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Thread: apidea management and grafting photos

  1. #41
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    I am hoping to overwinter some apideas this year.
    I have 3 doubles and this one is a triple with 15 frames inside.
    Volume wise it is equivalent to about 3 BS deep frames.
    Still plenty of pollen coming in as of 20/11/11



    You can see some bees removing wax and debris in this one.

    Last edited by Jon; 20-11-2011 at 06:37 PM.

  2. #42
    Administrator gavin's Avatar
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    Oh, I love a good bee video. It will be really interesting to see if you can get them through. Apideas are so well insulated that a triple-decker must stand a good chance.

    Pale yellow pollen - wonder what that it?

    Have you done morphometry on the colony in close-up? I know that it always depends on the light, but they look to me as if they have that halo of pale hairs on the thorax and broad tomenta that can point to hybridity with something exotic. They look like some of my bees which I'm happy to accept are mixed, ultimately coming from Drone Ranger's stocks via a couple of lovely ladies.

    http://www.sbai.org.uk/Breeding/Carniolans.pdf

    Have birds been pecking at the boxes? I also have some of these wee holes in our boxes. The Greater Spotted Woodpeckers usually fly straight over so I was going to blame blue tits.

  3. #43
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    The holes are pin holes. I pin a bit of plastic excluder to the outside to stop absconding in the summer.

    Very few woodpeckers in Ireland.

    The apidea is in my garden in suburbia so it could be anything.

    I did a quick morphometry check on that one with drowned bees I fished out of the feeder, but I combined 2 apideas at the start of October so the population will still be mixed.
    The queen in the apidea is producing all dark workers but there were quite a few yellow ones in the other apidea.
    provisionally it looked ok.
    Carnica is very unusual here. The problem with hybridization is Buckfast or Buckfast mongrels.

    api1.jpg

    Remember this post from last year.

    http://www.sbai.org.uk/sbai_forum/sh...ull=1#post2583

    Any Galtees I have seen have quite a wide tormentum.
    With Carnica I always think it looks quite grey.

    This post shows the difference in the morphometry
    Last edited by Jon; 20-11-2011 at 07:21 PM.

  4. #44
    Administrator gavin's Avatar
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    LOL!! Pin holes then. Doh!

    The importers sell bees and queens far and wide so I wouldn't rule out local carnica getting in on the act. I should take some more photos as part of my winter investigation into what is in my and the association's apiaries.

  5. #45
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    We had a local importer a few years ago who was making up nucs with Carnica queens from Slovenia.
    He advertised them as 'Irish Carnica for easy handling'

    I don't know how many he sold, probably no more than a few dozen nucs. He advertised in the UK bee press and sold some into England as well.
    Most of them went to beginners and some of the nucs were found to have AFB.
    By all accounts they were really poor nucs with only a couple of frames covered with bees so I doubt if many of them survived the first winter.

    The default bee here is a mongrel tending towards amm with a bit of Buckfast in the mix so importing Carnica is definitely a bad idea.

  6. #46
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    I use this mesh to replace the inner cover when combining a queenright and a queenless apidea. The queenless one goes on top. I transfer the frames to an apidea super which fits neatly over the bottom unit.

    Click photos for bigger images.

    apidea-mesh1.jpg apidea-mesh2.jpg apidea-mesh3.jpg apidea-mesh4.jpg

    The hole is plugged with fondant and it takes the bees a couple of days to eat through.
    The smell of the queenright colony rises up through the mesh so there should be no fighting when they combine.
    They first combine in the feeder compartment in the lower apidea - from which the queen is excluded.
    Last edited by Jon; 28-09-2012 at 02:09 PM.

  7. #47
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    Here is the latest addition to the apidea world - lovingly sponsored by Correx.

    I have been messing around making spare frames from correx for a couple of years but have never managed to make a satisfactory one using the traditional materials of correx, Stanley knife and gaffer tape.

    The frames need a side leg as with top bar only they will always attach comb to the side of the apidea and it breaks off if you don't remember to carefully cut it with a sharp knife every time.
    The leg is hard to attach with tape as you have to leave a lip for the frame to sit across the apidea body.

    Today I hit on the perfect solution
    The humble nail!
    The leg has to be cut across the ribbing in the correx so that the nail passes through several ribs and holds it tight to the top bar.
    I am going to trial these starting tonight at the group and I don't think the leg will detach easily.

    apidea-correx-frame3.jpg apidea-correx-frame2.jpg apidea-correx-frame1.jpg

  8. #48

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    Quote Originally Posted by gavin View Post
    They look like some of my bees which I'm happy to accept are mixed, ultimately coming from Drone Ranger's stocks via a couple of lovely ladies.
    Actually Gavin you have been trying to improve your genetics whereas I have just really tried to improve the temper
    I think yours will be more native now after a few generations

    Also, where I am ,there's a lot of bees being moved around the area by hobby and Commercial chaps
    more than 10 years ago I had bees from around Montrose that were very very black and a bit stingy but were otherwise very good
    About that time I had a couple of hives with very black bees from an old chap round Motherwell so that heritage is still there in those bees
    The local gene pool here is a very mixed bag so it's pot luck although W.J. has some very native looking bees this year,good for honey and really good temperament

  9. #49
    Senior Member fatshark's Avatar
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    Default apidea management and grafting photos

    Quote Originally Posted by Jon View Post
    Here is the latest addition to the apidea world - lovingly sponsored by Correx.
    You crafty devil ... how do you fit he strip of foundation?





    Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk 2

  10. #50

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    Quote Originally Posted by fatshark View Post
    You crafty devil ... how do you fit he strip of foundation?
    Might I suggest the humble screw would be even more secure?!

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