Newbie from Norfolk
- Thread starter MSER
- Start date
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Field Bee
- Joined
- Aug 5, 2009
- Messages
- 826
- Reaction score
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- Location
- Berkshire
- Hive Type
- 14x12
- Number of Hives
- 8 and 3 nucs...it's swarm time...
It is really easy to over complicate it. I'm an "obsessive compulsive engineering" type and I read everything - but most of it makes little sense when you're just looking at a book.
If you get a nuc from a reputable supplier, then it won't be badly behaved, it won't have varroa and it is unlikely to swarm - so forget about all this in the first few months. To start with you have to learn key skills such as:
1) Putting frames in and out of hives without squashing bees - the bees don't help in this respect.
2) Keeping the @@$@%@% smoker alight for more than a few minutes
3) Seeing eggs, larvae, sealed and hatched brood, and seeing how they expand and develop. Making sure that you give them more frames as they grow.
4) Finding the queen - to be honest, finding eggs is good enough as that means she has been in there pretty recently, you don't need to rummage around every time until you find her.
5) Making up sugar syrup to feed them without tipping it all over your shoes/the kitchen floor/the dog/the bees. Top tip: get a big saucepan and invert the feeder in that. If your're going to spill it, then it will go in the pan, not drown the bees.
If in the first two months of having a nuc, you master these skills, then you'll be doing well.
If you're really lucky and the weather is really good, you might have to learn about queen cells, but that is pretty unlikely with a nuc. You stand a greater chance of killing the queen as you root though the box, so don't bother.
You have to learn what a varroa looks like, but you can just pull out the movable floor and have a look at your leisure, rather than during an inspection.
As winter approaches you have to learn about putting them to bed, feeding them and treating them for the inevitable varroa.
On boxing day, you have to learn how to trickle oxalic acid. Not hard.
And that is pretty much your first year done. If it all goes well, then in the next year, all hell breaks loose and you have to learn about swarming and queen cells, but that is at least 12 months away! (This is the point we have reached now)
If you get a nuc from a reputable supplier, then it won't be badly behaved, it won't have varroa and it is unlikely to swarm - so forget about all this in the first few months. To start with you have to learn key skills such as:
1) Putting frames in and out of hives without squashing bees - the bees don't help in this respect.
2) Keeping the @@$@%@% smoker alight for more than a few minutes
3) Seeing eggs, larvae, sealed and hatched brood, and seeing how they expand and develop. Making sure that you give them more frames as they grow.
4) Finding the queen - to be honest, finding eggs is good enough as that means she has been in there pretty recently, you don't need to rummage around every time until you find her.
5) Making up sugar syrup to feed them without tipping it all over your shoes/the kitchen floor/the dog/the bees. Top tip: get a big saucepan and invert the feeder in that. If your're going to spill it, then it will go in the pan, not drown the bees.
If in the first two months of having a nuc, you master these skills, then you'll be doing well.
If you're really lucky and the weather is really good, you might have to learn about queen cells, but that is pretty unlikely with a nuc. You stand a greater chance of killing the queen as you root though the box, so don't bother.
You have to learn what a varroa looks like, but you can just pull out the movable floor and have a look at your leisure, rather than during an inspection.
As winter approaches you have to learn about putting them to bed, feeding them and treating them for the inevitable varroa.
On boxing day, you have to learn how to trickle oxalic acid. Not hard.
And that is pretty much your first year done. If it all goes well, then in the next year, all hell breaks loose and you have to learn about swarming and queen cells, but that is at least 12 months away! (This is the point we have reached now)
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