Robbing Apideas

[Black Comb]

I placed some at home yesterday (opened after 3 days with cell). No hives at home.
Being robbed today. Reduced entrance to one bee space..
Anything else I can do?

[Jon]

You need to put the cells in within 24-48 hours of queen emergence to avoid chilling and queen damage especially to the wings and they should not be opened until the virgin is emerged from the cell.
Is it bees robbing rather than wasps.
Using fondant rather than syrup reducers the risk of starting robbing.

I have about 30 apideas with 20 feet of 10 strong colonies and there has been no issue with robbing.

[Black Comb]

Thanks.
Yes it's bees robbing (not many wasps about this year). They have fondant.
I don't understand the part about queen emergence. 9 days after grafting I filled the Apideas and following day placed queen cells in Ap. 2 days later I have placed them on the mating stands and opened.Is this correct?

[Jon]

That sounds ok if you put the cell in 10 days after grafting.
I leave the apideas closed and do not set them out open on the stands until the queen has emerged.
I check this by removing the cell and checking that the queen is out.
I find that an apidea opened before the queen has emerged loses a lot of bees to absconding.
The presence of the virgin queen seems to hold them in the apidea.

[Black Comb]

Thanks. Now I understand

[fatshark]

If its bees robbing did you prime the Apideas with bees from the same or a nearby apiary? Perhaps some left, returned to their 'home' and told them about the fondant? I usually prime mini-nucs with bees from a distant apiary and keep them locked in for 3-4 days until the queen emerges.

If the virgin has only just emerged can you move them three miles or more?

[Black Comb]

3 miles not an option at the moment but will be next season.
They were from supers (warm day, lot,of adults flying) in the main apiary about 1 mile away.
Learning lots on here.
Thanks all.

[Jon]

The virgin queen usually takes her first orientation flight on day 4 or 5 after emergence so you have a few days to make up your mind about a change of site for the apidea.

[Adam]

An apidea can be robbed out in no time.

If you close up the robbed hive in the evening (if you can wait that long), you'll see bees hanging around trying to get in the next morning.
Icing sugar shaken onto robbers as they leave the hive can help you identify where they come from.

I have had 2 small nucs that were suffering just a few days ago. (One was my fault). I shut them up as soon as I saw the robbing and moved them 2 miles to my out apiary and let them out the next day. The robbers then became part of the colony - I was pleased to find that in both, the queens were there. There was very little stores as both had been robbed out so they were fed with syrup and now fine. Both queens laying. :) it brought a smile back to my face.
An out apiary is a GOOD THING and highly recommended.For beekeeping. ALSO as Wife doesn't know I have 5 colonies there, she thinks there's just 2!

[Black Comb]

Sorted out a move to a friends' apiary tonight.
I checked the queen cells, one has been chewed out at the side so I assume it's a goner.
Advice I have received in past said it's OK to insert cells without cages or Sellotape around. Last time I used Apideas they were all accepted without protection.

[Jon]

Most of the stuff you find on the internet about running apideas and inserting cells is nonsense and quite unnecessary, closing them in the dark for 3 days before inserting the cell and suchlike.
Every day an apidea is closed up you get more dead bees in it and they are under a lot of stress.
We have one guy in our group who fills them too early and opens them too late and half the bees are dead every time.
I fill my apideas with bees and stack them up and usually add the cell the next day, never any need for a cell protector.
If I fill apideas with bees from a box which has queen cells in it, I just put the cells straight in.
With the cells I graft, I cover them with roller cages 3 days before emergence date in case a virgin emerges early and pulls down the other cells.
I then try and insert them in the apideas about 24 hours from emergence date as the queen is fully formed at this stage and there should be little chance of damage through chilling of the cell.

[Adam]

I generally add the queencell and the bees at the same time - a day or two before emergence. Never had a queencell torn down - The bees have been living with the queencell for days anyway as they come from the same hive. I do keep them in for 3 days - in the cool - they then go out in the apiary they came from. By this time the queen is out and the bees are happy.

I did put some foil around a queencell just the once - that was in a full-sized colony this Spring where I wanted to replace the queen that was failing, with a different flavour. It worked.

[Black Comb]

These bees were from the super of a different hive but I did wait 24 hours before placing the cells in the Apideas.

[Rosie]

I like to get my mini-nuc bees from an out-apiary and then put the queen cell in as soon as I get home with them. I then keep them closed for 3 days in a shady spot and spray water in twice a day. After 3 days I release them at their mating site, about 150 yards from my drone colonies.

I was talked into releasing them straight away once and most absconded so I haven't tried that again.

Steve

[Jon]

As long as the virgin has emerged they should stay put. I had a guy bring three or 4 mating nucs to my allotment one time to get cells put in. He asked if he could leave them to mate with my drones. He put the cells in and while I was distracted doing something else he set them out and opened them. I checked them an hour later and each was left with about 30 bees in it. They were Kielers and had about triple the population of an apidea before he opened them. Most of the bees ended up in one of my apideas which had a mated queen in it and I had to put a super on it as it was so overcrowded.
3 days is about the time mine are closed in and as Steve says, the water spray is necessary especially if the weather is hot.

[fatshark]

Of course an exception to this "absconding unless there's a virgin present" is if the mini-nuc has been in situ for some time. I tend to use them for a succession of queens, taking one out and replacing it with another sealed cell or - if none are ready - allowing them to 'grow their own' and then either knock off the started queen cells when I add the grafted cell, or removing the scrub queen they raise. The main thing is to avoid having to repopulate mini-nucs during the season, which I find is a pretty thankless task.

[Jon]

I do that as well fatshark. If all goes well you can get three mated queens from a single apidea which you only had to fill once in May.
At the moment my average is one per apidea for this season but I have about 30 with virgins in at the moment so I hope to get the average up to 2 queens per apidea.

[Black Comb]

Whilst I have your attention can I ask another question?
At what stage do you mark / perhaps clip?

[Jon]

I don't mark and clip until the following spring but others I know mark and clip when removing the queen from the apidea.
I have lost the odd one after marking and I presume it is something to do with the smell of the paint.

[Rosie]

I mark mine as I remove them from the mini-nuc. If I clip at all I prefer to do it at least a couple of weeks after introduction to their new colony.

[fatshark]

Same here ... only mark them when I remove them from the mini-nuc and place them in a queen cage. That way they get an extra day or two to smell OK before they're released into the hurly burly of the hive. I haven't clipped mine this year.

Last few of the year marked this morning and into strong nucs (essentially full hives split in half). Last few cells from the Ben Harden setup into the vacated mini-nucs with the hope of late season mating and over-wintering. I'm running a much smaller number than Jon is, but this will be the third cell in each this year. All remaining mini-nucs are now double deckers and I've also built frame feeders for the top storey of a Kieler rather than use a third layer with fondant ... I found this tended to 'leak' down into the hive too much last winter.

[Jon]

I put the fondant in a plastic bag and make a couple of gashes in it with a knife.
I was surprised how little fondant they consumed last winter, about 10% of what I put in!

This is make of break time for my final batch of about 30 queens which are now about day 12 from emergence.
Yesterday was a perfect mating day.

[fatshark]

I realise we're wandering well off-topic here ...

Just a regular plastic bag, like one of those thin sandwich bags? I presume you just mould it to shape in the feeder compartment of the Apidea? Doesn't the cluster end up much higher in the box or do you run them single storey for the winter?

Perhaps it's time to start an overwintering mini-nucs thread?

[Jon]

Perhaps it's time to start an overwintering mini-nucs thread?

Mr Nellie can spin it out.

Yep just a regular plastic Tesco bag.
I only overwintered 4 and they were doubled up ie 10 frames plus a super with fondant on top.
Also acts as a good layer of insulation.

Others I know overwintered single apideas last winter but it was very mild.

[Neils]

normally be more than happy to, but there isn't really an obvious break in the thread flow, last 2-3 posts excepted, to be able to split it to be perfectly honest. It might be just as easy to actually start an overwintering thread.

[nemphlar]

Picked up what appeared to be cast last night, put them in box with the idea of checking round today,turned out to be the apidea I was going to try and overwinter on a double. The apidea was full of brood and they still deserted, although all the nucs were under serious threat from robbing , can't remember seeing such a frenzy across all hives.

[Jon]

I had an apidea in the garden try and abscond today. The excluder was on so the queen could not leave. The bees settled about 100 feet away on top of my shed beside where I have a colony and a few nucs.
I brought the apidea to the cluster and most of them went back in.
When they start this absconding lark they repeat it every day and I find they eventually kill the queen.
Having brood in the apidea seems to make no difference.
The best thing to do is to cage the queen and either leave the cage in the apidea or else introduce her to a nuc or a colony which needs to be requeened.
I have watched this absconding mania quite a bit and although the queen excluder stops the queen leaving, but they will either abandon the apidea and leave the queen with only a couple of bees, or else kill her.
In then former case the wasps will be in quickly.
You definitely need to take action once they try and abscond.