When is the best time to rehive?

[SunnyRaes]

We currently have 5 National hives that we're looking to upgrade to 14x12's this season. We had swarming problems last year (didn't everyone!) but our bees were certainly prolific. We considered double brood or brood and a half, but were swayed in the direction of 14x12

When would you suggest is likely to be the best time to do it? Any other suggestions as to how best to do it, what works, leaving a standard national frame in for drone brood, etc?

 

[oliver90owner]

This all depends on how you intend changing; new 14 x 12 boxes or extend the deeps.

Nearly all my 14 x 12s are eked deeps.

Choose whether you want to do it all in one go, or are prepared to do it a little more sedately. You choose to either Bailey change, shook swarm or wait until A/S.

So many different alternative strategies, so it to be a waste of time trying to be prescriptive.

 

[adrian wilford]

when its warm enough and there is a flow on, oil seed rape here.
if doing a complete re hive, then place your 14x12 hive above the old national one and feed syrup, your honey supply will suffer, but i prefer 14x12s and didnt have swarms last year.

 

[Pete D]

Hi,
I did exactly this last year to 4 hives.. Once the std brood was ready for a super I gave them a 14x12 instead with no queen excluder. I gave them a couple of feeders full of syrup to get them started. Once the queen was upstairs and laying I put a queen excluder in. Once the brood had hatched in the std box I moved it above the crown board and just left the feed hole partially open and they took down what they wanted / needed. I did keep a couple of frames of stores though as these will always come in handy.
Moving to 14x12 will not stop your bees from swarming, space isnt the only factor but it can help but only if you still super them in time as a full and overcrowded brood is still just that whatever its size.
Good luck, it worked for me, patience though as they are big frames that need drawing, I did manipulate mine a bit to encourage them to draw all sides of all frames, 11 + dummy.
Pete D

 

[Chris B]

Yes so many alternatives.

Another variation is a rolling shook swarm - hive 1 is shaken to new box, but old frames distributed among the other 3 to avoid wasting brood. Do it again with hive 2 say 2 weeks later.
You just need to shake enough bees to make a good colony i.e. 3lbs to 6lbs depending on timing. Any surplus bees can accompany the brood frames to join the next colony.
So eventually you end up with a quadruple brood box National. You have to use a different method for this one as no more standard boxes remain to receive spare brood and bees

Other variables - do you have access to new queens, do you want expansion (either temporary or permanent), do you want to simultaneously perform a disease/parasite break? Lots of ways to proceed.

 

[Finman]

.
Brood are the most valuable in hives.

Rehousing is simple.

You use old frames as super and then put the queen under excluder into a new box. In a month old frames are empty of brood and more or less filled with honey.

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