Waldemar:
> What are the coldest temps in the winter in Arizona?
Reply:
In my areas for apiaries/hives had many nights in teens this past winter along with snow.
continuing:
> I am not used to such rough handling of bees but suppose
> this is how commercial beekeepers go through hives.
Reply:
Only do this once a year when springs warrant it with good season coming on. Then you learn to roll and work up for both production and bees which doesnt come many springs, but this year it has.
continuing:
There
> must have been quite a few squashed bees from the movements
> I saw in the videos. I hardly kill a bee when going through
> hives. And my bees, a little unlike the video, do boil over
> with bees. If I did not smoke them into the boxes, I'd
> bee killing scores each time replacing a box.
Reply:
Not as many as you'd think, for you do not slam the boxes down in putting back on when ripping a main brood box, you slide it and that makes a big difference. So why do your bees boil over? don't you match the queens for negating right and left running and boiling movements?
Continuing:
> If you say you reeked of alarm odor, how come you were not
> getting stung? You'd expected a few stings under such
> conditions even from European bees.
Reply:
Wasn't really getting stung nor bees upon me for what we were doing, and even yards with 30-40 colonies each only took about a couple of hours to go thru (we averaged 4 yards a day by the way). I never said I reeked of alarm odor by the way. Where did that come from? But box jamming hives this way and ripping hives does put foragers/field bees into air, and in a way that is good, for doing this work you are only concerned about nurse bees anyways......for job at hand.
continuing:
> I was also very suprised how easily the boxes separated.
> My bees strive for continuous comb and I have to push down
> on the lower frames before lifting off a box.
reply:
The boxes/supers serperate easily because I like proper bee spacing, and not burr combs inbetween them on top bars, that makes for problems and who wants that mess anyways? Bad enough I see what little I do, though I do use it for annalyzing drones for varroa to see how hives doing.
continuing:
> I was also surprised how seemingly effortlessly Dee was
> lifting off those deeps! A strong person indeed. Even a
> brood-filled deep is somewhat heavy.
Reply:
Deeps are not heavy to handle if lifted properly and carried properly. Heck I am a woman and have no problem, but then have been in classes on how to lift and haul also growing up. Don't they teach beekeepers that anymore for working unlimited broodnests?
continuing:
> Wow! There was a mention a couple of times that you did
> not want to use smoke to drive nurse bees off the brood.
> Why? Were you concerned there would be insufficient nurses
> for the splits?
Reply:
Did not want to drive nurse bees off because want the nurse bees to match the frames, me being highly technical, and so with fast rip/divides/splits done the old way you do not do this, meaning use smoke. You are taught to not use smoker, but to eyeball the circumstances fast, and then count frames, see drones avail and then roll.But you want to look down thru the frames and not see bottom, but full of bees instead. Also you only rip off those with bees, brood and full stores to each side. Boxes with honey you exchange with weak hives bottom 1/3.
Dee
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