BBKA Forum

British Beekeepers Association Official Forum 

  • What have you done today bee-related?

  • General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
 #4737  by Japey Edge
 04 Sep 2019, 16:53
Before I had purchased my hives I was strongly leaning toward Langstroth - simply because the numbers worked - ie how much a queen can lay vs how many cells per type (National, Langstroth etc.). I get the strong feeling that if every beekeeper started again from scratch and could set a new standard, Langstroth would probably be it here in the UK. I can't imagine Nationals would be the mainstream thing. That is strictly from my newbie point of view.
Then I thought about 14x12 - which will be easier for me to move to if I need to.
I'm in a position where, if I have a really good queen, I'll be on probably double brood - that's double the amount of frames to look at each inspection and seems time consuming to me.

But getting back to what you're saying Adam, ignoring that National is the UK standard, would you not feel more comfortable with a Langstroth setup in terms of queen laying space and stores space?


And finally, what I did today was check on syrup levels that were topped up (2 litres each hive) only 20-21 hours prior and found the two poly nationals were near dry and the nuc took a good dent out of theirs too.
I noticed a few days ago the cone on my feeder won't click into place. That's annoying, but is even worse when I don't put the feeder lid on properly!

Image
 #4739  by NigelP
 04 Sep 2019, 20:29
Japey Edge wrote:
04 Sep 2019, 16:53

Then I thought about 14x12 - which will be easier for me to move to if I need to.
I'm in a position where, if I have a really good queen, I'll be on probably double brood - that's double the amount of frames to look at each inspection and seems time consuming to me.
I enjoy inspecting brood and have never found it a chore....However I don't usually bother to look at every frame of brood on double brood, at every single inspection, pointless exercise. You decide what you need to see...say eggs and queen cells. Non in top box, unlikely to be any in bottom.
Find queen cells, you already have your two boxes ready to do your split/snelgrove/demaree.
Find your queen only lays in the top box (happens a lot in spring) you can move frames of brood into bottom box and bring empty frames up for her to lay in (called colony management).
Find your queen is not up to double brood....reduce to one....find she needs more than two brood boxes, add a third.
I could go on. ...and on. Standard Nationals are an extremely flexible modular system.
14x12 by comparison are horrible, very heavy and inflexible. Try doing a Snelgrove or a Demarree with 2 x 14 x12's.......
Last edited by NigelP on 04 Sep 2019, 20:34, edited 1 time in total.
 #4740  by NigelP
 04 Sep 2019, 20:34
Spike wrote:
04 Sep 2019, 19:50
Will there be enough drones for september mating?
A very good question.
I'm awaiting a couple of matings myself and there are still drones around...whether the weather proves amicable is the problem. Me thinks I'll be reduced to drone laying queens in a couple of colonies that are unlikely to survive the winter.
 #4741  by Cable_Fairy
 04 Sep 2019, 21:29
I had a superceedure in September last year and although there were worker eggs / brood late in the month, by the new year the queen had turned into a drone layer.
 #4742  by NigelP
 04 Sep 2019, 22:00
Japey Edge wrote:
04 Sep 2019, 16:53

I noticed a few days ago the cone on my feeder won't click into place. That's annoying, but is even worse when I don't put the feeder lid on properly!

Jazz, looking at your picture what the hell are all those bees doing on top of the crown board and under the(or in) the feeder?
The only bees should be in the cone, you have bees everywhere. Where are they coming from?
 #4743  by Japey Edge
 04 Sep 2019, 22:05
NigelP wrote:
04 Sep 2019, 22:00
Japey Edge wrote:
04 Sep 2019, 16:53

I noticed a few days ago the cone on my feeder won't click into place. That's annoying, but is even worse when I don't put the feeder lid on properly!

Jazz, looking at your picture what the hell are all those bees doing on top of the crown board and under the(or in) the feeder?
The only bees should be in the cone, you have bees everywhere. Where are they coming from?
I know Nigel I was pretty shocked too! I couldn't get the cone to click into place, it kept lifting just slightly no matter how I turned it about. On top of that, I somehow didn't put the feeder lid on properly. So the bees had a route through to the other side of the crown board. I clicked the lid back in place and will sort the bees inside the feeder out.

Now there's no route out for them. Daft mistake. Maybe a good excuse (to the wife) to get one of those Abelo feeders.
 #4744  by Patrick
 04 Sep 2019, 22:28
Irritating but not fatal problem Jazz.

Around me this time of year underemployed forager bees are always on the lookout for any free sweet stuff anywhere.

Piles of cleared supers, chinks in hive woodwork, roofs not put back properly you name it - usually resulting in piles of dead bees having either not found their way out or had a shindig with other bees. Feeders with any chink of access left will be full of drowned bees in a jiffy.

On the realistic side many colonies will be starting to have summer foragers die off anyway so it’s not always as dire as it may appear but it’s very easy with other things on your mind to make tiny errors in reassembled kit which seem to have big consequences in robbing bees. Out apiaries can be more of an issue as they may be visited less regularly so a problem may go on for longer before being spotted.

All I can say its happened to me this time of year on several occasions.
 #4745  by NigelP
 04 Sep 2019, 22:54
Patrick wrote:
04 Sep 2019, 22:28


All I can say its happened to me this time of year on several occasions.
I figure most of us have the T-shirt for this sort of thing. I'll bet our mistakes could be legendary.
The day the shed door opened mysteriously whilst inside was a load of recently extracted heather super frames springs to mind. It was black with bees, quite an amazing sight.
 #4746  by Japey Edge
 04 Sep 2019, 22:57
Thanks Patrick. Thankfully the gaps were all within that hive - as in, through the feeder into the roof space. They are all bees from that hive. No outsiders could get in. But yes, definitely a lesson learned.

Nigel, what did you do in that scenario?
  • 1
  • 66
  • 67
  • 68
  • 69
  • 70
  • 301