New bee or newbie, what ever

[Erick Janssen]

Hi to you all,
My name is Erick, I live in Maria Hoop a little village in the province of Limburg in the Netherlands.

I have an interest for [honey]bees for a few years now and in the last few months I've been concentrating my attention on the Apis mellifera, mellifera the, near extinct, native bee of North Europe.

I'm not into bee keeping yet but I hope to become a bee keeper in one or two years. When I begin with bee keeping I'll would like to start with the Apis MM and as bee hive I'll be starting with my, self made Simplex hive, it's a hive with approximately the same size of the WBC hive. The only difference I'll be only using the part where the bees keep their honey. For the method of bee keeping I'll be using the Renson method named after the Belgian bee keeper Henri Renson.

I would like to apologize up front for my English spelling, it's not "The Queens English" but American English the reason is I lived in the US from birth until I was 11 years old before my parents returned back to the Netherlands.

I hope to pick up some good tips and advice while on the site, well that's all from me now, if any one has any questions just ask.

 

[thenovice]

Hi to you all,
My name is Erick, I live in Maria Hoop a little village in the province of Limburg in the Netherlands.

I have an interest for [honey]bees for a few years now and in the last few months I've been concentrating my attention on the Apis mellifera, mellifera the, near extinct, native bee of North Europe.

I'm not into bee keeping yet but I hope to become a bee keeper in one or two years. When I begin with bee keeping I'll would like to start with the Apis MM and as bee hive I'll be starting with my, self made Simplex hive, it's a hive with approximately the same size of the WBC hive. The only difference I'll be only using the part where the bees keep their honey. For the method of bee keeping I'll be using the Renson method named after the Belgian bee keeper Henri Renson.

I would like to apologize up front for my English spelling, it's not "The Queens English" but American English the reason is I lived in the US from birth until I was 11 years old before my parents returned back to the Netherlands.

I hope to pick up some good tips and advice while on the site, well that's all from me now, if any one has any questions just ask.

welkom op dit forum. veel succes met je imkerij al vermoed ik dat er niet veel tips over renson zullen binnen stromen

 

[Erick Janssen]

welkom op dit forum. veel succes met je imkerij al vermoed ik dat er niet veel tips over renson zullen binnen stromen

Dank je wel, maakt niet uit over renson maar alle andere is altijd welkom

 

[domino]

Welcome to the forum. Happy beeking.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

welkom op dit forum. veel succes met je imkerij al vermoed ik dat er niet veel tips over renson zullen binnen stromen

Dank je wel, maakt niet uit over renson maar alle andere is altijd welkom

This is all Duch to me (or. as there's two posts could it be double Dutch!)

Croeso i'r forwm gwenyna goreu yn y byd!

 

[Erick Janssen]

welkom op dit forum. veel succes met je imkerij al vermoed ik dat er niet veel tips over renson zullen binnen stromen

Dank je wel, maakt niet uit over renson maar alle andere is altijd welkom

This is all Duch to me (or. as there's two posts could it be double Dutch!)

Indeed all Dutch lol

Translation Thenovice:
welcome on this forum. good luck with your beekeeping though I suspect that there will be not many tips about renson

Translation from me:
Thank you, doesn't matter about renson but all the other is always welcome

Croeso i'r forwm gwenyna goreu yn y byd!

Translation: Welcome to bee keeping Forum best in the world!

Diolch i chi am eich croeso jenkinsbrynmair [excuse my Welsh it's quite rusty]

 

[Madge]

Dank je wel, maakt niet uit over renson maar alle andere is altijd welkom

What is 'renson'?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Diolch i chi am eich croeso jenkinsbrynmair [excuse my Welsh it's quite rusty]

But perfect - even used the formal tense whixh sadly the trendies nowadays don't believe in teaching

It is i that should be ashamed my grsp of Dutch is almost non-existent considering the time I spent up the Vaal at Gorinchem

 

[Erick Janssen]

@ domino, Thank you

@ jenkinsbrynmair, I was pulling your leg, I don't even know a single word in Welsh but Google translate can do a wonderful thing, sometimes .

Gorinchem that's far from where I live were you there for school or work?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Gorinchem that's far from where I live were you there for school or work?

Work - Damen shipyard 2001 and 2002 commissioning new Customs patrol boats - then a few further visits for maintenance weeks until they lost the contract to Rosyth a few years ago.

 

[Madge]

What is 'renson'?

Sorry - I just noticed that it's a person's name and a method of beekeeping. It sounds that you intend to use some sort of one-box system. Best wishes with that.

 

[Erick Janssen]

Sorry - I just noticed that it's a person's name and a method of beekeeping. It sounds that you intend to use some sort of one-box system. Best wishes with that.

It's a method "invented" by the Belgian bee keeper Henri Renson. Around April 20 the queen is put in one box that is covered on both sides with a screen so the queen can't get out of the box.

The queen has space to lay about 30.000 eggs in 21 days for working bees and male bees the box below the queens box is used by the bees for pollen and the top box is used for honey.

Because the queen only has space to lay 30.000 eggs in 21 days there are less working bees needed to take care of the brood so there are more bees that can fly out for nectar and pollen. what results in more honey than in other methods.

Because the bees have a smaller brood and the queen is "trapped' in the hive the chance of swarming is very small and if there is a swarm the bees will return to the hive because there is no queen.

End July begin August the screen between the bottom and "queen box" is removed so the queen has two boxes to move in.

The bees go through the winter with pollen and some their own honey they gathered during the summer.

that's the Renson method in a nutshell

 

[Madge]

I Googled it and noticed that it's been mentioned before on this form by Ugcheleuce here.

To me it seems like an awful lot of kerfuffle that, particularly in the hands of a novice, can only stress the colony and give no benefits to you as a beekeeper. Keep it simple - particularly when you're starting out. Get some experience and when you have a better understanding of the bees and their needs, try it out then.
Kitta

 

[ugcheleuce]

The Renson brood limitation method

I Googled it and noticed that it's been mentioned before on this form by Ugcheleuce here.

Yes, but as I reread the old posts, I realised that I neglected to mention one crucial detail: the modern rensom method involves a 9-day inspection cycle.

There is also an "old" renson method and an "improved" renson method.

In the old renson method, you start with an existing brood box with brood in it. Put a queen excluder (QE) on top, then another brood box, then another QE, and then supers. In the brood box between QEs, put the queen plus drawn-out comb, plus dummy frames, to limit the area in which the queen can lay to about 30 000 cells. Ideally (if you can inspect often), put in a frame or two with starter strips or drone comb, to encourage her to lay the drone brood in those frames, for easy removal.

The disadvantages of the old renson method were that (a) drones not born from the drone frame get stuck in the QE while trying to get out on warm, sunny days and (b) if foragers don't want to walk through the brood nest to the supers (if you believe that bees do that), they tend to fill the bottom box with honey instead of pollen.

The improved method involves four QEs, plus a bit of frame switching every 9 days. You can check out the images here:
http://www.bieenkorf.be/Technisch blad - Verbeterde broedbeperking.pdf

The brood box becomes a "cage" formed by two ordinary QEs plus two QE frames. The bottom QE has drone escape holes near the edges of box, i.e. not inside the brood nest cage.

Day 0:

On day 0 of the cycle, you have this in the brood box:

EF QE BB BB BF BB BB BB DF QE EF

EF = foundation/empty comb
QE = queen excluder
BB = brood
DF = drone frame

Day 9:

Then, by day 9, the situation has become:

HH QE BB BB BF BB BB BB OD QE HH

HH = frame half filled with nectar and/or pollen
OD = frame with open drone brood

On day 9, you put the two (h) frames in the super, and replace the two empty spaces with fresh (unfilled) F frames, so at the end of day 9, you end up with:

EF QE BB BB BF BB BB BB OD QE EF

Day 18:

Then, by day 18, the situation has become:

HH QE BB BB BF BB BB BB CD QE HH

CD = capped drone brood

On day 18, you put two (h) frames in the super, and then move the drone frame into the place of one of them (i.e. outside the QE, above the drone escape hole), and replace the two empty spaces with fresh (unfilled) F frames, , so at the end of day 18, you end up with:

EF QE BB BB BF BB BB BB EF QE CD

Day 27: (same as day 9)

Then, by day 27, you have the situation from day 9 again, and so on.

So, not complicated. Every nine days, you (a) remove half-filled honey frames and (b) replace the two empty slots with appropriate frames. Every other nine days, you (a) remove half-filled honey frames, (b) move the drone frame to the side, and (c) replace the two empty slots with appropriate frames.

Samuel