Greengumbo I think things were slightly later this year I put Snegrove boards on at the start of last week in May.
With boards you seldom get away with it if they have started queen cells so I just take the queen and some brood to a nuc in those circumstances and reduce all the cells a few days after to 1 big juicy one
I have a zero tolerance policy on chalkbrood and just burn all the combs and give them another box with foundation
I only add virgins at the same time as a scoop of wet bees. Once the first queen is mated I use queen cells. Running in virgins as many advise I find is carnage and you lose the half of them. When you add a wet scoop of bees on top of the virgin via the floor of the apidea you rarely lose one. I have done about 70 so far this year like this and I don't think I have lost any.Originally Posted by mbc
If reusing cell cups it helps to put them in for a day as the bees leave them spotless.
I tried using a Snelgrove board on a couple of colonies last year, for the first time. Waited for signs of swarm preparations, then did an A.S. with empty frames or combs & queen below, brood above, Snelgrove in between. I didn't destroy any queen cells but instead bled bees from top to bottom by switching entrances. I had to keep travelling away for days at a time, so my timing was a bit rough & ready, and results were mixed. It put me off trying Snelgrove again, which is a shame as it'd sounded a great tool, especially if you're trying to keep the apiary footprint small.Greengumbo I think things were slightly later this year I put Snegrove boards on at the start of last week in May.
With boards you seldom get away with it if they have started queen cells so I just take the queen and some brood to a nuc in those circumstances and reduce all the cells a few days after to 1 big juicy one
Are you saying that you find that the Snelgrove board works better for pre-emptive demarees, before the bees have made up their minds to swarm? Hadn't thought of that...
I'm running 4 queens this year from the same line as that one of yours, Greengumbo. Two were mated with hand-picked drones from Tayside (& thereabouts), two with my own gorgeous mongrel boys &/or random locals. All four were surprisingly chalky this spring. Less so in the less draughty nests; where they were mated made no obvious difference. I don't feed in the spring, unless I really have to, which was maybe a bit hard on them with this year's weather - they've been building up nicely since the flow came on. A couple have got as far as eggs in queen cups, but so far ekeing out the brood nests a comb at a time has distracted them from going any further!
@Drone ranger I've once or twice had chalkbrood appear on fairly recently-drawn brood nests. I'm still keen to replace comb, but I'm setting my hopes on insulation & draughtproofing. I have old hives & I've seen a very strong correlation between draughts & chalkbrood. (Especially one time in 2013 - stupid, stupid, _stupid_ beekeeper!) It's encouraging that replacing comb works for you - I might try to do that even more. I'm reluctant to lose the queenline as the bees are just such a delight to work with - calm on the comb; great at overwintering; lovely temperament. The latter is particularly useful where I stay, as we have a lot of gardening volunteers & visitors, many of whom like to be introduced to the bees.
Hi Emma
The plan should be to have your bees on a double brood box first
You have to get a snelgrove board on before they make any queen cells
When you begin to see drones wandering around in your hive that should be about the right time
Once they start preparations to swarm it's too late (eggs in queen cups)
(Snelgroves method 2 is what he recommends when queen cells are discovered but I haven't found that reliable)
I couldn't give advice on demarree but it takes more work and in our unreliable weather you can't always do inspections when you need to
All these swarm control methods are aimed at preventing the swarrming impulse
Once they make queen cells you need another plan of action
Hope that makes sense
Shortage of food in spring can make things worse and although chalkbrood is a fungus that is found in the environment the main probllem is mostly beekeeper activity spreading it from one hive to another
So any combs which have been in contact with chalkbrood are contaminated and tend to get put in another hive at some point speading the problem to otherwise healthy bees
If you have a good nectar flow and the bees are drawing wax it's better to sacrifice the contaminated brood in the fire and give the bees a clean hive, new combs and a bit of syrup to help start drawing
Other solutions might work but they haven't for me in the past
Last edited by The Drone Ranger; 06-06-2015 at 01:26 AM.
Hi John, when you say wet do you mean water wet or light syrup spray wet ? I usually run virgins into the hive with a good puff of smoke but like you say it is hit and miss.
I thought about spraying them with syrup and dumping on the virgin queen in the mating nuc then locking up for a few days.
Water, I'll wager. Though the bees do seem to end up sticky: I guess they add their own sugar.
Oh, and I'm not at all bothered by your comments on chalkbrood :-) Yes, that line I grafted from eggs from your Amm-ish queen has produced some nice and some not so nice progeny. It also threw one colony that has a lot of yellow stripy types. I guess that queen came from the same Aberdeenshire mating that was giving you some stripy bees in the mother colony.
Chalkbrood has generally been worse than average this year. All that cold weather affecting colonies stretching themselves for the spring build-up, probably.
Yes just a water spray GG. By the time the bees have cleaned themselves up the virgin is part of the family.
the success rate for introduction like this is near 100%
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