meidel
House Bee
Ok then hands up, what did you do to test the resilience of your bees? (Finman look away now or you may read on smugly in confirmation of your belief that 2 hive owners are to bees worse than the arctic weather)
1. Made a split too early in the season when not enough drones for mating about - result DLQ
2. Left too many QCs in after prime swarm had left resulting in cast swarms - only one open one with plenty of RJ will do, but must come back and do a second check for further QCs made
3. (this one wasn't one I made as I have poly nucs but someone else in the apiary) Used a ply nuc in spring when nights were still cold without enough frames of bees in and without raising the nuc box on bricks resulting in chilled brood.
4. Left varroa tray in for 3 weeks without checking (!! - pure laziness- inexcusable really) resulting in wax moth larvae build up!
5. Attempted to do demaree using a snelgrove board without ever inspecting the lower brood box which contained the queen on one frame of brood, all other brood and QCs above the snelgrove board - resulting in lower box swarming with the queen after building 20 of their own QCs down below.
6. Not placing a QEx between brood and feeder when doing a split as swarm control measure - the queen had been starved by workers in preparation for swarming so she went up and drowned in the feeder
edited to add:
7. introducing a queen without a test frame confirmation of queenlessness! I have learnt this one now after £42 out of pocket!
I'm personally amazed that I managed to get a honey harvest this year and will be bringing 3 colonies through the winter after all the disasters above.
1. Made a split too early in the season when not enough drones for mating about - result DLQ
2. Left too many QCs in after prime swarm had left resulting in cast swarms - only one open one with plenty of RJ will do, but must come back and do a second check for further QCs made
3. (this one wasn't one I made as I have poly nucs but someone else in the apiary) Used a ply nuc in spring when nights were still cold without enough frames of bees in and without raising the nuc box on bricks resulting in chilled brood.
4. Left varroa tray in for 3 weeks without checking (!! - pure laziness- inexcusable really) resulting in wax moth larvae build up!
5. Attempted to do demaree using a snelgrove board without ever inspecting the lower brood box which contained the queen on one frame of brood, all other brood and QCs above the snelgrove board - resulting in lower box swarming with the queen after building 20 of their own QCs down below.
6. Not placing a QEx between brood and feeder when doing a split as swarm control measure - the queen had been starved by workers in preparation for swarming so she went up and drowned in the feeder
edited to add:
7. introducing a queen without a test frame confirmation of queenlessness! I have learnt this one now after £42 out of pocket!
I'm personally amazed that I managed to get a honey harvest this year and will be bringing 3 colonies through the winter after all the disasters above.
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