Should I demaree or wait

[idg]

At the start of the season, I made a plan to decide a best course of action and then go with it, but now I need a little back up advice from the forum.
I inspected my hives today (x5). One of my hives was extremely busy at the entrance with bees congregating on the front. When I opened up, I saw brood and eggs in all stages on 7 frames. I only have 9 frames in the brood as one was missing over winter. There was some drone brood, and about 10 play cups.
All play cups were empty. I saw the queen, so took the opportunity to mark her. I also added a super but hadn't got any made up brood frames with me to do anything else.
I came away thinking that I should carry out a demaree tomorrow. I now have the frames made up.
My problem is that the weather is forecast to be overcast and 11 degrees at best.
Firstly, do you think a demaree is the best course of action? And secondly should I just go ahead and do it tomorrow or wait for warmer days. Forecast for the week is fairly drab.

 

[Jed D]

Some of our colonies seemed to go on hold, over the last week or so. ( by this , I mean . about 7 frames of capped brood and few eggs being laid ).
I think they were waiting for a flow or some more food to come in , before laying / expanding anymore..
As there hasn't been much food coming in , I've taken this time to add additional brood boxes ( underneath ) with some stores in.
This seems to have kept the colonies expanding , while waiting for the OSR to flower.
I haven't added supers, as there hasn't been anything to put in them.

In doing this, it has set us up to use the demaree method later in the year. as most of our colonies now have double boxes, which they have been drawing. And Queenie is now laying , in some of the lower boxes.

My current thinking is that, as soon as the colonies are well into their second supers.
I will demaree them.although the timing of this will also be governed by the brood space.or lack of it !

Anyway somewhere in there, I might of answered your question 'but this is only my point of view.

 

[Finman]

.

You have no reason to make demaree. Play cups means nothing. Best and normal way of action is to give more room and foundations to hive to expand. That is necessary procerure to all hives in spring.

Put a new box under the brood that heat do not escape to upstairs.

 

[Jed D]

WOW , look at that..
Although I've gone round the house's !!!! In saying it ..
Two people on the forum agreeing with each other.....

Give them more brood space. Fill your first brood box with the right number of frames and pop another underneath..
This way the girls can carry on expanding and you can demaree later in the year i.e. Just before they go into swarm mode....

P.s. The weather is not always ideal.
If you have a spare floor , adding another brood box can be done in seconds..
Tuesday looking better where we are...

 

[Finman]

I haven't added supers, as there hasn't been anything to put in them.

In doing this, it has set us up to use the demaree method later in the year. as most of our colonies now have double boxes, which they have been drawing. And Queenie is now laying , in some of the lower boxes.

My current thinking is that, as soon as the colonies are well into their second supers.
I will demaree them.although the timing of this will also be governed by the brood space.or lack .

Thanks to heaven, we can disagree after a while.

I make demaree ~ AS, only when hive makes queen cells. I let colony grow as big as they can.

i add supers when colony grows bigger.

Then during mainflow hive must have empty comb boxes where they dry up nectar.

 

[kazmcc]

There is a brilliant leaflet about what to do and when regarding swarm control. Spells it out to you, in terms even I can follow I will try and find it, but I'm having problems loading pages today, so maybe someone will post a link before I manage to. I think it is from one of the Welsh bee keeping associations. I'm sure it was JBM who told me about it, although I may be wrong.

 

[snelgrove]

I would say it's still to cold to do anything like demaree and anyway I would wait until queen cells are found, adding space in the form of supers and foundation is about all I am doing at moment.

 

[Finman]

I would say it's still to cold to do anything like demaree and anyway I would wait until queen cells are found, adding space in the form of supers and foundation is about all I am doing at moment.

That is the way it goes. When hives are small like 1-2 boxes, demareering make the splits too weak to build up in proper way.

To me it most important that hives grow stronger that I have full grown hives at the beginning of main yield. It means that every hive has 5-7 boxes and enough old bees which make foraging job.

When the hive has now brood, that brood are foragers at the halfway of June.
Does it have 4 or 8 frames, it is really big diffrence in midd Juni.

If some hive is very strong, you may move one frame of emerging brood to a weak colony.

 

[snelgrove]

That is the way it goes. When hives are small like 1-2 boxes, demareering make the splits too weak to build up in proper way.

To me it most important that hives grow stronger that I have full grown hives at the beginning of main yield. It means that every hive has 5-7 boxes and enough old bees which make foraging job.

When the hive has now brood, that brood are foragers at the halfway of June.
Does it have 4 or 8 frames, it is really big diffrence in midd Juni.

If some hive is very strong, you may move one frame of emerging brood to a weak colony.

Exactly, you want strong colonies to gather a surplus , weak colonies don't, not rocket science. My opinion is to do all i can to build them up at this time of year. Deal with Swarming when cells are found.