On Sat, 1 Apr 1995, Dave Green, Eastern Pollinator Newsletter wrote:
> Dear Bee-L'ers:
>
> We arrived back from our Florida bees last week to South Carolina, to find
> swarms galore. The season is about a week early, and I am about a week later
> than I had wanted to be. Dewberries are in full bloom.
>
> For those of you a little farther north, especially if you might get busy
> and not get back to the bees on a timely basis, now is a good time to stack
> your deadouts on top of something (Do a post mortem to make sure there's no
> AFB scale first).
>
> We've found eight so far that have been occupied by happy swarms, and we've
> caught two (not from our bees). I say set the deadouts up, because they
> will attract swarms much better if they are higher, though sometimes they
> will even come into low hives too.
>
> Right now we are on fast forward. We've been splitting the bees that are
> swarmy, and so far, have been mostly ahead of them, which gives us lots of
> cells. I used to avoid using swarm cells, reasoning that that encourages the
> swarmy trait in bees, but I've seen enough weak bees over the fast few years,
> that I've decided that bees that are strong enough to swarm are just exactly
> what I want.
>
> Each hive that looks good, but has no swarm cells we pull all but two
> frames of sealed brood from the brood chamber and raise it above the
> excluder, making sure the queen is below. I like to see them, but this year,
> this usually means shaking the bees off the brood, and they'll have to walk
> up through the excluder.
>
> We give the queen some nice empty comb in the center of the brood nest to
> lay in. This effectively stops swarming for a while, and over the first
> (deep) super with brood, we place a couple shallows.
>
> Those that have swarm cells are busted up for spits. Once they have the
> idea of swarming, it is almost impossible to stop them. Some hobbyists with
> lots of time cut out the cells, but you are apt to miss just one, and it's
> likely to be a little tiny one that makes a lousy queen.
>
> So the only practical way to save our livestock from running off into the
> woods is to help them do what they wanted to do - reproduce.
>
> We're just about out of nuc boxes, and are running out of comb, so we are
> trying an old trick that might be useful to others as well. We have A LOT of
> old junk deeps (with corners rotted off, etc.) We bust up the swarmy bees
> into 3-5 nucs. Each nuc is placed along one side of a deep box (2-4 frames).
> We don't look for queens once cells have formed, just making sure each nuc
> has at least one cell. Frames with cells are handled gently, and never
> turned upside down, as the queens can be damaged if their wings are in
> formation at the time.
> We've found eight so far that have been occupied by happy swarms, and we've
> caught two (not from our bees). I say set the deadouts up, because they
> will attract swarms much better if they are higher, though sometimes they
> will even come into low hives too.
>
> Right now we are on fast forward. We've been splitting the bees that are
> swarmy, and so far, have been mostly ahead of them, which gives us lots of
> cells. I used to avoid using swarm cells, reasoning that that encourages the
> swarmy trait in bees, but I've seen enough weak bees over the fast few years,
> that I've decided that bees that are strong enough to swarm are just exactly
> what I want.
>
> Each hive that looks good, but has no swarm cells we pull all but two
> frames of sealed brood from the brood chamber and raise it above the
> excluder, making sure the queen is below. I like to see them, but this year,
> this usually means shaking the bees off the brood, and they'll have to walk
> up through the excluder.
>
> We give the queen some nice empty comb in the center of the brood nest to
> lay in. This effectively stops swarming for a while, and over the first
> (deep) super with brood, we place a couple shallows.
>
> Those that have swarm cells are busted up for spits. Once they have the
> idea of swarming, it is almost impossible to stop them. Some hobbyists with
> lots of time cut out the cells, but you are apt to miss just one, and it's
> likely to be a little tiny one that makes a lousy queen.
>
> So the only practical way to save our livestock from running off into the
> woods is to help them do what they wanted to do - reproduce.
>
> We're just about out of nuc boxes, and are running out of comb, so we are
> trying an old trick that might be useful to others as well. We have A LOT of
> old junk deeps (with corners rotted off, etc.) We bust up the swarmy bees
> into 3-5 nucs. Each nuc is placed along one side of a deep box (2-4 frames).
> We don't look for queens once cells have formed, just making sure each nuc
> has at least one cell. Frames with cells are handled gently, and never
> turned upside down, as the queens can be damaged if their wings are in
> formation at the time.
> We've found eight so far that have been occupied by happy swarms, and we've
> caught two (not from our bees). I say set the deadouts up, because they
> will attract swarms much better if they are higher, though sometimes they
> will even come into low hives too.
>
> Right now we are on fast forward. We've been splitting the bees that are
> swarmy, and so far, have been mostly ahead of them, which gives us lots of
> cells. I used to avoid using swarm cells, reasoning that that encourages the
> swarmy trait in bees, but I've seen enough weak bees over the fast few years,
> that I've decided that bees that are strong enough to swarm are just exactly
> what I want.
>
> Each hive that looks good, but has no swarm cells we pull all but two
> frames of sealed brood from the brood chamber and raise it above the
> excluder, making sure the queen is below. I like to see them, but this year,
> this usually means shaking the bees off the brood, and they'll have to walk
> up through the excluder.
>
> We give the queen some nice empty comb in the center of the brood nest to
> lay in. This effectively stops swarming for a while, and over the first
> (deep) super with brood, we place a couple shallows.
>
> Those that have swarm cells are busted up for spits. Once they have the
> idea of swarming, it is almost impossible to stop them. Some hobbyists with
> lots of time cut out the cells, but you are apt to miss just one, and it's
> likely to be a little tiny one that makes a lousy queen.
>
> So the only practical way to save our livestock from running off into the
> woods is to help them do what they wanted to do - reproduce.
>
> We're just about out of nuc boxes, and are running out of comb, so we are
> trying an old trick that might be useful to others as well. We have A LOT of
> old junk deeps (with corners rotted off, etc.) We bust up the swarmy bees
> into 3-5 nucs. Each nuc is placed along one side of a deep box (2-4 frames).
> We don't look for queens once cells have formed, just making sure each nuc
> has at least one cell. Frames with cells are handled gently, and never
> turned upside down, as the queens can be damaged if their wings are in
> formation at the time.
> We've found eight so far that have been occupied by happy swarms, and we've
> caught two (not from our bees). I say set the deadouts up, because they
> will attract swarms much better if they are higher, though sometimes they
> will even come into low hives too.
>
> Right now we are on fast forward. We've been splitting the bees that are
> swarmy, and so far, have been mostly ahead of them, which gives us lots of
> cells. I used to avoid using swarm cells, reasoning that that encourages the
> swarmy trait in bees, but I've seen enough weak bees over the fast few years,
> that I've decided that bees that are strong enough to swarm are just exactly
> what I want.
>
> Each hive that looks good, but has no swarm cells we pull all but two
> frames of sealed brood from the brood chamber and raise it above the
> excluder, making sure the queen is below. I like to see them, but this year,
> this usually means shaking the bees off the brood, and they'll have to walk
> up through the excluder.
>
> We give the queen some nice empty comb in the center of the brood nest to
> lay in. This effectively stops swarming for a while, and over the first
> (deep) super with brood, we place a couple shallows.
>
> Those that have swarm cells are busted up for spits. Once they have the
> idea of swarming, it is almost impossible to stop them. Some hobbyists with
> lots of time cut out the cells, but you are apt to miss just one, and it's
> likely to be a little tiny one that makes a lousy queen.
>
> So the only practical way to save our livestock from running off into the
> woods is to help them do what they wanted to do - reproduce.
>
> We're just about out of nuc boxes, and are running out of comb, so we are
> trying an old trick that might be useful to others as well. We have A LOT of
> old junk deeps (with corners rotted off, etc.) We bust up the swarmy bees
> into 3-5 nucs. Each nuc is placed along one side of a deep box (2-4 frames).
> We don't look for queens once cells have formed, just making sure each nuc
> has at least one cell. Frames with cells are handled gently, and never
> turned upside down, as the queens can be damaged if their wings are in
> formation at the time.
> We've found eight so far that have been occupied by happy swarms, and we've
> caught two (not from our bees). I say set the deadouts up, because they
> will attract swarms much better if they are higher, though sometimes they
> will even come into low hives too.
>
> Right now we are on fast forward. We've been splitting the bees that are
> swarmy, and so far, have been mostly ahead of them, which gives us lots of
> cells. I used to avoid using swarm cells, reasoning that that encourages the
> swarmy trait in bees, but I've seen enough weak bees over the fast few years,
> that I've decided that bees that are strong enough to swarm are just exactly
> what I want.
>
> Each hive that looks good, but has no swarm cells we pull all but two
> frames of sealed brood from the brood chamber and raise it above the
> excluder, making sure the queen is below. I like to see them, but this year,
> this usually means shaking the bees off the brood, and they'll have to walk
> up through the excluder.
>
> We give the queen some nice empty comb in the center of the brood nest to
> lay in. This effectively stops swarming for a while, and over the first
> (deep) super with brood, we place a couple shallows.
>
> Those that have swarm cells are busted up for spits. Once they have the
> idea of swarming, it is almost impossible to stop them. Some hobbyists with
> lots of time cut out the cells, but you are apt to miss just one, and it's
> likely to be a little tiny one that makes a lousy queen.
>
> So the only practical way to save our livestock from running off into the
> woods is to help them do what they wanted to do - reproduce.
>
> We're just about out of nuc boxes, and are running out of comb, so we are
> trying an old trick that might be useful to others as well. We have A LOT of
> old junk deeps (with corners rotted off, etc.) We bust up the swarmy bees
> into 3-5 nucs. Each nuc is placed along one side of a deep box (2-4 frames).
> We don't look for queens once cells have formed, just making sure each nuc
> has at least one cell. Frames with cells are handled gently, and never
> turned upside down, as the queens can be damaged if their wings are in
> formation at the time.
Nice to hear of your adventures and thanks for indicating the area you
are in. I appeal to everyone to indicate their location - it makes for
much more interesting reading.
Here in northern Alberta my bees are still wrapped up. I was going to
start unwrapping next week (early for me) but the forecast calls for
below freezing at night so I may wait awhile yet.
Eric
|
