What if you can't inspect for a month?

[Rosti]

Hypothetical / possible at the moment.
Work looks like it unavoidably takes me away for 1 month last week April to end May inclusive (no weekend returns).

Assume that no other beek is available to inspect the girls or that someone can only look in on them every couple of weeks (which is more probable to be honest); but that they wont have the time to perform any swarm prevention manipulations.

background: 4 hives, all established, 3 are blackish local mongrels, 1 is from a 2010 swarm and looks like they have a fair bit of carniolan in them. 3 hives fill 14x12 nats; 1 hive is on a 14x12 and a std Nat BB combo (mongrels)

Location: rural / semi-remote - swarms wont cause a hinderence to others just me!

Forrage over the period: very good. hectares of osr and well stock field margins and river banks and meadows etc followed by hectares a main crop beans coming in mid May

Objective: Minimise swarm losses but at the same time trying to retain some spring honey crop, but without any intervention for a month or is it a 'bees will do what bees will do' scenario? No interest in expanding number of colonies, I am happy wintering 4.

Thoughts so far (all any combination of these):

• Get my priorities straight. An engaging hobby is far more important than paying the mortgage!
• Slow their build up by not giving pollen mid march?
• Remove some non-brood frames and replace with undrawn foundation just before I go?
• Put them all on double brood with undrawn foundation in the top BB just before I leave (demaree / deal with it on return) - dont like this option, needs more kit to service it?
• Slap a couple of supers on each of them before I leave either as well or instead of double brood?
• Make one of the supers undrawn?
• Set-up a couple of bait hives, fully stocked so that if I have losses I can then combine any success back from the baits to boost numbers when I get back?
• Don't be an arse the bees will be fine without you and you'll have what you have when you get back

Mmmmmmmmm ? I may have just become a short term beewatcher rather than a beekeeper and then only at the end of a web-cam

 

[Silly Bee]

Early in the season, i'd make sure they had food, After that, the worst that might happen is an early swarm IMO.

 

[For want of a better word]

Feel for you Rosti....... now I am morgagefree and do not have to roam the planet chasing that dollar in remote filthy and inhospitable places......... I can keep bees!

 

[MuswellMetro]

Demaree for a Fiver

if you have a spare 4 supers you can do a demaree by making the lower 14x12 brood box out of two super (300mm) and take a little space (4mm) from the 21mm in the floor space for the 304mm 14x12 frame and still have 17mm bee space under the frames

so set up would be

roof
crown

old Brood box less queen frame with one new foundation frame
QE
super undrawn foundation
super undrawn foundation
QE
two supers with queen and one brood frame +10 foundation as the brood box
Floor

so you can get away with just a £5 of extra equipment for the plastic QE

 

[Rosti]

Demaree for a Fiver

Cheers MM, am liking where this thread is going already! Demaree is my standard swarm control method anyway and i'm very comfortable with it.

 

[mbc]

By the end of aprill you could probably get away with piling high all the supers you have and leaving bait hives. One alternative would be to put any more than two supers ( per hive ) over a crown board with holes open but under the roof minimizing any heat loss from too much space.

 

[Poly Hive]

FWIW.

Put the queens into nucs, on a frame of brood and two brood frames worth of bees shook in.

Let the colonies raise a new queen and with luck problem solved.

PH

 

[wightbees]

Who posted the thread i read about using a QE to stop the Q leaving although the Drones will be stuck inside if someone could do a 2 weekly check.
Just a thought

 

[Poly Hive]

Leads to one totally frustrated colony and I hate to think of how angry they might get.

PH

 

[MuswellMetro]

if you are worried and have excessive drones in the brood box then just shake most of the bees into the bottom box or infront of the hive, or if large drone brood then you could cull the drone brood in the top box as no more will be laid behind the QE as the queen has no access to those boxes

various variants of the demarree system has been used since the 1880s all of them except the wedmore board variants would trap drones but most drone would surely be out during daylight in mating areas when this manipulation is done and threfore rightside of the QE

if you re really worried put a top entrance on using a snelgrove board with a bottom flap open instead of crownboard

 

[stilllearning]

had a case once where one week there was queen cells, the next week i went (bearing in mind they were in a very small paddock) there were two cows and two calves in the paddock so rather than risk a full on attack of said animals i left them, same the next week and the next.roughly a month after week one i eventually got to look in them expecting to find they had all gone but to my surprise they were all still there and still putting up queen cells...... moral of the story...buggered if i know.
what i'd do is make sure they have plenty of room ie 3 to 4 supers depending on strength and leave them to it ,if there strong enough to swarm at least they'll leave you some honey.
alternatively you could take them with you !!

 

[RoofTops]

Close off the entrance and create a new entrance above the queen excluder. Forget the drones, they will do no harm and your bees will still be there when you get back. It is not conventional UK beekeeping so I won't expect much support here, but it works.

 

[Rosti]

alternatively you could take them with you !!

Now wouldn't that be nice given its Boston (USA sadly not Lincs).


Strict officious US customs / Imigration officer " In insist I look in your bag"

"Oh, okay then!"

and I know exactly which colony to take on my travels as well,

 

[drstitson]

rooftops - that's exactly what i'd pm'd him to do!!! BTW when are the "offending items" due on the MBK site?

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

(Coming from the normal point of ignorance, but...)

Would a shook swarm prior to departure help?

 

[Rosti]

(Coming from the normal point of ignorance, but...) Would a shook swarm prior to departure help?

It is a route certainly and one I thought about. My thinking for not putting it into my original musings was .... (and we are entering the classic put 6 beeks in a room and get 8 differing view points teritory)

Shook swarm was originally intended as a way to replace comb in totality, remove/reduce parasites / disease loadings. If you follow this route then I would loose all brood and stores at a time when I wont be there to compensate for any unforseen probs and of course my honey crop it out the window!
If you use it as a swarm control and attempt to leave a viable hive behind then you are taking the adult bees (plus the pre-caged queen) and leaving the house bees behind - so you end up with two hives, again I am breaking critical mass and potentially turning 4 strong into 8 less strong (plus i havent got the kit to cover that lot! or contact over the period to manage any queenless resulting colonies)
Thats partly why I gravitated to Demaree as my general swarm control - protection of critical mass and non-proliferation of colonies.

There is no right answer and its easy to just stay in your comfort factor, that's why I posted the thread, thanks for making me think, R

 

[BILL.HEARD]

Hi,
Have just joined the forum and this is my first reply.
I have been keeping bees on and off for 50 years, and over that time have heard various tips from other beekeepers, some of which have tried.
After the war there was a large group of Polish refuges around this area of Devon and they were very good beekeepers, as they couldn't visit there bees on a regular basis they used to put on several supers at once in late spring but put a sheet of newspaper between each super to conserve heat, the bees would break down each sheet and go up into the next super as and when required.
I tried it on a couple of stocks once, it seemed to work although the ground outside was covered in newspaper pieces. can also be used for uniting two weak stocks.

Regards,

Bill

 

[Rosti]

Cheers Bill, nice concept, appreciated. R

 

[Adam]

FWIW.

Put the queens into nucs, on a frame of brood and two brood frames worth of bees shook in.

Let the colonies raise a new queen and with luck problem solved.

PH

I'm with PH, it's a very simple solution. The Demaree could get messy depending on whether they raise queen cells, fill it with honey etc. Put the queens in nucs, and then leave a couple of empty supers, possibly seperate by newspaper (with a hole or two) and if they need the space, they'll go up into it.

Finally, clip your queens.

Adam