syrup until April earliest, we never gave the bees fondant or pollen substitutes. My view is that to much early feeding is leading to early swarming and large populations at the wrong time. It could prove very expensive if the current weather turns cold and wet over the next few weeks, large colonies could soon go through any new honey collected and then be on the verge of starvation.
Some of the new beekeepers seem to want to make increase much to early and without a sufficient viable drone population and trying to raise queens from what seem like very small stocks.
I would build up a suitable colony with a double brood chamber and wait until there are some 15/18 frames of brood, this you can do something with and make some decent nucs and raise some queens. I made some 40 nucs using this method once each with three combs and a ripe queen cell from a selected stock. They all came through that winter and made some fine stocks the following summer, not one swarmed.
I see some new beekeepers are still using a brood and a half, this system I found is so messy, brood should be kept in brood chambers not in supers.
These are just my view on things and I don't wish to offend anyone, my bedside reading was 'Bee Farming' by Manley and books by Ted Hooper and Brother Adam.
