It's priceless to watch the reaction of the hen when they take to the water.
It's priceless to watch the reaction of the hen when they take to the water.
Our old hen used to paddle with the ducklings.I had to rescue her one day when she got out of her depth and didn't quite understand why she wouldn't float.Originally Posted by Jon
I knew some quail who'd been raised with ducklings who, when frightened, would take to the water and 'swim' across to the other side. They weren't very good at it but did manage the crossing! 'Yeller' has had a good day and is eating and drinking without prompting now, which is good news.
The basic pagden method where the foragers and old queen remain on the original site with the supers means that you do tend to get the honey - especially if you move the broodbox containing the nurse bees and queencell to the other side a week later (No later or the virgin may fly and get lost). If you have the brood and queencell with little stores you can always feed it syrup which is cheaper than the honey your older bees are gathering (we hope). I haven't done any regimental "turning through 180 degrees stuff" unless room is restricted. I have moved the queen out on occasions to form a nuc with some brood; the problem here is that if you then leave a large queenless colony they can be a bit stroppy - especially if the queen doesn't mate.
I have one colony that I have Demaree'd where the brood goes up top leaving the queen below; Need to see what's going on in there!
Since I started beekeeping my main methods of swarm control and colony increase have been to make up 4 or 5 frame nucs or I removed the old queen from the original colony when queen cells were present. I had often thought about trying out the Pagden method but I was concerned about the following.
I didn’t know anybody who’d tried it in Orkney
Would there be enough bees left with the bulk of the brood to stop it from getting chilled
Would the bees in the original hive manage to draw out all the foundation in the brood box (I have 14x12 frames)
So until Tuesday I never had the nerve to try out the Pagden method but a phone call from S changed all that. S had been inspecting her hives and came across a very strong colony with queen cells so asked me if I would like to help. 15 minutes later I was at her apiary and we were discussing what to do with the colony when I mentioned the Pagden method. I admitted I had never tried this before but she was willing to give it ago.
S was very organised and had a spare hive already made up with frames of foundation, she also had a couple of drawn frames as well. It didn’t take us long to split the hive and we left the box with most of the brood right next to the original colony, we will move it before the new queen hatches. The old queen has 1 frame of brood, 2 drawn combs and the rest is foundation with 2 supers above one of which is full of honey.
S is quite happy for one of her colonies to be a guinea pig and we’ll be taking a close interest over the next few weeks. By the way the swarming season is just starting up here.
Last edited by lindsay s; 17-06-2011 at 07:09 AM.
The flying bees will return to the old site - the nurse bees remain with the brood, so the brood won't get chilled.
It can take a while for the colony on the old site to get going and grow as there are very few bees to produce wax so comb takes a while to get drawn - these younger bees are with the brood of course.
Sometimes the urge to swarm is still there and I have had (and others have posted) that occasionally the queen will have a queencell after a few days anyway in which case the hive swarms despite your best efforts. As there is little brood, the hive is pretty empty. My suggestion is to have a look see at the queen on the original site after a few days and check that there are no queencells.
I think even for beginners the Snelgrove board is the best way to get a new queen, prevent swarming, and get a honey crop but even if you don't use the board Snelgrove's book "Swarming its control and prevention" is slim, easy to follow, and clearly explains all the the available options.
Everyone should have a copy
Am I the only one who finds all the named variants of an artificial swarm to be like the Radio 4 game 'Mornington Crescent'...?
Fundamentally you're trying to split two from three; pick any combination of:
Queen
Brood
Flying bees
I read recently a review of artificial swarm methods and it examined about 8 published methods, all of which differed and some greatly so. I think it was the 1970's Ministry of Agriculture booklet on swarming.
So some methods end up with queen and brood but no flying bees; some end up with queen and flying bees but no brood. The fundamental thing is to choose one method which suits your selection of equipment, and follow it to the letter. Do not try to pick'n'mix
I would say Snelgrove's methods are the most convoluted, but do reduce lifting and equipment requirements (spare floors, roofs, etc.). There is a much simpler system generally referred to as 'vertical split' that we learnt of from Australian commercial beekeepers in the 1980's. See 'Beekeeping in a Nutshell' #14, Swarm Control, which explains it in great detail.
I sometimes do vertical splits lifting the brood up above the crown board on a new floor leaving the queen, flyers and supers down below.
You can easily requeen the top part as young bees accept a new queen very easily. Once the new queen has got going you can remove the old queen and recombine via newspaper after removing the floor and putting in an excluder. It looks a bit daft having the brood box on top of the supers but it can be put the right way around in a few days when the bees have mixed properly. I requeened one like this saturday week ago and I recombined yesterday evening after removing the bottom box with the old queen in it. All the flyers will drift back today. (when the rain stops) I will probably make a nuc from the part with the old queen after replacing her with a new one from an apidea.
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