Swarm Expansion

[Poly Hive]

Just for info the biggest colonyu I have seen a swarm expand to was enough to get them through the winter. They certainly were not fit for the heather, which is to say they were poor to middling and never got strong enough to be supered that year.

I noticed on another thread that they should/would expand to need two supers. That of course will bvery much depend on how early the swarm is and WHERE the hive is located in the country. There are massive differences in the UK in temperature, balminess and so on.

Just a heads up that not all will be so sweet.

PH

 

[BKF Admin]

I think you are right PH.

I am down south and most of my swarms last year only just built up enough for winter,I was even tempted to join a few together.

I had to feed most of my swarms around 20lb of fondant each to go with the honey they had collected to over winter them.

But then I had one swarm that I had to super that built up so fast that it swarmed again within 6 weeks and even threw a couple of cast swarms just to rub it in.

 

[Poly Hive]

Just makes my point Admin, you are 600 miles south of where I am talking about and yet you struggled last year.

I think it is unfair on beginners to say that a swarm will ddo xyz in the UK.

I keep mentioning this but it does bear repeating. I held a skep in Ontario in the third week in September which was on a bathroom scale. Said scale was reading 120lbs. Colony was set off in late May with a Q and two Langstrong frames of bees shook in. Say two to three pounds ofbees. The temperature on the day was some 28 degrees C. And it was in that range of 25 to 30 for the two weeks I was there and that was thought normal.

Location location location.

PH