On Wed, May 2, 2012 at 11:21 PM, randy oliver <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Juanse, you've got me really curious, but I'm not sure that I'm completely > understanding. Most of the time I do not understand my self either. I do not have a pattern, I change all the time depending on the conditions. I believe beekeeping is done like 200 years ago, with barehands, a hive tool, a smoker and a veil, the rest is a huge and ever expanding toolbox full of knowledge and tricks of the trade. I love to learn !!! > > Question: if you > 1. make up nucs from strong colonies, and I am not sure what do you call strong colonies. For sure I do not do what I understand you do. I mean, as we are not graded for almond pollination I do not have any incentive to build up colonies early. Also our early pollination uses between 1/3 to 1/2 our colonies, therefore, I let them "usually" buildup by themself and select the best/bigger/stronger ones to move to those early pollinations. Usually (again) I do not split during/after almonds, we "milk" frames to boost the smaller colonies that were left behind. We have supers we call "ambulances" with mesh on top and bottom, that we use to carry those frames we milk from the strong colonies. with this technique we level early all colonies. > 2. then gas those nucs immediately, and > 3. then place them in the same yard as the parent colonies, Some season, around mid november (around mid May for NH) we need to "milk frames" the strong colonies that are pollinating blueberries to avoid swarming, This is particularly so when we have canola planted near the blueberries. However we never make nucs bigger than 4 frames, because our nuc boxes are for 5 frames and we use one space for the frame feeder. Therefore, we milk frames and start filling nucs, as many nucs as frames we have. We try to mix frames from different colonies on one nuc, but I am not very strict on this procedure. Most of the time, to carry as less material as possible, we use those "ambulances" to fill them up with the milked frames and then do the nucs on another spot the following day. When I said "another spot" this could be from some meteres to some km aways. But yes, sometimes we do the nucs on the same yard where the milked colonies are. As we know some of the foragers will return to the "mother" hive, we shake bees from aditional frames above the frames with bees and sealed/open larvae. We do the nucs with the entrance close with a sponge. Our nuc boxes have an inch hauger (?) hole on the back, by the inside this hole have a mesh, so it is only for ventilation (no bees can move through it) We use this hole to AN gas the nucs. We gas the nucs after we have placed the queen caged inside. After gasing and while bees are sleep we take the queen out of the cage and "drop it" between the frames and on top of the bees (remember that the queen is also sleep). We close the nuc and open the entrance. > are you saying that the field bees in those nucs will NOT fly back to the > parent hives after they wake up? So yes I do not pretend with the gasing that the bees do not return to their original hives (parent for you, mother for me), we use the AN gas for inserting the virgin or mated queens fast, without having to go to the same yard again. But on the other hand, most of the time, we do not notice a huge reduction in population, so the AN gas is doing part of that trick. And as said before, we have used a couple of times the gasing for changing the foraging behaviour of the colonies, or for moving colonies a couple of meter aways from their current position to a newer one close by. And we have seen that it works. It doesn't work on a 100%, because some bees will return to their original position or keep their former range, but the results are quite interesting, enough to keep the AN as part of our toolbox. Hope I have answer your questions in my paranormal style .... did i told you - I love you too? Cheers Juanse Barros J. APIZUR S.A. Carrera 695 Gorbea - CHILE +56-45-271693 08-3613310 http://apiaraucania.blogspot.com/ [log in to unmask] *********************************************** The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at: http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm