Overwintered mini-plus =resources for splitting into mating nucs without touching the full size colonies.
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Overwintered mini-plus =resources for splitting into mating nucs without touching the full size colonies.
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If your mininucs are on the ground just pick them up and put them on something higher while you look through them
Lyson MiniPlus nucs arrived from Abelo. What sturdy pieces of kit they are. Eager to try them but snow on hills again and 2.5 degrees most of yesterday!! Ugh.
Prakel or others who use these, what volume of bees do you charge them with? Each side is considerably larger than an Apidea. Maybe I'll just do it proportionally by volume based on 250ml for Apideas?
Do you cut round holes in the top of pairs of frames for ease of adding queen cells drawn from Q rearing cups on plastic bases? Or have you another method for introducing the Q cells?
I use roughly the same number of bees as I would for a kieler mini nuc for charging these(a touch more than for an apidea),if you look at the footprint of half a mini plus it is a smallish narrow area, it doesn't need too many bees to populate.
For introducing cells, I tend to sandwich them between two frames and slide the pair of frames back in, easier with drawn comb than foundation, your solution with a cut out from the top bars sounds as good as anything.
Good luck and enjoy.
It'll be interesting to hear what others are doing.
Personally, I'm not the kind of beekeeper that measures bees in ml...I know that I should be, but I'm not! After a couple of decades boning road bases and pipelines I have a natural confidence in my ability to visually assess quantities (old road builder saying: "get it wrong in the base it'll cost in the top"), it's for this reason that I found that shaking bees did the job just fine for me. The ideal is to shake them into a roof and then 'pour' the required quantity into the box but I can't tell you what that quantity is as I've never measured it...perhaps I should as this isn't the first time, on this forum, that I've been asked!
Of course, ideas change over the years and if I was starting mp boxes from scratch today I'd possibly stack a couple together and stock them with a small shaken swarm and take drawn combs and brood to start the others. Another method which I have used, a lot, in more recent years is to build standard nuc boxes approx 11 inch wide and then add boxes with the same footprint to take the mp frames on top. A strong nuc pulls the little frames very quickly. It's extra, 'special' kit but very useful and cost effective.
Adding the cells. When I run the Lysons as twin units I find (once the combs are drawn) the best way is to place the cell on the face of the comb and if need be to pin it in place with a small strip of the epoxy coated mesh which Thornes and the like sell; bent into a u-shape. This isn't a cell protector, just an extra surety against the cell being dislodged.
With new frames/foundation you'll obviously need to use the top bars as an anchor. When we first got our mp boxes they were issued with the old style wood/plastic frames which had relatively narrow top bars so maybe less of a problem than the new wooden frames which I believe are standard now.
Thanks mpc and Prakel. I like the idea of stacking them and having a small colony draw the comb ... will be onto that when I can. No swarms in sight but I have a smallish overwintered nuc colony which might do the job. Would also like to try the nuc method you mention Prakel. Presumably that could also be a way to reintroduce bees to larger units if mps are not going to go through the winter.
Meanwhile I'll drill those top bars in case I need to introduce Q cells with only foundation in the frames. They're wooden so that should be easy.
They are, aren't they? Got my van-load of them yesterday :)
Watching this discussion with great interest. That charging of them with shaken bees and without an obvious means of support for the first Q cell before comb is drawn is a good point, but Kate has the solution.
You just need to knick off a smidgen (1-2mm) from each frame edge in the middle to get a white cup to sit between the top bars without falling to the floor. Here is one sitting down and the other unable to - without any cutting. That would be better than cutting a more central hole that will block as they build comb. I will probably just file it, standardising the location so that it still works when frames get swapped around between boxes. Or just do that to every frame?
http://www.sbai.org.uk/images/MP_QC.jpg
Next question (in my mind): no cover or a polythene cover, as I believe mbc uses, folded back or cut short as necessary to permit access to the feeder? Maybe I'll try with and without.
Yes, many benefits to those nuc length boxes.
Drawing comb.
Furnishing brood combs to either kick-start a unit with a cell or as a method of supporting mps where the queen has gone astray/not mated correctly.
Producing store combs.
As you say, returning the bees to full size frames.
We've also used exactly the same system with some much smaller units which one of my nephew's designed.
They do indeed come painted. You can choose between sky blue, green or yellow - or a mix of the above (I mean a mix of single colours in a job lot of MiniNucs not some sort of yucky brown!). I was wondering whether the frames would come ready-wired but it seems not. I thought I saw a picture on the Lithuanian site that implied theirs might come wired and waxed, but that may have been wishful thinking. At least the holes are drilled to make wiring easier. I really ought to order wire but being active in a national and a local beekeeping association fair soaks up the time ...
G.
I think I'll cut circles with my splendid new circular drills ... to keep the frame spacing right and allow the plastic cup holders to bed down to their "shoulders".
Gavin I can't imagine they need wiring in the frames as there are bottom bars and quite small so they're not going to become very heavy. Have others found wiring necessary (or "neck scary"as my spell check preferred!)?
Re inner covers ... I think I asked Prakel who said some use plastic which can be peeled back but that he had never found a problem with the bees from either side mixing/having access to each other and their respective queens.
Here's one of the MP mating nucs drilled to receive Q cell cups. I'll use the divider but drilled all the frames. Will get them lined up next time! Attachment 2296
BUT tell me, please, about filling these nucs with bees and adding queen cells. I usually add bees, leave them closed up for 24 hours or at least overnight, and then add the queen cells. But I have been using Apideas with their inner covers and extra flap over the cell hole. If I do the same with the MP nucs, bees are going to pour up and out the moment I open the nuc. Is the answer to add bees and queen cell at the same time (they'll be from different colonies at present 45 mins drive from each other)? Does that not increase the risk of non-acceptance of the cell/queen? Or is it better to create inner covers and a flap over a drilled hole for adding the Q cell?
I've also heard it can be done in the dark with a red light (infra red or just red?) which does not activate the bees. Anyone tried that?
How much easier all this will be if the nucs are kept charged with bees and comb drawn. Will aim for that next year.
Kate
The thing about cells getting rejected is a myth repeated everywhere. Cells get torn down by virgin queens but they don't get torn down by queenless workers. I wonder where that started and why it get copied from book to book. Just fill with bees and add the cell after 15 minutes.
The cells don't need any tinfoil protection either.
For that type of unit it would be easier to let the virgin emerge in a roller and then add the bees at the same time.
Put the virgin in then drop a scoop of wet bees on top of her. keep closed for 24 hours and open at the mating site the following evening.
With my apideas I aim to get 3 mated queens per unit. (but it is always a bit less!)
The first one I add as a virgin as described above.
Once she is mated I let her lay in the apidea for about 10 days to check that the brood is normal.
I then remove her and add a queen cell immediately.
If you want to add a cell at the start 15 minutes is enough. They don't have to be left overnight.
Jon thank you. You've sorted it for me! Will try the virgins and the cells and see which wins!
Kate
I have filled about 80 apideas so far this season using a virgin queen and wet bees. Very few have mated so far due to poor weather, maybe 7 or 8, but any I have checked, the virgin is still there.
Virgin for the first queen and then queen cell for every subsequent one is my strategy.
I put the queen cells in the incubator about 2-3 days before emergence.
Attachment 2297
This week is looking good around midweek and I should get a lot more queens mated.
http://www.forecast.co.uk/belfast.html
That's what I'd do. After taking the time to drill those top bars it seems silly not to make use of them.
Not personally, but I remember that John Laidler(sp?) aka Rooftops used to write about using the method sucsessfully on beekeeping-forum.
Life becomes simpler for sure :).
The red light trick works extremely well. I use an Ever Ready (I think) head torch with a couple of red LEDs. You can gently open the box in the dark and the bees just amble around on the frames. The only problem I ever had was a bee falling from the crownboard (a bit of plastic sheet in my Kielers) into my sockless boot. Ouch.
Thanks Prakel. Very helpful. The weather has been so dreadful up here that I'm just starting the Q rearing. Off in the morning to set up a hive to drain field bees into the lower box, as per Pasago Ramic!
Fatshark ... excellent. Look out for news headlines: Moidart red light district!
Kate
Very little in beekeeping is guaranteed 100% but cells being torn down is something I just don't see unless there is a virgin queen at large.
If I was having cells torn down, even 5%, I would protect them.
Red light district in Moidart! :eek:
My first foray into using MiniPluses was with the approach Jon has been using, wet bees thrown on top of a hatched virgin. Today may be a good day for mating for them given that the wind has finally gone. I didn't use any cover and now realise the difficulty of keeping bees out of the way. Visiting assorted apiaries in the dark with a head torch doesn't appeal, largely because we're now at the time of year with hardly any dark.
So I've been thinking about transparent covers and cell introduction. Two comments:
i) when you push the frames apart there is just the right gap for the white Nicot cell holder without any tampering with the frames. As the cell is only going to be there for a few days, closing up the frames after removing the cell shouldn't be a problem.
ii) the new design Paynes boxes work very well with a transparent plastic cover. It is a simple matter to brush extra bees out of the way before replacing the cover and those bees just fly back in the entrance. Should work just as well with the Miniplus.
I had considered getting costings for a local company to cut thin perspex sheets the right size for the top of the MiniPluses, but someone (forget who) on the Beekeeping Forum recently mentioned laminator pouches. A4 would be big enough for each half of the MiniPlus top and 100 A4 pouches plus a laminator (from Tesco) amount to less than £20 with perhaps £15 for a guillotine. Seems like the way to go. It should be possible to cut an Apidea style hole and make a flap from offcuts if that's the way you want to go.
Yes, I think I'll made covers. I did so for all my Paynes nucs before they were supplied with them ... can buy sheets of polypropylene cheaply and cut with Stanley knife or scissors.
But, we'll need to allow the bees to move up to the feeders of the MPs ... so another variation on the Apidea model.
Sunshine at last and off to the apiary!
Kate
Definitely seen it myself, rarely but it happens. Not a sufficient problem to warrant using cell protectors -one of my more wacky ideas (yes, I have a lot of them) is that there may be some benefit to the bees if not the queen herself if they have access to the cell....not quite sure how or why, but it becomes quite obviously after a while that some cells appear to get far more attention than others.
You could try http://www.theplasticpeople.co.uk though they have recently introduced a minimum order value. Also various offers on Amazon and eBay. Thickness of 2mm will do, or 3mm.
Kate
Re. covers … your laminator pouches sound a bit pricey unless I'm missing something. I've used thick clear (ish) plastic on all my Kielers with a "three sides of a square cut" flap for cell introduction. Works very well. You can buy tennis court-sized sheets of thick plastic for just a few quid if you can't find any from a new sofa (which is where my last lot was scrounged from). I'm using damp proof membrane on some poly nucs at the moment. There's something about the surface of DPM that stops propolis and wax sticking very well. Works a treat.
Re. cell protectors … I don't use them and I'd not use any QC that fitted in one of those silly little orange things from JzBz. It might - just - accommodate a scrub queen cell, but anything that's received serious attention from workers in the cell raiser simply won't fit. Sometimes they don't even fit into the Cupkit cage thingy.
+1
I twist a little pre cut electricians insulation tape round each cell before popping them into my insulated cell travelling box.
I am aware this is mostly a waste of time, but it takes so little effort or expense I feel it's worth it for those few cells it saves, not for the value of the cell as such, but saving the inconvenience of finding mini nucs lacking virgins and getting out of sync with their group.
For mini crown boards, fertilizer sacks or dpm as Prakel suggested, is hard to beat. I have two for each mp box, one stapled to the central divider and another to use when the dividers out, I also have a little dummy board for each to stop the frames getting too fat when used as a single unit, a little cut out lined up with the feeder slots works well.
Sorry, as fatshark suggested.
MBC. Do you ever get cells torn down by workers in queenless apideas on introduction?
The very odd time I have seen a cell torn down and it is not due to a stray virgin it is in an apidea which has brood and a means of making its own queen.
I cannot honestly recall.
Most of my mp boxes have the means of making an emergency cell when a qc is added, I only really use apideas as a handy way of harvesting "wild" virgins as I do my rounds, as they're so small a few boxes can be crammed into odd corners of the truck without getting in the way.
My experience has invariably been tied to spells of particularly bad weather at the time of introducing the cells. The odd one pulled down by bees procured at exactly the same time, from the same source hive as those used to make up the rest of the batch (which haven't taken out their cells).
Maybe there's a tie-back to my thoughts regarding giving workers access to the cells; perhaps those cells which I've seen torn down would have produced queens that would have either vanished before successful mating or would have been early for supercedure.
I really wish I knew more about bees, it might make things more certain.
Finally we posted some queens from the Ardnamurchan Native Black Bee Project this week. I hear they all arrived safely the next day and went into nucs straight away.
Here's me putting queen and attendants into their cage for posting ... forgot to put up my veil in my excitement: https://vimeo.com/134838529
Nice video(s) and, quite possibly the best running commentary that I've ever heard on a beekeeping film. No whispering, lecturing or inconprehensible waffle. Totally refreshing. I hope that you'll be posting more.
So glad you liked it Prakel but it's all thanks to the very enthusiastic friend who was with me, with her iPad and questions and eager watching/listening. She took more film but each of the others need some editing to cut out boring bits. Would then be happy to upload them.
Can anyone guide me on editing videos in iMovie?
Cracking video :-)
.... wish I knew more about editing videos myself.
I have a Keiler with laying workers so a chance to experiment
I took one of their empty combs and grafted a few larva along the bottom cells on it yesterday
It won't work but its a learning opportunity
Liked Kate's Video
I waited 27 days for laying in another mini nuc keiler and she is finally laying
That's laying yesterday the first frame of eggs and timed from checking the queen cell had hatched
I hope I am not being too negative about more queen rearing this season
It's just if you add 27 days to the 15 from using a cupkit cassette or 12 from grafting its the biblical 40 days and 40 nights
Ok for a backup queen in case of failure but not perhaps for replacing older queens before Winter
Better Weather might change all that and knock 10 days off the time