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Mrs Fiddlesticks

Joined: 02 Nov 2004
Posts: 10460

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 08 7:50 am Post subject:
we got 2 reconditioned national hives from the guy who ran our course. We've one set up with bees and one at home awaiting more bees (Tim is thinking of trying to encourage an artificial swarm to populate that one, or we might just order another nuc of bees + queen)

joanne

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 7100
Location: Morecambe, Lancashire

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 08 7:59 am Post subject:

I'm also hoping to take an artificial swarm from mine - they are from very prolific stock but apparantly that can make them quite swarmy - which make's sense to me

I only had them on a single brood box last year but my first task this year as soon as the weather warms up enough for them to manipulate wax is to get them onto double brood which seems to be the norm around here and will help with space and then take an artificial swarm - the queen was new last year so I want to breed from her - All a bit scary though having never done it before but probably not as scary as dealing with a swarm - the thought of coming home to find they swarmed scares me even more

Rosemary Judy

Joined: 08 Aug 2005
Posts: 1215
Location: East Midlands

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 08 8:00 am Post subject:
I learnt all about swams, real and artificial last week in my bee keeping class. And have just gone into total panic as I cannot remember how to get an artificial one to happen where are my notes..... ? Like the link to the red cedar hives - thanks for that. I want to go to Stoneleigh too- and would love to meet some Downsizers. The 19th looks good in my diary at present.

alison
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 29 Oct 2004
Posts: 12918
Location: North Devon

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 08 8:22 am Post subject:
Mandy The apairy sell their own made hives, which some of the committee make. They are the same as mine, and are lovely cedar hives, nationals.

joanne

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 7100
Location: Morecambe, Lancashire

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 08 8:28 am Post subject:

Artificial Swarm - You need to do this when you have found some unsealed queen cells - this signifies that the colony is thinking about swarming - if the cells are sealed - you are too late - they will have already swarmed

You take 2 frames of stores plus a frame of eggs and brood (with no queen cells) with their nurse bees and the queen and put them in a nucleus box with 2 new frames for them to draw out - block up the front of the hive with some grass so the bees can't get out and as it wilts the emerging bee's will orientate on the nucleus

The original colony now has all the flying bee's and the main stores and lots of brood - you remove the scrub queen cells and leave maybe 2 or 3 really good ones and the colony will raise a new queen - Because the queen has gone - they think a swarm has taken place

You then leave the original colony alone - can't remember how long it is - need to check my notes - until the new queen has emerged and is laying - in the mean time the nuc with the original queen is continuing to lay and you can build that nuc upto a full colony

Thats is one way of doing it - the way I was shown but there are many variations

https://turlough.blogspot.com/2006/04/artificial-swarm-tip.html
https://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman/artswarm.html
https://www.honeystonecandles.com/research02.htm

including the complex Snelgrove method - which apparantly is difficult to learn but once you understand it is brilliant - so I've been told

https://www.derbyshire-bka.org.uk/wiki/index.php?title=Snelgrove_Swarm_Control_Method

woodsprite

Joined: 20 Mar 2006
Posts: 2943
Location: North Herefordshire

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 08 10:33 am Post subject:
2, WBC, secondhand complete with colonies last year. I know nationals are lighter handling but our WBCs look soooo much nicer!

StuP

Joined: 19 Jan 2006
Posts: 123
Location: Aberdeenshire

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 08 10:50 am Post subject:
We have three hives - although only one's currently occupied We bought Nationals new (flat packed) with inheritance money from Kat's gran who used to keep bees down in Guildford. We thought it was the kind of thing she might have approved of. All of her equipment was gifted to the local association years ago except for one rather rusty old smoker.

lottie

Joined: 11 Aug 2005
Posts: 5059
Location: ceredigion

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 08 1:28 pm Post subject:
Because we've acquired bits piecemeal[ never one to pass by a bargain ] we have 2 kinds of hives----Langstroths and nationals---to complicate matters even more the langstroths have modified dadant supers---I prefer langstroths for the bigger brood box---but we got the national hives second hand for �20 each--and it is easier to get bargain bits for them---juggling is sometimes required

chez

Joined: 13 Aug 2006
Posts: 35935
Location: The Hive of the Uberbee, Quantock Hills, Somerset

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 08 5:17 pm Post subject:
We have four WBC hives, two of which are occupied at the moment. We are hoping to artificially swarm them this year and fill the two empty ones. Rather than the five uncontrolled swarms that we had last year

lottie

Joined: 11 Aug 2005
Posts: 5059
Location: ceredigion

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 08 5:25 pm Post subject:

Chez wrote:

Rather than the five uncontrolled swarms that we had last year

Tell me about it!!!---they only did it when my O.H. was away as well and formed clusters where they were well nigh impossible to get---last year mine just hadn't read the book---got really badly stung through gloves one swarm was so bad tempered. Better things this year

chez

Joined: 13 Aug 2006
Posts: 35935
Location: The Hive of the Uberbee, Quantock Hills, Somerset

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 08 6:24 pm Post subject:
I took comfort from Mochyn telling me that one year during his boyhood, ALL of Sir Edmund Hillary's father's 69,000 hives swarmed at once Edit: it might have been 6,900. But LOTS!

sean
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 42219
Location: North Devon

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 08 8:54 pm Post subject:
Frankly even 69 hives swarming at once sounds like lots.

lottie

Joined: 11 Aug 2005
Posts: 5059
Location: ceredigion

Posted: Thu Feb 14, 08 12:26 am Post subject:

Chez wrote:

I took comfort from Mochyn telling me that one year during his boyhood, ALL of Sir Edmund Hillary's father's 69,000 hives swarmed at once

Edit: it might have been 6,900. But LOTS!

WOW and er WOW!!!!!

mochyn

Joined: 21 Dec 2004
Posts: 24585
Location: mid-Wales

Posted: Thu Feb 14, 08 11:14 am Post subject:
And Chez's hives are coming over here to live with my two as part of the great Montgomeryshire bee co-op...

chez

Joined: 13 Aug 2006
Posts: 35935
Location: The Hive of the Uberbee, Quantock Hills, Somerset

Posted: Thu Feb 14, 08 11:19 am Post subject:

mochyn wrote:

And Chez's hives are coming over here to live with my two as part of the great Montgomeryshire bee co-op...

But there will, categorically, be NO SWARMING. I will be having a stern talk with them before they go.

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