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Thread: New Colonsay queens! - MiniPlus now, or direct introduce (hopefully) tomorrow?

  1. #21

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jon View Post
    Ideally you need to move the nucs to a new site a couple of miles away to avoid losing bees to the parent colony.
    Yes - I've been really missing having an out apiary. I've started asking around, planning to have one set up for next season. Could save a lot of faffing around. Do you find a couple of miles is far enough?

  2. #22

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    Quote Originally Posted by prakel View Post
    2. a shot of the comb drawing box sat on top of a 5 frame bs nuc, these boxes get combs drawn and filled with brood, they don't need to be used, the little boxes/mps are quite capable of getting by without them but they add a back-up component to service the mating nucs. They can also be used for taking combs from over populus mating nucs.
    Lovely. That's very similar to what I bodged up with a Paynes eke, but a purpose made one would be so much more viable for routine use.

    Quote Originally Posted by prakel View Post
    If you're building them for use with the mini-plus then the base box which contains the standard combs that you use (BS?) needs to be wider than a standard 5 frame BS nuc....a 'sale' national brood box makes a very tidy nuc by simply cutting down the end pieces to the required width and then re-cutting the tenons on the rails.
    Hmm. Nice idea. I'm wanting to make a nuc box or two, having just had the joy of uniting a Paynes box with a National deep, in the evening, in slightly iffy weather - removable floors, and compatible brood boxes, are good at times like that!
    But cutting tenons isn't simple for me, just yet. My woodworking skills are pretty basic, due to a peripatetic existence for many years.

    Quote Originally Posted by prakel View Post
    3. like you I prefer not to give raw feed to mating nucs so these boxes are also a way of getting store combs drawn on the flow too, in this instance I was meant to go back the following day with a couple of extra frames but other things demanded my attention elsewhere...
    I had a National super looking like that earlier this year. 10 frames and a dummy had been enough in previous seasons. This year, I had bigger colonies, & a lot of distractions during a big OSR flow. I have never been so grateful for a long, sharp knife and a pair of catering-sized spoons!

    Quote Originally Posted by prakel View Post
    once again it's that magic formula of 2(height):3(length).
    ?? All these years, & I've never heard of that as a magic formula. Please, say more!
    I'm particularly interested, because I'm trying to figure out the best size of frame to use for a longhive in Scotland. Longhive as in: not using supers, always just getting them to expand along rather than upwards. They definitely will do that - I've been running a 24-frame National longhive since 2014 - they expand along beautifully - but it's a very good size for producing big swarms So I've just, rather nervously, started running a colony onto Zest frames, as some accounts suggest that that's a good size for longhives. The Zests are double the height of National deeps (and the same as 3 National shallows, which opens up some very interesting possibilities) - very definitely not 2:3.

    Quote Originally Posted by prakel View Post
    But, I agree that that the shallows are nice boxes to use for mating nucs and they're an ideal depth frame to get populated above a box of deep frames at the start of the season.
    Exactly what appeals to me. Especially as my colonies keep veering into brood and a half anyway. Having the same sizes of frames for different purposes just seems so much less hassle than special little mininuc frames.

    Quote Originally Posted by prakel View Post
    My uncle's boxes were simply a mixture of 3 and 5 frame shallow nucs consisting of floor/brood and cover. Nothing remotely complex. I'd bet that he found the 5 frame ones easier to handle though.
    Simple is so good.... I made up a nuc with 5 shallow frames yesterday. Seemed a nice size, and offered a good spread of brood, stores and pollen without completely depleting the parent colony. I'm hoping they won't be in the Paynes long enough to draw comb in the space below!

  3. #23

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    Thanks everyone for all the info & ideas on queen introduction. It has really helped.
    In the end I answered part of my own original question, by checking my notes & realising that the MP hadn't had a viable queen since 16th July. They hadn't turned laying worker yet, but I wasn't going to risk it with a queen that I so much wanted to keep.
    The Colonsay queen which went into a pre-prepared nuc on Wednesday evening is already out of her cage. I'll encourage her with some syrup once this wind dies down.
    I prepared a nuc yesterday for the second queen, and slipped her inside at dead of night when I heard a moan which made me think they'd realised they were queenless. I'm still wondering whether direct intro wouldn't have been better, because there are so many wasps around, hard for young bees to defend themselves, but the die is cast now, so that's fine. Looking through the perspex this morning, I think they're accepting her. Plenty of licking, nothing that I recognised as a sign of fury. Time will tell...
    I'm thinking 10 days between queen out of cage and disturbing them to look for eggs, & uniting very soon after if I do find eggs. Does that sound good? It feels like a toss-up between angering the bees inside so they turn against the queens, and leaving small colonies vulnerable for too long at a tough time of year.

  4. #24
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Emma View Post
    Do you find a couple of miles is far enough?
    Even a mile would make a huge difference compared to making up nucs and leaving them in the apiary with the parent stock.
    I have a site where I fill Apideas 1.3 miles from a site where I open them and I don't notice any loss of bees.

  5. #25
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    Make sure to check she is out of the cage 48 hours after you open the tab. The odd time I have come across a queen which has spent a week in the cage because I forgot to check she was out in a timely manner.

  6. #26
    Senior Member prakel's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Emma View Post
    But cutting tenons isn't simple for me, just yet.
    Not at all complicated in this instance, you'll have the cut off ends as a template. It's just a few simple, straight cuts to reinstate the tenons on the cut-down rails.

    Quote Originally Posted by Emma View Post
    ?? All these years, & I've never heard of that as a magic formula. Please, say more!
    I'm particularly interested, because I'm trying to figure out the best size of frame to use for a longhive in Scotland. Longhive as in: not using supers, always just getting them to expand along rather than upwards. They definitely will do that - I've been running a 24-frame National longhive since 2014 - they expand along beautifully - but it's a very good size for producing big swarms So I've just, rather nervously, started running a colony onto Zest frames, as some accounts suggest that that's a good size for longhives. The Zests are double the height of National deeps (and the same as 3 National shallows, which opens up some very interesting possibilities) - very definitely not 2:3.
    Slight bad wording on my part the comment about the height/length should have been added as a benefit to the beekeeper so, without changing what I wrote too much it should have read something like:

    ...my own observations have also suggested that the deeps do build up quicker -also their height better fits their length; once again it's that magic formula of 2(height):3(length).
    Frames are definitely most balanced for handling when they approach 2:3. BS deep; Commercial deep; Dadant deep; Warre; mini-plus all come close. But of course it's easy enough to get used to anything (I've had quite a few tries with the so called Farrar set up using dadant shallows from top to bottom). One thing, it's simpler (for the eye) to scan lots of frames of the same size than it is to have to keep changing from one to another.

    Regarding depth, I'm pretty certain that they do better on deep combs whether it's setting up the brood of filling with honey but I also have a feeling that the ultimate limit to the amount of brood in a frame is set by the height/length ratio; too deep in relation to width and I think it'll just result in the brood being 'rounded' off in a natural sphere within the available space with a commensurately large store of food above it or dry comb below. Fine for a natural nest but probably a bind when it comes to manipulation of individual combs for a few reasons. ...I've thought a lot about this recently as I'm following the observations of someone who's actually trying extra deep frames. I don't know yet whether I'm right .
    Last edited by prakel; 13-08-2016 at 08:19 AM.

  7. #27
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    Quote Originally Posted by prakel View Post
    Not at all complicated in this instance, you'll have the cut off ends as a template. It's just a few simple, straight cuts to reinstate the tenons on the cut-down rails.



    Slight bad wording on my part the comment about the height/length should have been added as a benefit to the beekeeper so, without changing what I wrote too much it should have read something like:



    Frames are definitely most balanced for handling when they approach 2:3. BS deep; Commercial deep; Dadant deep; Warre; mini-plus all come close. But of course it's easy enough to get used to anything (I've had quite a few tries with the so called Farrar set up using dadant shallows from top to bottom). One thing, it's simpler (for the eye) to scan lots of frames of the same size than it is to have to keep changing from one to another.

    Regarding depth, I'm pretty certain that they do better on deep combs whether it's setting up the brood of filling with honey but I also have a feeling that the ultimate limit to the amount of brood in a frame is set by the height/length ratio; too deep in relation to width and I think it'll just result in the brood being 'rounded' off in a natural sphere within the available space with a commensurately large store of food above it or dry comb below. Fine for a natural nest but probably a bind when it comes to manipulation of individual combs for a few reasons. ...I've thought a lot about this recently as I'm following the observations of someone who's actually trying extra deep frames. I don't know yet whether I'm right .
    I run Langstroth jumbos: 26cms deep, 43cms wide (usable measured inside frame). Ratio:0.64 (vs 2:3 of 0.66).. The bees use the entire frame. (Honey filled ones are very heavy...
    I do not understand why people use double brood:an extra joint/gaps --

  8. #28
    Senior Member prakel's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by madasafish View Post
    I run Langstroth jumbos: 26cms deep, 43cms wide (usable measured inside frame). Ratio:0.64 (vs 2:3 of 0.66).. The bees use the entire frame. (Honey filled ones are very heavy...
    I do not understand why people use double brood:an extra joint/gaps --
    The 2:3 is of course an ideal, the closer the frame is to it, the more comfortable the working unless, perhaps, your experience has a heavy bias to a different configuration such as all shallows.

    We run a lot of dadant broods and even have a few filled will droney combs (the result of using a lot of foundationless) sat above the excluders at present but that's another story which I'm not rushing to conclude . With a young queen we tend to see the combs filled from top bar to bottom through the summer. Older queens are more likely, but not certain, to show a honey arc at the top. So long as there's an excluder in place it's not particularly unusual for all eleven combs including the outside faces to be in the active broodnest from some point in April through to July but this may have as much to do with our local temperatures as the bees or the box. The thing is, I don't like to see a brood nest without an integral honey/pollen arc, and infact it's one of my main concerns with the intermediate mating nucs as I feel that the larger size needs to offer a corresponding reduction in management. I mentioned earlier (almost coming back onto thread) that we've decided to standardize our mating nucs on half length lang mediums, a decision which has a lot to do with finances, but I'm sure that a deeper frame would actually be better on many levels.

    With production colonies, although it's nice to see those full frames of brood, if the queen is filling the comb top to bottom then I have no option but to consider that I've put the excluder in the wrong place and get another box, a shallow in the case of the dadants, below it.
    Last edited by prakel; 14-08-2016 at 09:32 AM.

  9. #29

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    Quote Originally Posted by prakel View Post
    With a young queen we tend to see the combs filled from top bar to bottom through the summer. Older queens are more likely, but not certain, to show a honey arc at the top. So long as there's an excluder in place it's not particularly unusual for all eleven combs including the outside faces to be in the active broodnest from some point in April through to July but this may have as much to do with our local temperatures as the bees or the box. The thing is, I don't like to see a brood nest without an integral honey/pollen arc, and infact it's one of my main concerns with the intermediate mating nucs as I feel that the larger size needs to offer a corresponding reduction in management. I mentioned earlier (almost coming back onto thread) that we've decided to standardize our mating nucs on half length lang mediums, a decision which has a lot to do with finances, but I'm sure that a deeper frame would actually be better on many levels.

    With production colonies, although it's nice to see those full frames of brood, if the queen is filling the comb top to bottom then I have no option but to consider that I've put the excluder in the wrong place and get another box, a shallow in the case of the dadants, below it.
    I've given myself two massive restrictions/complications to work with: I want to avoid feeding sugar, and I don't use any foundation. (I also live in Scotland, & don't want to live anywhere else, ever again.) With wild comb, once a super is above what they think of as the brood area they tend to build a glorious hurry of curvy cross comb. This is fine if I want to harvest it, but useless for overwintering, as they'd then start the spring with brood in the curvy cross comb.
    Currently I'm thinking that I have to give up the whole idea of using supers. The nectar flows here are just too unpredictable, beekeeping is too marginal. If they're to overwinter on honey, they need to be able to design a nest, complete with stores, which I don't need to interfere with. One where I can steal a bit of honey at the edges if I'm sure they have a surplus, but not one where I have to take off most of their stores just because it's cross-combed.
    The only two possibilities I can think of just now are:
    (1) a longhive - with stores nickable at the end, or by taking a chunk here & there if the Zest frames work as hoped;
    (2) nadiring, Warre-style - but I'd do it with National shallows, not Warre boxes because my dad made lots, and because I don't want a fixed mass of topbar combs that I can't inspect. I think nadiring may work because they'll hopefully see the new space as brood, as it's always close to the entrance. And comb in National shallows is easy to edit with a knife & a few rubber bands, anyway.
    These are of course exactly the configurations that "natural beekeepers" tend to go for. The thought that I'm following a train of thought that other beekeepers have followed before me is kind of encouraging, but only kind of, given the profound lack of knowledge about bees which some people in the natural camp display.
    I've had some tentatively good experiences with the longhive, apart from the volume being too small, but it has turned out to be a chalkbrood factory. This is probably because the wretched box let in water, so they spent two winters in damp woodwork... I was really slow to realise, partly because of having a hectic couple of years, but mostly because I couldn't believe that a brand-new professionally made box would do that. It's got an all-over weatherproof, insulating cover over it now: the box has dried up beautifully, & it no longer has a population of large slugs on the top runners, but the chalkbrood returned with a vengeance this summer. I'm getting the bees out of the hive & into standard deeps, ready to clean it thoroughly and try it fresh with a different colony, and I'll try making a second long deep National box myself, but I have to accept that it may just be that the proportions aren't healthy for them. Hence, in desperation, trying the very ungainly Zest frames.

  10. #30

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    Quote Originally Posted by prakel View Post
    Not at all complicated in this instance, you'll have the cut off ends as a template. It's just a few simple, straight cuts to reinstate the tenons on the cut-down rails.
    I guess that might seem possible, if I'm not holding the piece of wood down on a kitchen chair with my (usually bare) foot...

    Quote Originally Posted by prakel View Post
    Regarding depth, I'm pretty certain that they do better on deep combs whether it's setting up the brood of filling with honey but I also have a feeling that the ultimate limit to the amount of brood in a frame is set by the height/length ratio; too deep in relation to width and I think it'll just result in the brood being 'rounded' off in a natural sphere within the available space with a commensurately large store of food above it or dry comb below. Fine for a natural nest but probably a bind when it comes to manipulation of individual combs for a few reasons. ...I've thought a lot about this recently as I'm following the observations of someone who's actually trying extra deep frames. I don't know yet whether I'm right .
    Allowing them to make a natural nest is exactly what I'm aiming for - whilst knowing that it's yet another experiment which may yet again just give me lots of complicated, time-consuming beekeeping and very little honey.
    I'm aware of being waaaay off the original topic of this thread, but once you have observations to share about extra deep frames, I'd love to hear them!

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