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Thread: Winter Losses 2011/2012

  1. #21
    Administrator gavin's Avatar
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    Wojciech! Lovely to see you back.

    Jon is probably right that one of the thymol methods such as Apiguard is the best in spring. An alternative is drone brood trapping as the colony's expansion gets really underway in about two months. For that you put shallow frames each side of the expanding broodnest and cut off the drone brood formed underneath once it is sealed. However you need to monitor first - you might not have a serious Varroa problem anyway.

    The BBKA forum that Jon mentioned is a pale shadow of its former self after those running it alienated most of those posting there. The advice there lately seems (apart from that from Jon, Adam and Ruary) to have been similar to the ineffective methods such as sugar dusting promoted on a 'natural' beekeeping forum. Shook swarming, another tool mentioned there, is hardly used in Scotland and isn't an appropriate method until colonies are a lot stronger than they are now.

  2. #22
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by gavin View Post

    The BBKA forum that Jon mentioned is a pale shadow of its former self after those running it alienated most of those posting there.
    That is true, although it is picking up again in spite of the efforts to destroy it through the imposition of naff software. Slowly but surely, and at great expense, functionality is starting to return!

  3. #23
    Member voytech104's Avatar
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    Thanks Jon and Gavin - quick and concrete advice as always
    Seeing those three hives buzzing last Sunday gave me wings for new season ;p


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  4. #24
    Banned Stromnessbees's Avatar
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    I just checked the 10 hives in my garden, they are alive and well.


  5. #25
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    Just had a look at the 4 on the allotment apiary.

    One is looking very nice indeed and is already raising drone brood, but is covering 4 nice looking frames of brood. The other went into winter a lot weaker for various reasons but I'm reasonably hopeful and it has 2 frames of brood at the moment, I've given this a feed as it's very light on stores but there is nectar coming in.

    One Nuc looks OK, only a frame and half of brood at the moment but I'm reasonably happy that one will build up nicely. The other is not looking too good, There was almost no brood at all just a small patch of eggs. I don't think this one is likely to last much longer, there just aren't enough bees in there. There's no obvious signs of disease. If it's still hanging in there in a couple of weeks I might give it a frame of brood, but I wasn't going to weaken the strong colony at this point, I've given it a bit of syrup in any case just to see what it does.

  6. #26
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    If you put it in an apidea or a double apidea, it will do far better.
    These ones are really just about keeping the queen alive for a couple of months in case you need one in an emergency.
    Last edited by Jon; 11-03-2012 at 09:14 PM.

  7. #27
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    At the moment I'm not sure I'd put her in another colony, it was a pretty strong nuc going into winter so I'm not entirely sure where there is so little brood at the moment. Sticking them in an apidea might not be a bad idea though.

  8. #28
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    These ones are often basket cases. A colony with just a couple of frames of old bees and very little brood at this time of year is on the way out unless you really want to save it and have the time to give it TLC. I have saved a few like this and they can sometimes build up very well later in the year if you add emerging brood.
    The thing is, you don't want to mess up other colonies by taking brood from them in March so my strategy is to christen an apidea and just keep the queen alive in case of an emergency.
    Even if you don't rate the queen, it could be used to keep a colony going until you can requeen with a better one.
    Last edited by Jon; 11-03-2012 at 11:54 PM.

  9. #29
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    I'm only wary of the queen because of the overall state of that nuc and the lack of brood. Every other colony has brood in all stages, this one has a small patch of eggs and nothing else. She was laying fine last year and the Nuc was fairly strong going into winter. For now I've done nothing than stick a bit of syrup on. My only concern about sticking them in an apidea is they'll lose what little brood they do have now and have to draw a frame or two out in the apidea whereas give it a week or so and I can give them a donor frame of emerging bees from one of the other hives.

  10. #30
    Administrator gavin's Avatar
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    If you were desperate to save the queen (which you are not it seems) you could swap positions of the nucs when the bees are flying.

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