Results 1 to 2 of 2

Thread: Marburg Box

  1. #1
    Senior Member Greengage's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2015
    Location
    Ireland
    Posts
    588
    Blog Entries
    3

    Default Marburg Box

    Anyone ever use one of these or make one. Dont know if it would be much use but a bit of a fun project to make over the winter.

  2. #2
    Senior Member Adam's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2010
    Location
    Norfolk East Anglia, South Scotland
    Posts
    962

    Default

    Never used one - but an interesting toy to make. I am not too bothered about keeping drones out for my own breeding. And to try to ensure that the flyers return home, I generally give the box bees are shaken into a few moments for them to return before tipping the bees into mini-nucs. (Some suggest give the box a kick to encourage the older ones into the air!).

    However if you are thinking of putting bees into nucs or mini nucs in the same apiary; it is not uncommon for quite a few of them to return home and sometimes the whole lot go back leaving a frame of brood with no covering of bees at all - and your queencell has gone cold too. VERY frustrating!

    The usual answer is to use the 3 mile rule and get the nucs well out of the way so the bees don't return. However this year I was surprised when I moved nucs just a few hundred metres; After keeping the bees in for 3 days, pretty well all the bees remained. This was a bit of a problem as I assumed that I would lose some of the bees back to the parent colonies so the mini-nucs I moved remained (over) stuffed with bees.

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •