I think you've summed up the situation facing lots of people rather nicely Gscot. It's a vicious circle and something needs to be done to break us all out of it.
Ps - did you mean using imported bees headed by one of your own local queens?
I think you've summed up the situation facing lots of people rather nicely Gscot. It's a vicious circle and something needs to be done to break us all out of it.
Ps - did you mean using imported bees headed by one of your own local queens?
Hi drumgerry using the imported package bees to boost your own weak colony with your own queen and make it productive with bee numbers and nurse bees so to achieve a few frames of brood
Just thinking aloud ... it seems the problem is drones from imported colonies mating with virgin queens of whatever strain one is trying to breed. If the bee farmers who are importing were to cull all drone brood from imported queens (and if that were a condition of funding), leaving only their surviving 'local' drone brood (assuming they've not lost every colony they ever had) and, naturally, that of the surrounding beekeepers with their local strain, would that solve a lot of the problems? There might also be the benefit of reduced varroa loads (since it seems to favour drone brood) and therefore fewer chemicals needed to control same.
I suspect you'd have lots of unhappy colonies if you killed all of their drones Trog. Maybe shifting drone brood from more native colonies would work better? But I think you'd proabably run up against the bee farmers fear of such labour-intensive management.
If we could come up with a reliable smaller nucleus design that had good insulation and could get away well in spring
I see how exact the treatment of min mating nucs is.
That whole system is well thought out and there is a formula for success
When it comes to overwinter Nucs it's more a case of do what you like but have a standard unit ready in Spring
Paynes nucs are OK insulation wise but a bit big I think for the job
The food / stores would be better above the bees perhaps
Mostly the wooden ones seem intended for temporary use
Could a system of interlocking nucs work where warmth might be shared and stability improved
How many bees are needed to make it through winter etc
The latest flood of imported packages from the Sardinian firm advertising in the beekeepers quarterly included queenless packages by all accounts.Originally Posted by Gscot
Its a tempting thouhgt to add bees to boost overwintered local queens or to avoid having to shake some of your own bees for stocking mini nucs, but I dismissed it as an idea for myself just because it goes against the grain to support imports. More fool me maybe !
I've found the thornes twinstock superb for overwintering two very small nucs side by side. The mutual heat seems to help.
I set something similar up using a Swienty National poly box and homemade floor last summer Trog. It worked fine for a while but when I went to give them their oxalic in midwinter they had all moved to one side of the box and were headed by a single queen. No trace of any bees on the other side to be seen. I'll try again this summer to see if it can be made to work for me!
PS - the single nuc came through the winter in superb condition and I sold it to a beginner whom I'm mentoring. It has roared away so much so an artificial swarm had to be carried out on it this last weekend.
Over many years use here in Shamrockshire, the six frame nuc. has shown that it is more likely to survive and overwinter better than a smaller nuc and has a faster buildup in spring. Four and five frame nucs. will also survive of course, but are less likely to do so than a six frame. A three frame nuc. is excellent for mating and may be easier than apideas for beginners, but it really is too small to consistently survive winter.
Nucs in close proximity to conserve heat is an excellent concept, but you need to head three miles away to move them together!
I have seen some excellent nucs here made from 9" x 2" with 9" deep roofs! I am seriously thinking of making some myself - they survived winter very well.
Another possibility is to use styrofoam sheeting for nucs. the stuff is quite expensive and only half as dense as polyhives, still it would work and the effects of a few coats of masonry paint would be other than cosmetic.
Hi Dark Bee
I take your point the poly nuc from paynes will easily get through if its well stocked and fed most winters but it's the sort of brute force rather then science approach
I'm not a Nucleus hive user much so I am just surmising that if some intelligent design was employed along with dense poly, and a management method developed to maximise the success, then instead of 2 or 3 nucs being carried through winter it might be 5 or 6 for the same quantity of available material and bees to start them off
Providing it comes through with a queen and enough bees to make it reliable and ready for sale early season and cheap for newbies and oldbies alike it would be a help
9"x2" sounds like a scaffold board ? can't see that blowing away in the breeze
Trog
I need to look in thornes catalog I hadn't hear of the twinstock although have Dark Bee an Drumgerry identified a weakness in that approach ?
mbc
I think your right importing queenless package bees is a more serious threat to health than just Queens
Last edited by The Drone Ranger; 11-06-2013 at 05:50 PM.
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