Split Brood Method

[Teebeeaitch]

Sorry if this has been covered before but I have read an account somewhere from Tim Rowe of the method he employs at the time of the spring build up with his OSB Rose Hives. He mentions splitting the brood in two by adding a third box between the existing two boxes of brood. (Not sure if there is a specific name for this as I suppose its neither supering nor naidiring) Anyway, presumably the extra room created encourages expansion of the brood to fill the void and when this principle is continued with extra boxes through the main flow, it also helps with swarm control. My question is does anyone have any comments on this method, either positive or negative. Please note, I am not asking for specific opinions on either Tim Rowe or his Rose hives, but just on the principle of splitting brood in such a way.

Thanks.

 

[oliver90owner]

Not tried it for that, usually for increase. The chances are that it will induce supercedure queen cells in the top box (assuming the queen is downstairs) unless frames of brood are left in the middle box, to 'interconnect' the two parts of the nest.

Lots of colonies go into swarm mode simply because of 'insuficient brood space' so it is bound to help reduce the onset of swarming for many colonies.

No real problem, if it works, and the boxes are later filled with honey. All the same size boxes so the frames can be sorted out later if needed, wherever she lays/they store. Remember, also, that while possibly OK for the OSB, a deep national is just that much bigger....not so many colonies get to three brood boxes as to two.

Regards, RAB

 

[fredbloggs]

I believe that this method is used by a scots bee-keeper who keeps many bees on the west side of glasgow (80 sets?). He also only uses National Brood for all his boxes (no super sizes) and in summer introduces two additional brood into the middle. The benefits are in that his "super" frames produce drawn comb for next years brood and he can also bring on a replacement queen in one half of the hive whilst the original queen still performs in the other half

I saw a very good presentation by him at Spring Convention some three/four years ago? So good that I can't remember his name or the exact method. No seriously it was good but inquiries at the time suggested that the only way to get written details was to join the Scottish Beekeepers. Well you have to draw a line in life somewhere

I'll scour the bloggs archives and see what I can come up with

In the meantime I m sure that Gavin can pitch in with who he is. (Iain?)


FB

 

[RoofTops]

I've separated brood boxes by supers (don't ask) and the beasts promptly made queen cells in the upper one as the queen was confined to the lower box by a queen excluder. Had there not been a QX and the space between filled with drawn comb into which the queen could start laying in straight away I guess it would have worked better. Alternatively, the upper box would have to be sealed brood only, in which case the box in the middle could be foundation.

The problem is the nurse bees in the upper box can feel queenless and that is why they make queen cells. They were not supercedure cells, just emergency queen cells.

 

[Scutellator]

Sorry if this has been covered before but I have read an account somewhere from Tim Rowe of the method he employs at the time of the spring build up with his OSB Rose Hives. He mentions splitting the brood in two by adding a third box between the existing two boxes of brood. (Not sure if there is a specific name for this as I suppose its neither supering nor naidiring) Anyway, presumably the extra room created encourages expansion of the brood to fill the void and when this principle is continued with extra boxes through the main flow, it also helps with swarm control. My question is does anyone have any comments on this method, either positive or negative. Please note, I am not asking for specific opinions on either Tim Rowe or his Rose hives, but just on the principle of splitting brood in such a way.

Thanks.

If you are using Carniolan or Italian type of bees that is a very bad advice. With the Carniolan the results are catastrophic. The Italians are less sensitive to the hive management and they will undo some of the beekeeping mistakes, but splitting the brood nest in such way is still very disadvantageous as well as any other obstacle in the brood nest. No matter the frame used – shallow or deep – it reduces the area used by the queen (she will be confined to one of the brood boxes – the upper or the lower one, for a very long time). The hive will either swarm or will decrease in population due to temporal cessation of the brood rearing.

With other bees it might be different

Regards
Donnie

 

[Haughton Honey]

I've separated brood boxes by supers (don't ask) and the beasts promptly made queen cells in the upper one as the queen was confined to the lower box by a queen excluder. Had there not been a QX and the space between filled with drawn comb into which the queen could start laying in straight away I guess it would have worked better. Alternatively, the upper box would have to be sealed brood only, in which case the box in the middle could be foundation.

The problem is the nurse bees in the upper box can feel queenless and that is why they make queen cells. They were not supercedure cells, just emergency queen cells.

Are you not referring to the 'Demaree' method of swarm control, whereby you place the Q in the lower box below a QX, then a super/s above and then another brood box above that with the majority of the brood within it, where you'd expect QCs to be formed anyway???

 

[Haughton Honey]

ps.....I don't use supers. Only National 'brood' boxes throughout.

 

[Skyhook]

I've separated brood boxes by supers (don't ask) and the beasts promptly made queen cells in the upper one as the queen was confined to the lower box by a queen excluder. Had there not been a QX and the space between filled with drawn comb into which the queen could start laying in straight away I guess it would have worked better. Alternatively, the upper box would have to be sealed brood only, in which case the box in the middle could be foundation.

The problem is the nurse bees in the upper box can feel queenless and that is why they make queen cells. They were not supercedure cells, just emergency queen cells.

I'm intending to do this next year specifically to induce queen cells, as recommended by Hooper (unless they make their own anyway). Are you saying that the cells produced are of low quality?

 

[drstitson]

avoiding poor quality queens

keeping the 2 brood boxes well seperated is the problem - nurse bees feel queenless and produce small swarm cells which are fed briefly and sealed quickly hence poor emergency queens.

you need to trick the girls BRIEFLY into thinking they are queenless eg using cloake or barasc board between two brood boxes.

close board for 24 hours - girls start building queen cells THEN open again so they realise they are NOT queenless. this makes them build proper supercedure cells. (as quoted elsewhere - the herd mentality of bees is such that if they find queen cells started they accept them even if queenright as they presume someone else new best!!!!).

 

[Skyhook]

keeping the 2 brood boxes well seperated is the problem - nurse bees feel queenless and produce small swarm cells which are fed briefly and sealed quickly hence poor emergency queens.

you need to trick the girls BRIEFLY into thinking they are queenless eg using cloake or barasc board between two brood boxes.

close board for 24 hours - girls start building queen cells THEN open again so they realise they are NOT queenless. this makes them build proper supercedure cells. (as quoted elsewhere - the herd mentality of bees is such that if they find queen cells started they accept them even if queenright as they presume someone else new best!!!!).

Thanks doc, I hadn't grasped that. I'd asumed that with supers between but no separation there would still be some traffic, which would moderate the effect. If using such a board, is the arrangement then BB: board: BB; ie no supers between?

 

[drstitson]

yes - free transit when open, complete separation when closed (top entrance opened).

you can of course use supers as your top bo(xes) and just add super frame of brood/grafts amongst the other frames.

you can also do it with supers below board and then your brood on top.

 

[oliver90owner]

Teebeeaitch,

As usual, we have complete departure from your question (within ten 'replies') which was on colony expansion, not increase?

If you goggle tim rose osb beesthe third hit down pdf file has his method in a little detail.

I have no interest in the system as I am on 14 x 12s and this practice, for me, would be a disaster, I feel. I looked at the rose system but already had an extractor, which would not take those frames radially. So dismissed it without trying it (which is what I may have done, had I got a positive response to the extraction problem question).

Regards, RAB

 

[RoofTops]

In my post I explained what happened when I split two brood boxes with supers and the message I was trying to put across was the danger of this inducing queen cells. It wouldn't have made any difference if there had been a brood box between the two original brood boxes or a couple of supers. The mechanism is the queen is likely to stay in one box and the bees in the other will feel queenless. The point was this must be the danger of doing what was suggested in the original post and the way to avoid it might be to ensure the brood box introduced in the middle has drawn comb so the queen can move into it more freely. If it had foundation it would act as a barrier for a while and the box without the queen would do the queen cell raising thing.

For interest my situation arose when queen rearing with the Vince Cook method when I was using a colony which had supers and the method does not cover what to do with supers - the answer I found is don't put them between the boxes! In fact now I remove the supers so the bees are more crowded. "Crowded bees make better queens" as the old beekeeping saying might have said if I hadn't just made it up.