Boo

can I come back?

Been a bit of a 'mare the past few years to be honest.

Moved house, learned some lessons there when it came to bees. Moved from city to country, ditto. Then we had the beast from the east which wiped me out completely (put mouse guards back on).
New year I had/have a massive Pulmonary embolism. As things that nearly kill you go this is the one to have, very little pain (except the bits that did hurt!), no surgery, will see whether I can cope with lifting boxes.

Have some local nucs ready soon and about to get back into the swing with a bit of luck.

oh yes, now have a doggie too (meh not playing the apple vs Ms game these days):
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Not on facebook anymore after brexit shenanigans. still on the sewer that is twitter as @ncseymour but not saying much about bees right now.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Neils

Been a bit of a 'mare ..

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Ooopff. Welcome back to the world of bees and SBAi. No shenanigans here!

Welcome back Neils your absence was noted. I hope your health and beekeeping goes from strength to strength. I hope this encourages others to come back too, it’s far to quiet on this forum!

Well, we’re on. First of the Nucs are ready, cue frantic frame building and kit shuffling in advance of pickup tomorrow.

Are your nucs this season’s and headed with new queens? I assume they will build up fast in your climate, so are you hoping to get surplus honey from them or will they be split into more colonies?

They are, about as local as I can get them.

Coming on national frames but bulk of my kit is 14x12 so intending to basically shook swarm 2 of them onto 14x12 and use the brood to boost the other two in nationals and have one apiary on each hive type.

Would like to think the two nationals would definitely bring in a bit honey and that will do me for this year in terms of grand plans!

Key aim is just to get back in the swing of things this year, get the hives up and running, one apiary is new so make sure that is all ok, properly go through the kit as I have a lot on an old site I had to move the bees off but were happy to let the kit stay in situ for time being and just see what I’ve forgotten in the past year. Fancy plans can then hopefully resume again next year.

Your shook swarms on 14x12 will have their work cut out initially especially if they are on foundation. As I said in a previous post I used the Bailey comb change to move bees from B S frames to 14x12. That was at least 10 years ago and my aim was to have all of my hives on 14x12. I ended up with 6 on the 14x12 and the rest on B S. The 14x12 colonies took a while to fill out their brood chambers and they never stored much honey in their supers. In an average season all their forage was used up maintaining their brood. Meanwhile the hives with B S frames could produce a surplus. A visiting beekeeper told me at the time that the 14x12 hives would struggle up here. He was right and after about 8 years of trying I moved all my bees back onto B S, Smith frames. Our climate and the short season wasn’t suited for 14x12 frames here but at least I tried. You should have no problems where you are.🙂

Here in the tropics 14x12s tend to do ok, in the lowlands of Bristol (and with the bees around there) they can even be a bit on the small side. I contemplated a bailey change but figured boosting the nationals should help ensure half the colonies bring in some honey. I’ve been on 14x12s for a while and had started to think the grass was greener with double nationals, hence the split. The 14x12s can start with comb in nucs and transfer to full size once they’ve got going.