This years plan - and what to do with 9-frame supers I may not need.

[pargyle]

Variety of life

I don't think it's silly I have three box hives which are wintered on that configuration ....
These colonys I like to use for production none of them have swarmed either these are two /three year old colonys.

Im not promoting it but it works for me as I tend to have more supers than brood boxes it's a way of also utilising my equipment.

Or so you think ?

MInd you ... if you take nucs and frames of brood from them they probably did not have enough bees left to swarm ... mind you ... how they can also have enough bees left to become production colonies as well I'm not sure. You must have extraordinary bee stock ... you should give up all the other beekeeping antics and just sell queens from these superbees ...

There you are - I've given you the the marketing USP .... SUPER bees .... throw away the national boxes ... use my four super box system with my SUPER bees ... guaranteed not to swarm, produce more bees than you can ever wish for AND give you a honey crop ...

Clee Hill SUPER bees ... Best on the planet !

 

[Curly green finger's]

Or so you think ?

MInd you ... if you take nucs and frames of brood from them they probably did not have enough bees left to swarm ... mind you ... how they can also have enough bees left to become production colonies as well I'm not sure. You must have extraordinary bee stock ... you should give up all the other beekeeping antics and just sell queens from these superbees ...

There you are - I've given you the the marketing USP .... SUPER bees .... throw away the national boxes ... use my four super box system with my SUPER bees ... guaranteed not to swarm, produce more bees than you can ever wish for AND give you a honey crop ...

Clee Hill SUPER bees ... Best on the planet !

There not super bees they are Italian mongrels x Amm..
I don't see how having 12 frames of brood in the supers and 9 in the deap Before I remove any capped brood for donation or nucs it doesn't weaken the colony.
The above is a minimum
Philip I invite you to come up here to see how I run these colonys, pls less of the sarcastic comments there's no need.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Or so you think ?

MInd you ... if you take nucs and frames of brood from them they probably did not have enough bees left to swarm ... mind you ... how they can also have enough bees left to become production colonies as well I'm not sure. You must have extraordinary bee stock ... you should give up all the other beekeeping antics and just sell queens from these superbees ...

There you are - I've given you the the marketing USP .... SUPER bees .... throw away the national boxes ... use my four super box system with my SUPER bees ... guaranteed not to swarm, produce more bees than you can ever wish for AND give you a honey crop ...

Clee Hill SUPER bees ... Best on the planet !

Whatever happened to that chap who used to advocate bunging on 4 supers in March and not looking into the brood till there was honey in the top one. Forgotten his name. Kevin?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Whatever happened to that chap who used to advocate bunging on 4 supers in March and not looking into the brood till there was honey in the top one. Forgotten his name. Kevin?

Mewis
He does still crop up occasionally
Bit like scabies.

 

[pargyle]

There not super bees they are Italian mongrels x Amm..
I don't see how having 12 frames of brood in the supers and 9 in the deap Before I remove any capped brood for donation or nucs it doesn't weaken the colony.
The above is a minimum
Philip I invite you to come up here to see how I run these colonys, pls less of the sarcastic comments there's no need.

I don't do sarcasm Mark ... just gently questioning how you manage to create nucs from a single overwinter national box and donate frames of brood and still class them as production colonies ...which in my book means a honey crop? Remarkable achievement and I wondered how you manage it ?

 

[Boston Bees]

Looks like the Square Wheel and Flat Earth Society is gaining a couple of new members ....

You should give up all the other beekeeping antics and just sell queens from these superbees ... There you are - I've given you the the marketing USP .... SUPER bees .... throw away the national boxes ... use my four super box system with my SUPER bees ... guaranteed not to swarm, produce more bees than you can ever wish for AND give you a honey crop ...

I don't do sarcasm Mark ...

 

[Curly green finger's]

I don't do sarcasm Mark ... just gently questioning how you manage to create nucs from a single overwinter national box and donate frames of brood and still class them as production colonies ...which in my book means a honey crop? Remarkable achievement and I wondered how you manage it ?

Re Read the post the colonys arnt just single brood

 

[bobba]

Looks like the Square Wheel and Flat Earth Society is gaining a couple of new members ....

If anyone is joining the SW&FES, PM me for a referral link, then we will both get a discount.

Its always good to see some fresh faces at the Society

 

[user 20297]

I don't do sarcasm Mark ...

...so, you really think he has "superbees" then?

 

[Repwoc]

There you are - I've given you the the marketing USP .... SUPER bees

I think Steve Taber got there before you.

https://www.northernbeebooks.co.uk/products/taber-breeding-super-bees/

 

[pargyle]

...so, you really think he has "superbees" then?

Who knows ? I was curious about how someone who (from the way I read the post) could manage to overwinter what appeared to me (and I stand corrected) a single brood box that was then added to with two supers ... that then was robbed of bees for Nucs and robbed of frames of brood to bolster other colonies could then become a 'production colony' ... ie: one that is intended to be a major honey producer.

I'm still curious because, in my experience, if you reduce the size of a colony significantly in order to produce nucs or bolster other colonies they rarely achieve the bulk required to become serious honey producers ... hence my comments, albeit humorous, that Mark must, indeed, be rearing 'superbees'.

But I'm sure he will be along shortly to share his secret ....

 

[pargyle]

I think Steve Taber got there before you.

https://www.northernbeebooks.co.uk/products/taber-breeding-super-bees/

Ahhh ... there's the answer then ... a book on bees that I haven't read .... I'll put it on my birthday list !

 

[Repwoc]

Ahhh ... there's the answer then ... a book on bees that I haven't read .... I'll put it on my birthday list !

It's a good read. I particularly recall the part about estimating pollen availability according to the presence (or not) of drone brood. Taber's hypothesis was drones are only raised when pollen is available (not necessarily in the hive).

 

[Hebeegeebee]

"My experiment is to try repeat what I did last year". Every season is different so don't expect to do the same. Your queens are older/different. The weather is different, the forage will be different. Part of the fun of this craft is learning how to deal with these changes and anticipating what's going to happen. (By anticipating I mean a blind guess and sometimes it works!).

 

[madasafish]

"My experiment is to try repeat what I did last year". Every season is different so don't expect to do the same. Your queens are older/different. The weather is different, the forage will be different. Part of the fun of this craft is learning how to deal with these changes and anticipating what's going to happen. (By anticipating I mean a blind guess and sometimes it works!).

So true.

After leaving Queens to age up to three years, I have stopped doing that after half of them swarmed in 2019 in July after 2 weeks continuous rain was followed by one day of heat 25C +. (Judging by the comments of our Association Swarm Collector, many colonies did in Stoke on Trent as well.)

So now I requeen after 2 years at most unless there is an exceptional one. ( As I only have a limited number of colonies in summer (up to 15) talk of "breeding " queens is fantasy as far as I am concerned...) This at least reduces the propensity to swarm. Now a number of colonies superscede as well...

 

[Curly green finger's]

Who knows ? I was curious about how someone who (from the way I read the post) could manage to overwinter what appeared to me (and I stand corrected) a single brood box that was then added to with two supers ... that then was robbed of bees for Nucs and robbed of frames of brood to bolster other colonies could then become a 'production colony' ... ie: one that is intended to be a major honey producer.

I'm still curious because, in my experience, if you reduce the size of a colony significantly in order to produce nucs or bolster other colonies they rarely achieve the bulk required to become serious honey producers ... hence my comments, albeit humorous, that Mark must, indeed, be rearing 'superbees'.

But I'm sure he will be along shortly to share his secret ....

Philip have a read of post 25# and my previous posts the colonys come out of winter in super brood super.
Hence the three box hive.

 

[ericbeaumont]

Bee keeping is a hobby for me and nothing more

Not for the bees: for them it's a full-time professional occupation.

I like an experimenter and it doesn't matter what you do so long as the bees succeed, but if your management method is determined by a lack of kit, then upgrading from hobby to hobby+ will = more money and more kit. At what price did you sell the 70kg last year?

 

[pargyle]

Did you requeen the swarms? I'm using a simular system with three boxes and then qx and supers.
Do you move arched frames above the qx with your brood/half setup.?

I don't think it's silly I have three box hives which are wintered on that configuration and have wintered on there own stores if the colony is not so big I remove the nadir I use box reversals and I take nucs from the brood box or donate brood to other colonys.
These colonys I like to use for production none of them have swarmed either these are two /three year old colonys.

Im not promoting it but it works for me as I tend to have more supers than brood boxes it's a way of also utilising my equipment.

I don't see how having 12 frames of brood in the supers and 9 in the deap Before I remove any capped brood for donation or nucs it doesn't weaken the colony.
The above is a minimum

I don't really know what you have Mark .. indeed, I'm so confused by your posts on this thread that I'm not sure that you know what you have !

So are you now saying that you don't have nine frames in super and brood as per the OP and one of your supers is nadired ? You appear to be saying that you have 12 frames in both brood box and super ... and these are all nearly full of brood .... and the super is above a queen excluder ... ??

It's hard enough squeezing 12 frames into a national - I would never get a frame out once the bees had stuck them in ! I thought somewhere previously you said you used dummy boards ?

Then you say that it works if the colony is not too big going into winter but they come out absolutely stuffed wth brood ? Or are they stuffed with brood later in the season when you start stripping them of bees and brood .... and then they are still capable of build up to be production colonies ... from local mongrel stock....?

Like I said ... superbees.

 

[Curly green finger's]

I don't really know what you have Mark .. indeed, I'm so confused by your posts on this thread that I'm not sure that you know what you have !

So are you now saying that you don't have nine frames in super and brood as per the OP and one of your supers is nadired ? You appear to be saying that you have 12 frames in both brood box and super ... and these are all nearly full of brood .... and the super is above a queen excluder ... ??

It's hard enough squeezing 12 frames into a national - I would never get a frame out once the bees had stuck them in ! I thought somewhere previously you said you used dummy boards ?

Then you say that it works if the colony is not too big going into winter but they come out absolutely stuffed wth brood ? Or are they stuffed with brood later in the season when you start stripping them of bees and brood .... and then they are still capable of build up to be production colonies ... from local mongrel stock....?

Like I said ... superbees.

Going round in circles here and more the blind are going to carry on leading the blind. ( me) that's sarcasm.
Im not the best at explaining things, and to be honest it takes me an age to right long posts as it is, I've tried to explain how the colonys are wintered and when I will start to strip colonys of brood so you say which sounds horrible on this note, I won't reply any more but feel free if you would like a conversation about it DM me your number.
Thanks.

 

[pargyle]

Going round in circles here and more the blind are going to carry on leading the blind. ( me) that's sarcasm.
Im not the best at explaining things, and to be honest it takes me an age to right long posts as it is, I've tried to explain how the colonys are wintered and when I will start to strip colonys of brood so you say which sounds horrible on this note, I won't reply any more but feel free if you would like a conversation about it DM me your number.
Thanks.

I'm sure you think know what you are doing Mark ...but it sounds like an extraordinary way to operate - more so for a prospective bee farmer ... I thought I was missing some magical way of making increase and getting a good honey crop from a small colony going into winter - when the perceived wisdom is that it is difficult to achieve both from a single established colony. You obviously believe you have found the way to achieve this and I wish you luck with it ... but I would not encourage anyone else to experment in the way you describe.

'Nuff said ...