In article <[log in to unmask]>, Tim
Vaughan <[log in to unmask]> writes
>About what percentage of the time would you guess that the bees make a new
>queen above the queen excluder and you end up with a two queen hive using
>the method that Murray now uses, and Bob used to?

The answer to that question is that it very much depends on the
condition of the colony at the time of performing the operation.

Take a colony which has been reaching the capacity of the box, but not
yet commenced swarm preparation. No cells commenced, and outer bars
still predominantly eggs or very young larvae, in other words still in
an expansion phase.

In this case the drawing of cells in the now isolated nest at the top of
the hive would be unusual, perhaps 10% of colonies.

The frequency of going on to produce a crop of cells increases the
further on you get with cell preparations, and if you have reached the
stage of cells which are capped or nearly capped the process is futile
and more radical action is required.

IF they go on to draw cells upstairs you are left with a number of
options, so it is not necessarily a bad thing. You can remove all but
one and stagger the boxes so the young one can fly and mate from above,
you can insert a board to seperate the colony into two, raising a split
that way, remove the old nest to a new location, or simply wipe all the
cells out. You have to be aware though, that cells in the top can also
mean the fever spreading to the bottom box and cells being drawn there,
and mother can try to go off in a swarm.

Providing you have not left anything in either box in the way of cells
you have 10 days to get back and decide your next course of action. (If
any.)

If I find swarm cells at all advanced (cells elongated) then I never use
this basic system, opting for a splitting strategy instead, and that is
another game altogether.

This will all seem so laborious, but we have a window from start of May
to start of July to get all colony development done and all major
operations, and you have to try to operate a 10 day cycle (or as close
to it as circumstances permit) during that time to make the best of the
limited opportunity.

Murray
--
Murray McGregor

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