Overwintering a queen

[prakel]

I break the circle by re-orientating some of the boxes or moving them backwards a few feet etc. No issue what so ever, the workers can handle those small moves and as Jon says -it's done by the time the queen is taking orientation flights. The JB circle is very good at producing balanced nucs on full size frames which are intended to remain in the same apiary.

[The Drone Ranger]

Is this like a 'Jack Berry' circle? I've found them useful for making the splits but have had dubious results with regards to mating so now tend to redistribute the boxes after they've settled a little. That said, bees from (not too distant) carnica parentage always appeared to handle those mating circles better than ones of more orange ancestory.

I'm not sure
heres a link http://theapiarist.org/circle-splits/

I just made half a dozen stands with 8 inch legs
Picked a hive with 12 frames brood on a double BB
Stuck a cane in where the entrance was and used string to keep nucs equidistant from cane
Dismantled the hive gave each nuc 2 brood
Spaced out what stores and pollen was available
Waited knocked off Q/C starts
Gave them a ripe Q/C and food
Amazingly the flying bees shared themselves around all 6 nucs
Once they were laying, one of the second lot lost its queen so had to put another in , other than that plain sailing
Just like the instructions on the site

[prakel]

I'm not sure
heres a link http://theapiarist.org/circle-splits/

Pretty much the same thinking. Berry had a twist where he added a second brood and divided the frames into the pairs(?) that they'd be distributed in, then interleaved them with frames of foundation a week or so prior to the split. This is all from memory so I can't quote him exactly.

[The Drone Ranger]

That's a good plan I would try that next year if I am a bit more organised (unlikely)

[Charlie]

We like the Paynes poly nucs, very flexible piece of kit now that there are ekes and extra bodies etc. These are what we use for all of our queen mating and nuc creation.

Our bees overwinter exceptionally well in them, very low losses. The key is to make sure the colonies are well provisioned with stores, Pollen especially. This allows them to raise strong and fat winter bees, there should be sufficient pollen in reserve to allow early spring brood raising.

We overwinter several hundred in these boxes, highly recommended.

[The Drone Ranger]

We like the Paynes poly nucs, very flexible piece of kit now that there are ekes and extra bodies etc. These are what we use for all of our queen mating and nuc creation.

Our bees overwinter exceptionally well in them, very low losses. The key is to make sure the colonies are well provisioned with stores, Pollen especially. This allows them to raise strong and fat winter bees, there should be sufficient pollen in reserve to allow early spring brood raising.

We overwinter several hundred in these boxes, highly recommended.

Charlie have you any tips on avoiding squashing bees between the upper and lower broodboxes ?
The area between the frames and the feeder is wide and I always seem to get some bees galloping around on it

[Charlie]

To be perfectly honest, you are always going to get the odd one squashed. I don't see that as too much of an issue. We just don't have the time to mess about clearing them out of the way.

One tip I will pass on tho...

Put Vaseline around the mating faces of the boxes, otherwise if the bees propalise the seam, they are a bugger to separate.