Knock it! That is a super shot of a typical entance regulator!
Good for the new beeks (and psafloyd!) to see how it can be done so easily. Mine usually have a bit of wood or other vegetation wedged in to prevent the entry block from moving, but some are a tight fit.
RAB
Took a few pictures.
If I knew what I was doing with the camera this could of been an excellent picture, sadly I don't but all the same I like this one.
Amazing photo very well done.
I've seen a guy throw three small colonies together on the premise that the total confusion works in favour of little if any fighting .Yesterday I did something that isn't in the book and based on my wonderful three years of experience ha!
I have a queenless colony that has been making stores like mad but no brood except a scattering of drone which clearly suggests that the queen is a drone layer or I have a laying worker. I have been told to destroy the colony - couldn't bring myself to do it so have been watching and learning from it.
I have now removed the brood box, cleared the frames of all drone brood (because of varroa) but left the sealed stores and the masses of unsealed nectar - removed all of the bees.
Added this brood box to another colony that is weak because I think they have superceded the queen (maybe more than once) and possibly swarmed without my knowledge as i have found empty queen cells several times. The brood frames are slow so they may be waiting for the new queen to lay. This is a very humble opinion based on limited knowledge.
I then collected up as many of the bees as poss at the failed hive smoked them well and liberally sugared them with freshly ground sugar. Added them to the weak hive. All seems well this morning - no signs of massive carnage outside the weak hive which now has two brood boxes. The other site has a small 6" ball of bees that looks like a caste where the bees are gathering, I aim to collect them up this evening, sugar them and add them to the other hive.
I decided that with one weak hive and one failed I had nothing to lose by doing this and I was giving the bees in the failed colony a chance to enjoy their last few weeks in a queened colony (tears flowing here!). I am sure I have done everything wrong, and none of this is in the books, but it is done and I watch with interest and hopefully learn something on the way.
Louise
PS my other two colonies are strong and doing well and I will be extracting honey when the weather gets cooler in a few days.
I've seen a guy throw three small colonies together on the premise that the total confusion works in favour of little if any fighting .
It worked out fine
VM
That very clever maker of hives is a keen proponent of this method
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