New Beekeeper

[oliver90owner]

JohnSB,

Sorry for causing a commotion all

No commotion at all.

I think with just the one colony you need to abide by the basic rules and not risk getting into trouble. By all means experiment and find out for yourself when you have sufficient back-up in resources (basically spare colonies) and when you can easily recognise the good and not so good moves. It can easily go pear-shaped and a lot on here would agree to that, if only they were brave enough to hold up their hands

2 short frames - bad because one would be more than enough to be culling and removing drawn wax for an expanding colony and, further, they may not need it, so, in those cuircumstances you are simply weakening the worker population by raising drones rather than workers, making them draw more wax and then have the colony servicing doomed brood.

Re the super - extra space to heat (actually just to lose brood nest warmth to, is less than ideal. Simple as that. I did take an initial cursory look at your link but did not study it. Expanding the brood nest indicates it is not filling the brood box yet, or you would need a further brood box, not a super. The ideal situation is a full box of brood to go forward with a super - at that time they will certainly draw it as quickly as needed. Removal of full frames of stores, if clogging ther brood box, is probably a better alternative.

A rapidly expanding colony will use most, but not all, of the foraged resources - dependent on conditions (of course) - for brood expansion. More bees is the target for honey collection later, when the colony is up to strength.

A half strength colony may collect half the nectar as the full strength colony but a far higher fraction will be used as 'colony fuel', so not much excess will be stored; a full strength colony will collect far more nectar and a smaller fraction of that will be required for colony maintence - leading to a far greater excess for conversion to honey (our crop later).

I'm sure PH will likely add a few more points.

RAB

 

[Steve Dyer]

snip...
I merely added my welcome to John and pointed out that sometimes ones opinion can get blown out of the water, something you have both clearly illustrated.
snip...

Welcome to the forum.
Beekeeping is a process whereby you read the books and take advice whilst you gain experience. That experience will teach you that much of the lore and stuff in books is rubbish. Over time you will become more knowledgable and will start advising other people. They in their turn will learn that what you say is not always right, that quantity is not a subsititute for quality, and humility is often in short supply.

Experienced people can often be very helpful, but always remember: "Experience is the thing that teaches you to recognise a mistake when you make it for the second time."

Steve

 

[drstitson]

i agree with Rab - if still at the brood expansion stage then a little too early for a super. an empty super should be thought of not just as a "passive" passenger on a "young" hive but an "active" drain on resources.

I suppose the only exception might be when brood is restricted by say 2 full frames of stores and two half frames - bruising and turning the latter would be the order of the day and the bees would appreciate somewhere to shift the honey to!

 

[user 6228]

Welcome to the forum.
Beekeeping is a process whereby you read the books and take advice whilst you gain experience. That experience will teach you that much of the lore and stuff in books is rubbish. Over time you will become more knowledgable and will start advising other people. They in their turn will learn that what you say is not always right, that quantity is not a subsititute for quality, and humility is often in short supply.

Experienced people can often be very helpful, but always remember: "Experience is the thing that teaches you to recognise a mistake when you make it for the second time."

Steve

And then of course there is the filtering out the "We have always done it this way " (but actually its incorrect) syndrome, that you get everywhere from beekeeping to motor racing to telecommunication equipment design. Getting advice on a new pursuit is like panning for gold...

 

[JohnSB]

Thanks all for your replies. Some really useful information here!

 

[MandF]

I skim read the posts so apologies if this has already been said, but the golden rule I was taught was that you shouldnt break up the existing brood nest if possible, and the reason was that the frame you 'broke off' may not have enough nurse bees to prevent it getting chilled.

If I want to encourage foundation to be drawn, I do it from the edges, inserting a frame between the 2 drawn edge frames. Like PH said, they will tend to draw one side first, so once one side is drawn (or nearly) I turn it round so they focus on the undrawn side.

If you have to (or want to) split the brood, just ensure there are enough nurse bees to cover the newly expanded area.

With regards to the short frames for drone sacrifice, again I was told to use 1 short frame in the brood box, and sacrifice for 2 cycles - so let them build drone comb, remove that comb when capped (or mostly capped), then replace and let them do it again. After that replace it with a normal brood frame.

The main caveat with doing drone sacrifice is to ensure you remove the drone brood before they emerge, or else you have effectively (potentially) created a varroa factory

I had a bad varroa infestation when I opened mine up in March (despite using oxalic acid in december), so had to use a cycle of apilife-var, then 2 cycles of drone sacrifice. I use icing sugar occasionally now and my varroa drop is virtually nil.

 

[Poly Hive]

MandF you have been taught the classic rule yes.

It's rubbish.

"the golden rule I was taught was that you shouldnt break up the existing brood nest if possible, and the reason was that the frame you 'broke off' may not have enough nurse bees to prevent it getting chilled."

"The frame you broke off".... If that implies that the rule is against putting a new frame/foundation inbetween the outside brood frame and the brood nest then I agree.

However I have practised for many years putting a frame of foundation/comb in the middle of the brood nest and never had an issue.

Over winter I will see if I can find the article I wrote on this for the SBA.

JohnSB...

Two half frames is one too many and if good winter varroa treatments are used may not be needed at all.

As a rank beginner putting combs into the broodnest is risky as you do not have nor cannot have the experience to judge whether you can or cannot do it successfully. It's that simple. It is a successful technique provided done judiciously. Unlike the gent (*****) who split the brood with four foundations..... Point taken?

I will write out or find the article I wrote on this regarding turninng and bruising frames.

Adding the super too early. Let's have a wee think about this. The primary limiting factor in expanding the brood is lack of bees to generate the WARMTH they need to support the brood. So in order to help with this we add a super? Umm not a good idea.

I have said this many times and say it again. I super on 8 frames of BROOD. Not based on lots of bees in the box nor casting runes in a vague hope but on solid evidence the colony is strong enough to make the leap.

EVEN then please note I do not automatically add that super, I may wait a week as the eye and instinct says to me, no, not yet, not just yet, another week will do them no harm.

If you forget about swarming and get on with beekeeping you will do far far better. Swarming is not a big issue. It is a straightforward matter to deal with.

Harming your bees by over worrying and letting that worry have a negative effect on your colony is far worse.

PH

 

[user 6228]

"Re the super - extra space to heat (actually just to lose brood nest warmth to, is less than ideal. Simple as that."

Taking the logic from the above that the super alters the thermal behaviour of the hive.. then if the hive is in a sunny position, in warm weather and the hive material allows substantial heat gain.(e.g. wood) then adding a super would reduce the need for fanning? and be possibly beneficial? Again from that logic one could infer that a poly super with poly lid and BB would have less impact than a wooden super as the heat loss or heat gain might be lower?

 

[MandF]

MandF you have been taught the classic rule yes.

It's rubbish.

However I have practised for many years putting a frame of foundation/comb in the middle of the brood nest and never had an issue.

PH

hi PH

I think we were told this, as beginners, simply to make us stop and think about what we were doing, and not to just move frames around willy nilly.

The danger was isolating frames of brood. If you put some empty foundation into the middle of the brood nest, all the frames of brood have adjacent frames of brood, and so that is safer - and it is something I have done

I think we were taught well - we were taught the golden rules, then gradually as we learnt more we were taught how/why which rules we could break

 

[Poly Hive]

Derekm if you thak the thought a bit further.

By adding a timber super to a warm hive yes you will cool it.... until the timber in the sun warms up and then there is no gain. But as the sun sinks and the night chill deepens what then?

Yes poly is more stable and warmer and all in all when I used timber colonies I tried if I had enough to super with poly for the first super to help them take it on.

PH

 

[MandF]

PH, another point/question about supering..

We use brood & half all the time (inc through the winter) anyway, so only need to worry about when to add a super. Having said that, I generally determine when we need to add space by seeing how much space there is for laying.. as soon as it looks like the brood is backing up with nectar/pollen and there is a limited amount of space to lay, I add the super. And similarly with adding additional supers - I check to see how much space there is to store, and I add another when there are only a few frames (in all the supers) left.. the danger being they start to backfill the brood nest which 1. can trigger swarming and 2. means I cannot harvest it.

I just wondered what your thoughts are on that, and whether it would be better to concentrate on the number of bees in the hive instead?

 

[Poly Hive]

I super when the colony is strong enough to need it, and as said, that for me us usually 8 frames of brood.

sounds as if you are ding the same.

PH