Double Brood

[POPZ]

Great to see a few other folk having a bit of a problem with irate ladies!!

I want to try one of my colonies on double brood, having been single brood so far. I have a very strong colony that I split several weeks ago. The split is going great guns and not taking much syrup and the parent colony is very strong now.

Is this the right time to introduce a second brood box and if so, I presume it would be the stronger parent colony to undergo this treatment??

Otherwise all looking good - as long as they don't decide to have a go at swarming.

[Jimbo]

Hi Popz,

When you run a lot of colonies it is easier to spot the nippy ones, the good ones and the down right rubbish ones. Most beginners only have a few colonies and it is harder to make a judgement if you only have a few colonies to compare against.

About double brood. I tried it last year with one of my colonies. I followed Ian Craigs method. You can download it from the SBA web site. It is called my beekeeping year. He does not fill both boxes with frames but moves frames about. I think at this time of year he reduces back to 1 box so that he gets a honey crop. I found it a bit of a faff and I did not get much honey. The only advantage was the queen had lots of room and did not produce queen cells and did not try to swarm compare to 7 other colonies I had last year in single boxes. Last year was poor for honey so it was hard to judge if it would have been better.

Jimbo

[Calum]

Ahoy,
I keep all my 'industrious' colonies on 20 brood frames. As Jimbo points out the queen has more space to lay, and the pressure to swarm is lowered untill the hive is full of bees, but then it can be immense (have taken up to 4 frames of closed brood and 4 frames of bees out for making strong nucs, and they were building queen cells 2 weeks later.
These strong colonies are massive in a good season and can take up to 3kg a day in full swing.
If they have a couple of rainy days / weeks, they can eat their way through a kilo a day in feeding themselves and the massive amounts of brood. So it is a bit of a two edged sword.
Last 3 years I was getting 35kg per colony in a year. This year has been poor first too cold then too wet, now too hot & dry (34°C today)- only 10kg / hive so far, but 3 nucs per hive too.

[Jimbo]

Hi Calum,

One of the problems we have in Scotland is the weather. It can be more variable than European weather. This can have an effect on brood size. It is a bit hit or miss if you will fill double broods. Some of our members have Langstroths and don't do as well as a national size box due to that little bit extra in size. It would be great if we could get a bit more of this global warming. This week we have had a lot of rain and little foraging by the bees. About 200 miles to the south of us they have been having their hottest day this year.

Jimbo

[Calum]

Hi Calum,

One of the problems we have in Scotland is the weather. It can be more variable than European weather. This can have an effect on brood size. It is a bit hit or miss if you will fill double broods. Some of our members have Langstroths and don't do as well as a national size box due to that little bit extra in size. It would be great if we could get a bit more of this global warming. This week we have had a lot of rain and little foraging by the bees. About 200 miles to the south of us they have been having their hottest day this year.

Jimbo

Hi Jimbo,

I agree totally. As said, it is a two edged sword and I keep my bees in the south of Germany. In a good year great, in a poor year decreases the crop. Although I am not too worried, I prefer a few kilos less honey but a lovely big ball of bees covering ten frames in December.. Have to feed them more though - 16-18 kg instead of about 12kg, so keeping 10 frames of brood can well be more economical.

[POPZ]

Guys, thanks for your input. Guess on balance it sounds more sensible to stay single brood till I have more experience on local conditions and the ladies needs here.

Incidentally, although running only 2 full colonies, it is pretty obvious already which are the nippy as opposed to the gentle ones - very obvious!! So i guess the next challenge is learning to deal with this situation.

[gavin]

I'd have thought that with the stimulative feeding you were doing, double brood would be an option early in the season. Will you be trying pollen substitute patties again next year? Did the feeding give you an early build up this year?

Ahoy from me too! ;)

G.

[POPZ]

Gavin!! Great to hear from you - hope all well up your way - or is it across, maybe even a tad south???

Yes, I had tremendous build up early on and will repeat again next spring, including trying double brood at that time. I did not get the patty feeding right and will have to think more on that one. BUT, despite watching the ladies very closely I lost the prime swarm whilst away in Colonsay. No idea how that happened. However I did manage to get a couple of nucs off the remainder which are progressing very nicely and of course the parent colony is looking a wee bit faint at the moment.

Colonsay lot are just grand, although the split I made is not progressing as much as I would like.

How are yours looking. What news regarding AFB and EFB?

[gavin]

Hi Richard

Across my way does it for me!

We all lose swarms sometimes (even me!). It is a good reminder to be looking *really* carefully for queen cells.

Andrew called the other night to discuss some matters dear to his heart. I have a lot of splits too, trying to fill 8 or 9 boxes from not enough bees - after only one coming through the winter. I reckon that I'll be going through a lot of sugar before the winter comes.

The word from the inspectorate is that there are a lot fewer cases of AFB and EFB this year. I don't suppose that we'll know for sure until later in the season, but it sounds relatively good so far. For one thing the weather has been good, but is going downhill now which might make EFB at least recur here and there.

best wishes

Gavin

[Calum]

Hi Gavin,
alot of sugar? But you feed liquid right?
ttfn
Calum

[gavin]

Yes, sugar dissolved in water. 1:1 syrup. Maybe stronger stuff later, or fondant if I can get my hands on a decent supply.

[Calum]

In the club here we make our own fondant. 10kg sugar powder and 6kg honey makes a fantastic fondant. We have an old bakers industrial breadmixer for that.
Perfect for queenraising. I am a bit leary of using fondant otherwise as the bees have to haul a lot of water to process it which also shortens their lives considerably.

From our local feed shops liquid feed is available that consists of 75% sugars. They start at ,49pence/kg. Getting 1000kg delivered this week.

The bees can almost deposit it 1:1 in stores so it does not 'age' the bees as much..

[POPZ]

Yes, sugar dissolved in water. 1:1 syrup. Maybe stronger stuff later, or fondant if I can get my hands on a decent supply.

Aha - I have been feeding gallons of 2:1 to all nucs, seems like I have wasted a lot of sugar! I just extracted my first ever honey from a few frames with much excitement only to find it is quite tasteless and realise it must just be the very syrup I fed them!! Doh!

[Hoomin_erra]

Is Fondant not a better option over a crownboard, as then you don't get the issue of supers full of syrup?

[gavin]

When I made some queen candy the total weight must have been about 10g! Enough for one cage.

Fondant as the main source of winter feed seems to work for those who use it. The fellow whose method I've used usually has excellent winter survival.

The commercial beekeepers buy in bulk feed, often liquid, but the hobby beekeepers usually make up a few buckets in their kitchens. We have such a gulf between the two, and with selling honey becoming more heavily regulated that gulf may remain.

Richard: I'm going to have to send Trog round to give you a proper scolding!

I'm sure that they'll use 2:1, but 1:1 is better in spring and summer to make more bees.

G.

[Jon]

Aha - I have been feeding gallons of 2:1 to all nucs,

Hi Popz.
I never feed in the summer unless it rains solidly for 2-3 weeks.
I have noticed that even the smallest nucs are managing to store honey and the bees in my Apideas have stores and have hardly touched their sugar.
If you feed sugar with supers on, some or all of it will end up mixed with your honey and make it unsaleable.
During inspections I remove any frames which are full of stores and replace with drawn comb or foundation to ensure that the queen has the full brood box to lay in.

The one exception I make is the colony I have set up for queen rearing. I feed it a pint a day of weak sugar syrup as nutrition affects both the acceptance rate of grafts and also the size of the queens produced.

[gavin]

Is Fondant not a better option over a crownboard, as then you don't get the issue of supers full of syrup?

I wouldn't feed with a super on at all, unless you are trying to fill a super with stores for wintering. Syrup and fondant will go into a super if you feed over a super that the bees are working.

Even left-over syrup or fondant stores in the brood box in the spring will end up in a super placed over the brood box if the bees build up quickly and need the space. Not all the stores get used and the bees will relocate it where there is space. Try dying your feed and see for yourself! That is one reason for me being frugal with winter feed, but I think that in the bees' interests I'm going to feed more heavily in future.

If you have a colony that fills its brood box(es) in summer then it will put honey stores in the outer frames. As the brood nest contracts the middle frames may get filled naturally if there is still a flow, or you may need to feed. That feed if given late in the season will be used up first and so when the bees suddenly need a lot more brood space in spring they will move up last year's honey into the super you've just given them.

G.

[gavin]

I would think that it would be sensible to feed small nucs through the summer so that they reach a decent size for the winter, unless you are in a particularly favoured spot as Jon might be. Never with a super on - you wouldn't put a super on until they are nearly filling a brood box and before they are at that size they don't need summer feeding. Unless you are deliberately trying to fill a super with syrup/fondant honey, but then you would have to manage that next season to segregate honey from artificial feed.

G.

[Jon]

I would think that it would be sensible to feed small nucs through the summer so that they reach a decent size for the winter,
G.

I tend to redistribute frames of stores rather than using feeders. If a nuc has a frame of honey/stores, that should be equivalent to a couple of weeks of reserves in bad weather.


then you would have to manage that next season to segregate honey from artificial feed.
That is definitely true.
If you feed in the autumn, you need to remove frames of capped stores in April before the supers go on or you will end up with adulterated honey.
I know beekeepers who feed right through Spring and then put a super on a day or two after stopping feeding.
A week later the super will be half full but I doubt if much of it is honey.


Try dying your feed and see for yourself!
Someone who posts on the bbka forum did just that and he found that the winter stores in the brood box ended up in every super, even supers added later in the season. I think there were 3 or 4 of them. Bees move stores all the time.

[Hoomin_erra]

So if i can get them to fill a super with honey, that should get them through the winter? And then no issues with syrup next spring.
Or will they still require a feed?

I'm using smiths btw.

[Jon]

My bees, which are native type, get through the winter with about 30lbs of stores which is equivalent to about 6 deep frames full of stores.
I feed heavily in the Autumn and they usually have 40lbs or more going into winter to allow a margin of error.
I invariably have to remove a frame or two of stores from each colony in April.
I never leave supers on as it gives the bees a big extra space to heat.
If you have Italian or Carnica bees the winter clusters are much bigger and they will need more stores and more space.

[Hoomin_erra]

But can you not put the super under the brood without a QE, thus the bee's move up over winter, heat stays in, but also then brood laying doesn't occur in spring in the super?

[gavin]

Yes, HE, that is an option. Bees do tend to move up to reach stores though (and they fill over their heads through the summer to be ready for this), so I might worry that your super wouldn't be accessible if the weather turned cold - unless the bees had the time and inclination to rearrange the honey before the season ended. If you are doing that then you may as well feed them syrup (or fondant) and keep the honey.

If you are not keen to extract the honey then leaving the super in place but without a queen excluder is a reasonable insurance and many beekeepers do this. Insulating above the crown board may help, but as you've spotted there is the issue of recovering the super without brood. Having said all that some beekeepers do as you have said, but I've never seen it done.

[Jon]

If the bees have a brood box and a super full of stores there will be about 75lbs of stores in total which in my experience is more than twice as much as they can consume.
If you put the stores under the bees there is a risk of isolation starvation in a cold snap when the bees cannot move the cluster.
Bees like to have the stores above them. That's what they do in a feral colony.
I reckon that a colony with extra space to heat in winter is at a disadvantage and the extra stores are unused anyway.
When I check my colonies in late October, I reduce some of them to 7 or 8 frames by inserting a divider with insulation behind it.
If you are worried about lack of stores, weigh the colony in October and again in February. If stores are low you can put a block of fondant above the hole in the crown board or directly on top of the frames inside a shallow eke.

[Hoomin_erra]

Ok, that sounds like a solid plan. and the kids get to eat the super honey on toast.

In regards to fondant, can you use the cheap ready icing in supermarkets as i have been told? Or is it better to use a recipe?

And do you have one?

[Jon]

This is the stuff you want.

http://orders.bakonorthern.co.uk/gb/product/__202770__/

[gavin]

And this is how to do it:

http://www.stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk/PENotes/Fondant.htm

[Hoomin_erra]

So i could feasibly wait until the heather is finished, and then remove the filled super(s).

Then in October if light, put an eke with a block of fondant.

Sorry about all the questions. his will be my first winter with bees, and i would rather not have to buy another nuc next spring.

[gavin]

No probs with the questions, but remember this is just one opinion.

You can leave an eke (or empty super) on with the longitudinally split block of fondant on top. As Jon mentioned, air space above the cluster isn't good, so if the fondant is on the top bars it might be a bit airy. I've done this, but then my recent record with winter survival hasn't been that good. Even if it isn't ideal it should be OK though, especially with insulation over the crown board. Fondant on the crownboard over the feed hole is sometimes just too far way for the bees to reach when things get cold. You could insulate with sacking over and around the blocks of fondant.

The heather will probably be on the turn in early September, maybe a week in. I'd feed then rather than waiting until October (heavy syrup or fondant) in the expectation that it is still warm enough for them to store it properly in the brood box.

G.

[Jimbo]

OK Here is what I do. I take my supers of honey off about the end Aug to the second week in Sept. I put on polystyrene miller type feeders and fill with at least a gallon or more of 2:1 sugar syrup. You want he bees to take it down quickly and get it stored before it gets too cold. I take the feeders off and put my wet supers on to get them cleaned before storing for the winter. I do my varroa treatment then I place a shallow eke above the brood box. I then place about 3 -4 damp sugar bags over the brood frames as an insurance policy. Last year I made candy as I had bulk sugar instead of bags. There was no difference. In Spring If the colonies are light I give a light sugar feed of 1 :1 to get the colonies started. I don't feed in the summer when supers are on and only once had to feed in the summer when the weather was so bad. I do a quick check about christmas and give more bags of sugar if required and another varroa treatment.

Jimbo

[POPZ]

I would think that it would be sensible to feed small nucs through the summer so that they reach a decent size for the winter, unless you are in a particularly favoured spot as Jon might be. Never with a super on - you wouldn't put a super on until they are nearly filling a brood box and before they are at that size they don't need summer feeding. Unless you are deliberately trying to fill a super with syrup/fondant honey, but then you would have to manage that next season to segregate honey from artificial feed.G.

I have not fed through a super. I know this may sound impossible but it is a fact. The nuc was a very strong one with laying queen. I fed it from April 24th till June 4th. On that day I added the super less QX, 2 days later put the QX in as the foundation was being drawn nicely. On the 4th July, the first super was nearly full so added another below it.

Whatever, the honey, although flavourless is great on toast and butter and has a nice light gold colour. Wonder what it is???

[gavin]

The gold colour suggests that it is honey, or at least partly so. What was flowering at the time?

G.

[POPZ]

Heavens - I have no idea what was flowering at that time, I guess it should be about the same as yours.

Anyway, it seems I have the answer to my original question as to when to introduce another brood box. Build up fast in the spring, as happened this year, and then introduce it. A long way to go before that but if time goes as fast as it is this summer, then it will not be so very long!
POPZ

[Jon]

Hi Popz.
I never feed in the summer unless it rains solidly for 2-3 weeks.
I have noticed that even the smallest nucs are managing to store honey .

Having said this a couple of days ago, I now have to eat my words as I checked a few nucs yesterday and they are very light of stores. I split 2k of sugar between 8 nucs by placing a bit of newspaper over the top bars, pouring on a little sugar and spraying it with water to moisten it. Most of them have a load of recently hatched brood so are short of foragers.
This should see them through a few days and I will keep monitoring.

There has been a lot of rain in the last 10 days and it has turned noticeably cooler.
I have noticed the wasps starting to torment a couple of them as well so it is time to close entrances right down.

[Stromnessbees]

Hi everybody

I have just caught up with what's been going on here since the Royal Highland Show, where I enjoyed my time in the honey tent, putting faces to names and having a great time alltogether.

Regarding double brood I have used a mixed system this year, which allowed me to feed plenty of emerging bees into my mating nucs (which are on full size frames):

Being very mean I used only starter strips this year: thin strips of foundation folded over the top one of 4 horizontally strung lengths of fishing line. Of course it's important to set the hives up level when using this method (spirit level). One advantage of using starter strips is that I can insert them anywhere in the broodnest (ideally between two straight combs) without creating a barrier for the queen like a sheet of foundation would do.

Old frames were recycled as insulation dummies: I cut comb-size pieces from a sheet of thick silver-coated insulation board and secured them inside the frames with fishing line (wrapped around and nailed at the ends). They can get gnawed by the bees, so I use a wooden dummy against the brood frames and then use the insulation frames to fill empty space.

Another unorthodox undertaking of mine was to drill a drone-size hole into the lower part of all my broodboxes, to allow drones to escape should their box be used above the queen excluder. This hole gets stuffed with a small piece of cloth when it's not needed.

Last disgression: I converted my colonies (in Smith boxes) from cold to warm system by either cutting an entrance into the short side of the floor and blocking off the one on the long side, or by moving the entrance from the middle to one end of the long side. This meant that I could always concentrate the broodnest near the entrance and close off excess space at the back.


This year was dedicated to increase the number of colonies in Orkney, rather than to produce lots of honey.
So that's what I did so far:

In spring I expanded my 4 rather small colonies by ginving starter strips and feeding them small amounts of 1:1 syrup in the evenings.
As the colonies started filling their single broodbox I moved the end combs into a second brood box which I placed under the first box. All empty space got filled with dummy frames.
More starter strips were given in both boxes and gradually some of the nicer broodcombs were moved down into the additional broodbox.
When I came across the queen I marked and clipped her (keeping the right wing for morphometry) and put her into the bottom box, placing a queen excluder between the 2 brood boxes. Now was the time to open the little drone-escape holes in the upper box to make sure the drones could get out.

The bees built lots of beautiful comb, first a lot of dronecomb, later worker comb. I left them all the dronecomb they built in the bottom box, so they would eventually get fed up with building more of it (no varroa here to worry about). As the brood in the top box was emerging I was able to take frames from there to strengthen my mating nucs. More broodframes from the bottom box were replaced by starter strips, moved into the upper box (in the front area above the entrance) and marked with a drawing pin to indicate the date of movement. A week or two later I took them to the mating nucs (when about two thirds of the brood had emerged) after shaking off the bees. This ensured that the colony wasn't weakened too much, while the mating nucs didn't get overwhelmed with brood to feed and to keep warm.
Old or misshapen comb was allowed to stay in the back of the top box until all brood had emerged and it could then be removed. As the bees have filled them with syrup/honey I have stored them and will let the bees clear them out above the crownboard in autumn.

How I reared the queens is another story, but with this system of having one broodbox above and one below the queen excluder it was quite easy to arrange.

Now you can tell me that I have done it all wrong. Go on, have a go, I am sure there is lots of room for improvement yet.

Doris

[POPZ]

There has been a lot of rain in the last 10 days and it has turned noticeably cooler.
I have noticed the wasps starting to torment a couple of them as well so it is time to close entrances right down.

Jon - still feeding my nucs although their consumption is slowly falling off thank goodness. As to wasps - heck I have had loads of them now for over a week. This seems far too early and far too many. All traps are out and entrance reducers in place especially as I think I had some robbers brawling.

[POPZ]

Hi everybody
How I reared the queens is another story, but with this system of having one broodbox above and one below the queen excluder it was quite easy to arrange.

Now you can tell me that I have done it all wrong. Go on, have a go, I am sure there is lots of room for improvement yet. Doris

Hey Doris, great to hear from you. Sorry I was not able to visit you in the honey tent! As to the above, well give me another ten years of looking after the ladies, I might be able to follow your train of thought. There are so many advanced beekeepers on this forum it makes a simpleton like mysaelf a bit wary of feeling very out of it!

For instance, I just introduced a super onto a healthy nuc without the QX in order to entice the ladies up into it. Also with a view to adding QX after two days - but forgot. That was seven days ago - I just cannot believe my stupidity (actually I can really!)

What should I do if her majesty has started a lot of brood up there??

[gavin]

What should I do if her majesty has started a lot of brood up there??

Ensure that she's below, or put her there, put the queen excluder on, and wait!

G.

[gavin]

Hi Doris

Looks great to me! I did wonder about:



When I came across the queen I marked and clipped her (keeping the right wing for morphometry) and put her into the bottom box, placing a queen excluder between the 2 brood boxes. Now was the time to open the little drone-escape holes in the upper box to make sure the drones could get out.


Did you just leave a stub? Poor thing! Nice to see you being kind to the drones at least.

What impressed me most was ....



Being very mean I used only starter strips this year: thin strips of foundation folded over the top one of 4 horizontally strung lengths of fishing line. Of course it's important to set the hives up level when using this method (spirit level). One advantage of using starter strips is that I can insert them anywhere in the broodnest (ideally between two straight combs) without creating a barrier for the queen like a sheet of foundation would do.

Old frames were recycled as insulation dummies: I cut comb-size pieces from a sheet of thick silver-coated insulation board and secured them inside the frames with fishing line (wrapped around and nailed at the ends). They can get gnawed by the bees, so I use a wooden dummy against the brood frames and then use the insulation frames to fill empty space.


Jon challenged us Scots to beat his 50p nuc boxes, cunningly forgetting to admit that he probably spent about £10 on the frames and foundation to furnish them. If only you could find some Correx blown over from the mainland you'd be able to show that the Austrians as well as the Ulsterfolk can beat Scots hands-down in penny-pinching!

You'll need to treat us to some pictures of those fishing-line combs.

best wishes

Gavin

[Jon]

I am also very interested in the fishing line system, not so much to avoid the expense, but more to avoid foundation which has a cocktail of chemicals in it. Steve Rose on the bbka forum uses fishing line as well. I remember asking him about it. It will have to be a project for next year.


How I reared the queens is another story, but with this system of having one broodbox above and one below the queen excluder it was quite easy to arrange.

Sounds like you use the same system as me, but I have two or three supers between the two brood boxes as well. It means I don't have to lift off the supers every time I am checking the queen cells in the upper box.
To get back to the original post, if you have a double brood box colony it has the potential to be an excellent queen rearing colony.
I have hatched or given away about 90 queen cells this year and the final batch of 14 is due to hatch next weekend. that's going to be the last of it for 2010 as I am going to be in Mexico for a good chunk of August.

[POPZ]

Ensure that she's below, or put her there, put the queen excluder on, and wait!

G.

Hey gavin - sounds far too simple - just let the brood hatch in the super? If there is any.

[gavin]

Yup. 21 days afterwards the last brood will be emerging, just about when your heather will be starting its season. Some would prefer not to harvest honey from bred-in comb, but if it is just for your own consumption I don't see a problem.

G.

[Stromnessbees]

...show that the Austrians as well as the Ulsterfolk can beat Scots hands-down in penny-pinching!

You'll need to treat us to some pictures of those fishing-line combs.

Will try to post some pictures.


Re. thriftyness - Who can beat this one:

I get 3 different uses out of every teabag.

No. 1: a cup of tea
No. 2: I squeeze the teabag with a facecloth to give my face a gentle rub with the wonderful antioxidants from the tea-concentrate, very refreshing and it also helps the complexion.
No. 3: after drying the teabag on a rack it gets burned in my smoker (smells nicer than most other smoker fuel)

Doris

[gavin]

I like dried rotten wood but I can imagine that it is in short supply on Orkney. The dry version is also pretty hard to find around here at the moment.

You mean that you only get *one* cup of tea from a tea-bag?!

G.

[Trog]

Love the teabag idea. I think I'll pass on stage 2 as I'm quite weatherbeaten enough and all my teabags do two cups of tea before I'm finished with them. However, using teabags in the smoker sounds like a great idea ... just so long as the girls don't request cake with it! Getting the teabags dry might be a challenge. It has just rained every day for 2 weeks. Not all day, every day, but precious little dry time in between showers! Another mated, laying queen while I was away. Hurrah!

[Stromnessbees]

Hi Trog

One way to dry the teabags os by placing them on an empty egg-carton. The wick(ed) effect of the carton works very quickly, and once the teabags and the egg-carton are dry they make the perfect combined smoker-fuel.

I set this combination alight with one of the barbecue-lighters from the Coop (£2.99), another bargain.


Back to the topic (double brood):

The system of double-brood-divided-by-queen-excluder came handy again today, when I needed bees for a newly mated queen. As I had put a few frames of brood above the QE of a strong colony last week I was able to create an instant nuc today by removing the bottom box (with the queen) to another site. The upper box remained on the old site and was united with the newly mated queen and her little entourage through a sheet of newspaper. I'll check the result at the weekend.

Doris

[Trog]

Hi Doris - I'll give it a try! Plenty of egg cartons as folk always kindly give them to us! We light our smoker with the Oban Times and one of those clicker-lighters with a long nozzle you get from Lakeland! Currently have lots of the shredded cardboard packing from Thornes (wish they'd not shred the plastic tape with it, though, that doesn't half stink) to use up, along with lots of lovely rotten wood! Sunny intervals promised for tomorrow so maybe I'll get to see the bees - high time they were inspected!

[Jon]

The upper box remained on the old site and was united with the newly mated queen and her little entourage through a sheet of newspaper.
Doris

Hi Doris
It's always a bit riskier uniting or introducing a queen when you have the flying bees present.
When I want to make up a nuc with a queen from an Apidea I lift out two frames of sealed brood plus adhering bees and shake in another frame of bees.
I put the queen in a roller cage between the two frames.
24 hours later when the flying bees have returned to their hive of origin, I lift out one of the frames and set it flat with the cage on its side. When I release the queen from the cage, the young bees accept her immediately. I have done this 8 times so far this year and it has worked every time.
You then have a nuc with no foragers and a lot of brood just about to hatch so you have to make sure it has a frame of stores and a frame of pollen to get it through the first week or so.
It should have 4 frames of young bees within a week when the brood has hatched.
If you take the two frames from a double brood system it is even better as the bees in the upper box will think they are queenless and are very keen to accept an introduced queen.

[Adam]

Jon,
I've not released a queen by hand but always left them in the hive in a cage; either a plastic cage with a hard candy plug or in a butler cage with a single sheet of newspaper held over the end with an elastic band. Sometimes there have been workers in the cages, sometimes not. So far they have always been accepted. On one occassion the colony swarmed with the new queen 6 days later but she was recovered. Its always good to go back a few days later and see the queen on the comb with eggs and small larvae there.

[Stromnessbees]

You'll need to treat us to some pictures of those fishing-line combs.


Finally I took some pictures:

The fishing line is 50lb monofilament, very strong.

329I find this one the quickest to prepare.
It only needs three holes drilled into each side and a thin strip of wax folded over the top line.

328 331This takes more preparation: 4 pins into the bottom bars and eight holes drilled into the top, the starter strip gets pinched in like regular foundation.
You can't strectch the line as much as in the other design as it would bend the top and bottom bars.

330This one is for beekeepers with too much time at their hand, I only made one to try it out.

332That's what the finished result should be. Sometimes the bees build dronecomb instead, but it doesn't bother me too much. I find it important to insert the starter strips between tow straight combs to encourage good results. They can be inserted right into the middle of the broodnest as they don't seem to create a barrier for the queen like a sheet of foundation might do.

Dorishttp://www.sbai.org.uk/sbai_forum/images/misc/pencil.png

[Stromnessbees]

Here's another picture that goes with the zig-zag design:

333
The holes are at the side of the top bar. That way the line won't get cut accidentally when burr comb is removed from the top.

Doris

[Trog]

Excellent idea, Doris, and now I won't hesitate to replace line on my sea-reel which really should be replaced after too much stretching! (As long as I have another use for it, I feel it's not just wasted!) Don't know why I didn't think of this myself; I re-use baler twine all over the garden, for tying bean-poles together, supporting broad beans, etc., etc!

[Jon]

I have a dozen frames which I want to insert in various colonies to let them draw their own comb.
What is best way to make the holes through the side bars - drill and 2mm bit?