Hi Justin & All

> On 20 Mar 2020, at 10:08 AM, Justin Kay <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
> 
> Under the second option, the beekeeper may kill a queen (which costs
> $35 to replace), but prevents larger issues from developing, learns, and
> becomes a better beekeeper.
> 
> In my experience, the death of the colony from unknown mite
> levels/diseases/swarming to death/queen failure/starvation is significantly
> greater than the potential death of the colony due to a rolled queen.

I think there are several ways to avoid rolling the bees including the queen.  Firstly decreasing the number of frames in the brood box.  All of my hives have 9 frames per box thus making it easier to remove frames due to extra space.  Secondly, I normally run all my hives in single brood boxes which results in the bees storing brood food above the queen excluder leaving almost no honey in the brood chamber but wall to wall brood in the 9 frames.  Thirdly, during hive inspections, remove the second frame first as the queen is seldom that close to the wall, then move the other frames one by one into the open space before lifting it out for inspection.  The open space will work its way across the hive as each frame is checked until done then each moved back to their original space with the open space moving back across to the #2 slot so that the 2nd frame can be returned.

Bob Darrell
Caledon Ontario
Canada 44N80W
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