EmsE

Making the most of the School Holidays

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Well, the schools are off for 2 weeks & I have the pleasure of taking the first week off work. I would love to go to the bees but my youngest is a bit too young to go along too, however in the true spirit of school holidays, it rained heavily from 9am-4pm with very strong winds so gardening & trips to the park were out of the question as well. The children decided to watch a movie after lunch which left me trying to find a way out from doing some house work

I remembered a talk Charlie Irwen gave to the Caba group in February which included a description of splitting a brood box to create 2-3 nucs. Looking at the nuc I'm part way through making, I decided it was a bit of a disaster and that it may be worth attempting to split one of my new 2nd hand brood chambers. I have to say I'm really pleased with the result so far especially as I'm no woodwork guru. All that is left to do is to create 2 half- ventilation boards in case it needs to be transported, cut out a hole in the floor under each space for a mesh floor (aide with ventilation during transport) and last but not least is to saw open the door ways on either side. Before I can do that I need to find the 3mm drill bit I bought the other day to drill holes in my super sidebars.

Here's hoping for another rainy day. (no pictures of the previously attempted nuc- it's too embarrasing )Click image for larger version. 

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  1. gavin's Avatar
    Ems!! Lovely to see you blogging, and also great to see you planning ahead for splitting and nuc raising. That kind of split box is one of my favourite ways of dealing with a colony on the point of swarming and is a great way to make increase. If I need to make increase I build up a colony onto 2 brood boxes plus a super or two. Separating the brood boxes with super(s) can induce queen cells if they are not quite in the mood themselves. It is also possible to introduce a frame of eggs into the top box, trimmed part way down and with every third cell kept and splayed open a little, to raise queens from a separate stock. I go for three way splits using a method ascribed to Wedmore.

    http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/natsplit.html

    My plywood dividers rest on these struts across the floor and are flush with the top rim of the brood box. Instead of individual roofs I just use a crown board without a rim (in fact it has one on one side and I put the flat side down so that it perfectly matches the top of the brood box and the ply divider.

    Your dividers that stand proud and match individual mini-crown boards look good too. Watch that there are no bee spaces anywhere as you need to prevent access between the two halves. There might be too much space under the 'lugs' of your divider which could end up with fighting, particularly between the queens.

    I'm in the Netherlands for a few days where the blackthorn and dandelions are fully out and the willows still in flower. Passed a couple of bee hives not far from here which looked like large polyhives.
  2. EmsE's Avatar
    Hi Gavin,

    Thanks for the plans they'll be really helpful. In fact I don't need to find my drill bit now to make the swing door as planned, I can just cut out the entrance - didn't think of that . My daughter has been nagging me to do a blog for a long time now, but she was thinking more in the style of Trogs Mitzzi stories (a regular bedtime read).
    There is a gap of a couple of mm under the lugs due to a wee bit of wavy cutting and a slight step in the lug space in the brood box which I'm hoping some sanding down will help with.

    Well, it looks like another rainy day. I can't escape house work forever so I'm up bright and early to get it all done whilst thinking of the woodwork involved in building the colonies upwards in the nucs. . Is it true that the nucs overwinter better in this set up? I hope to get the plywood out again later (it was on special offer )
  3. gavin's Avatar
    Folk do say that they will winter better as nucs up there but I've only tried once (and it was fine). My little girls have grown up and run away (though one is back at home for a few days) so my story-telling skills are a bit rusty, but ..

    Once upon a time there was this big, strong city of bees. Somewhere outside Glasgow. There were so many of them their looker-afterer gave them an upstairs last year and they were *so* happy with all that room to play and keep things upstairs. To start with they were going to just keep their spare honey up there, but after a while they decided to keep their stores of pollen up there too. It was great, lots of space. And later, when it got too drafty and cold, their looker-afterer was so kind and thoughtful she (because it was a she) thought of taking away the cold and drafty upstairs so that they could be all snug and warm in their main living room. OK, they did lose some of the honey stores, but they soon forgot about that. Because bees are generally bees of little brain, it has to be said. Wonderful, smart and ever-surprising brains, but small brains all the same.

    Now this looker-afterer of the bees had a little girl who usually came out to see the bees with their looker-afterer. This little girl was so proud of the bees at the bottom of the garden and knew more about bees than not just everyone in her class but many of the teachers too! While other little girls had dolls houses to play with she never really wanted one, but her mummy tried making one for the bees instead. Knowing that new queens usually fight with the old one, their looker-afterer spent a rainy afternoon (and another one) making nice upstairs bedrooms for the bees to use that summer ... and ... well ... if you want to know what happened next then you'll have to keep reading Ems' blog!

    [Trog, if you are reading, time to chip in!]
  4. EmsE's Avatar
    G says she likes you're story Gavin, to quote- 'it was really good and at the end it was funny'.