What did you do in the Apiary today?

[pargyle]

Bit of a fetish there Phil ....

Ha ha ... had to hide the 1.2 x 2.4 skip find from the wife .. easier in smaller bits ... dual purpose top insulation and dummy boards - have a few spare now !

 

[Erichalfbee]

Interesting! How often do you inspect them then?
How high up the tree is that?

Never
20feet

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

She just sends Stan up

 

[Erichalfbee]

She just sends Stan up

You can jest.
I foolishly left the bait hive on the potting shed roof. It’s in a full size hive with two supers on. He goes up there to check it.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I know a bee farmer who has a hive on top of a shipping container

 

[Curly green finger's]

Dummy boards, dummying down, etc. All a means of giving the colony the space it requires, while doing something about the void that may be left. Generally we fill it with insulation of some kind.
With your nuc I would put it into the hive and place it against one side. Give them a frame or two of foundation on the 'open side', the dummy board and fill the space with celotex/kingspan, making sure to tape cut edges. Give them a couple of pints of invert/syrup, remove insulation and add more frames as they expand.
You may consider leaving them in the nuc and adding a box on top with another six frames. They do well over Winter in this set up.

I agree, just to add your dummy boards can be made of wood or plastic you can buy these from any beekeeping suppliers some even send you plastic ones with foundation for free.

You can secure two together with as swarm said celotex or King's pan but make sure all cut edges are taped up, as the bees like to nibble the edges, not all the time but it happens..
Tapes for edges I've used fragile tape duct tape and I'm sure others could recommend other types??

I've seen hives with just a piece of hardwood cut to size to fit the void ( not recommended) because if it's there for a while it can be a pain to remove as there's propolis sticking it down.

Do you guys put your insolation between boards?

 

[Michael ECB's]

New colony into quaranteen for a while then moved to "Forever Home" - Apiary
Very very dry here... On paper, Spring is only 2 weeks away..... Need rain.....

 

[pargyle]

I agree, just to add your dummy boards can be made of wood or plastic you can buy these from any beekeeping suppliers some even send you plastic ones with foundation for free.

You can secure two together with as swarm said celotex or King's pan but make sure all cut edges are taped up, as the bees like to nibble the edges, not all the time but it happens..
Tapes for edges I've used fragile tape duct tape and I'm sure others could recommend other types??

I've seen hives with just a piece of hardwood cut to size to fit the void ( not recommended) because if it's there for a while it can be a pain to remove as there's propolis sticking it down.

Do you guys put your insolation between boards?

No ... I just make blocks of Kingspan/Celotex to the size of the hive - tape up the edges with aluminium foil tape and put them in the hive. The frames butt up against them - no need for a further dummy board. it just gives the bees a smaller space to cope with.

I have conventional dummy boards that are just a normal frame with the centre filled with a piece of plywood .. I use these at the end of all my hives as the bees don't build comb on them and I can then pull the dummy board without rolling bees and it gives me a bit of space to move the first frame along a bit and lift it out without rolling bees.

There should really be two names for dummy boards ... one to describe a traditional dummy board and another one that describes a chunk of insulation or whatever that you use to reduce the size of the brood box.

Dummy boards used to reduce the size of a hive are still not in common usage in many beekeeping circles and yet they are so useful and I think have proven benefits to a small colony until they grow. I've seen people put tiny little colonies of bees into full size hives with 10 frames of foundation and they wonder why they don't develop. The growth of a colony appears to me to be directly proportional to their ability to maintain the space they have at a temperature that allows brood to be nursed. Not so much a problem in the current heatwave ... but early and late in the season and in any cold snaps they will condense down onto a brood area they can cover and the bigger the brood space they have the more difficult it is to keep it warm.

I use another sort of 'dummy' board that I would call a Division board - I use these in my Long deep hive to divide a colony into two rather than taking a nuc off. These need to be close fitting and have no space for the bees to get from one side to the other. Raising a new colony is simply a matter of opening the entrances at the ends of the hive, seal up the central one with corks, slide the Division board in the midde of the hive - make sure both sides have stores and brood - I don't need to find the queen as one side will have her and the other will raise one ! Simples ... the LDH makes lots of bees and it's a great hive for making more bees and more colonies.

 

[Curly green finger's]

Perhaps they should be called a IDB.. "Insulated dummy board " for dummying down a colony if you don't want to give them lots of space to keep warm.
DB dummy board to put in after your frames, which gets removed to stop rolling bees and gives you the extra space to slide frames.
I've experimented with using insulation between dbs and it works well..
I've found even more so with my amms that when using just insulation it can be a pain removing as they propolis them up especially if the IDBs are there all winter.
Hence me using insulation between dbs. at least you have the top bar to get your hive tool under to remove them.

I've never used a division board, but will be in the future, it would save using an extra nuc or hive.
If I had to a/s a nuc for example and divided a nats hive would there be any problems putting both colonys in that hive?
Thanks Phil.

 

[DaveG23]

New colony into quaranteen for a while then moved to "Forever Home" - Apiary
Very very dry here... On paper, Spring is only 2 weeks away..... Need rain.....View attachment 21554

Nice photo. Tell me, what brand of beer is that hive having? Looks refreshing on a sunny day.

 

[beeno]

Nothing much, just enjoyed the sun before the incoming storm.

Watched the bees on the hedges, fuschia seems to be the favourite, some bramble seems to still be in flower. Also saw my bees take pollen and seemingly nectar from the naturalised montbretia, didn't realise they took nectar from those

Nothing much, just enjoyed the sun before the incoming storm.

Watched the bees on the hedges, fuschia seems to be the favourite, some bramble seems to still be in flower. Also saw my bees take pollen and seemingly nectar from the naturalised montbretia, didn't realise they took nectar from those

Did not know the bees foraged on it or that it was a non-native species, so not to be grown outside your garden.

 

[The Poot in Somerset]

Just got started to check through the hives, but the sky turned an ominous colour and the bees were acting strange. Then I heard the thunder.
I have been sandbagging the driveway, clearing the single drain in absolutely atrocious weather, under an oak tree in thunder. I failed to stop the huge volume of water running in from the road, getting into an integral garage. Now mopping, sweeping and cursing the highways agency who refused to do anything about this issue when I alerted them to it.

 

[Tim.S]

The weather is finally breaking here and we have rain for the first time in lord knows how long. It is not heavy yet but I have high hopes.
On another note I have been surprised at the lack of robbing here so far, at least until today. It has been very thundery and this seems to have stirred them up into a robbing frenzy. They are picking on one poor nuc which I imagine will be stripped out by the time I get to it. Natures selection of the fittest at play!

 

[DaveG23]

Did not know the bees foraged on it or that it was a non-native species, so not to be grown outside your garden.

the hybrid version montbretia is all over the hedges, ditches etc. Grows like a weed, probably spreads by seed these days as well as underground corms. Much like the fuschia round here it has naturalised. Very hard to get rid off. But if my bees are getting anything from it, I will give it a pass. Checked again today and saw a honey bee going for nectar in one.

 

[The Poot in Somerset]

Never
20feet

Does that make you a TF keeper then? How long have they been up there and I’m intrigued as to why they’re up there. There must be an interesting tale in there I reckon.

 

[enrico]

Put my new see through crown boards on all my hives. All hives still have two supers but at the end of August I will dwindle that down to one and probably let the bees keep it. Had a couple of hundred jars from so plenty to keep me going!
The bees were so calm despite storms in the distance. We have had a teaspoon of rain so far. Desperately hoping for a little more!
Somerset wetlands my ar?e !

 

[DaveG23]

painted some swienty poly supers that turned up in the post today, just got them finished before the rain arrived. the thunder storms dont seem to have made it this far, more a bit of drizzle.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Does that make you a TF keeper then? How long have they been up there and I’m intrigued as to why they’re up there. There must be an interesting tale in there I reckon.

Because I could and we had ply left over from the Barn Owl box. It's double skinned with PIR in-between. They have been there six years with two colonies in it. In April 2018 we had a swarm from it. I saved the queen and still have her

 

[Tim.S]

One stack of supers obviously didn't get sealed properly......

 

[pargyle]

I've never used a division board, but will be in the future, it would save using an extra nuc or hive.
If I had to a/s a nuc for example and divided a nats hive would there be any problems putting both colonys in that hive?
Thanks Phil.

I've divided a 14 x 12 front and back with a division board when I was short of kit and the colony had built a few queen cells. I drilled a new entrance on the back, put the queen in one half and two queen cells in the other, turned the box round by 90 degrees to confuse them a bit but left it in the same spot.

It was a bit of an experiment but as I'd divided and split swarm cells off in my Long deep hive I reckoned it was worth a try until I got more kit ... it worked, they didn't swarm, raised a new queen and I moved the new queen and her colony into another box once she had got mated and was laying.

More than one way to skin a cat ... I'm not saying it's a good idea or it would work every time .. but it got me out of a hole.