Care of Apideas

[Kate Atchley]

Time to fight my way through, and deal with, the assorted kit piled up after the beekeeping season. What's the best method of cleaning used Apideas?

Maybe gentle scraping and washing soda solution? What strength? I've read of sterilising with a bleach solution but is that really necessary after the caustic soda? If so, what strength?

I was thinking of cutting away dirtied or broken comb from the Apidea frames but otherwise leaving them drawn and ready for next year. Any improvements on that?

Shame on me but hoping for rainy day tomorrow so I am not tempted to go forage for yet another great basket of hedgehog mushrooms and winter chanterelles! 1837

Kate

[Jon]

I gently scrape off all the wax and propolis.
I put everything in a sealed plastic container and fumigate with 80% acetic acid for a week.
Virkon is also good for killing disease organisms but not for use on the combs.
When starting next season, I leave the comb nearest the feeder intact and I cut back the two at the front to about half way so there is room to put in a scoop full of bees through the floor.
Any comb really black and manky gets discarded but I don't see why they should start drawing comb from scratch every year.

[Kate Atchley]

Sounds good to me Jon. Much happier to used acetic acid than bleach for cleansing. I use it for the drawn supers anyway.

I hadn't thought about the need to make space to tip the bees in pdq. A useful tip, thanks.

[gavin]

Now you're showing off! Hedgehog mushrooms I know, though rarely find, but I don't know winter chanterelles. Are they as tasty as regular chanterelles?

Washing soda (not caustic) will clean off the hive parts quite well and if you want Apideas that look clean that will do the job. No need for caustic which is used for hives known to be contaminated with nasty stuff such as foulbrood. I'll be following Jon's suggestion for the better quality comb but ditch the brown stuff. I usually fumigate any half-decent comb (as long as it is empty) on full frames for next season's bait hives and spare boxes anyway.

[Kate Atchley]

Now you're showing off! Hedgehog mushrooms I know, though rarely find, but I don't know winter chanterelles. Are they as tasty as regular chanterelles?

Winter chanterelle ... not the favourite fungi of folk with bad backs as they're tasty but tiny so you need to pick lots (see LH pile in basket above). They're beautiful dried whole and resurrected in risotto if you have any to spare. I found a great patch of them in the woods opposite the house and seem to be the only taker (me and the slugs that is).

[Linco49]

Winter chanterelle ... not the favourite fungi of folk with bad backs as they're tasty but tiny so you need to pick lots (see LH pile in basket above). They're beautiful dried whole and resurrected in risotto if you have any to spare. I found a great patch of them in the woods opposite the house and seem to be the only taker (me and the slugs that is).



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[susbees]

Any comb really black and manky gets discarded but I don't see why they should start drawing comb from scratch every year.

I leave them with one each but like to keep combs in apideas really fresh. As for the cleaning, erm, not started yet but sealed up against moth. I have a large storage tub with lid and the scraped boxes are dunked in washing soda for a couple of days before rinsing. The little bits go in the standard soda bucket.

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi Kate
propolis doesn't dissolve easily but surgical spirit is pretty good

[Poly Hive]

Bernard was very keen that baby nucs SHOULD start the season on a foundation strip. He believed that it helped make a cohesive colony esp when as is often the case there are multiple colonies as doners so there are various families in the mini unit, and that it mimiced natural behaviour as in a cast would have to do just that. And of course there is the hygiene aspect. A clean start.

PH

[Jon]

80% acetic acid fumigation on comb = a clean start. AFB is about the only thing it wont kill.
An apidea full of bees is much less than your average cast and the bees struggle to draw comb if the weather is wet or cool.
Also, an apidea is filled with bees shaken from a colony and is more akin to a bunch of bees who have just found themselves queenless as opposed to the bees in a cast.
Giving an apidea at least one comb very much helps it.
And lest we forget, you can get a second or a third queen from a single apidea in a season and these ones are starting with comb drawn by the initial group of bees. You remove the mated queen and add a queen cell or a virgin to an apidea with bees comb and brood.

The Mobus/Bibba book 'mating in miniature (1983) is very dated and suffers from the common fault of making everything seem ten times more complicated than it has to be.

The equipment he is using which predates Apideas is archaic and massively over-engineered.

[mbc]

80% acetic acid fumigation on comb = a clean start. AFB is about the only thing it wont kill.
An apidea full of bees is much less than your average cast and the bees struggle to draw comb if the weather is wet or cool.
Also an apidea is filled with bees shaken from a colony is more akin to a bunch of bees who have just found themselves queenless as opposed to the bees in a cast.
Giving an apidea at least one comb very much helps it.
And lest we forget, you can get a second or a third queen from a single apidea in a season and these ones are starting with comb drawn by the initial group of bees. You remove the mated queen and add a queen cell or a virgin to an apidea with bees comb and brood.
Also an apidea is filled with bees shaken from a colony is more akin to a bunch of bees who have just found themselves queenless as opposed to the bees in a cast.

The Mobus/Bibba book 'mating in miniature (1983) is very dated and suffers from the common fault of making everything seem ten times more complicated than it has to be.

The equipment he is using which predates Apideas is archaic and massively over-engineered.

I wholeheartedly agree. Even better than some drawn comb is some brood. When running lots and lots of mini nucs, its quite evident that those which succeed first time and get another cell are far more likely to succeed a second, third and even fourth( occasionally) time than trying to restock failed mini nucs. Its a very good argument in favour of trying to overwinter some bees on mini nuc frames to provide frames with brood to get the ball rolling for the first grafts in the following season.

[Kate Atchley]

As ever, I've been enjoying and appreciating the discussions here. Thanks to everyone. This is such a great motivator to us to up our beekeeping game, but with somewhere to turn if in doubt.

[wee willy]

Hi Kate
propolis doesn't dissolve easily but surgical spirit is pretty good

Once took along a super when doing a talk to a ladies club. One lady ,looking at the propolis, asked " don't you clean these boxes?" I replied " it ain't what it looks like madam " I borrowed a spoon, scraped a little and warmed the spoon with my trusty turbo lighter. The aroma was Divine :) so was her expression as she was obviously expecting the pong of a nappy change :D
WW


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[The Drone Ranger]

I'm with you there willy when I have to get it off the mesh on contact feeders I give it a touch of the surgical spirit then the boiling water -- smell is loverly :)

[Poly Hive]

I would disagree with that Jon, regarding the over engineering. It's a box with a compartment for food and that is all. In my thoughts less engineered than the Apidea which I have never liked to be honest, and the minis I have are going to out last me as they are at least 30 years old now. :) I will reread my copy of mating in miniature and comment on that as I haven't touched it in long enough. If anything from memory Bernard was trying to ensure clarity.

PH

[Jon]

I would disagree with that Jon, regarding the over engineering.


look at the diagram on Page 18.

detachable feeder, clips, velcro fasteners, rotating metal entrance disc, pivot, transparent side, tape hinge, base with ventilation holes, section support cleats, more velcro, and this is built to hold a section!

I have never seen a home made mating box which does not have several design faults when compared to an apidea.
Too big, too heavy, feeder compartment the wrong size, no excluder to keep the queen out of the feeder, poor lids, no insulation, no easy way to close up for transporting, leak bees in transport are the most common faults.
If you get your apideas in use by the end of May you will average between 2 and 3 queens per unit over a season.
twenty quid for a Apidea and queens sell for £40-£50.
It's a no brainer.

Mating in miniature is an interesting read but it has leaden prose and really does make out that queen rearing is far more complicated than it has to be. Look at the section on how to fill mini nucs with bees for example. Madness!

[drumgerry]

I tend to agree Jon. I'm forever telling people that queen rearing isn't rocket science as many of the books would have us believe. Not sure Mating in Miniature is much worse than many others though. And I think the Apidea is a wonder of Swiss design and engineering! My queen rearing was transformed the moment I switched to using them.

[Kate Atchley]

Used them for the first time this year and was more impressed than with any other piece of bee kit ... very well thought out ... fun to work with!

And who needs to read books when we have you guys condensing them into a few succinct phrases for us, with comparative analysis too! Keep it flowing I say ...

[Adam]

Mobus' book is very old now, maybe consigned to the history shelf? and the polystyrene mini-nucs work as well as a small box can. I notice in the (horrible) Elgin Holm book that they use single frame mini-nucs in mating apiaries.

I have mostly got Swi-bine mini-nucs and just a coupe of apideas and one Warn-holtz. Last winter I held each one under a bleach/water mixture in a bucket for a couple of days with a house-brick so they were all sterilized and white again. Grotty comb was removed. The rest of the comb/frames were treated with Acetic Acid and starter strips put in where needed.

One way of getting mini-nucs started is to get them going early in the year is to use a queen you don't like - the odd one that exhibits bad temper at first inspection which you don't want to allow to continue. I've got one wooden mini-nuc that takes 9 swi-bine frames so a bad-tempered queen and some bees can be dumped in that with the remaining colony united with another. Flighty bees in a mini-nuc are not a problem and are easily managed - in fact their behaviour tends to improve in a small box. By the time queen-rearing starts the mini-nuc has frames of sealed/emerging brood that can be distributed to others and the queen can be squashed after doing her job.

[Jon]

One way of getting mini-nucs started is to get them going early in the year is to use a queen you don't like

That is an excellent idea as queens of that ilk usually get squashed.
Apideas have removable feeders and there are supers you can buy so there is no reason why you could not put a queen and a good shake of bees into a stack with about 20-25 frames in it.