Overwintering a queen

[gwizzie]

Hi guys,

How many bees would it take to over winter a queen (mated) frames of nursery bees stores ect ?
Also when would this be too late to do ?

Thanks in advanced
G

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi guys,

How many bees would it take to over winter a queen (mated) frames of nursery bees stores ect ?
Also when would this be too late to do ?

Thanks in advanced
G

Hi Graham you can overwinter a queen in a Keiler mini nuc
A better chance might be if it was a double keiler mininuc
The double mininuc being small and cosy for fewer bees costs £13 + about £10 for the upper box ie upwards of £23

A better chance of making it would be a queen with at least 3 frames of donated brood and some foundation in a Paynes polynuc next month
Probably needing help to draw wax with light syrup £31.50 +delivery about £39

The most insulation might be the Thornes Everynuc which is much thicker poly and holds 5 frames
That's about £48 plus delivery so around £55 I guess (I think it has a built in feeder )
Again you would need about 3 good frames of brood plus the queen to get it going well and drawing foundation

If you raised a new queen now starting from scratch and grafting some larva into a cell bar it will take another 13 days approx for the queen to emerge ,about 7 more days before she is mated, then possibly anything up to 10 days to start laying so a month or nearly that

This gets us to the end of August approx and in September we are usually feeding bees to overwinter, at which time they are not keen to draw wax on foundation

So I would say either the single keiler well fed and fingers crossed

Or the Thornes everynuc but starting with 3 frames of brood next month for safety (relative)

But lots of people on here overwinter queens far more than I do
I only had one double keiler last winter with a spare queen

[gavin]

Yep, DR is on the right lines. Two frames in a Paynes nuc now, three next month, and the nuc has a fighting chance. However only if it is well stocked with bees of all ages, fed continuously and sited with decent forage in the autumn. Be careful not to lose the flying bees back to the parental hive.

If we have a dire August and September all bets are off.

[Bridget]

Yep, DR is on the right lines. Two frames in a Paynes nuc now, three next month, and the nuc has a fighting chance. However only if it is well stocked with bees of all ages, fed continuously and sited with decent forage in the autumn.


There is a certain minimum of bees to add to an apidea which is well annotated but I don't know what amount to add to a new nucleus. I made one up last year, guessing the amount but I think there were not quite enough bees as although they survived just they then got very stressed at the beginning of spring and died off.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[drumgerry]

I think the point Gavin is making Bridget which holds true is the later you make the nuc up the more resources in bees etc you have to give it if it's going to have a chance of getting through the winter. Perhaps one way to go about it is to give it as many frames of bees/brood/food as you can spare without denuding your main colonies overmuch. Having said that some of us (well....err...me!) occasionally take a punt on a nuc and if we have a spare queen kicking about make up a nuc with less than the optimum and hope for a mild winter! It works some years and other years it doesn't.

[fatshark]

There's also a tipping point in the season - perhaps early August - when I'm looking at bulging nucs and wondering whether they need to be moved up to a full hive, or left in the poly box to overwinter. It's brinksmanship and heavily weather-dependent … a hot summer and long, warm autumn and they'll run out of space and possibly swarm. However, if the summer fizzles out and the autumn is cool and wet they'd never have expanded properly in a full hive. I usually err on the side of laziness (i.e. leave them in the nuc box) and justify it to myself by thinking that a strong nuc overwinters better than a colony with space in a full hive. Note that my nucs are generally poly and my hives cedar.

And back to the OP … I'd be surprised if a single Kieler would do in Ross-shire overwinter. Here in the Midlands I've had most success in a double Kieler, but even then have had at least one freeze solid on a particularly cold night. I ended up using the greenhouse to protect them - quite successfully. I think Pete Little overwinters his custom-made mini-nucs within a super stacked on top of a full colony, thereby benefitting from the heat rising up from the colony. There's a thread on this on the BKF, though the pics might have disappeared in a server meltdown.

[Calluna4u]

This gets us to the end of August approx and in September we are usually feeding bees to overwinter, at which time they are not keen to draw wax on foundation


Lol.....just along the road and the precise opposite of what we find both here and in Aberdeenshire. September and even early October are our key comb replacement months. They draw wonderful combs on the syrup feeding during preparations for winter, not a drone cell. You have about 3 weeks more of a window to get it done in poly hives. Bear in mind we are interleaving these into the nest, not placing them at the edges. We like a single generation of clean late brood raised in them.

We probably get 5 to 7 thousand sheets drawn at that time.

[The Drone Ranger]

Fair enough Calluna4u I'm sure you are right

How many bees would you say gwizzie needs to overwinter his queen ?

[Calluna4u]

Fair enough Calluna4u I'm sure you are right

How many bees would you say gwizzie needs to overwinter his queen ?

Depends very much what gear is available. Much along the lines of your first response.

We never overwinter mini nucs (Apideas etc and boxes of similar size), we don't even try as failure rate is too big to make it a productive exercise. However for using Paynes boxes there is still plenty time and we are still making some up this week with one full bar of brood, one of stores, enough bees to cover the two, and the rest foundation. As Gavin touched on feeding is then the main consideration. We do not feed constantly as they can put away too much syrup and hamper the brood raising. For a nuc of that size a litre a week is enough to make sure they do not starve and the queen keeps laying.

By the end of August you can still make them up but need a good bit more brood.

A rule of thumb is that one bar of brood equals three of bees once hatched is not far off, maybe a tad optimistic, but if you get these nucs up to 4 bars of bees by late August, with a good queen in them, they should overwinter OK.

Last autumn we tackled the failures in the nucs ( drone layers or queenless) by stealing two bars of brood from other nucs, and caging the queen between those, and it worked a treat, all but one of those got through, and that was mainly done on 23rd September, but a handful were about the 8th October. Still worked. So there is more flexibility in this than many would think.

There are guys in Canada overwintering several thousand poly nucs in a similar way. The trickle feed seems, to them, to be the crucial thing. You need to keep her laying if possible. As for our very late ones? Well we never checked after introduction, indeed the introduction cages were still there in April. No time for them to raise much brood before winter.

We will try to overwinter a handful of Keillers this winter to see what happens, using guidance from a friend in Europe who brings them through in a cold environment.

[The Drone Ranger]

Thanks for that Calluna4u
I will put that good advice into practice regards the polynucs and the feeding

I have tried apideas through Winter but they failed and worse still rodents ate holes in them

I only took one double keiler through last Winter for the sake of having a spare queen
It was up about 5 feet off the ground on a shelf south facing and made it in good shape

[mbc]

Down here nucs need to be made with plenty of bees from here on in or robbing pressure (wasps and other bees) gets them.

[derekm]

Hi guys,

How many bees would it take to over winter a queen (mated) frames of nursery bees stores ect ?
Also when would this be too late to do ?

Thanks in advanced
G

To stay at the same level of thermal stress per bee, for each halving of the population you need to halve the lumped thermal conductance of the hive. Or put in more practical terms the natural logarithm of the ratio of the outside dimensions divided by inside dimensions, needs to double.

Regards Derek

typo

[Jon]

Derek.
You can overwinter a queen in a small insulated box such as a double apidea with less than 1000 bees in an average winter.

[derekm]

Derek.
You can overwinter a queen in a small insulated box such as a double apidea with less than 1000 bees in an average winter.

Its amazing how much you can increase the stress on the bees and often get away with it. Bees are tough little so an sos

The physics tells you how much you are increasing the stress.

[Jon]

The physics tells you how much you are increasing the stress.

How do you measure stress on bees? Insulation is one factor out of about 50 you could take into account.

[derekm]

my original posting is about thermal stress, the energy to maintain homeostasis.

[The Drone Ranger]

Its slightly at a tangent but E.P.Jeffree did a whole study on "Colony Size Throughout the Year and The Best Size To Overwinter"
The study was conducted in Aberdeen
He was working out the best size of cluster to go into Winter with
Apparently too big is as bad as too small

The smallest colony only had 690 bees at one point in the year and still survived

They compared single and double wall hives and found it made no difference to their overwintering success
Odd and counter intuitive

[derekm]

Its slightly at a tangent but E.P.Jeffree did a whole study on "Colony Size Throughout the Year and The Best Size To Overwinter"
The study was conducted in Aberdeen
He was working out the best size of cluster to go into Winter with
Apparently too big is as bad as too small

The smallest colony only had 690 bees at one point in the year and still survived

They compared single and double wall hives and found it made no difference to their overwintering success
Odd and counter intuitive

the devil is in the detail... did he actually measure the conductance of the hives? and give values?
that lecture doesnt appear to be publicly available can you dirct me to a copy?

[The Drone Ranger]

Tell you what derek if I get a chance I will scan it and post
It is April 1959
No conductance I am afraid
I think they had figures for the outer and inner temperature of the cluster
The surface area of the cluster dependent on the number of bees etc
They were more interested in survival rates, colony size fluctuations, and honey produced

[derekm]

If you can that would be great. Unfortunately almost all bee research seems to lose vital bits of info as regards heat loss. E.g size of colony or thermal properties of the hive. Often all they say is 'insulated' or 'double walled' which is bit like saying 'South' but not saying where from or how far.

[prakel]

To stay at the same level of thermal stress per bee, for each halving of the population you need to halve the lumped thermal conductance of the hive. Or put in more practical terms the ratio of the outside dimensions divided by inside dimensions, needs to double.

Regards Derek

So you think the op needs to get some new boxes rather than worrying about how best to manage the ones he already has?

[derekm]

To stay at the same level of thermal stress per bee, for each halving of the population you need to halve the lumped thermal conductance of the hive. Or put in more practical terms the natural logarithm of the ratio of the outside dimensions divided by inside dimensions, needs to double.

Regards Derek

note: The actual calculation of lumped conductance is much more complicated because of external/internal convection, corners lack of floor etc...
its really best to experimentally measure or simulate using CFD

[derekm]

So you think the op needs to get some new boxes rather than worrying about how best to manage the ones he already has?

you can reduce conductance with a drop over insulating cover of PIR, tape sealed inside and out.

[prakel]

you can reduce conductance with a drop over insulating cover of PIR, tape sealed inside and out.

So how many bees will that take?

[derekm]

So how many bees will that take?
I can tell you the physics the bees have to deal with... not how many bees is the lower limit , The physics shows you need very high levels of insulation for very small colonies not to increase thermal stress.
We have fullsize colonies in full size hives of 50mm PIR all year ... So the upper limit of insulation is not the worry. One experiment (not ours) with a very small colony used a tube of 140mm PIR with a 3 way folded frame.

[Jon]

500 bees can overwinter in an Apidea which has poly walls around 20mm thick.
The key factor is not the thickness of the walls, it is adjusting the number of bees to the volume of the box they live in.
500 bees would not overwinter in a national brood box even if the walls were 2 metres thick!

[gavin]

And that is a good way to demonstrate that thermal stress on its own means little, it is all to do with how thermal factors interact with all the others influencing the living colony. Bees can survive on comb out in the open, at least for a while. In winter, it is the interaction of insulation, the cavity size, ventilation, the proximity to food, in particular the proximity to food upwards where it is warmer, the size of the cluster, moisture availability, disease status of the bees, number of healthy young bees, state of the queen ..... and many other factors. If insulation in relation to winter survival bothers you then you need to consider the first seven of these (and probably more) which all interact in complex ways that vary through the winter.

More simply, bigger, well-provisioned colonies buffer their own environments. Smaller ones can only survive if their environment is right. Empirically, experience shows that bees overwinter better in well-designed polystyrene hives than in traditional wooden ones.

[chris]

In my previous location, winter températures often went down to -20c , stayed negative over long periods,and I never needed to insulate walls to overwinter the bees. Perhaps I was wrong, but I think if we start to tinker with the hive climate we need more knowledge of all the parameters than I have.
I found that the most important factor in cold winters was the presence or lack of brood.No brood allows the bees to survive at lower températures, and they can go into a sort of coma where they certainly don't seem stressed. They also are in a fitter state for foraging at the beginning of spring.
What I don't like about wall insulation is that the bees risk to be out of sync.with the outside weather when the winter is coming to an end, and unnecessary flights can be a reason for consuming stores, not to mention the queen starting to lay too early.
Of course, different climates have different problems.

[derekm]

500 bees can overwinter in an Apidea which has poly walls around 20mm thick.
The key factor is not the thickness of the walls, it is adjusting the number of bees to the volume of the box they live in.
500 bees would not overwinter in a national brood box even if the walls were 2 metres thick!

The volume of the cavity is not relavent its the the properties of the enclosure that inlfuence heat loss.

as regards thickness of wood you are correct the thickness of wood you would need to correct a colony mass reduction of a factor of 30 (15000 to 500) in a wooden national(dimensions ~ 300mm) is about 5 metres wood or 1 metre of PIR.

if you reduce to the box to 75mm square then you can use 1 metre of wood or 200mm of PIR.
The basic research on Bees is Southwick, E. E., 1982. Metabolic energy of intact honeybee colonies. Comparative Biochemistry &
Physiology 71, 71(2), pp. 277-281.

but i think its only valid down to 2000 bees.

the physics you can read up in
Incopra, DeWitt, Bergman & Lavine, 2006. Fundamentals of heat and Mass transfer. s.l.:John Wiley
and sons.

if you only reduce from 15000 to 2000 (7.5 reduction) bees then your wooden national sized box needs 200mm walls of wood or 40mm of PIR or 60mm of polystyrene.
a 75mm sized box need 55mm of wood
a 100mm sized box needs 75mm wood

if you want to have the same conditions as a poly national hive. then for a 15000 to 2000 reduction
Then all the numbers change. Then we are considering 140mm PIR or 200mm of polystyrene for a 2000 bees colony in a national box
a 75mm box 55 mm of poly
a 100mm box 75mm poly or 50mm PIR

Why dont you come to the SBA Autumn convention and we can talk in person.

[Jon]

The volume of the cavity is not relavent its the the properties of the enclosure that inlfuence heat loss.

Ok then. I challenge you to overwinter 500 bees and a queen in a national size cavity. You can use whatever material and whatever thickness of walls which takes you fancy.
I have done it in an Apidea with 20mm poly walls. Good luck!

[derekm]

The northern races of Apis mellifera (A.m. mellifera, A.m. iberensis) advanced through Europe using tree cavities. They acquired different characteristics to cope with cold climate.
But the thing beekeeper might forget is tree cavities on average have very thick walls. They have a very different shape. Both that shape and wall thickness reduce the thermal conductance. The experimental and CFD research I have conducted into the thermal conductance has shown the difference is dramatic.
Honeybees in northern europe have evolved with nests insulated well well beyond any commercially available hive.

[mbc]

The northern races of Apis mellifera (A.m. mellifera, A.m. iberensis) advanced through Europe using tree cavities. They acquired different characteristics to cope with cold climate.
But the thing beekeeper might forget is tree cavities on average have very thick walls. They have a very different shape. Both that shape and wall thickness reduce the thermal conductance. The experimental and CFD research I have conducted into the thermal conductance has shown the difference is dramatic.
Honeybees in northern europe have evolved with nests insulated well well beyond any commercially available hive.

This is partially correct but it overlooks those colonies that chose rock cavities, overhangs and large open tree cavities which can all be more exposed and much colder with less insulation than even a thin plywood hive. Insulation and entrance size are significant in colony health but of tiny importance compared to other factors like available forage and the condition of the bees themselves.

[derekm]

This is partially correct but it overlooks those colonies that chose rock cavities, overhangs and large open tree cavities which can all be more exposed and much colder with less insulation than even a thin plywood hive. Insulation and entrance size are significant in colony health but of tiny importance compared to other factors like available forage and the condition of the bees themselves.

1)That some colonies can survive in suboptimal conditions does not make the above statement partially incorrect.
2)lower enclosure temperatures have been shown to have direct effect on honeybee health
3)Dont forget thermal losses are a drain on the energy supply all year not just winter, and especially during honey flows. Everybit of energy loss has to be fetched and stored by the bees. Remember each joule saved in thermal loss saves more than one joule, just the same thing as every gram off an airframe saves more than one gram in airframe weight, energy losses make up a substantial part of the forage that has to be fetched.
insulation is not just for christmas

invite me to talk in Wales and I can answer you directly, at length, with references.

[Jon]

So again, if the volume of the cavity is not relevant to heat loss how come a small colony of 500 bees can survive a winter in a small cavity but would not survive a winter in a large cavity no matter how well insulated it is?

[busybeephilip]

So again, if the volume of the cavity is not relevant to heat loss how come a small colony of 500 bees can survive a winter in a small cavity but would not survive a winter in a large cavity no matter how well insulated it is?

mild winter ?

[Jon]

Would have to be one of those Irish sub tropical winters we know and love Phil!
And even at that, fitting the volume of bees to the volume of the box is critical.
Even with a brood box if the bees don't need 11 frames I take out two or three and replace with a dummy board.
Extra space in the box creates problems if the colony is small irrespective of the wall thickness.

[gwizzie]

Ouch is there such a thing as a simple answer to the simple question Asked ? nope.

Do I now have to read loads of papers on thermal thickness of walls in a hive and learn the scientific equations just to over winter a queen bee ? :confused::confused: LOL

[gavin]

Ouch is there such a thing as a simple answer to the simple question Asked ? nope.


That's beekeeping for you ;)

[gwizzie]

That's beekeeping for you ;)

Yep it is Gavin BUT don't forget the scientific equations of space and thermal efficiency LOL

[drumgerry]

Don't forget Graham that beekeeping is ultimately a practical skill. There's plenty on this forum with that skill in abundance and you won't go far wrong by paying close attention to them! Equations in space time continuity won't advance you much in the practical department!

[gwizzie]

Don't forget Graham that beekeeping is ultimately a practical skill. There's plenty on this forum with that skill in abundance and you won't go far wrong by paying close attention to them! Equations in space time continuity won't advance you much in the practical department!

I never take good old knowledge and well practiced advice for granted, as I myself am a practical kind a guy not into reading books and Equations. The reason I joined is to learn from people that have been doing this for longer than me. ;)

[The Drone Ranger]

I never take good old knowledge and well practiced advice for granted, as I myself am a practical kind a guy not into reading books and Equations. The reason I joined is to learn from people that have been doing this for longer than me. ;)

In Winter Graham you can still get some pleasure from beekeeping
I collect up old beekeeping books
Only when I spot them though I'm not a collector
That's us taken care of

In Winter the colony clusters and when they need more warmth at the centre they tighten up the cluster becoming more densely packed
If they get a bit warmer the cluster opens up a bit and there will be fewer bees to the Square inch at that point
The bees on the outside of the cluster are much colder than the ones in the centre so they rotate like Arctic penguins

Surprisingly there can be brood in any month during the Winter but not continuously
Probably that's to replace ones about to peg out
Those few larva are very vulnerable to varroa mites

The bees also have to move about on mass to access stores
Mostly working upwards but when conditions allow they move over to the next comb
Sometimes that doesn't work out and you get isolation starvation

Damp is a problem
They often don't get through it if they are damp (bit like me at a football match)
That can be caused by late syrup feeding they need time to concentrate it before the real cold weather
Sometimes it's just too many combs full of excess stores

Using poly hives gives more insulation but not necessarily healthier environments that's the beekeepers job
The key to getting them through winter then is :-
Make sure they are not suffering parasites , the queen is a good one, they have enough food, the hive isn't damp

[drumgerry]

Arctic penguins

Far be it from me to correct you DR as I know it's not the done thing but.......

;)

[Jon]

Equations in space time continuity won't advance you much in the practical department!

Bee = MC Squared

[drumgerry]

I only have an Arts degree and a Law degree so I'll take your word for that Jon!

[The Drone Ranger]

Far be it from me to correct you DR as I know it's not the done thing but.......

;)

Oh! Antarctic then Lol!

[Jon]

I only have an Arts degree and a Law degree so I'll take your word for that Jon!

I have a BSc but it is in Psychology so don't count on me for time space matter equations. All I know about Einstein is he never said diddly squat about bees.

[prakel]

All I know about Einstein is he never said diddly squat about bees.

Heading off at a tangent before going and doing something useful, this is actually an interesting read:

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCEQFjAAahUKEwi9xd-444zHAhUKlR4KHT1vB-c&url=http%3A%2F%2Fquoteinvestigator.com%2F2013%2F08 %2F27%2Feinstein-bees%2F&ei=HEy_Vb3HBoqqer3enbgO&usg=AFQjCNE5hoAtjAMYAaKssGXS8cFkfDTJCg&sig2=RDmUFcdpF-kAuI8aUaBLkQ

[busybeephilip]

I have a BSc but it is in Psychology so don't count on me for time space matter equations. All I know about Einstein is he never said diddly squat about bees.

Even if Einstein did or did not say that how much truth is in the statement given that man does rely heavily on honey bee pollination ?

[chris]

2355

[Jon]

Even if Einstein did or did not say that how much truth is in the statement given that man does rely heavily on honey bee pollination ?

That oft quoted statement about honeybee pollination providing 1/3 of the food we eat is not accurate either.

These things attributed to bees exist in an Einsteinian parallel universe - commonly known as journalism.

[Jon]

Heading off at a tangent before going and doing something useful, this is actually an interesting read:

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCEQFjAAahUKEwi9xd-444zHAhUKlR4KHT1vB-c&url=http%3A%2F%2Fquoteinvestigator.com%2F2013%2F08 %2F27%2Feinstein-bees%2F&ei=HEy_Vb3HBoqqer3enbgO&usg=AFQjCNE5hoAtjAMYAaKssGXS8cFkfDTJCg&sig2=RDmUFcdpF-kAuI8aUaBLkQ


In 1966 “The Irish Beekeeper” published a comment ascribed to Einstein that presented the grim four year time limit for humanity.
ie it is complete bull made up by an Irishman having a laugh. Plenty of precedent there!

[busybeephilip]

ie it is complete bull made up by an Irishman having a laugh. Plenty of precedent there!

If you read Prakel's link you will find that the statment was quoted by the Irish Beekeer, regardless of whether its true or not... how much of our food is related to pollination by honeybees?

[The Drone Ranger]

Is the kettle on yet I'm pretty sure he said that

[Jon]

Is the kettle on yet I'm pretty sure he said that

That wasn't Einstein. That was Mrs Doyle.

2371

[Calluna4u]

Haha...but that it were so.

It seems the famous Einstein quote originated as late as about 1985. Certainly is not a true quote.

Its first verifiable appearance was in a submission, I believe making the case for aid, by the French professional beekeepers.

[chris]

The site Prakel pointed us to states that the Irish magazine article originated from the French magazine "Abeilles et Fleurs". This is the magazine of UNAF, a beekeeping union which has a history of *arranging* the truth to serve its own ends.

[The Drone Ranger]

Just on the subject of overwintering a queen
I had been reading "The Apiarist" online before I knew it was Fatshark at the helm
That sounds wrong when I read it back :)

It's a great resource and I had a go at circle splits two of them

That's where my first batch of queen cells went into those 12 polynucs all of which made it
I am trying to take those through the winter so there will be an insurance for any losses
I have to say though it's an expensive project and I could have bought 10 queens from Jon next year for the outlay
But if you want to increase your hives(I don't but it's done now) then its a good way

I was less than confident of success initially so started them in 6 dilapidated ply nucs for the first try then transferred them to poly
The second lot were started in poly from day one it didn't make much if any difference

So thanks to all for their advice on queen rearing, circle splits, feeding etc (you have cost me a fortune :) )

[prakel]

It's a great resource and I had a go at circle splits two of them

Is this like a 'Jack Berry' circle? I've found them useful for making the splits but have had dubious results with regards to mating so now tend to redistribute the boxes after they've settled a little. That said, bees from (not too distant) carnica parentage always appeared to handle those mating circles better than ones of more orange ancestory.

[Jon]

When you make up a mini nuc or a nuc with a virgin queen you have about 4 days to change your mind re location as the virgin queen only starts to take orientation flights from around day 4 and mating flights from day 5 or 6 if weather is good.

[prakel]

I break the circle by re-orientating some of the boxes or moving them backwards a few feet etc. No issue what so ever, the workers can handle those small moves and as Jon says -it's done by the time the queen is taking orientation flights. The JB circle is very good at producing balanced nucs on full size frames which are intended to remain in the same apiary.

[The Drone Ranger]

Is this like a 'Jack Berry' circle? I've found them useful for making the splits but have had dubious results with regards to mating so now tend to redistribute the boxes after they've settled a little. That said, bees from (not too distant) carnica parentage always appeared to handle those mating circles better than ones of more orange ancestory.

I'm not sure
heres a link http://theapiarist.org/circle-splits/

I just made half a dozen stands with 8 inch legs
Picked a hive with 12 frames brood on a double BB
Stuck a cane in where the entrance was and used string to keep nucs equidistant from cane
Dismantled the hive gave each nuc 2 brood
Spaced out what stores and pollen was available
Waited knocked off Q/C starts
Gave them a ripe Q/C and food
Amazingly the flying bees shared themselves around all 6 nucs
Once they were laying, one of the second lot lost its queen so had to put another in , other than that plain sailing
Just like the instructions on the site

[prakel]

I'm not sure
heres a link http://theapiarist.org/circle-splits/

Pretty much the same thinking. Berry had a twist where he added a second brood and divided the frames into the pairs(?) that they'd be distributed in, then interleaved them with frames of foundation a week or so prior to the split. This is all from memory so I can't quote him exactly.

[The Drone Ranger]

That's a good plan I would try that next year if I am a bit more organised (unlikely)

[Charlie]

We like the Paynes poly nucs, very flexible piece of kit now that there are ekes and extra bodies etc. These are what we use for all of our queen mating and nuc creation.

Our bees overwinter exceptionally well in them, very low losses. The key is to make sure the colonies are well provisioned with stores, Pollen especially. This allows them to raise strong and fat winter bees, there should be sufficient pollen in reserve to allow early spring brood raising.

We overwinter several hundred in these boxes, highly recommended.

[The Drone Ranger]

We like the Paynes poly nucs, very flexible piece of kit now that there are ekes and extra bodies etc. These are what we use for all of our queen mating and nuc creation.

Our bees overwinter exceptionally well in them, very low losses. The key is to make sure the colonies are well provisioned with stores, Pollen especially. This allows them to raise strong and fat winter bees, there should be sufficient pollen in reserve to allow early spring brood raising.

We overwinter several hundred in these boxes, highly recommended.

Charlie have you any tips on avoiding squashing bees between the upper and lower broodboxes ?
The area between the frames and the feeder is wide and I always seem to get some bees galloping around on it

[Charlie]

To be perfectly honest, you are always going to get the odd one squashed. I don't see that as too much of an issue. We just don't have the time to mess about clearing them out of the way.

One tip I will pass on tho...

Put Vaseline around the mating faces of the boxes, otherwise if the bees propalise the seam, they are a bugger to separate.