What did you do in the Apiary today?

[slangers]

I wasn't planning to open the hives today as although sunny, it isn't that warm. A sixth sense prompted me to open up the most vigorous though as I felt it was time for another super to be added (OSR nearby) and just had the nagging sense that things might be a bit crowded in there. Sure enough, there were 3 sealed QCs and another 3 unsealed but with brood. So, I ended up doing an artificial swarm today... Fingers crossed that it works out. New colony is in a poly nuc box so now wondering what I am going to do with them (don't have a complete hive for them and no money to buy one).

 

[Brigsy]

Give them to a new starter in your association if u r in one?

 

[Helen]

You can do a very simple split in the Dartington ... you just put a division board in the middle then apportion the frames between the two halves and open the second entrance. Your queen will be in one half (if you can find her all the better) and as long as you have eggs/1 day old larvae on frames either side of the division board then they will build a queen cell or two in the half without the queen cells. It's not going to stop them swarming but as long as you don't already have queen cells being built it may well slow them down a bit. As the brood emerges from the frames on the side without the queen swap them for frames with brood from the other side to give your existing queen space to lay ... bit of a juggling act required ...

Unfortunately, you do really need another hive ... at least a nuc ... once you have a queen cell in the half without the queen you can transfer that and a few frames to the Nuc and put some more frames in the Dartington and remove the division board ..

I found this in the second season with my long hive as they do build up very quickly. I built one Nuc and was given another and these got me out of a hole but ... it rapidly became obvious that I needed another full hive and not having the time to build another long hive I invested in a Paynes 14 x 12 Poly ... and I must admit that, next to the LDH, they are about as ideal a hive as I could find. I now have several.

The alternative is to look out for another second hand Dartington (new ones are over £339 so not the most economic to buy) - they are not that popular these days and you could probably pick up another one for not a lot - they do come up occasionally on ebay and gumtree but you have to just watch out for them.

Thanks for the advice. I've got 14x12 nucs which I'll use in the way you suggest. I've done normal ASs in dartingtons up to now, but haven't been confronted with a full one before this early.

I can knock up a new Darlington in an evening, but it's the space in the garden which is the issue.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Second supers on two hives. Amazing

 

[madasafish]

10C , sunny and no wind..

Well after the lousy weather of the last week, did a quick inspection and took off all the supers I had put on 10 days ago= empty and unstarted.. Restarted feeding as most of the hives were 8 out of 10 frames of brood and virtually no stores..

Changed floor on the hive I selected to do queen rearing via Cloake Board - rear entrance (closed). Changed two brood boxes.

Bees very well behaved. No stings and no attempts to sting..Could have gone without a veil..

 

[coatesg]

Quick inspection this evening - hive 1 looking well - double brood national with 12 frames of BIAS, and space to lay still. Found Q too (elusive!) and she didn't get superceded last year as I suspected.

Hive 2 a different matter. The Q that decided to take off in last inspection is not there - and a few emergency cells present. Unfortunately, it's effectively brood and a half after she laid through the super. QCs are on the half frames, and it's getting backfilled alongside fed stores also around from last year still.

Not really sure what to do with it all at moment - best to pull frames of stores and leave nectar filled ones and super it?

 

[pargyle]

I wasn't planning to open the hives today as although sunny, it isn't that warm. A sixth sense prompted me to open up the most vigorous though as I felt it was time for another super to be added (OSR nearby) and just had the nagging sense that things might be a bit crowded in there. Sure enough, there were 3 sealed QCs and another 3 unsealed but with brood. So, I ended up doing an artificial swarm today... Fingers crossed that it works out. New colony is in a poly nuc box so now wondering what I am going to do with them (don't have a complete hive for them and no money to buy one).

You have a few weeks before they will need another bigger box so you have time to make, buy or beg another box. Floors are easy to make, roofs and crown boards are easy to make .. so all you really need is a brood box ... There are a few second hand ones on ebay for less than £15 ...

 

[colinc]

Went through the hives as not been in for 12 days since removing the MAQS due to the weather. Bigger hive all good 11 frames BIAS plenty of stores and no sign of swarm preps. Marked the queen White as last years queen, hope they don't hate her and boot her for her whitewash application.
Smaller hive now on double brood too, but single until I removed the MAQS so had no QE in place. Today found a full charged capped QC in the super above the QE. As lots of BIAS and I saw our queen checking to lay during the inspection and only 1 charged QC I'm guessing supercedure is planned which makes me a little sad but probably the best for her as I don't want to squish her. She was our start up queen dressed in Blue so not ancient, I will check again in 5-7 days weather permitting and leave them to it if there are more QCs. concerned the larva may have been slightly old as the QE went in 11-12 days ago so elected to tear it down today. What will next week bring?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[For want of a better word]

Finally bit the bullet and took bees foundation ( with a bit of trimming) into a BHS pollys so the little stripey sweeties can start making a living for me.

Have had fun with the top bar hives... but despite filling a four footer with beautiful wax, have never allowed me to do any honey robbing......

Left set up as a bait hive in the lower apiary site..... usually get a swarm of stripeys there!

Yeghes da

 

[bjosephd]

You can do a very simple split in the Dartington ... you just put a division board in the middle then apportion the frames between the two halves and open the second entrance. Your queen will be in one half (if you can find her all the better) and as long as you have eggs/1 day old larvae on frames either side of the division board then they will build a queen cell or two in the half without the queen cells. It's not going to stop them swarming but as long as you don't already have queen cells being built it may well slow them down a bit. As the brood emerges from the frames on the side without the queen swap them for frames with brood from the other side to give your existing queen space to lay ... bit of a juggling act required ...

Unfortunately, you do really need another hive ... at least a nuc ... once you have a queen cell in the half without the queen you can transfer that and a few frames to the Nuc and put some more frames in the Dartington and remove the division board ..

I found this in the second season with my long hive as they do build up very quickly. I built one Nuc and was given another and these got me out of a hole but ... it rapidly became obvious that I needed another full hive and not having the time to build another long hive I invested in a Paynes 14 x 12 Poly ... and I must admit that, next to the LDH, they are about as ideal a hive as I could find. I now have several.

The alternative is to look out for another second hand Dartington (new ones are over £339 so not the most economic to buy) - they are not that popular these days and you could probably pick up another one for not a lot - they do come up occasionally on ebay and gumtree but you have to just watch out for them.

Pargyle... I think you should have your own "Pargyle's Long Hive Corner" on the forum! Loving your knowledge.

Any thoughts how long (or how short) a long hive should aim to be? I'm currently working to about 3 Lang boxes wide (I will be using lang frames).

So this would probably add up to somewhere between 30 and 35 brood frames.

 

[pargyle]

Pargyle... I think you should have your own "Pargyle's Long Hive Corner" on the forum! Loving your knowledge.

Any thoughts how long (or how short) a long hive should aim to be? I'm currently working to about 3 Lang boxes wide (I will be using lang frames).

So this would probably add up to somewhere between 30 and 35 brood frames.

Don't know about knowledge ... just made so many mistakes that I've been forced to learn things ...

My LDH has 25 frames ... very technical reason for this ... it was half the length of the reclaimed floorboards that I had available to make it !!

I can see nothing wrong with a longer long hive .. but at 25 No. 14 x 12 frames drawn and filled I would need four strong blokes to lift it and even then moving it would be gut wrenching. The likelihood is that they would probably not use more than about 30 frames in total - the end ones would be stores for sure as the brood nest tends to be in the middle of the hive. As you can see from other recent posts and my experience long hives do make big colonies - no idea why ... but, they are not massive honey producers as you will find that a lot of the honey they make gets stored in a nice arc at the top of the brood frames - so - you can imagine that with 18 frames of brood with an arc of honey on top of each you have a lot of stores in the hive. They will fill another couple of full frames at either end but - again - 2 honey filled 14 x 12 frames is half a super - and it's a beggar to spin out if you don't have an extractor that will take brood frames.

 

[bjosephd]

Don't know about knowledge ... just made so many mistakes that I've been forced to learn things ...



My LDH has 25 frames ... very technical reason for this ... it was half the length of the reclaimed floorboards that I had available to make it !!



I can see nothing wrong with a longer long hive .. but at 25 No. 14 x 12 frames drawn and filled I would need four strong blokes to lift it and even then moving it would be gut wrenching. The likelihood is that they would probably not use more than about 30 frames in total - the end ones would be stores for sure as the brood nest tends to be in the middle of the hive. As you can see from other recent posts and my experience long hives do make big colonies - no idea why ... but, they are not massive honey producers as you will find that a lot of the honey they make gets stored in a nice arc at the top of the brood frames - so - you can imagine that with 18 frames of brood with an arc of honey on top of each you have a lot of stores in the hive. They will fill another couple of full frames at either end but - again - 2 honey filled 14 x 12 frames is half a super - and it's a beggar to spin out if you don't have an extractor that will take brood frames.

So brood nest tends to be in the middle of the hive.

But where is your entrance in relation to this?

Centre side?

One end?

For some reason my gut feeling is to put in one end. Or both ends for potential splits.

Ie 'warm way entrances'.

 

[Dadnlad]

Think there are entrances either end, so as to run two colonies split with divider board, or close one up to run one colony

 

[daroco]

Sold a nuc and put my first queen cells of 2017 into mating nucs. The second round of grafts went into the incubator too.

 

[Dusty Rhodes]

Inspected the hives on the PrintWorks roof in Manchester to find one with no queen or eggs - and emergency/supercedure queen cells. It's 9 days since I last inspected them, so I don't think I damaged the queen last time. There were quite a lot of drones around so I wonder if this was a planned supercedure.

Dusty

 

[dpearce4]

Started the long process of removing a number of colonies out a persons house today. 1 down 4 more to go, yes 5 in one house, and they are bloody big colonies.

Pics to come as I get them.

 

[Plenty of honey]

Second supers on two hives. Amazing

Yes, been out this evening and supering, brood checks, made up another couple of nucs. Some hives completely filled and filled the super. i reckon as the apples have started we have 10 days max so may be we might see second ones filled. Suddenly beekeeping has become enjoyable again. forecast for next 5 days is good. Up to 18 degrees just when we needed it!
Lovely to see populous hives again, sheets of brood and feel those heavy supers.

 

[Goran]

Over here is snowing.. Cherries, pears, plums, peaches, apricots, walnuts.. can be sought small fruits. True service tree, aronia, apples, osr in blooming.. All the trees got their leaves.. And now is snowing.. Black locust hardly would survive.. Last year was disastrous due to frosts and rains later.. So second in a row..
But like some say, hope dies last..

 

[pargyle]

So brood nest tends to be in the middle of the hive.

But where is your entrance in relation to this?

Centre side?

One end?

For some reason my gut feeling is to put in one end. Or both ends for potential splits.

Ie 'warm way entrances'.

My standard entrance is in the middle of the long side but I have two additional entrances (usually sealed with corks) one at each end of the long sides but on opposite sides. So .. splitting is simply a question of sealing the centre entrance and opening the diagonally opposed end entrances. The frames are all cold way - even when using the hive for two colonies. The bees still seem to make the brood nest in the centre ...

 

[coatesg]

Finally hived up overwintered nuc at my "temporary out-apiary" - found a couple of sealed QCs on only one frame with no previous signs of swarm prep, not even a queen cup. Q found and BIAS present.

Q is getting on a bit (she's blue - the nuc being made during an AS last year) so might be supercedure or swarm prep. Given they have 6 more frames of space to lay and draw after the hiving, and that they have fresh eggs, I tore down those 2 cells and will see whether they do actually supercede her here or not.