Switching hive types

[ericbeaumont]

this was my first hive aquired before i knew anything about the different sizes.

if you are going to carry on with Dadants, you need to buy more kit

Make life simple: buy more National kit and sell the Dadant; make a board as MAF describes in post 8 and transfer when the colony is booming in spring.

 

[CaptainCymru]

There will be no switching going on anytime soon , current view out of the bedroom window!

 

[ChrisS]

Confused but curious.

So you cage the queen, then just shake the brood box frames (but not the supers) into a new box with foundation in? And then put the queen into that new box. And then the supers go back on the original box (which contains the brood frames with brood on). And the bees that happened to be in the supers then come down and raise QCs?

Which of these boxes is on the original location (and thus receives the flying bees)?

Why is this better than the traditional "artificial swarm" method of moving the hive to a new location, and putting the queen in a new box, with foundation, in the original location, so the flying bees join her and start from scratch? It avoids the shaking ..... ?

Thanks

Yes, this relies on having plenty of bees in the supers to re-populate the original box. You can move the new box with shook swarm and Q to a new location - this is useful if you're giving them to someone else. Then the flying bees return to the old box on the original location. Alternatively you can leave the new box there and the flying bees come back to it.

Either way it is similar to the usual AS method except that no frames of brood and house bees are transferred. This is useful if you want to start with fresh foundation, and it allows for a quick oxalic acid vape to get rid of any phoretic varroa on the bees.

 

[ChrisS]

And I should add, this shook swarm technique is useful to transfer between hive types. Mine are all in Commercials but this lets me transfer a colony into a National box e.g. to donate to a beginner.

 

[peterbees]

I came accross an article regarding easy switching of hive types whereby you essentially use an adaptor crown board with a large hole and queen excluder followed by your new hive type brood box . You then catch the queen with a suitable cage and release her into the new hive . All the old brood hatches out and the lot migrate up into the new hive .Has anyone had success with this ? I'm aware you can just cut and shut frames but this method seems simple....perhaps too simple .

Check out Bailey Frame change which is similar to what you are describing