Swarming....what method?

[Loubylou]

Been on a brilliant swarm control talk this weekend and as a result thinking about converting from single brood to brood and a half. What are the pros and cons?

The advice was to do vertical splits using a split/snelgrove board and recombine at end of season. This will be a new method for me as have always performed the Pagden artificial swarm procedure, which I have to say without much success.

I did notice that the hive configuration with this vertical method seemed to be prone to getting quite a height to it which may be a problem if inspecting on my own. What do other folks do?

 

[Finman]

.
- Use double brood
- give some foundations to be drawn
- enlarge the hive in time
- Clip the wing of queen
- Check every weak queen cells. Do not mind about queen cell cups if they do not have eggs.
- do artificial swarm, if you see milk in queen cells

You cannot do it better.

Snelgroves and other magics is not needed.

- join the main hive and swarm to get yield

.

 

[Poly Hive]

Brood and a half is just messy. Better to go to double brood and see how they get on. Some strains will fill it easily enough and others will struggle.

PH

 

[Brian Bush]

Brood and a half is a pain. Do double brood. When there is plenty of brood place queen in lower box and move all the older brood into the upper. Rebuild the hive thus:
Brood box with queen and young brood
queen excluder
2 supers
queen excluder
brood box with older brood.
You need to check the top brood box for Queen Cells after a couple of days. On your inspections swap empty frames from the top for frames of older brood from the bottom.
This way you can keep all your bees producing.
You can also use the upper box for raising queens to the point where cells are sealed. You can even have a new queen in the top if there is enough spacing , 2 or more supers between brood boxes.

 

[Loubylou]

Sorry if I am being dumb but why is brood and a half messy and a pain?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Sorry if I am being dumb but why is brood and a half messy and a pain?

two different size frames to deal with whilst doing almost any kind of A/s measure whether preemptive or reactive

 

[REDWOOD]

The trouble with a snelgrove board is you need to open and shut doors every so often, if you are like me and work I only have a chance on the weekend mostly.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Demarree or As BB, start with double brood which can develop into a Demarree later if you feel the need.

 

[Erichalfbee]

I'm on a single brood box.
I've tried all sorts and now I'm not strong enough to lift boxes for Demaree I just use Pagden AS.
I tried Wally Shaw's Modified Snelgrove (was that the talk you went to?) which is brilliant if you really can't get to the split for a week and you haven't found the queen.

 

[Dusty Rhodes]

Demaree

 

[Levitt53]

two different size frames to deal with whilst doing almost any kind of A/s measure whether preemptive or reactive

Ok I'm a newbee without any bees at the moment so this might be dumb, however having watched and read about rose hives I'm wondering why everyone has transferred to these as they seem to eliminate all these problems. maybe they don't?

 

[dickbowyer]

I am a great fan of the vertical split with Snelgrove board for swarm control as maintains foraging force in bottom brood box with good honey crop, involves no moving of hives, recombination is easy once new queen in top brood box has shown her colours or has failed to mate. Disadvantages are you do need to be able to change doors every 4 days initially and stack can get very tall/heavy.

Brood and a half, tried it once, never again. Maybe it is one of those things that just needs to be tried to understand difficulties. If prolific bees, go double brood box. Again Jumbo (14x12) falls in brood and a half category. I prefer AMM, good hard working frugal bees in single standard national brood box.

 

[madasafish]

Horsley Board
Jumbo Langs..

Not much more simple.

 

[Madge]

Ok I'm a newbee without any bees at the moment so this might be dumb, however having watched and read about rose hives I'm wondering why everyone has transferred to these as they seem to eliminate all these problems. maybe they don't?

That is a good set-up, I think. The problem is, there aren't any poly hives in those dimensions, and the hives one can buy use plywood on two sides and that's something I'll avoid.

 

[Finman]

Jumbo Langs..

Not much more simple.

You believe that jumbo langs prohibits the reproduction of honey bee?

Extra space in the hive will not stop swarming. Swarming is bees' natural instinct to reproduce.

Non swarming bee stock is a result by human selection, and it is a genetic error in bees.

No hive type or frame type will stop swarming.

.

 

[Gilberdyke John]

Ok I'm a newbee without any bees at the moment so this might be dumb, however having watched and read about rose hives I'm wondering why everyone has transferred to these as they seem to eliminate all these problems. maybe they don't?

Not everyone

 

[mjt68]

Sorry if I am being dumb but why is brood and a half messy and a pain?

http://beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=36541 is one example...

 

[Chris B]

I have no idea if my method has a name but I'm sure it does as not invented by me. Starting about now we will raise new queens in mini hives aiming to have them mated before swarming season. If we find queen cells in a honey production hive we destroy queen cells and shake all the bees from supers and add a newly mated queen to make a package (shook swarm), leaving the parent hive queenright with all it's brood but a depleted population. All queens are clipped. Usually they settle down without swarming but some still try and colonies end up hopelessly queenless, in which case we introduce a new queen one way or another.
Big benefit of this method is unnecessary to find the queen in a large swarming colony, as long as she is already clipped earlier. Also it gets the bees back to making honey quicker than when they have unmated queens.

 

[madasafish]

You believe that jumbo langs prohibits the reproduction of honey bee?

Extra space in the hive will not stop swarming. Swarming is bees' natural instinct to reproduce.

Non swarming bee stock is a result by human selection, and it is a genetic error in bees.

No hive type or frame type will stop swarming.

.

Please show me where I suggested or inferred that extra space will stop swarming.
Your comments at times make politicians seem truthful

 

[Finman]

Please show me where I suggested or inferred that extra space will stop swarming.
Your comments at times make politicians seem truthful

What is that jumbo langs...

My comments... I know how to nurse bees. I need not ask anything usually. .. Horslay board?