Remove a brood frame to create space / swarm prevention?

[RichardK]

I'm entering my 2nd full year of beekeeping & have 3 relatively strong colonies. I use Dadant 10 frame hives & of the 3 mentioned, 1 is on 8 frames brood, & 2 on 7. The first has already donated a brood frame to bolster another hive. As I'm based some way south of many of you (France near the border to Spain) my colonies are probably ahead if yours. I put the first super on 2 of the colonies last weekend as they are bringing stores in (lots of fruit trees in blossom around me).

Due to my inexperience I'm not sure what to expect in the weeks ahead. Clearly the populations will grow, but from a swarm prevention perspective should I be removing the occasional brood frame to create space & something for them to work on, or should the addition of supers be sufficient?

One queen (the strongest hiver) is a 2021 & the others 2022. Demaree isn't an option as recently I managed to give myself a hernia lifting something far too heavy - awaiting surgery now.

I'm doing weekly inspections, & can see a reasonable volume of drone brood in the colonies.

 

[Ian123]

What will you do with the brood you remove?.. By the sound of it all colonies are doing well, you can certainly create space by removing stores or bruising capped cells and pushing these frames up against the brood area. Given those size colonies I’d certainly be putting supers on next inspection.

For swarm prevention and you can’t lift much at the moment ensure you have the kit for an artificial swarm or maybe nuc the queen as recommended by HiveMaker. I’m sure someone reading this will point you in the direction of the correct post explaining the process.

 

[RichardK]

My idea was that any removed brood frames could be used to either bolster 2 other weaker colonies I have, or create a new colony.....not that I want more colonies but I can always give them away or sell them. I'm ok for kit & will try and find the HiveMaker thread you refer to.

What I'm not sure about is whether removing the occasional brood frame is a good idea to help keep the swarming urge surpressed? Or is it pretty pointless as given sufficient room through adding supers as necessary colonies generally don't swarm anyhow? Perhaps I'm overthinking things!

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

removing brood frames willy nilly won't quell the swarming urge - when they want to go they'll go - if Demarree is out of the question, either a Pagden artificial swarm or just remove the queen to a nuc, reduce the QC's to one and let them raise a new one

 

[RichardK]

removing brood frames willy nilly won't quell the swarming urge - when they want to go they'll go - if Demarree is out of the question, either a Pagden artificial swarm or just remove the queen to a nuc, reduce the QC's to one and let them raise a new one

Thanks for that - much appreciated.

 

[Antipodes]

Thanks for that - much appreciated.

Could you do a Demaree just moving a frame at a time and nothing more than empty boxes etc.. ie.not lifting a full box or anything? Perhaps still too much?

 

[Amari]

. I use Dadant 10 frame hives

. Demaree isn't an option as recently I managed to give myself a hernia lifting something far too heavy - awaiting surgery now.

Are Dadants the standard hive in your area? I think I'm right in saying that they're the heaviest of all types of hive > Langstroth > British national > WBC.

 

[RichardK]

Are Dadants the standard hive in your area? I think I'm right in saying that they're the heaviest of all types of hive > Langstroth > British national > WBC.

They are. Langstroth are the next most popular in France but around me I've yet to come across anything other than Dadant.

 

[RichardK]

Could you do a Demaree just moving a frame at a time and nothing more than empty boxes etc.. ie.not lifting a full box or anything? Perhaps still too much?

That would work. I had been imagining lifting a full 10 frame Dadant brood box from above waist height....heavy!

 

[mdotb]

Could you do a Demaree just moving a frame at a time and nothing more than empty boxes etc.. ie.not lifting a full box or anything? Perhaps still too much?

That would work. I had been imagining lifting a full 10 frame Dadant brood box from above waist height....heavy!

The problem is that you leave the box with the transferred brood above (usually at least 2) supers (of whatever kind). So to get into any of the lower part of the hive you (or the OP) need to take it off - either by lifting, or repeating the movement of all of the frame individually both on and off. Not impossible, but a lot of extra time and disruption. If the demaree is working you shouldn't need to intrude as often or as much, but if you want to keep it going (rolling it) the you typically need to move a few frames every so often - top box off and back on each time. And the top box gets filled with honey, so is much heavier than an equivalent size box filled with brood when lifting it off (slightly less so putting back on if some of the full stores frames are removed to make way for further brood being moved up, but again depends how you run the hive with the "demaree" - noting that the term is used very freely and many people use the term to describe manipulations which have little to do with what George wrote about).

If you're going to perform a vertical manipulation of any sort you need a viable and sustainable (i.e. you can keep doing it for as long as the deep box is put on top of other parts of the hive you might need to reach) way of taking it on and off when filled (or part filled) with stores. Emptying the box(es) completely of frames each time is arguably not that. Where the balance lies for you depends on how much you can safely/sensibly lift, what you're planning to do with the manipulations (and what your contingencies are), and how many hives your spreading that over.

Fiddling less is probably good for the bees. Missing a necessary check, step, intervention or manipulation because you've found inspecting is just too much trouble taking everything out and putting back each time so you delay or omit entirely, perhaps not ideal.

 

[Antipodes]

because you've found inspecting is just too much trouble taking everything out and putting back each time so you delay or omit entirely, perhaps not ideal.

Sure, but there is a fair amount of individual checking of frames for queen cells anyhow (for a while at least) in a Demaree, as it's not just moving entire boxes.

This is a quote from JBM's informative posting about Demaree (elsewhere).

"The next part is the swarm control part:
Go in to the top box after four or five days (no more) and take down any QC's they have made - repeat this in a few days again until they no longer have the material to make QC's. Although, to be honest, after using the system for some time I have observed that they seldom draw QC’s from older larvae and nowadays I just check on day 7 But on day 7 and no later.
Carry on regular inspections of the bottom BB you can, each time remove a frame or two of capped brood from the Q+ box and put it in the top box replacing them with frames from the top box where the brood has all emerged. You can keep on doing this until 'swarming fever' has passed."

And at the start of the process, there is some inevitable disturbance of brood frames to find the queen...(again from JBM's post about Demaree).

"If you cannot find the queen you can always take each frame of brood out of the brood box, shake off all the bees and put them all (apart from one or two) in a new BB which becomes your top BB - rebuild the hive as per above, enough nurse bees will migrate to the top box through the QX leaving the queen in the bottom on her frame or two of brood and drawn comb/foundation."

 

[fian]

In my case, I have already removed not 1 but 2 frames to form a new hive. In two or three weeks there will be a review to know that everything is in order. I usually repeat the handling in April and May (this is a little more uncomfortable since there is already a riser in place).
The only option that I see to avoid the repetitions of April and May is that with the frames also remove the queen, compress the nest and fill it with a comb stretched on one of the sides. Check in 14 days if there are cells and in an additional 14 if there are already cells. If you don't want more hives the following month, you can sell 2 hives with the old queens (I would keep one for risk prevention).
If there is no spawn then move one of your old queens to merge.

 

[fian]

In my case, I have already removed not 1 but 2 frames to form a new hive. In two or three weeks there will be a review to know that everything is in order. I usually repeat the handling in April and May (this is a little more uncomfortable since there is already a riser in place).
The only option that I see to avoid the repetitions of April and May is that with the frames also remove the queen, compress the nest and fill it with a comb stretched on one of the sides. Check in 14 days if there are cells Queen and in an additional 14 if there are already cells of brood. If you don't want more hives the following month, you can sell 2 hives with the old queens (I would keep one for risk prevention).
If there is no spawn then move one of your old queens to merge.

 

[Hux70]

I can confirm that Dadants are very very heavy. Even 1 full super will put your back out.