I have just acquired a skep and intend using it although probably not until next Spring.
I am also about to take on a couple of new National colonies and am wondering if I could somehow transfer one of the colonies into the skep or just use it for a swarm next year.
If I transfer it, would I just transfer all the bees and let them get on with it or cut out the comb from the frames and somehow rafia it into the skep.
Advice would be welcome.
As others have noted, transferring bees from any container into any other at this time of year is out of the question.
But there is no reason for you to give up on the idea of offering a skep to one of your swarms next year. Just consider from the start how you are going to give them room to expand when they need it.
Depending on the circumference of your skep, have boxes of the appropriate size, fitted with topbars, ready to nadir (place under) your skep to enable the bees to extend their combs downwards as the season progresses.
This way of expanding downwards is, incidentally, what bees do when they are able to conduct their colony life in accordance with their nature. Some beekeepers like the idea of that.
A skilled person will have no problem inspecting the combs in a skep for brood disease. We know of several instances of skeps having been inspected by Fera inspectors quite recently.
And keep in mind, no-one has ever compelled anyone to treat their bees ruthlessly in order to get at their honey. Ruthlessness in bee "husbandry" is not connected with hive style.
In our experience, skep colonies do very well, overwinter well and maintain good health, which may have something to do with the fact that the rounded shape facilitates thermoregulation, apart from the factor mentioned above, i.e. that the nest is built as it would be in nature, the combs are drawn downwards.
The moveable frame hive is extremely convenient to beekeepers; it should not be forgotten that it also opened the floodgates to a host of new problems for the bees, least not all the tendency of their keepers to view the hive as an assembly of spare parts, with bits interchanged between colonies as and when the beekeeper sees fit, with all the risks associated with that.
You may wish to check Dr David Heaf's excellent site for more information about skep type conformations. He is the author of an equally commendable book "The Bee-friendly Beekeeper".