Swarming advice needed - How to manage with a double colony long hive?

[maggiescrase123]

First colony installed into my Hyde Hives Long hive last Sunday other end of hive not in use. I am now wondering and worrying about how to manage and prevent swarming which I know will happen once the colony has increased in size - reading everything I can but realise how much practical knowledge I lack. I think the answer is to go with a nucleus hive although the beekeeper who helped thought I could just use my spare hive. Won't know where I am till this Sunday morning inspection, definitely need advice!

 

[pargyle]

It's unlikely for them to swarm this season if they are a new colony - you have to watch for queen cells and if you find they are building queen cells then you need to perform an artificial swarm. There's no difference in doing an AS with the bees kept in a long hive than with any other hive. The thing you will need to do is separate the queen and the swarm bees from the bees that would expect to be left behind with the queen cells (you then need to knock down all but one of the queen cells you have found in the original colony.

You really do need to do this with a second hive - you can't do and AS using the other half of your long hive.

There are various ways of doing this -all is explained in Wally Shaw's pamphlet here:

https://static1.squarespace.com/sta...89/1586083624282/wbka-booklet-english-PDF.pdf
A recent thread on here about the nucleus method is also good:

https://beekeepingforum.co.uk/threads/queen-cells-and-splitting.52676/#post-821444

 

[Boston Bees]

You really do need to do this with a second hive - you can't do and AS using the other half of your long hive.

Why not?

 

[pargyle]

Why not?

I've tried and it didn't work well for me as the hive still swarmed - I caught the swarm and it was my marked queen and a load of bees - whether they were the original swarm or a mxture or they just absconded I don't know. . I don't think there's enough separation between the two halves - perhaps can't was too strong a word .. might not want to may be better.

I feel sure there will be someone who says it works ... there is always and exception. I think Robin Dartington talks about it in his book.

I've frequently split my LDH to create a new colony and that's a very easy and always has been a successful manipulation and you would think that doing an AS would be the same ...

 

[maggiescrase123]

Thank you for the advice - I have printed out the Wally Shaw information and will have a good read through this morning. Sunday will be my first lone inspection and it will be interesting to see what the bees have been doing! We added 2 frames of foundation each side of the brood nest last Sunday (Brood on 4 frames) - the colony came with 5 frames of winter stores (mainly sugar water based) however the weather here has been cool and windy for the past few days and activity seems quite low so not at all sure what to expect although I have spotted lots of pollen being brought in. Hopefully some of the foundation will have been drawn out - fingers crossed

 

[Buzby]

Here is a link to the omlet Beehaus long hive guide to long hive management. It will apply to your Hyde hive in exactly the same way.
https://www.omlet.co.uk/files/public/omlet_guide_to_keeping_bees_and_beehaus_instructions.pdf

 

[pargyle]

Here is a link to the omlet Beehaus long hive guide to long hive management. It will apply to your Hyde hive in exactly the same way.
https://www.omlet.co.uk/files/public/omlet_guide_to_keeping_bees_and_beehaus_instructions.pdf

Hmmm ... Just read their swarm control methods in a long hive ...I wonder if anyone has done this ? One method is very similar to what I did with my LDH - total failure - but, thereagain, I didn't confine the queen so who knows ? Looks a bit complicated for my taste and I can't help feeling that a conventional AS using another hive is a bit more straightforward and probably more reliable ...

 

[Erichalfbee]

I’m all for simplicity. I make enough mistakes as it is

 

[Garry R]

This is the first year for my long hive (see avatar) which holds about 25 frames. They made queen cells and so I found the queen and as with my normal hives I took the frame with the queen on and shook bees from another three frames into the nuc box and moved it aside. Marked the queen cell position on the top of the frame - a nice open one and knocked out any which were capped (none in this case!) Closed everything up and went back 7 days later and knocked out all the emergency queen cells produced over the past week keeping the one which I had selected. Closed up and wait. The parking nuc was up to 3.5 frames of brood in that week (eggs and larvae on the new frames and the sealed brood from the original frame). In a couple of weeks I'll check the new queen in the long hive has mated and then feed back the frames from the nuc to the long hive and decide what to do with the old queen who is not really that old and lays well. I should point out this is a long hive with National frames NOT a top bar foundationless hive made from polystyrene boxes. If anyone wants to see how I made it PM me

 

[maggiescrase123]

Reading Wally Sure as suggested - really clear and informative - Thank you.

Mad question here! Could you not reverse the artificial swarm process by removing all the frames (bar the queen plus stores and brood - ie those you would normally put in a nuc box ) and move the original colony to the other hive? (My long hive has a definite fixed partition with room for 20 frames each side) The old queen, some brood and the flying bees would be in their original hive with stores and plenty of foundation and the rest of the colony would be in the other hive.

 

[Boston Bees]

Reading Wally Sure as suggested - really clear and informative - Thank you.

Mad question here! Could you not reverse the artificial swarm process by removing all the frames (bar the queen plus stores and brood - ie those you would normally put in a nuc box ) and move the original colony to the other hive? (My long hive has a definite fixed partition with room for 20 frames each side) The old queen, some brood and the flying bees would be in their original hive with stores and plenty of foundation and the rest of the colony would be in the other hive.

That's not a mad question. What you are describing is basically the classic "Pagden" method.

Pagdens' artificial swarm - The Apiarist

But you will find that, if you leave the queen, the flying bees, and brood, on the original location, they still have all the ingredients of a swarm, and will often just raise new queen cells. So you need to leave very little brood on the original site, and watch it like a hawk.