The Buzz Newsletter

May 2008

 

 

Page 9

Spring Manipulation of Colonies Tried & Tested

LOCATION, is important. A terrain where there is a slight slope to the South with some wind break on the North and West is ideal. Open to the South as the bees need some breeze for venting the hive. You only hope that there will be plenty of blossom in the area for the production of pollen and honey.

Place the hive, or hives on hive stands or H frames to allow air to circulate underneath and remain dry. ALWAYS place the front to the South. WHY, because in nature bees always build their combs parallel north and south. Theya re zeroed in on magnetic North as are our birds. Dr. Lindauer of Germany discovered that if bees are placed in a perfect round object they will build their combs North & South.

If starting with packaged bees and new hives with foundation, the frames should have been prepared well before the arrival of the bees. The ten frame hive is the most commonly used hive. An inner cover is a necessity. The inner cover should be on e that is flat on one side with a rim on the other. Walter T. Kelly Co. makes such a cover. You may choose to make your own with ¼” plywood cut 16 ¼” X 20”. Nail a rim 5/8ths inches thick on one side. By drilling two holes near the center and with the space between sawed out you have created a hole for the bee escape should you prefer to use one. This also provides a hole for the most used bee feeder.

Now with hive in place you are ready to install the bees. Place the entrance reducer in the opening with the smallest opening. Prepare some sugar syrup and have it at hand in a clean garden sprinkler can. With the inner and outer covers on hand the installation can begin. Remove the cover from over the feeder can of the cage. NOW IS A TIME WHEN A BIT OF GETTING ROUGH APPLIES! If you have taken out the frames from the center of the hive, 4 or 5, bounce the package down on the hive shaking the bees from the cluster around the feeder can. Quickly flip it on one side and sprinkle good with syrup. Flip it over and do the other side to the extent that you think the bees may drown. Then remove the syrup can and the queen cage. Put the queen aside and proceed by placing your knee on the side of the hive to prevent it from slipping on the bottom and bang the cage on the front and back of the hive and the bees will all fall to the bottom of the hive. Replace the frames and then place the queen cage, screen side down in between the top bars of frames near the center of the hive. Then with rim side down cover the hive. If the queen cage has candy in one end then you could have poked a nail through the candy and the bees could release the queen in a couple of days.

Feeding the bees will be necessary. Place an empty hive body on top of the inner cover with a feeder over the hole in the inner cover. QUESTION: How long do you keep feeding? ANSWER: keep feeding as long as the bees keep taking the syrup. If there is no candy release then return in a couple of days and release the queen. The queen has been well fed by then and she will go right down between the top bars. It will take some time for the bees to draw cells on the foundation so the queen can begin laying eggs. It requires a lot of sugar syrup and attention that they never run out of food.

The process of actually putting the packaged bees into the hive will require about a minute. No bees will be in the air and all will be quiet in seconds. Some beekeepers who have established colonies may choose to make up the colonies that they dismantled last Fall because of lack of stores or became queenless or had too few bees to Winter. If colonies have wintered well by April 10th they should have as many as five or six combs of brood, some may have even more. Do this about six weeks to when you expect the major honey flow to begin. There is an easy method for doing this maneuver. Just take bottom boards, entrance reducers, inner covers and lids plus a few empty hive bodies and you are ready for business.

Examine a colony: If it has for example six combs of brood they can well give up a couple at this time. Find the queen, take two combs of the brood and adhering bees and place them in the empty hive. Shake another comb with bees into the new hive then cover. Return the comb containing the queen and fill in the combs from that which was originally the lower brood chamber. On to the next colony and take the same amount away from it IF it had six or seven combs of brood. Place those in the new colony along with those you collected before shaking in more bees. Then close the newly made up colony and move any others you may have made up to a location at least two miles away. By doing so you get no drifting back to the parent hives. Oh by the way it is possible that the parent colonies can also spare a frame of honey so the new colony should be given a couple of combs of honey. There will also be some honey around the outer perimeters of brood.

Place the colonies facing the South and if the ground does not slope that way simply put something under the backs of the hive to give a slight slope to the front. On arrival at the new location open the entrance to the small opening and introduce the queen. Again if there is queen cage candy adapted for the release of the queen then punch a small hole in the candy and the bees will do the rest. Lay the queen cage, screen side down in between the top bars  and in the confusion of the mixing of the bees they will accept the queen about 99% of the time. Inner cover rim side down. If some honey has been supplied no further feeding is necessary. If hive bodies have been constructed properly the bop bars of frames will hang approximately ¼” below the top rim of the hive body. SO, all other times the inner cover should be flat side down. Any additional space under the cover only allows the bees to place comb in the space and fill it with just enough honey to be a mess for the beekeeper.

By doing this you are actually equalizing the brood. So all colonies will produce with NO DUDS in the apiary the whole summer. You have also controlled swarming to some extent. There may still be some swarm cells through May and June. Now having completed your part properly the bees must and will do the rest. We always hope for a great honey production season.

If doing this at a later date simply increase the number of combs given to the new colony and leave more in the parent colony. During this procedure reduce all colonies to a single brood chamber. Three weeks later a second brood chamber will be needed.

Glen L. Stanley
2615 Aspen Road, Unit #1
Ames, Iowa 50014
Tele: 515-292-3243