When to move swarm from Nuc to Brood Chamber?

[Finman]

Well, having been a law enforcement officer for nigh on 30 years, I have been trained in seeing holes in any story, and can smell bull$hit at a hundred yards.

Yeah. When you have a hammer in your hand, everything seems to be nail.


I have education of researcher, and I have learned my living 40 years as a planner. My duty has been to make difference with rubbish and facts.

. I have been educated to see story, not holes. But very often I really see only a big hole. Mostly stores are DIY, when the guy is not able to search and understand well known facts.

Beekeeping is full of adult fairy tales. Good stories are better than facts. One such is "white sugar is poison".
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[dexter's shed]

I love the way anyone can ask a question, get a few replies and then we get two pages of bickering on who said what, and what went where, and total disregard for the original question that was asked, it's like little boys in the playground,

so, let's get back on track for the nuc question,

if all frames are full of drawn out comb, and you have BIAS on all frames or slightly less, then yes, get them into a brood box, I don't dummy this down, I let them have it all, I mean in the wild, in a hollow log there's no one doing it is there and they survive fine, now watch finny and olly argue about that one for two more pages,lol

my reasoning being, I visit my out apiary once a week, if I dummied down brood boxes and they ran out of space mid week, it would be another 3 to 4 days before I would know and could do anything about it

heres a recent nuc that I changed over, sorry about my feet, camera pointed wrong way


https://youtu.be/GlVgYs4AZco

 

[Finman]

.we started to talk about Sanctuary's nuc, which is 3 weeks old swarm. No info, has it brood, how much. Does the queen lay?

 

[wessexmario]

Beekeeping is full of adult fairy tales. Good stories are better than facts. One such is "white sugar is poison".

I'll agree that white sugar isn't poison, but it should be used an emergency feed, not the norm, as it lacks essential additional nutrients like pollen and antibiotics that the bees store in honey to get them through the winter months.

I'd no more plan to give bees sugar than I would plan to eat nothing but high street hamburgers for a winter but if they did run out of stores and I had no honey frames left to give them, then of course I'd give them sugar. I'd survive a winter fed only on hamburgers, as do bees fed on sugar, but it wouldn't be an optimal diet for either, and could lead to being unable to fight what would otherwise be a mild illness.

 

[dexter's shed]

.we started to talk about Sanctuary's nuc, which is 3 weeks old swarm. No info, has it brood, how much. Does the queen lay?

but we really don't need that info do we, as his question has been answered by others, if it has BIAS then move, if it doesn't then he needs to check why and hopefully correct it, no need for him to state everything, but that still was not of any concern in the two pages of bickering, and my dad's bigger than your Dad post's

 

[YorkshireBees]

Simple answer, when you open your Nuc and it looks like this it is time to move them to a full hive body!

 

[Sanctuary]

Simple answer, when you open your Nuc and it looks like this it is time to move them to a full hive body!

I have just had a shock, I have been an incompetent beekeeper.

There have been plenty of bees coming and going from the nuc. So I opened the nuc expecting to see something like that, but hardly any bees were visible. It felt like a conjuring trick, where are they? It was only when I turned over the lid of the nuc the horrible truth dawned on me. All the bees had moved upstairs into the nuc roof space and had been busy making comb in that space. My fault for not closing the roof space properly.

I am frightened of disturbing that comb and loosing the queen. I've bodged a setup with the lid of the nuc over one half of a brood box, and a board over the other half, in the hope that they might still decide to move downstairs.

But if (as seems likely) the queen is laying in the nuc roof, what should I do?

All helpful suggestions gratefully received. You can insult me for my stupidity if you must.

 

[itma]

It would help if you described exactly what your hive is. (Doesn't sound like a Paynes polynuc, as pictured by YorkshireBees)
Got a photo to post (or easier) link to?

 

[Sanctuary]

Sorry, not at home at the moment, so can only describe, not pic.

It's an old-fashioned wooden nuc box, with space for five deep National frames, and lid with space for a feeder (if used).

 

[pargyle]

So no crownboard in the nuc ? Or did you have a hole in the CB ?

Either way, there can't be that much comb built in the roof space so I would cut my losses, shake the bees back into the nuc. If there is brood in the free comb they have built you could cut it out and tie it into a frame .. they will rear the brood and join the comb back in to some sort of less than a mess but it's a frame you can move to the outside and replace once the brood has emerged.

If there's no brood just cut the comb out .. if there's a bit of honey in there you could feed it back to them.

No big deal, we all do daft things at times ... beekeeping is often about self inflicted damage limitation ...

 

[Sanctuary]

@pargyle - it's a crown board with a slot about one inch wide at one end.

Thanks for the encouragement, much appreciated!

I will have a go at cutting their comb out as gently as I can and put it in an empty frame.

 

[oliver90owner]

As I said earlier, simple - they pitched camp in the warmest part of the box. It should have been just below the crownboard which should be the ceiling of their accommodation.

Clearly a small cast colony - very small. Likely little brood up there as the weather had been too cold for mating flights until recently.

In your OP you did use the definitive article re frames. I did note you said 'seems' in your first post, too. Not a very definite term to use.

So, a tiny cast not yet established, let alone filling the available space. From here, it seems that they could do with a frame of drawn comb and a frame with some emerging brood, along with some feed (yes, that hole in the crownboard is likely there only for fitting a feeder) and then another frame with more emerging brood than the first after the first lot have emerged.

She should, by now, be mated but if not, do not disturb the colony until the late afternoon and preferably not at all for a few days. Judging by the attention received so far that is not a worry!

I can now envisage what the neighbouring beeks meant when they said 'swarms' - lots of casts.

 

[pargyle]

@pargyle - it's a crown board with a slot about one inch wide at one end.

Thanks for the encouragement, much appreciated!

I will have a go at cutting their comb out as gently as I can and put it in an empty frame.

Never leave holes in crown boards open, put a tile over the hole or tape a piece of plywood over it .. as RAB says - they are only open when you have a feeder on top of them.

If it is as small a colony as RAB seems to think then they will need nurturing and he is bang on that a frame or two of emerging brood over the next week or two will boost numbers and help them a lot .. can you beg a frame of brood from somewhere and a second one in a week or so ?

Hopefully there will be some brood in the comb they have built in the roof space that you can relocate into a frame .. try to do it when it's warm - brood will quickly chill so don't spend time on creating a work of art .. tie it in and close them up.

 

[BeeJayBee]

- it's a crown board with a slot about one inch wide at one end.

the crownboard ... should be the ceiling of their accommodation.

Never leave holes in crown boards open, put a tile over the hole or tape a piece of plywood over it .. as RAB says - they are only open when you have a feeder on top of them.

Most suppliers sell something that is a combined crown/feeder/clearer board, but they don't describe it properly and almost always call it a crown board.

A crown board is meant to prevent bees accessing any space between the brood box/supers and the roof, it also stops them gluing the roof to the top of the boxes.

If using one of these combi boards any holes should be kept closed, and only opened when covered with a feeder or a bee escape - preferably not a cheap imported Porter thing that doesn't work properly, even though it looks as if the holes have been cut specially for it.