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General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
 #11069  by NigelP
 04 Jun 2021, 10:57
Well I'm having to make snelgrove baords....as soon as my bees get local genes into them they become annual swarmers.
On a positive note I put clearer boards on some hives yesterday with more to do when I a can free up some empty supers. About a month behind last years harvest.
 #11074  by JoJo36
 05 Jun 2021, 06:45
Well Nigel, the snelgrove 2 version you adapted and I used last week has an update:
I checked the bottom box yesterday and the flying bees had pulled 4 cells which I destroyed as I want to reunite the colonies.
The top brood box with queen and nurse bees has appeared to have pulled down and even taken out royal jelly that was left in some queen cups and are going about their daily business without a care in the world??!!
I'm planning on re-uniting them next week so I have a spare brood box for future "emergencies" and will just use lots of smoke to reunite rather than newspaper method.
Thanks very much for your tried and tested method as I did wonder if it would work for me thinking I probably did something wrong when carrying out procedure as it seems dare I say "too easy"!!! :)
Much appreciated :)
 #11078  by NigelP
 05 Jun 2021, 16:25
Glad it's worked for you...once you see them pull down the queen cells you know there is something non swarmy going on in that top box. Now you simply need the young "scout bees" to mature into foragers and things should be back to normal.
As many of my colonies are on double brood I just sit the top box back down on the bottom box. I'm going to be doing this at an out apiary after only 7 days apart for reasons I won't bore you with, but been meaning to try and find the smallest time interval between things getting back to "normal".
 #11080  by JoJo36
 05 Jun 2021, 17:00
Double brood sounds excellent but, it would be too heavy for me when the box is full, I tried brood and a half last year but last year was a complete disaster for me so I thought "keep things simple"!! :)
I thought if I give it say 10 days from when I split colony I should be safe, but I'll check top box before I do this and pull any the bees in bottom box may have started to develop too!!
 #11083  by JoJo36
 06 Jun 2021, 07:35
I've just realised I placed the super above old brood box with queen instead of bottom one!!
Never mind I'll hopefully remember next time!
I'm thinking of re-uniting tomorrow if all looks good...........:)
 #11084  by Patrick
 06 Jun 2021, 08:39
Don’t know if it helps but I carry a stub of school chalk in the breast pocket of my beesuit. If I do a manipulation and need to remember where the queen is for next time, I just scrawl +Q and maybe the date ( eg 29/05) on the side of the relevant box. On nationals I use the recess to protect from rain. Also allows a quick revision of what I did before going home. It stays on pretty well.

A handful of grass scrubs it out when no longer needed. Very quick and allows the status of an entire apiary to be checked at a glance.

I also write with chalk on the sides of all my stored boxes in my bee shed their status. i.e. type of box how many frames, whether drawn comb or foundation and (if supers) whether narrow spaced or wide. You will quickly develop your own single letters shorthand. That way faced with an anonymous stack of similar stored boxes I can immediately locate the one with my queen rearing frames, that box of drawn foundation for a split or a box with foundation for a swarm or an empty super to use as a rapid feeder surround Saves a load of time going through stacks to find stuff.
 #11086  by JoJo36
 06 Jun 2021, 15:37
Patrick that sounds a good idea re chalk and better to mark just when you've inspected hive as I always think, I'll remember each hive but in reality I really DONT!! Also to mark supers is great, it saves you having to go through all the boxes to find what you want!
Nigel re snelgrove 2 adapted version: I checked bottom box again today and found 4 queen cells, one sealed which I pulled again! I was going to combine in a couple of days and wonder whether combining would stop the impulse to swarm if this bottom box is re-united with queen colony in top box? Eventually they won't be able to create queen cells as there won't be any young enough larvae to feed??!! I didn't check top as they seem calmer, bottom ones have the 'evil genes' at the moment!!:)
 #11090  by NigelP
 07 Jun 2021, 07:53
Yes the bottom box will try to create queen cells if they can as they are essentially queenless. I usually leave a single frame of older sealed brood in bottom box but it's amazing how often there are a few eggs or young larvae that you don't spot. I already know I'm going to have issues with one bottom box as the double brood had 16 frames of brood.....

It's not a 100% that they will loose swarming urge but damn close to it over 2 years of doing my swarm control this way.
I'm intending to unite about 5 colonies today that have only been separated for 7 days....should be interesting to see what happens.
 #11092  by AdamD
 07 Jun 2021, 08:58
I went to distribute some grafts on Saturday - but they had been broken down:-
I had chosen a colony with an old (2019) queen in which to raise queencells with the view that the queen pheromone would be weaker than with a 2020 queen and the colony would more readily get into supercedure mode using a Demaree method. Sure enough the stock produced a few queencells in the top brood box which I removed and I grafted 11 larvae. 3 days later there were three that hadn't taken so I grafted 3 more. By this weekend I had already taken out the original grafts and thought I had checked the frames for unwanted queencells. However on Saturday, I removed the frame to find no viable queencells and then looked for the offending queencell on a frame which I found -and then found the virgin queen. She is in a nuc with a frame of sealed brood and enough bees. With luck she will mate this week.
 #11097  by Alfred
 07 Jun 2021, 14:50
Crazy few days
From Thursday through to Satuday my phone was ringing with swarm calls
A pub,the county council,a nursery,a pes tcontrol company,
and four horrible sounding people who got referred to the association swarm list . Despite being to capacity now, I couldnt turn down the other two- stoic britishness at first but as the conversation moved along the voice hesistates,cracks and the desperation oozes through.
And those two were textbook SAS style jobs- a real pleasure.One in particular was hanging from a low branch I was able to raise the cardboard box up around them and slice off the cluster with one stroke.Flump.
The other one was hidden within a large shrub .A bit of trimming allowed enough room underneath for a a nuc.That left two retaining twigs that they were hanging from.
But which one first?
It was like bomb disposal...I made my decision and cut both ends of the first twig.I almost laughed as they scrambled up to the second one and the released twig magically slowly ejected itself fom the cluster.Thanks guys!.

Ive now got well over dozen colonies in a varying state of disrepair.
Some will definitely get united but Im waiting to see temperament show though.
The Wendy House gang subjected an arbitrary attack on Sunday so they're first on the list.Its a big colony so Im torn between a requeen or just using the stock to assist the smaller groups.
First world poblems..
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