Cupkit System

[The Drone Ranger]

The nicest bees I ever had were ltalian a queen from KBS.
Not like the European ones it was slightly smaller light golden in colour from Australia or NZ
My Gt Nephew was 5 and we could poke about in them with impunity.
He is about to leave school now and only interested in Buses not Buzzing.
Anyway aside from their marvelous temper the queen was around for a few years so not over swarmy
Still they were useless for honey and needed double broodbox The top one all food to get through Winter
They would have been great down South though.
I mentioned elsewhere I have one of Jon's queens (on loan) and it will be Amm pretty much.
That one is again a lovely temperament and more able to feed the colony and get a surplus.
Carnies are generally good in all respects as well and not always as swarmy as their reputation suggests.
They all end up being replaced by hybrids in time unlike the cash outlay buying them in lol !

[prakel]

The nicest bees I ever had were ltalian a queen from KBS.
Not like the European ones it was slightly smaller light golden in colour from Australia or NZ
My Gt Nephew was 5 and we could poke about in them with impunity.
He is about to leave school now and only interested in Buses not Buzzing.
Anyway aside from their marvelous temper the queen was around for a few years so not over swarmy
Still they were useless for honey and needed double broodbox The top one all food to get through Winter
They would have been great down South though.
I mentioned elsewhere I have one of Jon's queens (on loan) and it will be Amm pretty much.
That one is again a lovely temperament and more able to feed the colony and get a surplus.
Carnies are generally good in all respects as well and not always as swarmy as their reputation suggests.
They all end up being replaced by hybrids in time unlike the cash outlay buying them in lol !

Had some experience with the NZ Italians too (from a different source): wasn't a great success here in the wet and windy south either so I'm not sure why you think your ones would have been

Totally agree with your comments about carnica though.

Thing is, I've had colonies which maintained smaller broodnests that were also useless at getting honey too. So many factors involved but breeding for smaller colonies won't be on my list of things to do anytime soon. I wonder how big the average colony actually is? There's some interesting early stage research being done on this in the US which suggests that on average our colonies are already smaller than we like to think:

@ approx 49 mins (but anyone who hasn't watched the whole video yet, please don't just skip to 49....).

https://youtu.be/PqoZvVu1E7s

[The Drone Ranger]

Had some experience with the NZ Italians too (from a different source): wasn't a great success here in the wet and windy south either so I'm not sure why you think your ones would have been

Totally agree with your comments about carnica though.

Thing is, I've had colonies which maintained smaller broodnests that were also useless at getting honey too.

Hi Prakel
I lived in London for about 30 years and the summer comes early and last longer than up here in Angus
Altitude is a factor as well I think down in the Tay valley the temperatures are better earlier

I have only visited Dorset , Durdle Door, Alfriston and the weather was wonderful, great place for holiday
On the other hand Kent where a couple of friends live has blinking horrible Winters compared to London, where snow is a rarity, and it's too hot to sleep on Summer nights

So my definition of "The South" is a bit generic and vague , better to say some places down South have the right climate for those bees
They need a long season and then they would thrive perhaps ideal for an allotment in London

The AMM queen which came from Jon is filling a double brood box, its big colony (this is one individual they will vary )
The commercial beeks mostly use Carniolans They used to be from either NZ or Australia (not sure where from these days)
I guess they feel they are the right bee for the job
I get crosses and an injection of good genes from that free of charge

I wonder how the Italian package bees that were on TV (penguins on a plane) got on honey gathering
They are a different strain from the KBS type and will probably not have as gentle a nature as NZ ?
I forget why they weren't using Carnie queens that year
I think it was Winter losses had left too few colonies to split and re queen

Bet I'm way off topic again I have been told off about that in the past

Lets just say if you had any of the above you could graft from them and get a bit of experience in so doing

[prakel]

I wonder how the Italian package bees that were on TV (penguins on a plane) got on honey gathering

Italian by birth, but I was under the impression that they weren't ligustica (at least, not the queens).

[prakel]

I have only visited Dorset , Durdle Door, Alfriston and the weather was wonderful, great place for holiday

Lovely snapshot of life in Dorset.... we always enourage holiday maker's to take a jar of local honey home as a present for grandma.

The guy (Stuart Morris) who filmed this video was stood a few yards from one of our sites. It's the wind that does the damage here -sucking the life out the hives... now, if ever there was a good reason to invest in polyhives this far south that would be it.

https://youtu.be/XiiK0fyIyDA

[The Drone Ranger]

Just come in from moving larva into a cell bar from the cupkit
I wasn't certain there would be any as the bees can remove them when they are not keen
If there is no flow like now its a bit less predictable

The queen had a one and a half day stay in the cassette before eggs were laid and release
Often just overnight is enough if she is in the mood

Then its just wait till the first larval food appears
The cupkit stays in to fill any blanks tomorrow

[The Drone Ranger]

Back to torrential rain now.
Oh well that wont help

[The Drone Ranger]

Ok checked how many starts and it was 17 out of the 20 so picked up 3 more larva from the cupkit to fill those gaps
Cupkit frame taken out now as they have started storing honey in the comb round the box

On a slight tangent the other hives I am using for rearing had
7 out of 10 they were all hand grafted

and the third hive 0 out of 10 hand grafted from the same frame

The difference might be that the first two hives are queenless rearers
The third one is Ben Harden style with a young queen (too young) probably with strong pheromones

[Jon]

I always get more starts from a queenless colony than a queenright system.
I sometimes use a starter finisher system, ie start the cells in a queenless colony them move them to a Ben Harden setup the next day.
MBC will be along in a minute to ask me why I don't have a Cloake board set up yet which would save moving the frame.

[drumgerry]

I've been using a Cloake board in a queenright Harden setup this summer Jon. Using it to close off the top box with the grafts for 24 hours then removing the slider-y thing to make them Q+ again. Can't say I've noticed much of a difference in numbers of cells started. Only used it a few times though so I'll continue with it and see what transpires.