Mike Palmer talk at the National honey show.

[Finman]

D = the box at the bottom
C = queen excluder
B = nuc box where queen lives
A = nuc super, where queen is able to go
green = the position of the brood nest

Is this not how you understood it?

Samuel

It is douple queen system and not nuc system.

But that system is a danger to the honey yield. When it is better that the hive has no brood to be reared in mainflow, now you have in picture 2 queens which fill the hive with brood. They concume the honey yield to larva rearing.


Nuc means a small colony, like 3 or 5 frames.

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[ugcheleuce]

It sounds to me as if you guys feel that Mike's method should be regarded as a year-round method for beekeeping in general, and not just a strategy for overwinting. Do all of Mike's hives have these nuc boxes, or only the ones that he is trying to make nucs from?

Come on guys. Don't become mad. from one video.

We're not mad (or angry).

 

[Michael Palmer]

We're not mad (or angry).

Amen

 

[VEG]

Mike do you have any more videos?
I enjoyed the one on the nucs

 

[Finman]

Amen

They are following you...

But what is interesting or strange in your story was, that apple orchards were not friendly places to the bees, or those pollination task.s

There is a research some years ago in USA, where 3 beekeepers put 20 colonies each on pollination route. At once the brooding started to decline and finaly hives lost 2/3 or their brood. Half of hives died during task. Bees got all kind of diseases.

I wonder the larva rearing. Worker larva grows in 5 days 1000 fold, And most of its growth happnes during last 2 days . It is really fast happening. - BUT, in the middle of brood rearing hives are lowded on truck, transport meshes open and transported some hours. in huge ventilation. What happens to larvae? 5-8 times a year?

Transporting in chilly weather. What happens to brood?

pic: http://glaciercountyhoney.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/2010-may-9-038.jpg



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[Michael Palmer]

It is douple queen system and not nuc system.

But that system is a danger to the honey yield. When it is better that the hive has no brood to be reared in mainflow, now you have in picture 2 queens which fill the hive with brood. They concume the honey yield to larva rearing.


Nuc means a small colony, like 3 or 5 frames.

.

Mr. Finman, in your haste to be critical, you aren't listening. Let me explain my setup a little better.

My apiary, as a whole, is divided into three segments.

1. Production Colonies: Full size colonies with 3 box brood chamber. Used for producing honey. Some of the breeders I use are selected from this group, by performance.

2. Nucleus colonies: These are setup between mid-June and mid-July, in a standard Lang brood box with central divider, creating two 4 frame cavities. The divider can be a solid board or a movable division board feeder. The divider, whichever type used, prevents the bees and queens from crossing over to the other cavity. They can be maintained in the single box, or can be expanded upwards by adding a 4 frame box (super) on top of each nuc. I have no intention of producing honey with these nuclei. They are for growing bees, replacement colonies for next year, and a number of over-wintered nuclei are used as brood factories, to create all the nuclei made this year. The system is self supporting, and it supports the production side of the apiary.

Even though I don't aim for making honey with these nucs, they can't help themselves. The earliest made, draw their foundation and fill them on the main flow. They have to be removed and replaced with more, or the little colonies will swarm. In 2012 I harvested 3 drums of honey from the nuclei. Not a lot when compared to the 100+ from the production colonies, but honey just the same.

3. Mating Nuclei: These are 4 way nucs in standard Lang boxes, and are used for mating queens. During the season, each nuc has 4 mini-combs, separated by a division board feeder. On the last catch, they are combined into 2 way nucs, with 8 combs and the feeder. A box with 10 additional mini-combs is given each, and they are moved to wintering yards for the goldenrod flow. The nucleus colonies re-stock these mating nucs with bees if necessary, but only when too many were lost in the winter. Otherwise, the mating nuclei support themselves.

So, do you see how the three branches of my apiary support each other? Do you really consider this to be "mad"?

 

[Michael Palmer]

My pollinating colonies were located within 15 miles of the apple orchard. It was only a matter of picking them up, loading them on the truck, and driving them to their orchard locations. A week or two later, they were moved back to their apiaries. Unscreened move. 600 moved by hand.

Chilly weather? No problems. We're into the hives shortly after move, and no dead brood or break in brood rearing.

They are following you...

But what is interesting or strange in your story was, that apple orchards were not friendly places to the bees, or those pollination task.s

There is a research some years ago in USA, where 3 beekeepers put 20 colonies each on pollination route. At once the brooding started to decline and finaly hives lost 2/3 or their brood. Half of hives died during task. Bees got all kind of diseases.

I wonder the larva rearing. Worker larva grows in 5 days 1000 fold, And most of its growth happnes during last 2 days . It is really fast happening. - BUT, in the middle of brood rearing hives are lowded on truck, transport meshes open and transported some hours. in huge ventilation. What happens to larvae? 5-8 times a year?

Transporting in chilly weather. What happens to brood?

pic: http://glaciercountyhoney.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/2010-may-9-038.jpg



.

 

[Michael Palmer]

Mike do you have any more videos?
I enjoyed the one on the nucs

I guess there will be more on the NHS site once they are edited. A beekeeper namer Parks posted some Youtubes. I haven't watched but I assume you could find them.

 

[Michael Palmer]

Come to think of it, wouldn't it be best to simply use a vertical queen excluder in the super anyway, instead of a horizontal one?

Better to leave the excluder right in the barn and use another nuc box as a super. Then either pull combs and replace with empties to prevent swarming/absconding, or even add a third nuc box above to the strongest.

If you add an excluder and super above a single story nuc setup, the bees will place all their feed in the super and there will be zero in the broodnest. All combs below the excluder will be brood...hugely populous nuc with no feed once you remove the super.

 

[Michael Palmer]

I must not have had a photo of the nuc bottom in my presentation. This is one I use, with the entrances on opposite sides. I now prefer the entrances front and back. Note the cleat on the bottom, that corresponds with the divider in the brood box. The bottom box is divided, and the top boxes are 4 frame supers. The super walls become the divider.

And the crown board is a grain bag...or half width wooded crown boards if you prefer.

 

[Finman]

Mr. Finman, in your haste to be critical, you aren't listening
So, do you see how the three branches of my apiary support each other? Do you really consider this to be "mad"?

I have nursed my hives with same system 40 years.
Last summer I got average yield 100 kg per hive. And mostly yield is 60-80 kg/hive. Mad or not. It is same to me.

Last 10 y have been different.

 

[Hivemaker.]

I have nursed my hives with same system 40 years.
Last 10 y have been different.

Why?

Have you got any pictures of your quad mini nuc boxes.

 

[Finman]

Why?

Have you got any pictures of your quad mini nuc boxes.

I have not pictures. I have splitted polyboxes with table saw. I have those nucs as much as productive hives.

I abandoned 3-4 champer mating boxes and started to use solitary 3 frame polyboxes. The losses of queens dropped almost to zero in these boxes.

Insulated polyboxes are warmer than simple wall devided tree box. Brooding is great and in autumn I have lots of good brood frames, with which I can strenghten colonies. That I do before winter feeding. And I change last queens during winter feeding.

Join 3 frame mating + 3 frames mating nuc = 6 frame nuc.
Joining when queen is used in some other hive. It is easy even to move that small box to another yard.


Problem is that when I loaded 4 champer mating box, young queens peeped there and invited other queens to fight. Often I had only one queen left in that "motell". And bees moved after the queen. Drifting was quite usual because queen wanted to fight. Peep peep.

With solitary nucs these losses stopped.

 

[Tom Bick]

It sounds to me as if you guys feel that Mike's method should be regarded as a year-round method for beekeeping in general, and not just a strategy for overwinting. Do all of Mike's hives have these nuc boxes, or only the ones that he is trying to make nucs from?

No sorry not by me but then Derek may have other ideas as he often does. The system is of interest but for me with only 9 hives it is easy for me to set up a couple of nuc’s during the year and keep them as spares and its surprising how handy they are. Also the mild winters I get in the south east means I can over winter nuc’s in 12mm ply boxes with no problems to date.

 

[Tom Bick]

Michal I would like to ask a question regarding your queen rearing. Do you have isolated mating station with drone rearing colonies or are you happy for your queens to mate on the wing knowing your hives are dominant in the area.

 

[Michael Palmer]

The later. Trying to establish any isolated mating stations would be next to impossible here.

 

[Tom Bick]

Thanks and reassuring. Selective breeding and then the queens proving themselves in the nucs is something we can all do easily even on a small scale.

 

[Black Comb]

Great video.
We had to cancel our visit 2 days prior to the start of the show and this is the the one lecture I most wanted to attend, so thanks to all for making it available.

 

[alanf]

Michal I would like to ask a question regarding your queen rearing. Do you have isolated mating station with drone rearing colonies or are you happy for your queens to mate on the wing knowing your hives are dominant in the area.

If I recall correctly: Another of the talks Mike gave was a more specific "Queen Rearing in a Sustainable Apiary" where he describes a lot more detail about that side of the operation. It was taped and will probably be appearing in due course. Without wanting to pre-empt anything he might want to add I think the answer to this one came up as a question at the end. He has a mating apiary where the virgin queens are installed in rotating batches mating nucs, 128 per batch. Surrounding that at a suitable distance are 5 of his apiaries with around 25 colonies each to provide drones.

There's a bit more open space around his way than we have available.

 

[Tom Bick]

Thanks Alan will look out for it

I must say this recording of the talks at the national honey show is a great thing and despite any short comings by them they should be congratulated for this.