My thanks too, Zuzanna. Impressive winter protection for your bees!
I have a couple of pictures that might be of interest – first as attached –
second to follow …
Always learn something new at your meetings Paul. I will be trying the ‘knock’
on the hive and checking the quality plus longevity of the resulting ‘buzz’ to
determine if the Queen is at home.
Keith
From: oxnatbees-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:oxnatbees-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
[mailto:oxnatbees-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Paul Honigmann
Sent: 06 April 2019 16:22
To: oxnatbees@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:oxnatbees@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [oxnatbees] The meeting today
Thank you to everyone who came and particularly Zuzana for her tolerance and
hostessing despite a very busy schedule!
If anyone has any good pictures for the blog write-up please share (especially
if you have one of me, I don't have so many of those). Meanwhile here is one of
the group in the bus shed.
Magalie - I have been thinking carefully about your question, how to transfer
bees from a National deep brood box to a Warre. I am saying this on this public
forum so others can add their insights. [Magalie is being given a deep brood
box from a National, full of bees, but has a Warre hive. I advised against a
grow-down, i.e. trying to get the bees to gradually expand / migrate from the
National box to the Warre via an adapter, because I've tried it and Ann Welch
has tried it and it doesn't work.]
On reflection I think it has to be a "shook swarm" because if you transfer ANY
brood comb, the bees will build their nest in the Warre around that and you
will end up with a horrendous mess, probably starting with an uninspectable
welded-together mass of comb in the bottom box and the bees building randomly
and very slowly above that. So sacrifice the brood. Shake and brush the bees in
to the Warre: it is probably best to do this about an hour before sunset so
they have no option but to stay there (and block the entrance so they can't get
out that night, but allow some ventilation). Let the brood die from cold
overnight then let the bees salvage stores from the old comb.
This is the best time of year to do a shook swarm, because the colony / queen
is healthy and the brood losses are relatively low. The colony lifecycle is
programmed to build up numbers now so this loss of brod is a bump in the road,
not a car crash. An incidental benefit of a shook swarm is that it gets rid of
90% of any varroa there may have been, because they tend to be in the capped
brood. The sooner you do it the more time the colony has to rebuild and and
grow strong this year.
Paul
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