# going to try it



## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>hy all i got 50pd of wax small cell and will try puting 10 swarms onto it. but i have one question when i dump the swarm into the first box and they have it all drawn out when can i put them on the next box? thanks

I assume you are talking about doing a shakedown. Dee may correct me if I'm wrong, but she says they will really only draw small cell well in the spring, so I think she does shakedowns in the spring and then again the following spring until you get good 4.9mm comb.

Personally, I would simply let them start rasing brood and when a large amount of the nurse bees are small cell (21 days for the first batch so figure about six weeks most of the nurse and house bees are now small cell) I would just start putting empty foundation in the middle of the brood nest (yes I know I say it's a bad idea to split the brood nest but they draw small cell better in the middle of the nest) and move the capped brood to the outside and steal a frame of honey off of one side or the other.

After this is drawn and full of brood, do it again. Keep monitoring the cell size of the combs and try to get the center of the brood nest made up of 4.9mm cells. If it's larger try to move it toward the outside where the brood will emerge and the bees will fill it with honey and you can take it out or move it above an excluder. If you want to speed this up, you could keep taking capped brood out and moving it above the excluder and adding more frames of empty foundation. That way they are drawing more foundation.

You just need to get a feel for what works for you and your bees.

I tried the shakedowns and was not happy with the resulting stress.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Also if these are real feral swarms there is a good chance they are already natural sized bees, in which case they won't need to be regressed.


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## swarm_trapper (Jun 19, 2003)

they are domestic bees so if i understand right i need to regress twice


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>they are domestic bees so if i understand right i need to regress twice

Assuming the bees cooperate and you are doing shakedowns that's probably true.

Are they a "swarm" because you're shaking them down, or because you bought a package?

If they are already in your hive, I'd start putting 4.9mm foundation in the brood nest and gradually swap it out.

If they are a package, I'd put them on 4.9mm foundation and then start swapping it out until they have drawn 4.9mm.

But if you want to do shakedowns, I'd do a shakdown this spring and again next spring (or if they are package they are already shook down). But in the meanwhile you could still swap brood comb for 4.9mm foundation and see what they do on their own. They tend to resent two shakedowns in a short period and may abscond. Id' also use a queen excluder as a queen includer to prevent absconding. Just put the excluder on the bottom board and close any upper entrances so they queen can't get out. After they have some open brood, remove it so the drones can get out.


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

I tend to like to do it like Mike here, I put packages on foundation and then added foundation to the middle, I am quite happy with the results, I have had no bees die yet, and there is much less stress on the bees.

------------------
Sol Parker
Southern Oregon Apiaries
http://www.allnaturalhoney.com


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## swarm_trapper (Jun 19, 2003)

yep they are swarms. so if i got htis right i shake them into one 9 5/8 with 4.9 and after 6 weeks start moving the old comes to the side and put new 4.9 in after thats drawn put a nother box with 4.9 on top so i have a doubel brood chamber?


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

You have to play it by ear, but for starting off, I would keep the queen in one box. That way she only has the 4.9mm to lay in. As you get enough of it to fill another box, you could move the excluder up. The idea is to cull the frames larger then 4.9mm, but I would keep them for the next package.

In other words the first regression is going to be somthing like 5.15mm. If you use this 5.15mm foundation in another large bee swarm, you will save them that first regression comb drawing. When you have enough 4.9mm that you no longer need any 5.15mm you can scrap it. A large queen and large bees will happily raise brood on 4.9mm foundation. They just have trouble building it.

Of course by fall you'll have to pull the excluder out regardless of the state of regression so they can have the bottom two boxes for the winter, but hopefully you'll have mostly 4.9mm combs. It's most important to have the smaller cells in the center. The two outside frames could be a little bigger with no real harm. They will mostly be used for honey anyway.


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## BWrangler (Aug 14, 2002)

Hi Swarm Trapper,

I've got one suggestion that might be of value. A beeyard behaves like a super-organism in relation to the hives, much like the beehive is a super-organism to a bee.

Put your small cell hives in their own beeyard. Don't put a few small cell hives with lots of other large cell hives. 

Compare yard differences and not hive differences. The results will be amazing.

Regards
Dennis


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