Basic Shook Swarm

When to do it?

If you are doing this to change a full box of comb you can do it up until late June early July. To help set back swarming and turbo charge the bees the best time to do it is around the last week in April and the first week in May.

Why?

• Eggs laid during this period would become foragers in the June gap when there is often a dearth of forage for the bees. You don’t need them;
• Eggs laid after this time are the foragers for the flow. You do need these.

When not to do it

• Don’t do it at all after mid-July as the queen is on the wane, the bees are no longer in build-up mode and are more likely to be demoralised. Also you are in danger of removing brood that would become much needed winter bees.
• Don’t do this to a weak hive of bees – it might finish them. Anything over 5 frames of brood should benefit from this but you must feed them.

Method:

• Move your target hive of bees to one side;
• Set a floor in its place;
• Put a queen excluder on top of the floor;
• Place a brood box with a full complement of frames kitted out with fresh foundation on the queen excluder – never use horrible old foundation for this – it needs to be lovely and fresh and fragrant;
• Remove three frames from the centre of the new box;
• Find the queen and place her out of harm’s way;
• Carefully shake all the bees, frame by frame, from the old box into the space in the centre of the new one;
• Brush any remaining bees from the old box and floor into the new box;
• There should now  be flying bees returning home and the shaken bees should be creeping up the frames;
• Gently persuade the queen into the new box;
• Replace the crown board;
• Feed strong syrup;
• After about a week check that there is brood present and remove the queen excluder;
• Place it above the brood box and add a couple of supers.

If you are sure the bees are disease free you can distribute the brood to weak colonies but be careful not to overload them. Give emerging brood to the weakest – only give larvae and eggs to colonies that are strong enough to feed them. You’ll have to gauge that yourself!

If the bees have Varroa, EFB or bad Chalk Brood just burn the brood.

Shook Swarm for Disease

Certain brood diseases of bees such as AFB, EFB and chalk brood can be successfully treated using a shook swarm. However, always respect the laws of your country regarding bee diseases and if they say burn the bees – well, you’d better burn them.

EFB and chalk brood and to a certain extent – Varroa – can be treated using the method above but if you want to be sure to be sure – use the method below. It’s more or less the same as above but incorporates a brief starvation period during which time any disease propagules are either consumed or incorporated into wax. Either way they are removed from the bees.

This will only work on a strong colony. If the bees are already tottering with a huge amount of disease or if the queen is mediocre or if it is late in the year – don’t bother because you are wasting your time.

• Move your target hive of bees to one side;
• Set a floor in its place;
• Put a queen excluder on top of the floor
• Place a brood box with a full complement of frames kitted out with 2 inch starter strips of foundation on the queen excluder;
• Find the queen and place her out of harm’s way;
• Carefully shake all the bees, frame by frame, from the old box into the space in the centre of the new one;
• Brush any remaining bees from the old box and floor into the new box;
• There should now  be flying bees returning home and the shaken bees should be creeping up the frames;
• Gently persuade the queen into the new box;
• Replace the crown board;
• When all the bees have returned home in the evening – close the entrance with foam and move the entire hive into a cool dark place;
• Leave it there for two days;
• During this time the bees will empty the collective honey stomach and use it to build comb and to survive. Any spores and other disease propagules will be incorporated into the wax or voided by the bees;
• Drip-feed them a little syrup during this period if you fear they are starving of if you just can’t bear it;
• Burn the frames and blow-torch the brood box, crown board and floor;
• After two days place a new floor, a queen excluder then and a new brood box kitted out with a full complement of frames with fresh full sheets of foundation on the old site. Again you don’t want them to abscond;
• Remove the middle 4 frames;
• Bring back the poor bees from that cool dark place;
• Gently shake all the bees off the frames and brush the remainder into the fresh box;
• Replace the 4 frames into the centre;
• Replace the crown board;
• Release the bees;
• Feed them like mad;
• These bees should now be disease free;
• However, burn any comb and brood they have produced and blow torch all the old equipment;
• If there were supers – these should be disease-free unless the queen was allowed to get up there and lay in which case you should probably burn these frames also;

When dealing with infectious diseases always burn your gloves, torch your hive tool and don’t forget to scrub your smoker with a strong solution of washing soda and water.

Click here for more about Brood Diseases of honey bees

Click here for more about AFB

Click here for more about EFB

Click here for more about Chalk Brood

Copyright © Beespoke.info, 2016.  All Rights Reserved.

 Arnia System

• Hive Monitors – one per hive;
• Weather Station – one per apiary;
• Monitor Gateway – one per apiary;
• User Interface – one per user;

Hive Monitors

• Brood temperature;
• Hive temperature;
• Hive humidity;
• Colony activity;
• Weight.

 Weather Station

User Interface

• At the top, left to right, is weather data for the past week followed by battery status and signal strength;
• Interlocked cogs icon – far right – accesses User Interface Settings;
• The number of bees hovering over each hives indicates the degree of activity per hive;
• The different coloured icons pinned to each hive access detailed graphs of brood temperature, humidity, activity and the ambient temperature of each hive;
• The two hives on the right (below) are fitted with hive scales and the black icons access weight data.

How do you use it?

• Comparison
• Management
• Alerts

Comparisons

With a system like this which gathers and stores so much detailed information the possibilities for analysis and comparison are endless.

In addition, your own hive inspection data such as queen ID, colony assessment and appraisals, disease data, Varroa counts etc etc can all be added into the pot.

Comparisons between hives, between apiaries and between years are vital to both short and long term projects such as bee breeding, research and good old-fashioned curiosity.

Here are a few possibles:

• Comparison between hive types – poly or wood, commercial or national, mesh floor or solid in terms of humidity and temperature. This data could also be useful in conjunction with your own disease data i.e. chalk brood, Varroa, Acarine etc.;
• Comparison between colonies in terms of timing and speed of build up, activity, colony size, swarming behaviour, honey production – very useful when selecting breeding material – especially in conjunction with queen lineage information;
• Comparison between apiaries – to pinpoint best aspect, altitude, temperature, shade etc to maximise productivity vs swarm reduction etc.;
• Comparison of weight data between years in conjunction with weather data and times of day when foraging is at a peak could help pinpoint tantalising stuff like the ideal weather for fickle nectar flows such as hawthorn or heather;

Management

Monitoring can give indications about what is happening out there in your out-apiaries and what you might be needing in terms of equipment, time and energy. Weather data can be used to see if it’s worth going at all!

• Queen Status

Brood temperature is steady at 34 degrees C and is tracked by the monitors. This means you can spot a failing queen and/or monitor a virgin to see when she gets going and see that she keeps going. How annoying that is, when you find that the new queen you thought was going like a train and had left alone accordingly actually fizzled out two weeks ago.

Sudden erratic brood temperature also occurs if the queen gets into the supers – that’s annoying too – specially when she puts 2,000 eggs per day into your precious cut-comb?

If you treat your bees mid-winter with oxalic acid you will know that it is vital that the bees be broodless and the hive monitor will tell you this. Even if you were to monitor only your strongest hive going into winter it would give you some idea of the state of the brood in the others.

• Weight Data

• Activity Data 

Acoustic data can be used to detect robbing. I’ve heard it said that robbing doesn’t matter – you’re going to take the honey anyway but that’s not quite the point. For a start, the robbing might be by somebody else’s bees!

The other evil with robbing is that it can lead to the death of a nuc headed by a valuable young queen. It’s something that needs to be be nipped in the bud that is for sure. Early detection could be very useful.

Downloadable Data

SMS Alerts

Now this could be very useful.

A variety of systematic SMS or text message alerts can be set up by the user to warn of things such as unstable brood temperatures, humidity or sudden increases in weight which can indicate robbing or a prodigious flow.

Automatic SMS alarms will also go out when a monitor detects something such as theft of a hive or when a hive is overturned. Hives are often overturned in winter when branches fall or stock get in amongst; if the boxes burst asunder the bees can die of exposure if not found quickly. Like taxes and death – thieves are always out there!

As luck would have it – Arnia.co.uk have lent me a monitoring kit so a road test will follow. Watch this space…

Click here for how to make your own scale hive

Click here for more about scale hives 

Click here for Remote Hive Monitoring Action

Click here for Useful Arnia Hive Scale Data

Good sections command high prices and beekeepers will tell you the reason is that they are hard got. The bees hate to work all those corners and will often swarm instead. Or the weather will turn on you and you’ll be left with a lot of waste.

There is not much you can do about the weather but here are a few things you can consider to maximise your chances. Basically:

• The Hive
• The Bees
• The Forage
• Whether the Weather

The Hive

In the good old days, double wall hives were more common than they are today – and so were sections. Could they be connected…?

This is a WBC hive:

Here are some benefits of a double walled hive:

• Sections involve a lot of wax-working for the bees and for this they require heat. Double-walled hives such as a CDB or a WBC are, as a consequence, well insulated so perfect for drawing wax.
• The insulating effect of the double walls also helps to keep hives cool.
• WBC hives traditionally painted white adds to the cooling effect; you can stand them in a nice sunny spot without them overheating.
• When sited in a sunny spot, the bees get up nice and early and work long days.
• Fewer bees are needed to keep the brood nest warm and are instead pushed upwards into the section crate or out into the field to forage.

If you don’t have one of these you could use an ordinary hive or better still a polystyrene hive with an insulated section crate and a deep roof. However, both of these hives would be prone to overheating if placed in full sunshine.

The Bees

The bees need to be as strong as possible under a young and vigorous queen. There are various ways of strengthening a colony but when going for sections don’t do this until you are sure that a spell of good weather is going to coincide with the flowering period of a suitable nectar source such as hawthorn/sycamore or clover/blackberry. If you have rape nearby – wait till it’s gone – rape honey will granulate in your sections.

Here are some ways of building up a colony:

• Add frames of emerging brood from other hives. Use emerging brood so the host colony is not burdened with feeding them. Also hatching brood will leave valuable laying space for your queen.
• Use the Third Box Principle or the Newspaper method and unite two colonies but don’t forget to remove the queen from the weaker of the two colonies.

Click here for the Third Box Principle

Click here for the Newspaper Method

• Another way of strengthening a colony is to place another strong hive beside your target colony and if a strong flow obliges – move it to the other side so the bees go to your section hive.

Of course the flip side of bulking up a colony is that the congestion will almost certainly cause the bees to swarm so make sure you give them plenty of super space until your flow commences – IF it commences.  Don’t do bulk up till a flow looks likely.

When that happens:

• Remove the supers and the queen excluder;
• Place your section crate directly onto the brood box – no excluder;
• Add the crown board equipped with porter bee escapes;
• Add the super or supers of bees covered with a canvas quilt or another crown board to clear the bees down into the section crate;
• Stand back and cross your fingers.

The bees will work sections better without a queen excluder. It is unlikely but always possible that the queen will start to lay into the sections so you might want to put the excluder back once the bees are up and working them.

The Forage

Perfect sections must contain a honey which is slow to granulate such as hawthorn, clover or better still – ling heather.

Never, ever fill sections with oilseed rape.

Don’t start sections too close to the June gap or you’ll be left high and dry.

Whether the Weather

You will of course need good weather too and you’ll need it to coincide with the local forage.  If it doesn’t oblige, you may as well not bother with sections, keep them in supers instead.

So Far …

Here’s how the bees are getting on so far this horrible cold wet spring.  Of course they probably won’t cap it all… because this wind is going to flick all the sycamore/hawthorn flowers off then here comes the blithering June gap!

Update – 10th June 2015

The cold weather has held the trees back on this chilly hill. As a result we still have sycamore and hawthorn in bloom here and now we even have weather – set fair all the way till the middle of next week they say. Yesterday the scale hive registered a 7lb gain.

Perfect weather for sections then.

Well yes and no.

Predictably the hive was full of queen cells yesterday. Also, annoyingly – the brood box was stuffed with honey. Why won’t they just stuff the sections and give themselves more space!

So what can I do?

Primitive I know but rightly or wrongly I’ve broken them all down in the hope the bees will stay put for just a few more days and cap the remaining sections.

Copyright © Beespoke.info, 2015.  All Rights Reserved.

… bees cannot live on honey alone. While the sugars in honey supply the bees’ energy needs, in addition they require the protein, fats, minerals and the miscellaneous dietary supplements found in pollen. The protein content of the pollen of different plants is variable but generally very high, containing amounts comparable with peas and beans (Witherell), or seeds and peanuts (Dietz).

Protein is important because it is the building material for growth and tissue repair. As a measure of the importance of the protein in pollen, it has been shown that the amount available to a colony influences the size and quantity of the emerging brood. In fact it has been calculated that the amount of pollen required to rear a bee – from the hatching of the egg to the emergence of the adult – is between 120 and 145mg.

But it doesn’t stop there because young bees continue to grow after emergence. On average, emerging bees contain 13% protein (Witherell) but by the time they are 5 days old, the heads, thoraxes and abdomens of young bees contain 93%, 38%,76%, more protein respectively than those of the newly emerged (Dietz). This huge increase is brought about by a massive consumption of pollen which is initiated within a very short time from emergence, perhaps as little as two hours, and rises to a peak at about 5-9 days old before gradually diminishing and eventually tailing off at 15-18 days (Dietz). However not all this protein intake is used in growth of the bee or development of the hypopharyngeal glands because it is on about the 3^rd day after emergence that the bees are directly employed in brood rearing, an activity that continues up until about the 13^th day (Gary) and involves the passing on of pollen-derived protein to larvae in bee milk.

During brood rearing, a nurse bee needs to digest about 10mg of pollen to produce 4mg of protein per day in brood food which is produced in the hypopharyngeal glands. The more protein that is available to the nurse bees either by concentration in, or sheer bulk of, pollen the more larvae a bee is able to feed.

The likely effects of a shortage of pollen in late summer and autumn are…

…that the amount of pollen the bees manage to store will be insufficient to take them through to April and the start of the season proper. The significance of this is that the queen perks up and starts to lay, albeit at a slow rate, very early in the spring and long before fresh pollen becomes available in any sort of quantity. At this time nurse bees need to increase their pollen intake to kick-start their hypopharygeal glands so that they will be able to feed the emerging brood. If the required pollen is not there, it could mean that the colony will be unable to feed the larvae properly resulting in small bees and a possible late start into the season.

The bottom line of all this could be a reduction in colony strength especially if spring, and summer for that matter, are delayed, poor or cancelled altogether. A late start to the season could also mean them failing to make the most of the early flows such as dandelion and even hawthorn. More generally it could leave the colony weakened and vulnerable to all of the assorted brutalities of nature.

This situation arose in the spring of 2013 which became very cold and continued forever. The effects of this were made worse because it followed a miserable autumn where the bees failed to work the ivy to any significant extent. And of course the autumn of 2012 followed the most disastrous summer for beekeeping in history with record breaking queen failure because of the atrocious, striped weather. But don’t get me started.

It is advisable to keep a stock of pollen supplement or substitute for situations such as this. In that terrible spring it was impossible to buy supplement or substitute because of course everybody was in the same boat. Click here for a recipe for pollen substitute from the Scottish Beekeepers but be careful to buy GM free ingredients.

 Some sources of pollen in Ireland …

… in this locality sources of pollen include:- Snowdrop, Crocus, winter Ericaceous heathers Hellebore, Gorse, Hazel, Willow, Dandelion, Currants black and white, Oilseed rape, Hawthorn, Apple, Pyracantha, Cotoneaster, Sycamore, Horse chestnut, Clover, Raspberry, Lime, Blackberry, Thistles, Ragwort, Knapweed, Native Ling and Bell heathers, Ivy, Mahonia.

Principal constituents of pollen…

…in addition to protein and lipids (fats) pollen contains:

• free amino acids;
• carbohydrates (sugars, starch and cellulose);
• minerals (calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, iron, sodium, potassium, aluminium, manganese, sulphur and copper);
• vitamins – pantothenic acid, nicotinic acid, thiamine, riboflavin, ascorbic acid and small amounts of vitamins D and E;
• enzymes and coenzymes;
• pigments xanthophyll and carotene;
• sterols (Witherell).

Because these ingredients are so variable between different pollens, it is thought that bees need a good mixture of pollens to be sure they are having a balanced diet.

An example of this could be bees in America where they tend to have single species diets for blocks of time throughout the year due to migratory beekeeping and very regimented agriculture. This is thought to be a contributory factor in Collony Collapse Disorder (CCD).

Click here for more on pollination.

References and Bibliography

Dietz,A. Nutrition of the Adult Honey Bee. In The Hive and the Honey Bee. Ed. Dadant and Sons. Dadant Publications. Illinois. USA. 1979.

Gary,N.E. Activities and Behaviour or Honey Bees. In The Hive and the Honey Bee. Ed. Dadant and Sons. Dadant Publications. Illinois. USA. 1979.

Hooper,T. Guide to Bees and Honey. Blandford, London. 1991.

Witherell,P.C. Other Products of the Hive. In The Hive and the Honey Bee. Ed. Dadant and Sons. Dadant Publications. Illinois. USA. 1979.

Copyright © Beespoke.info, 2015.  All Rights Reserved.

Take a look at this frame of bees above – yes there are several things there that should put you on alert!

What you do, or don’t do, in response is the essence of beekeeping.

Click here for more on Colony Assessment and a downloadable sheet.

Hooper’s Five Questions:

1.  Does the colony have enough space?

2.  Is the queen present and laying properly?

3.  Development:

   Is the colony building up in size as fast as the others?

   Are there any queen cells?

4.  Are there any signs of disease?

5.  Have they got enough stores to carry them through to your next visit?

Does the colony have enough room?

Sometimes, the bees can pull in a super-abundance of ivy honey late in the year which far exceeds what they need to come through the winter.  Come spring when the queen needs space to lay – there simply isn’t any. This situation is termed – ‘honey-bound’.  If your bees are honey-bound you need to do something about it.

• If you have spare drawn frames you can remove a couple of the fullest frames of stores from the outsides and add the drawn frames to either side of the brood nest.
• If you don’t – then you will have to add foundation and – as long as they are strong enough – the bees will draw it as they need it. You could even feed them at this point if you think they need help.

The other reason for lack of space is when they have become so strong they have filled the box!

You should begin to add supers as soon as you find your bees covering the top frames when you remove the crownboard. Give supers early rather than late. If it is still chilly you can put a sheet of newspaper between the brood box and the queen excluder. This will keep them warm and give them options – if they need the space they will chew their way through and if they don’t they won’t.

You need to make a note of what you did/ need to do/ equipment to bring next time etc.

Is the queen present and is she laying properly?

I’m not going to tell you how to find your queen here. It is a knack and if you can’t find her then practice, practice, practice.

If you still can’t find her, then you must look for eggs. Once you find them, look for a nice even pattern with no few gaps. Eggs should be plumb centre of the cell and there should be only one per cell. Sometimes a new queen takes a little time to get the hang of this but a queen that has overwintered should know what she is doing.

If there is a paucity of eggs, a ragged scatter, or cells with lots of eggs sprinkled about in them there is probably something wrong. The first two would be signs of a failing queen – she could be a drone layer or just plain ‘old’. The last is a sign of laying workers.

• If you see her – note ‘Q’
• If you see her but there are no eggs – note ‘QP’
• If you see her and she is laying well – note ‘QPL’

What you do about these predicaments is the subject of another post. But you should know when you need to do something.

Development

Is the colony building up as fast as, or faster than, the others?

If you record the number of frames with brood present at each visit you can see how each colony is progressing week on week. If you have more than one colony you can compare them – a weak one will stick out like a sore thumb and so will a strong one. Early in the season it is a good idea to equalise. The aim of this is to slow down a very strong colony and build up a weak one.

Equalising

Take a frame or even two frames of brood from a very strong colony and put it into a weak colony. Give the strong colony empty frames or stores in exchange.

Be careful:

• Only give sealed brood to a weak colony because they will not be strong enough to rear larvae;
• Don’t give more brood than they weak colony can keep warm.

Take a nuc

Another option when bees are too strong is to take a nuc.

Are there any queen cells?

Record whether or not there are queen cells and at what stage.

1. Play cells – small empty cups;
2. Queen cells with eggs in them;
3. Queen cells with larvae.

Once you have play cells you must make sure your bees have plenty of space.

When you have queen cells with eggs in them you should know that the next time you come – or perhaps the time after that – there will be queen cells with larvae.

When you find these you are into swarm control and that is not the subject of this post.

Are there any signs of disease?

At each visit remember remember remember to keep an eye out for signs of disease. If you catch it early you can control it. If you don’t… you can’t.

Record what you see. Devise a shorthand. One that makes sense to you.

More on bee diseases here.

Have they got enough stores?

This one’s easy – just record the number of frames of stores and keep an eye on the weather forecast and the available sources of nectar and pollen.

You may need to think about feeding – even in the midst of the Irish summer. Bear it in mind and consider your options.

Copyright © Beespoke.info, 2015. All Rights Reserved.

Click here for more information on the Native Irish Bee.

Here’s how and it isn’t difficult. In fact it’s fun and very rewarding – you will see real results year on year. We used to have some really horrible bees here and only a few hives of them but each year they would chase us round the garden. Now, in the middle of summer I have around 25 hives of bees here and stings are rare.

So make a start this year.

Colony Assessments

First you will need to record aspects of your bees behaviour for an entire season. You will need to record this data because you will not be able to remember it. Click here for a link to a downloadable Colony Assessment record sheet and some instructions.

Colony Appraisals

Once you are armed with a sheaf of these – all filled in from the previous year – you can sit, midwinter, by the fire manipulating your data and transferring it into your Appraisal Sheet. Click here for a link to a downloadable Colony Appraisal sheet and some instructions.This sheet compiles all of your seasonal data from the previous year and tabulates so you can  compare your colonies objectively. Here’s one of my completed Appraisal Sheets for last year (2014). Click it for a better view.

From Data to Action…

How you filter your data to pick out the best colonies to breed from and those to cull is up to you. Here’s what I do – nice and simple:

• Hightlight (yellow) all cells in the ‘cells’ column with an N in other words all the colonies which didn’t make queen cells.
• Then highlight (yellow) the top 10 or so cells of the Docility, Pattern and Total columns.
• You can then pick out the best 30% of your colonies – the ones with 3 or more highlighted cells per row – Pink
• Then the bottom 30-40% of your colonies – the ones with one or less highlighted cells – Blue
• Bring all of your breeder colonies to your breeder apiary
• Take all of the indifferent – neither blue nor pink – colonies to out-apiaries and requeen when your Apideas start to bear fruit;
• Cull all the queens in the blue highlighted colonies but don’t do this until you start to see drone brood. If you cull queens at this time you take advantage of all their brood and bees which you then unite with your breeder colonies. Take care when you do this and make sure to leave them queenless for a week and knock off every single queen cell before you unite over newspaper. Do not look at this as losing colonies of bees because you are not – in a very short while the very strong doubled-up colonies you have created will be ready to split – using the method of your choice and you are back where you started but without those horrible queens.
• Avoid inbreeding by either buying in a few native queens or alternatively take a few of your Apideas to another beekeeper to get mated and/or swap grafting material. Make sure you like his bees, and the cut of his jib, first though!

In addition – you will have favourite queens which may not feature highly in this scheme but there are things about them that you have noticed. If this is the case you should take special care to note where they are (record it on the assessment sheet) and how they do and don’t just cull them because they didn’t score high enough.

Drone Rearing

Have as many bees as possible in your home apiary so there are lots and lots and lots of drones. With luck, the place will be so drone-heavy your virgins will get caught on the way out and won’t go straying with the blithering Buckfast boys. As you know – apiary vicinity mating is a characteristic of the native bee: in this way they manage to get their queens mated in those short flashes of sunshine that occur during otherwise extensive periods of foul weather such as we experienced in the summer of 2012.

Get your drone rearers making drones about 5 weeks before you are due to start your first grafts. Do this by adding in drone frames late March, early April and FEED. In this part of the world it is customary to use two brood frames – each fitted with half a sheet of wax – the bees will draw out drone comb to fill the gap.  If you have frames that have holes in the bottom half but are otherwise good – cut the bottom half out with a stanley knife. Add them at each side of the brood nest – about 3 frames in from each side. If you are on double brood boxes add in two per box.

Some people put two super frames into the brood box and allow the bees to draw drone comb off the bottom bars of these but in my experience the bees don’t seem to know when to stop and attach the combs to the sides of the box which can leave you with a right mess.

Copyright © Beespoke.info, 2015. All Rights Reserved.

The sheet below has been designed to record both Colony Assessment Data and routine beekeeping information from each visit. Click it for a better view. Scroll down and I’ll walk you through it…

Alternatively click here to download the same sheet in Excel format

Here goes:

It starts with boxes to record the queen colour (and number, if you number your queens), the hive number and the location.

The first 5 columns are to record the answers to Hooper’s five questions which guide the beekeeper through what he or she should be looking for on each visit – namely:

• Do the bees have enough space? This is important for swarm prevention and swarm control;
• Is the queen present and is she laying?
• How many frames contain brood?
• Is there any sign of disease?
• Do the bees have enough stores?

Click here for more on Hooper’s 5 questions

The next 7 columns headed A-G are based on Colony Assessment Criteria devised by the Galtee Bee Breeding Group and these are to assess the quality of each colony. Each trait is marked out of 5 with 5 being the highest mark and 0 the lowest with the exception of Chalkbrood which is an undesirable trait – if there is a lot of chalkbrood the mark is 0 and if there is none the mark is 5.

• Docility – are the bees nice and docile or do they want to kill you and your smoker?
• Steadiness – are the bees steady on the comb or are they running about;
• Brood pattern – is the brood pattern solid and unbroken or is it erratic or pepperpot? Pepperpot brood can be a sign of American Foul Brood OR inbreeding;
• Pollen – have the bees got lots of pollen? The urge to amass lots of pollen is a sign that the bees will overwinter well and can sustain themselves through long periods of foul weather;
• Comb building – do the bees draw beautiful even honey comb or is it ragged and abstract?

If you wish, you can add columns to record blackness and chalkbrood.

• Blackness – are the bees nice and black? There can be varying amounts of orange bees in amongst their black sisters. This is a mark of how many orange drones were involved in the mating of the queen and as such is a measure of interbreeding with non-native bees. If there is a high percentage of orange bees, the queens (however black they themselves might be and however pure their origins) should be culled before they begin to produce drones.
• Chalkbrood. A lot of chalkbrood is a sign that the bees do not have Hygienic Behaviour in their DNA and as such will be less likely to detect Varroa in sealed brood.

At the end of the season – the data from the assessment sheets can be analysed and the results tabulated for appraisal and comparison using a Colony Appraisal Sheet. Click here for more on Honey Bee Colony Appraisal.

Click here for How to Use this Stuff to Improve your Bees

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Here’s what to do with the feed though:

Get a spare roof…

… and pack the roof cavities with fondant.

Remove the roof from your hungry Apidea…

… and fold back the the little flap in the crownboard.

Quickly put the spare, fondant-packed roof in its place and replace the brick. The bees will access the fondant through the feed hole and eat their way through the galleries and channels in the roof which holds about 150g or 6oz of fondant.

Another alternative might be to remove the crownboard altogether but I haven’t tried that yet and wonder if the fondant might ooze down into the cluster?

Keep an eye on it:

• If the bees are using the fondant you will see water carriers unless it is very cold in which case they will use very little.
• If the weather is mild and the bees are active you might want to check it but give it a couple of weeks and bear in mind – when you lift the roof this time, the crownboard will almost certainly be stuck to it so there will be disturbance. Choose a mild day and be ready to prise it off with your hive-tool. Have a spare crownboard and the other roof at hand – packed with more fondant or Neopoll if we’re into February.
• Neopoll is a pollen supplement with a similar consistency to the fondant but more like marzipan – it’s delicious!
• If it still feels heavy – leave it alone;
• Do not feed syrup in the winter – the bees will not be able to ripen it.

Click here for instructions on How to Overwinter an Apidea

Click here for full Apidea instructions

Click here to listen to Piping Queens

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Once upon a time I used to keep mice. They don’t swarm but they are territorial and they do fight. If you try to introduce two mice, of any or either sex, by simply dropping one into the cage of the other they will fight. However, if you put the two of them together in a third cage they will get along like a house on fire. This is what I call ‘the third box principle’ and the same thing applies with bees.

Before we go any further I should state that the Third Box Principle is not an explanation of bee behaviour but it is a mental model which helps the beekeeper to ‘put a handle’ on what is observed. It is also a particularly helpful thing to know when you are in the thick of the latest bee conundrum and wondering what the hell to do next – it can give you extra options.

Here are some useful things to do with it:

Nucs

This is great when making up nucs. As you know, for a nuc you need a queen, 3 frames with brood on, 1 frame of stores and 1 frame with lots of pollen on it. Using the third box principle you can take frames of bees, pollen and stores from 1, 2, 3 or even 4 hives of bees to put into the nuc and they won’t fight. If you are afraid they will then just hold two frames together and watch them. If you want to put a queen in then it is probably best if you take her and the frame she is on and put her to one side of the nuc and then put another frame of her bees and brood next to her. Then fill the nuc with bees from several different hives. This has never failed with me.

Queen Rearing

If you are into queen rearing and want a really strong colony for your cell rearer then you can take a spare hive or two out with you to your out-apiaries fill it/them with frames of bees and brood taken from each of your strongest hives. Just make sure you know where your queens are! You can then quietly unite these boxes of confused bees with your rearer hives using the newspaper method.

Re-queening

This can also be used in requeening – which can be ticklish enough. If you have your new queen in a nuc:

• Move the nuc to one side:
• Place an empty, full size box and floor in its place;
• Transfer all the frames from nuc to the back of the full size box;
• Fill the space with bees from another queenless hive or bees you have gathered as per the method above.

This will work also work with bees which have resorted to laying workers.

Apideas

You can also use it combine Apideas, say one with a laying queen and two that you have removed the queens from – 9 frames in all. In this case you’ll  need a fourth box: a fresh empty Apidea plus an empty Apidea super.

Do this on the site of the queen right Apidea.

• Move the queen-right Apidea to one side and put the fresh empty box in it’s place without the feeder;
• Load the 3 frames, including the queen into the fresh box then fill the   remaining two spaces (where the feeder isn’t) with two frames and the adhering bees from one of the queenless Apideas;
• Set the super (extension – whatdoyoucallit) in place and fill it with the remaining frames and bees from the queenless apideas;
• Spray any bees remaining in the apideas with water, gently tumble them into a corner and pour them into the new double decker;
• Put an empty frame in the remaining space;
• Walk away and don’t look back.

Test it

If you are in doubt about this – don’t take my word for it. It works with my  bees but it might not work with yours and there are always exceptions. So test it – get your third box and put a couple of frames into it from different hives – but not too close together – then watch as you push them towards each other…

And always be aware of where your queen/s is/are!

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Swarm prevention is what you do before you find cells with larvae in them. If you find cells with larvae in them – you’re into swarm control.

The causes for swarming are gone into in these posts:

• Bee Basics: the Colony
• Bee Basics: the Queen Bee
• Queen Substance
• Bee Basics: Pheromones

Swarm Prevention Measures

Space – Make sure the bees always have loads of space. If they are covering the top bars of the box when you remove the crown board you’re late! You should have had another super on there well before then. If you think about it, 2,000 bees per day are hatching at the height of the season so if you visit your bees once per week then 14,000 will have hatched since the last time you were there and another 14,000 will hatch before your next visit. Super before you need to. Super for bees and hope for honey.

Ventilation – is less of an issue if you are using mesh floors. If you are on solid floors – set your hive the ‘cold way’ for the summer ie frames perpendicular to the entrance and open the feed holes in the crown board.

Early splits – any hives with 9 frames of brood are ripe for splitting. If you do this before the middle of May there is a chance you could get a honey crop from both halves and neither half should swarm. That’s the theory.

Method

1. First make sure there are no queen cells;
2. Get a nuc box;
3. Add  the queen – on the frame she is found;
4. Two more frames of brood with adhering bees;
5. A frame of pollen;
6. A frame of stores;
7. Shake in a few more bees;
8. Strap it up and move to an out apiary.
9. The other half will now make queen cells and unless it is very strong it shouldn’t swarm.

Equalise – This is a very useful in that it slows down your strongest hives and speeds up the weak one. Equalising the stocks in an apiary and getting them all to the same stage at the same time makes it easier to manage them. Here’s what to do:

• Go to your weakest hives first and leave out a broodless frame from each of them;
• Then go to your strongest hives;
• Remove enough frames of emerging or capped brood to add to the weak ones;
• Shake off the bees;
• Add the emerging brood into the brood nests of the weak hives and add the broodless frames into the strong hives;
• DO NOT ADD FRAMES OF EGGS OR LARVAE TO WEAK HIVES – THEY WILL NOT BE STRONG ENOUGH TO REAR THEM;
• Don’t add more than one frame at a time – there probably won’t be enough bees to cover them and you’ll be looking at chilled brood on your next visit.

Demaree – For strong colonies with 9-11 frames of brood and no queen cells in one or two brood boxes. If the colony is in one box – you’ll need another one equipped with drawn combs and foundation plus stores.

• Find the queen and set her to one side in a nuc box, on the frame she was found;
• Make sure there are no queen cells anywhere;
• If the bees are in a double brood box, rearrange the frames so that most of the unsealed-est brood is in one box (box B) – if there is any left over, try and put the sealed-est brood in the other box (box A);
• Leave a space in the middle of box A;
• Put the frame with the queen on it into the middle of box A with the sealed brood which will soon hatch leaving more space for her to lay into;
• Rebuild as follows – floor, box A, queen excluder, supers, queen excluder, box B, crown board, roof;
• If the bees are in single box, put the new box of fresh combs (minus the middle one) on the floor as box A, put the queen on the frame she was found, into the space in the middle then rebuild as above.

Snelgrove – we’ll have to get back to that one…

The book is called Swarming: It’s Prevention and Control by L.E.Snelgrove

Click here for Swarm Control

Click here for how to Demaree

If all this fails – click here for an easy way to hive a swarm

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