Still swarming

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You miss the point ... if you put a super on top then you will end up with the brood in it come spring and stores, potentially, left below in the brood box. You can't leave a queen excluder in place to stop the queen moving up and laying as you risk her being left out as the cluster will establish itself at the top of the hive.

Put a super underneath and if they need the space for honey they will fill it but the brood nest will be where it should be in Spring .. you can then, when Spring arrives, remove the super from underneath the brood box when, with luck, by then, it will be empty. Wintering with supers on top of the hive is Soooooo.... old fashioned ...

In addition ... Irishguy has made kingspan bonnets for his hives so the likelihood (if it's anything like my insulated hives) there will be brood for most of the winter and a very early start to brooding in the spring ...

Any super added on over winter can effectively become a brood box. It doesnt matter where they end up in the spring. It cant be used again for honey. Not if youve treated or fed.
I mentioned nothing about a QE.
There's no right or wrong technique it what suits the beek so saying that old fasioned is misleading newbies.

And if i shook swarm in the spring none of it matters where they are.
I dont think a kingspan bonnet will ensure an early spring build up anymore than me using a poly.
 
Are u saying you'd allow and over wintered super into a food source. Rather you than me. No thanks.

That'll be your opinion and not the norm with beekeepers world wide - there is no legislation stopping frames that have formerly been used for brooding being used for honey extraction later, Just that you can't extract when there's brood present.
 
That'll be your opinion and not the norm with beekeepers world wide - there is no legislation stopping frames that have formerly been used for brooding being used for honey extraction later, Just that you can't extract when there's brood present.

Nothing to do with brood. Read thread again. Im talking about treatment and feed.
 
I think the implication here is that any supers left in the hive overwinter will have been there during verroa treatment so then ought not to be used as a honey source.
 
Swarm but no Queen Cells found

One of my hives swarmed on the weekend, but when I went inspected the source hive there were no queen cells present.

I went through it twice to make sure I didn't miss any and I'm fairly confident the hive was the source of the swarm (I saw them cluster on the front before departing). I'll inspect it again in a week to see if I can make more sense of it, but can anyone tell me, can bees swarm without leaving behind queen cells?
 
One of my hives swarmed on the weekend, but when I went inspected the source hive there were no queen cells present.

I went through it twice to make sure I didn't miss any and I'm fairly confident the hive was the source of the swarm (I saw them cluster on the front before departing). I'll inspect it again in a week to see if I can make more sense of it, but can anyone tell me, can bees swarm without leaving behind queen cells?

Is there Bias in there?
 
Any super added on over winter can effectively become a brood box. It doesnt matter where they end up in the spring. It cant be used again for honey. Not if youve treated or fed.
I mentioned nothing about a QE.
There's no right or wrong technique it what suits the beek so saying that old fasioned is misleading newbies.

And if i shook swarm in the spring none of it matters where they are.
I dont think a kingspan bonnet will ensure an early spring build up anymore than me using a poly.

As we are on the main forum and not in the kindergarten then I think we are allowed to play rough ...

If you read the plethora of threads on the current situation that many beekeepers are facing .. ie: the mild weather leading to lots of brood, lots of forage and full hives ... the greater majority of people are looking at Nadiring supers for just the reasons I have given - it's not misleading people it's giving good advice based on more modern thinking.

As for insulation ... it's been well documented if not proven that bees that are kept in well insulated hives over winter DO build up quicker in spring - if you are using poly hives surely you must have reached the same conclusion ?
 
As we are on the main forum and not in the kindergarten then I think we are allowed to play rough ...

If you read the plethora of threads on the current situation that many beekeepers are facing .. ie: the mild weather leading to lots of brood, lots of forage and full hives ... the greater majority of people are looking at Nadiring supers for just the reasons I have given - it's not misleading people it's giving good advice based on more modern thinking.

As for insulation ... it's been well documented if not proven that bees that are kept in well insulated hives over winter DO build up quicker in spring - if you are using poly hives surely you must have reached the same conclusion ?


I could say wood was old fashioned is that good advice…
 
I think the implication here is that any supers left in the hive overwinter will have been there during verroa treatment so then ought not to be used as a honey source.

Again - that's rubbish - by the spring there will be no trace of thymol so the combs can be used for stores quite safely - if the hives are managed properly that is
 
Any super added on over winter can effectively become a brood box. It doesnt matter where they end up in the spring. It cant be used again for honey. Not if youve treated or fed.
I mentioned nothing about a QE.
There's no right or wrong technique it what suits the beek so saying that old fasioned is misleading newbies.

And if i shook swarm in the spring none of it matters where they are.
I dont think a kingspan bonnet will ensure an early spring build up anymore than me using a poly.
conventional wooden hives lose more of the energy that the bees have worked so hard to collect...
That's incontrovertible thermodynamics.
why have a more inefficient honey factory?
Why stress the bees if you dont have to ?
insulated hives with bottom entrances no top vent build up faster
its in the research , its documented by one of the largest bee farmers in the UK

yes you can choose the more inefficient stressful method of beekeeping
 
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conventional wooden hives lose more of the energy that the bees have worked so hard to collect...
That's incontrovertible thermodynamics.
why have a more inefficient honey factory?
Why stress the bees if you dont have to ?
insulated hives with bottom entrances no top vent build up faster
its in the research , its documented by one of the largest bee farmers in the UK

yes you can choose the more inefficient stressful method of beekeeping

I was being sarcastic…..
 
Again - that's rubbish - by the spring there will be no trace of thymol so the combs can be used for stores quite safely - if the hives are managed properly that is
I agree, even if you feed thymolated syrup, as long as the bees have eaten it all, which (if the super was below the broodbox) they should have (but no guarantees) by Spring.
 
Very confusing indee. some of you really need to find something else to do...
 

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