This is a comb from a mating nuc which we ran without frames as a trial; it may represent a change of approach for us in future years as it presents a lovely option for growing the colony on into a larger hive....
Yet again we have a scratch-built comb with the cell walls orientated opposite to the 'text book' position. This is a comb from a mating nuc which we ran without frames as a trial; it may represent a change of approach for us in future years as it presents a lovely option for growing the colony on into a larger hive.... By using top-bars we're able to transfer the mating nuc combs into empty frames, the bees then follow the existing comb and fill out the frame. At a later point these unwired combs can be replaced but initially they present an opportunity to create new colonies very cheaply
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Following on from our last post, things are progressing nicely; cell opened and queen at large. She'll be left well alone for a couple of weeks now -there's not a lot we can do but wait.
The weather has been such that we're seeing queens laying well within a couple of weeks of emerging so hopefully all will go well for these too. Most of this batch are the same colouration although I've spotted one with much stronger orange although she has the same striping. Spent some time transferring queen cells into their mating nucs today, this batch will hopefully mate as successfully as the previous ones; such great weather for getting queens mated.
You'll notice that we don't use the plastic cell cups which are so popular these days; nothing against them but I can make wax cups as quickly as I can clean the plastic ones and I get a lot more enjoyment out of making them than I ever did when I had to clean the plastic ones. Also, I'm guaranteed to loose the plastic cups the moment that I put them down somewhere! Back in the spring we did a short post about some small mating nucs which we'd built entirely from scrap wood; small off-cuts which were far too small for anything else we could think of at the time. We're now seeing the first of them finally put into use... Always lovely to see a new queen laying.
Total cost in financial terms? A few pence for the nails and a tiny amount of syrup just to give them a foothold when they were initially made up. We made a twitter post a while back about the cell orientation in a natural comb in one of our hives; we don't as a rule use foundation anymore, in fact it must be the best part of eight years since we last bought any. There is a cost of course, in the energy and resources that need to be tied up to produce a box full of scratch built comb but the learning curve is quite absorbing. The tricks which are employed to get good, straight combs where WE want them certainly add another facet to our beekeeping. Back to the cell orientation, our twitter post was about the comb shown at the bottom of this page, with it's cells built with the flat sides at top and bottom. Today we noticed another such comb (our header photo) in another, unrelated, colony. This has started us thinking, how often do bees build comb in this manner and why do they do it? We'll be keeping a closer eye on the cell positioning from now on. Took an opportunity today to have a look at a couple of colonies, nice to see a generally good build-up; some are always ahead of others or at least, that's how they look at a glance but we do get a 'feel' for the one's that are 'right' even if at present they appear to be behind others in the apiary; so long as there's no underlying problem we know that they'll be OK. No equalizing here, let them build up at their own pace and watch, observe the outcome. Like so many other beekeepers we have a herd of very diverse genetic heritage so instead of trying to force them into a predetermined schedule why not attempt to harness their own innate qualities? We like to put out a few bait hives each spring not so much to get new bees as to reduce the likelihood of getting a call from a nearby household requesting that we remove these strays from their chimney or cavity wall etc. When people know that we 'do' bees it becomes pretty much expected that we'll sort out any problems, after all, to an outsider it's probably natural to assume that we caused the issue in the first place!! good public relations are always important when dealing with bees. Another benefit of catching swarms is that we can learn a lot about the way that colonies establish themselves in nature by observing their build up -especially so if they're allowed to build natural comb. Spent a few hours putting together a few bait hives today. In the past we've never used any specific design; empty broods and double nuc boxes probably being our favourite -because they've been available. This year we are making a few top bar nucs based around the warre idea but not strictly following the 'proper' design. In future years, as empty broods and nuc boxes become fewer in number this may well become a standard, cheap design for us. The photo is actually of an old modified dadant brood body which just happened to be waiting for some repair work... Do you overwinter 'spare' queens? Each year we try to leave a queen in each of our larger mating nucs as an insurance policy against winter losses; a spare queen at this time of year can save an otherwise good stock that has a drone-laying queen. Of course, we usually have plenty left over which we can then use to head increase nucs in May. Another advantage is that this method keeps the mating nuc frames stocked so when the time comes to place the first batch of queen cells we don't have the hassle of restocking empty mating boxes. Considering the winter which these small wooden nucs have been subjected to (relentless easterly winds for over two months) they seem to be doing really well for themselves. The frames are approximately the same size as a half length dadant shallow (langstroth medium) frame. The box in this photo holds eight frames during the winter months but is large enough to receive a central division board later in the season so that we have two four frame mating nucs in each box. |
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