Hi Murray Robin and all

I posted a piece in this thread and was about to ask Robin about jarring
when Murray posted...

> I don't understand why someone would be jarring the bees, as that would
> require some rough handling. However, that aside, your bees will soon
> enough tell you what they want. If they put brood right out to the walls
> then you have not given them enough width in the 9 bars, if they don't
> you are probably OK. Personally I don't think the BS box evolved
> entirely by accident and would leave them with 10 or 11 as designed.

I have some experiance of using dummies in the outermost positions in
National hives.

I started this when I was in the habit of using two broodboxes and prolific
bees of Italian lineage. The bees never really used the 22 frames available
and so as there are parts of Scotland that use dummies in the outer
positions I started using this method myself. It was useful in that the
outer frames were only ever halfheartedly used by the bees and were often
very scruffy as a result.

I have also used such dummies in a 'brood and a half' configuration. (which
is an abominable system anyway!).

When I changed over to using less prolific bees I was using 11 frames and no
dummies, but as I refined my breeding over several years the outer frames
became scruffy again and I started using one or sometimes two dummies in
those colonies that obviously did not need the space. Some colonies cluster
on only five frames... I am not talking about weak colonies here... these
colonies are this size by their own choice, but it is these colonies that
get the dummies.


Best Regards & 73s, Dave Cushman... G8MZY
Beekeeping & Bee Breeding Website
Email: [log in to unmask] or  [log in to unmask]
http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman & http://www.dave-cushman.net

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