Dave Jurgens wrote:
>
> richard albert wrote:
> >
> > Hi Dave,
> >
> > Yesterday you mentioned that in mid-April you "go through every colony and
> > clean them, move honey stores to the outside walls...and move any eggs or
> > brood to the bottom box and put empty frames with pollen and honey in the
> > top box."
> >
> > Could you please tell me how you avoid chilling the brood.  I live in
> > Southern New Brunswick and want to get an early start.  Yet, I thought
> > mid-April was still too cold to open the hive.
> >
> > Also, how do you feed the bees.  With a tray feeder?
> >
> > Any info. will be a great help.
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> > Richard Albert
> > [log in to unmask]
>
> Hi Richard
> This is only part of the operation that we perform early in the sring we
> pick a nice day +10 and up temp wise.We move the brood frames and eggs
> to a new box ,with one frame of honey one each side along with one frame
> of pollen.This box in on a cart and put so the sun can keep it warm. You
> must make sure the outside temp.is within reason before you open the
> colony.When we are done our inspection and the boxs are put together we
> also apply a pattie along with medication on the top frame. Then we put
> on a 2 gallon tray feeder, one gallon full per each side of cane sugar
> suyrp, mixed 1 to 1 ratio.Over the years we have tried many different
> ways to inhance queen laying early in the spring and this method by far
> have worked the best. This is a lot of work but the crop at the end of
> year pays for this extra labour. We run 450 colonies, with only 3 family
> members helping out all year. Last year we averaged (including nucs)
> 176lbs. per colony.
>
> ps. I will work on a spring task list that we perform and e-mail it to
> you and you let me know what you think of could improve on.
>
> Thanks Dvae