Swarm control using a polynuc and new apiary site

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I plan on splitting a few hives this year {before swarm season} and buy in a few queens to get a good gene pool going.

You going to splash out on a Colonsay queen as well?

 

[Dusty Rhodes]

Great thread.


Any chance of it being made a stickie?

Dusty

 

[pargyle]

Great thread.


Any chance of it being made a stickie?

Dusty

Definitely ... very useful ....

 

[mbc]

No brood to rear so the only thing to do is collect nectar

I often find the opposite, colonies without laying queens being lethargic and disinterested in a honey flow while their queen right neighbours pack it in like stingo.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Does a colony rearing a queen cell consider itself queen less?

 

[Finman]

.
If you prevent swarming with nucs you should have laying queens to give to the nuc. It has no advantace if you start to rear emergency queen cells in the nuc. Use imported queens then.

But if you have natural instincts to swarm in your beestock, they will swarm however. Nature calls.

If you take a laying queen from main hive to the nuc, that will be disaster to your colony build up and to the honey yield. Mainhive will be 4 weeks without eggs. You will have a big hole in foraging power.

Early queen rearing is risky business because mating weathers are not good. And in small hive yeard own queen rearing is very expencive.




However, AS is splended way to handle swarm control. Clipped wing helps a lot.

 

[Erichalfbee]

.
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If you take a laying queen from main hive to the nuc, that will be disaster to your colony build up and to the honey yield.

Not if you keep removing capped brood frames from the nuc you made and putting them back into your main hive?

 

[Finman]

Not if you keep removing capped brood frames from the nuc you made and putting them back into your main hive?

Absolutely laying goes down at once. To get a full power from queens laying, you need lots of feeder bees and lots of foragers which stransport pollen. You need for that a full colony.

Yeah, capped brood:

- it must be so because over 3 days old workers return to home hive and the nuc looses larva feeders.
- It takes 1-2 weeks that capped workers emerge.
- 2 weeks old bees make combs and handle honey
- It takes 5 days that emerged worker becomes a feeder

- It takes 3 weeks, that an emerged worker become a forager.

I have made so much nucs during 50 years, that I know what nuc is.

I need maximum laying capasity to rear bees for main yield, and it means, that hive has brood about 15 frames.
In the nuc you have perhaps 2-3 brood frames.

5 frame nuc is a minimum hive and it takes over 2-3 months that it is able to forage surplus honey. Even if the hive has much bees, it has not enough old workers, that foragers and home bees are in balance. I know more than better that figure and hoping does not help.

 

[Pete D]

This thread was about swarm control by using a nuc box instead of a hive to do a variation on an AS when queen cells are present.
It was not about making nucs.

 

[Finman]

This thread was about .

ideally I want to manage the swarming at the original apiary, and produce honey, and set up some nucs at the new apiary site.

Originally, the whole summer's bee works. Not easy job to even experienced beekeeper.

.

 

[REDWOOD]

Nothing so exotic but queens from not too far away and used to a similar climate as South Wales

 

[Erichalfbee]

This thread was about swarm control by using a nuc box instead of a hive to do a variation on an AS when queen cells are present.
It was not about making nucs.

Exactly. What happens to your parent hive yield?
You have the full foraging force and you are topping up the bees or recombining.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Well, as we know - a stick has two ends, you have to choose the right one (especially if you've been prodding cowpats

But if I recall there was a thread on here about a honey collecting method where the queen was squished during a good flow to encourage more foragers, this follows the same line but not so extreme.
The nuc with the queen in is not the honey gathering hive of the future but rather a fallback if the queen mating fails,

 

[Finman]

Exactly. .

Far from exactly, because Father Fox want things, which do not exist. Different things are mixed in his wishes.

Make AS into a nuc box... Almost allways nuc is too small to stop swarming fever if it had started.

What he exactly wants, I do not know. It seems that he want to succes better than last summer.

And helpfull answers do no make it easier.

 

[Erichalfbee]

No, as JBM says the nuc is a fallback. It has only three frames plus two spares, and has been moved away from the parent hive.
Your honey gathering parent hive will not swarm. It has NO QUEEN.
(Obviously you have to make sure only the one queen cell reaches maturity)

 

[beeno]

No, as JBM says the nuc is a fallback. It has only three frames plus two spares, and has been moved away from the parent hive.
Your honey gathering parent hive will not swarm. It has NO QUEEN.
(Obviously you have to make sure only the one queen cell reaches maturity)

Well, there in lies the rub. Will it swarm once the new queen starts laying or will her new stronger pheromones stop the swarming? What are beeks experience of this.

 

[Pete D]

Well, there in lies the rub. Will it swarm once the new queen starts laying or will her new stronger pheromones stop the swarming? What are beeks experience of this.

Most beeks do a form of AS, which this is.
Mostly after an AS they don't swarm again, all things considered you have ticked their need to swarm boxes, on your terms.

Try it but cover all the points discussed and see what happens, or stick with your normal AS methods if they work for you.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Well, there in lies the rub. Will it swarm once the new queen starts laying or will her new stronger pheromones stop the swarming? What are beeks experience of this.

That was my next question. Suck it and see, I guess.
I'll try it this year on two.
Maybe my two Buckfast from last year won't try to swarm .... One from HM stayed put for two and half seasons....who knows?

 

[beeno]

Hi Pete D,
The reason for my asking is that I do not get an opportunity to do it myself with my lot preferring to supercede which is a blessing. However, from what I have seen from others Pagden seems very unreliable and a lot of faffing around plus putting the swarm queen with the foragers does not seem to make much sense to me. If one can learn from other people's experience saves a lot of bother. Thanks to you and the forum for sharing your experience so generously.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Well, there in lies the rub. Will it swarm once the new queen starts laying

Well, this is a widely used method (most beeks around here use it) it's not my invention. Seems to work most of the time which you could say exactly the same as any other AS method.
I've used it, it works, what more can I say