Warnholz Mating Hive

[beeboybee]

bought two these Warnholz Mating Hives, given both a bit of paint and waxed in some starter strips,
any top tips on using them, i was thinking of trying to get the wax drawn out this season ready for next year.

 

[beeboybee]

EDIT..... i should have said kieler mating hive...

 

[JohnF]

There is no need to that, plus you may not get the bees in when you come to use it.
Read how to stock mini nuc at buzzybee shop in the download section.

 

[fatshark]

Modern Beekeeping have a good guide to using these ... available as a PDF. There are also some updates on their website on plastic covers etc. My advice would be to ditch the feeder and use a frame feeder filled with fondant instead. The supplied feeder takes up too much room in my view.


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[Teemore]

With regard to the feeders, they may take up room but they can also be removed to let you drop in another two frames. The removable feeder gives the kieler a degree of flexibility: last year i found that if i put the recommended amount of bees into a kieler, they were very slow to develop and generally struggled: I had low success rates in mating queens out of Kielers in 2012as compared to Apideas and 5/6 frame Nucs. My observation was that bees in Kielers initially had too much space to heat. Building upon this experience, I decided that this year i would add the same amount of bees but only have three frames in each Kieler. The Feeder can be moved forward as a divider to reduce the area. Once they get going and are building comb, the feeder can be moved back and a fourth frame added. Once you have a mated queen and she has laid up a couple of frames you can remove the feeder and add two more frames. You do need to use judgement when doing this as some of these mini colonies may need constant feeding. This year, given the nectar flow and weather, none of my mating nucs have touched fondant or syrup fed to them over the past 3 to 4 weeks. They have foraged for nectar and have stored honey, some of which I have removed to give Queens room to lay. I have also been transferring frames of brood/stores to newly filled kielers to give them a wee boost.
I use a piece of heavy duty clear plastic (if I have it to hand) as an inner cover on my Kielers.

 

[galileo]

Interesting and useful observations there Teemore. I've been using one with a top box and of course, as soon as the feeder was empty of fondant, the dear girls decided to draw down the two frames above it to fill the feeder! If only they've leave those two long combs for food and keep the others for brood.

 

[bees4u]

Interesting and useful observations there Teemore. I've been using one with a top box and of course, as soon as the feeder was empty of fondant, the dear girls decided to draw down the two frames above it to fill the feeder! If only they've leave those two long combs for food and keep the others for brood.

Seems you have to be very careful what you say about queen rearing on here, I put a very interesting post on here and got accused of advertizing. Here is what I wrote what do you think

Had a strange one today. Went to my queen bank to check that they hadn't raised any queen cells on a frame of brood I put in there to top them up, and found the whole nuc laid up with fresh eggs & larvae, my heart sank as I thought I'd find all my stored queens dead and guess what? They were all alive & well!! Can't work out where this queen has come from unless it was one of my virgin absconders! I took all the queens out though just in case she changed her mind, how weired though, her living with 15 other queens in a 6 frame poly nuc!!

 

[Teemore]

Galileo, when you add the extension to the kieler, rather than use the tub feeder that comes with the "base model" I found it better to use a small contact feeder above the frames. This does however necessitate an additional top box as an eke.... On the other hand, once you remove the feeder, you have the space for the two additional frames and so may not need to add the top box just as soon.

I have previously overwintered Queens in a two storey Kieler.

bees4u - your post doesn't appear to relate to the original request for tips on using Kielers.

 

[DulwichGnome]

EDIT..... i should have said kieler mating hive...

Did it not have a disc with 3 openings to go over the front?

Mike.

 

[Philip]

I would be interested to hear how you get on, tried last year with these and failed, this year had more success but found they build comb and stick it to the sides. which then damages comb when you try to inspect.

an old knife with a sharp square tip was useful to slip between the comb and side before lifting out the 'frame'

I have two mated queens building two small colonies, only problem I now have is working out how to upgrade their hive quarters. still its been interesting, anyways good luck them.