Removing Nadired super

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Curley

House Bee
Joined
May 29, 2014
Messages
364
Reaction score
7
Location
Wilts
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
8
On Sunday I went to remove the super(shallow for RAB) I put under my colony at the end of last season. However I aborted the mission when I saw the bees were all over it - about an 8" circle across the top of the frames and down into the seams. I didn't start lifting frames to see if there was brood but shut up again to keep them warm.
The colony feels lighter than they did in autumn (to be expected) but as I am not very experienced at hefting I have put a small amount of fondant on which they have largely but not entirely ignored. Maybe taken a dessert spoonful in a week.

I guess I won't be able to tell for sure until I do an inspection when its warmer but as there is no QX on- is there a chance they have raised brood in there?
If so what are my options given this is a 10 frame super on castellations and the brood box is an 11 frame national.:thanks:
 
Probably just the cluster spreading out a bit in the warm weather. Plenty of time to take the shallow away - doubt there's much of a flow on yet if any.
Don't worry too much about the 10 frame/11 frame conflict - bees don't seem to have an issue (not in my experience anyway) wait until it's inspection time and if there is brood in there move the box up, find the queen and put her back in the brood box and put in a QX. I wouldn't do this until the colony has got well into the swing of things or you could end up splitting the brood as the brood in the BB could be just on the bottom of the frames whilst the brood in the super will then be separated.

Personally I think you'll find it was only bees in the shallow - didn't take out my nadirs until early May last year and they were fine
 
Thanks for that reassurance Emyr. Will have a check through later on in the season. Good point about maintaining the contiguity(? Continuosnessness?) of the brood if putting on top.
 
Would 'continuity' do? :spy: Anyway totally understood, and only get twitchy at rudeness, so pass, friend.
 
On Sunday I went to remove the super(shallow for RAB) I put under my colony at the end of last season. However I aborted the mission when I saw the bees were all over it - about an 8" circle across the top of the frames and down into the seams. I didn't start lifting frames to see if there was brood but shut up again to keep them warm.
The colony feels lighter than they did in autumn (to be expected) but as I am not very experienced at hefting I have put a small amount of fondant on which they have largely but not entirely ignored. Maybe taken a dessert spoonful in a week.

I guess I won't be able to tell for sure until I do an inspection when its warmer but as there is no QX on- is there a chance they have raised brood in there?
If so what are my options given this is a 10 frame super on castellations and the brood box is an 11 frame national.:thanks:

If you have a good amount of weight in the brood box, you'd be better not putting on fondant.
The intention should be to get the brood box essentially empty of stores sometime next month (-ish) so that it can be used for ... brood!
Excess stores in the brood box is an awkwardness that might lead to them brooding in that shallow (if they haven't got room in the big box) and then premature swarm preparations when they have totally run out of brood space.


"Totally running out of space" happens very quickly, because at the same time as Q is looking for lots more empty cells to lay in, the workers are bringing in floods of nectar, for which they need lots of empty comb to ripen/evaporate down the (fairly dilute) stuff that they are bringing in.
With two processes wanting increased amounts of space, the slack can be taken up very quickly. So you want brood space to be available, not still stuffed with left-over winter stores ...

I'd suggest that you don't delay that first inspection too long. And if there is good weight, remove the fondant. Two full frames of stores (total) should be plenty - but I suspect you may have rather more than that! :)
 
I think, especially for beginners, now is a good time to weigh the hives so that there is a correlation between weight coming out of winter and stores remaining.
Write it down too so that you remember for next year.
Too many stores = early swarming.
 
Heather - continuity would serve very well - thank you :)

ITMA - I will try not to leave it too long - I got my bees late March last year as an existing colony and the little darlings swarmed inside of two weeks. So very keen not to let that happen again. This time of year is quite nerve wracking for a newbie - however helping out at the branch apiary is getting me more exposure than I would with the one colony

EricA - good idea - I will invest in some luggage scales and make a note.

Thanks all

David
 
Curly, most forumites would advise increasing to two or more colonies if possible. If one fails the other may give you a honey crop. There are times when it is useful to recruit one colony to help the other e.g. using a test frame from one to check the other is queen-right.
Apols for the unsolicited advice.
 
Amari - thank you. No worries about unsolicited advice :) It's all grist to the mill. The plan is to split this colony as part of swarm control this season and I've also got a bait hive planned. It was the plan last year but all all went a bit pear shaped. After I lost the prime swarm they threw a cast (who left two queen cells then?) which I captured and put in a nucleus hive but the queen became a drone layer and the colony dwindled and was reunited with the original. So back to square one.
 

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