# Sticky  Beekeeping using Square Dadant hives, treatment free since 2005



## Fusion_power

2019/02/10

I spoke with SquarePeg this afternoon. He asked if I would be willing to host a thread discussing my beekeeping efforts as a treatment free beekeeper using Square Dadant hives. I agreed to do so with a caveat that I will be super busy in April and May as I also run a plant business selling tomato and pepper seedlings. I will attempt to document all major manipulations and hive maintenance work and perhaps will be able to make a video or two to show how these hives work in daily use.

The bees I keep are from a mix of stock with most of the genetics derived from a queen I found in a swarm in 2004 that was highly mite resistant. I purchased 10 Purvis queens that were used to produce drones to mate with queens raised from my mite resistant queen. In 2006 and 2008, I deliberately pushed my bees to swarm putting a few dozen mite resistant swarms into the trees locally. Since pushing the swarms into the trees, I have been able to get queens mated with nearly 100% of them showing very high mite resistance. I had a few losses in the first 5 years due to mites. Since then, I have simply ignored mites except when someone occasionally challenged me to go hunting for them. A couple of years ago, I sampled sealed drone cells in one of my colonies searching for mites. I finally found a mite in the 127th cell. Given that the colony had roughly 1500 capped drone cells at the time, this suggests a very low number of mites in the colony probably in the range of 50 or less total. At that time in the spring, a heavily infested colony would have had more than 1000 mites.

The bees I keep are very frugal with winter stores tending to overwinter with 3 to 4 frames of bees when clustered (remember that these are Dadant size frames). They build up very rapidly in early spring reaching swarm strength usually in mid April. I usually pull a 3 or 4 frame split out of every strong colony to prevent swarming and increase colony numbers. Most years, the split makes at least a super of surplus honey.

My bees have a strong dose of Apis Mellifera mellifera in their background as shown by their extremely frugal wintering, increased hive defensiveness, and tendency to forage from can see to can't see. As noted above, I purchased queens from Purvis in 2005. Purvis bees have Italian and Russian in their background. I purchased 3 queens from BWeaver in 2015. BWeaver queens have Italian, Buckfast, and African Scutellata in their genetics. I also purchased a few Buckfast queens from Ferguson in Canada. I very much appreciate a Buckfast queen mated to drones from my line as they tend to be very mite resistant and very good honey producers. I am planning to use 2 queens as breeders this spring, then send them to someone else to raise from. One of them is from a 2016 daughter of an exceptionally good queen from my line. The other is a 2017 Buckfast daughter mated to drones of my line. Both have exceptionally good mite resistance and produced a very good crop of honey in 2018.

I changed over from Langstroth equipment to Square Dadant in 2016 for all colonies. The advantages of Square Dadant are numerous with one significant disadvantage that the hive bodies are very heavy. All of the boxes, tops, and bottoms were cut from cypress by Albert Zook in Lawrenceburg, TN. I made my own frames with 32 mm end bars putting 14 frames in each Square Dadant box. Wired brood foundation was supplied by Dadant. Each frame has 3 horizontal wires to complement the vertical wires in the foundation. The frames are 11 1/4 inches deep and the boxes are 11 5/8 inches deep giving 3/8 inch for bee space between boxes. I use shallow square supers with 13 Kelley shallow frames until drawn out, then running 12 frames for honey production. This gives nice fat combs to extract. Here is Albert's address: Albert Zook, 26 Midway Road, Lawrenceburg, TN 38464

I have a 100 gallon Kelley tank, a 50 year old Kelley stainless 4 frame extractor, and a 40 year old Kelley bee blower which I use to take off honey. The 100 gallon tank does double duty for uncapping with a strainer and filter cloth in the top. The extractor is old enough that it was made to accommodate Dadant size frames so I can extract the deeps if I choose. I use a very sharp very thin bladed kitchen knife for uncapping. It works as well as or perhaps better than a heated uncapping knife so long as I remove wax buildup occasionally.

The only time I make sure to wear a veil is when removing honey in August. The rest of the time, I just wear a light colored t-shirt and work the bees gently to avoid disturbance. I've had a few too-hot-to-handle colonies over the years. Those colonies get requeened with a cell from a gentler queen.

Here are a few links and notes for background reading.
https://fergusonapiaries.on.ca/
http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?249192 Gives background for my reasons to use 32 mm frame spacing
http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?316006 Brother Adam's hives and some reasons I was interested in them
http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?320011 A thread about jumbo size hives and my and shinbone's journey to get them
http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?320759 Figuring out the number of cells in a frame for different size frames and cell sizes
http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?321069 A discussion of hives in terms of honey production and cost efficiency
http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?321209 8 or 10 frame configuration, actual usable brood space in different hive sizes
http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?325985 What is really important when building a frame
http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?327308 Large hive, small hive discussion
http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?327565 Hive designs and their advantages and disadvantages
http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?306234 Two queen colonies and other discussion of square Dadant hives
http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?330089 Sense of smell for varroa resistant bees


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## Fusion_power

2019/02/10 - I had helped a friend by setting up a colony of bees for him to get started as a beekeeper. He died of a heart attack a few weeks ago and his wife asked that I take the bees back. They were in Langstroth double deep configuration. I had a Dadant deep of honey stored on a strong colony as a reserve so I could give full frames instead of having to feed syrup for any light colonies this spring. I pulled 8 frames from this reserve and put them into a Square Dadant box with top and bottom. Then I pulled the 4 frames of brood from the Langstroth hive and positioned them in the Dadant box and placed it on the stand where the Langstroth hive had been. I noted about a hundred cells of drone larvae with the oldest perhaps 8 days from the egg being laid.

I walked by all of my colonies yesterday and verified all are alive and collecting pollen. None have died so far this winter.

Goals for the year: My goal is to increase to 40 total colonies this year. This should be possible with judicious splitting. I need to assemble 10 more Square Dadant deep hive bodies and paint them and the tops and bottoms. I also need to paint and put foundation into at least 30 more shallow supers. I will have to assemble about 200 more Dadant 11 1/4 inch deep frames, then wire and install foundation in them.


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## squarepeg

sincere thanks for accepting the invitation to host this thread dar and for the many excellent contributions you have made to the forum over the years.

as best i can tell you are in the top tier of contributors when it comes to hive-years of successfully keeping bees off treatments. 

we are looking forward to hearing more about your experience with the square dadants.


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## lharder

I second that sentiment. A worthy goal to achieve this level of success.


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## GregB

+1
One on my favorites reads on the BS, hands down - FP threads.


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## Litsinger

Fusion_power:

I will also offer my hale and hearty thanks for your willingness to share your insights here. It is largely your thoughts that have impelled me to dip my toes in the water with narrow frames.

Looking forward to reading your chronicles.

Russ


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## Fusion_power

I forgot to mention above that I purchased some Carpenter queens a couple of times. They are nearly as mite resistant as my line and pretty good honey producers.

Today is windy with heavy cloud cover and a forecast of rain. My bees are flying and collecting pollen. There is nothing for me to do at this time except assemble woodenware.


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## GaryG74

Thank you for sharing your experiences. I've always learned from your posts and look forward to learning more on this thread.


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## tpope

I'm glad that you have agreed to share Dar. I look forward to following your efforts.
I am very interested in one of your "used" breeder queens. I have appreciated how your queens that squarepeg raised and were bred by my local drones have done for me. I have had good results with subsequent generations that I grafted. Carrying that forward with a breeder queen would be great.


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## Fusion_power

2019/02/15 with temps around 60F:

Bees were flying very heavily foraging for pollen. A strong colony at the back of my house had 20 pollen laden bees land in 5 seconds while I watched. We have abundant maple, elm, and willow bloom for foraging plus some pear trees are in full bloom. The peach trees in my yard have enlarged flower buds but have not yet opened.

I am replacing the plastic cover of my greenhouse so have not had time to work on bee equipment for a few days. I should have it finished sometime Monday and get back to planting seed and painting bee boxes.


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## Juhani Lunden

Fusion_power said:


> I am replacing the plastic cover of my greenhouse


S o, you because victim of Squarepeg too...  , cool to hear how your spring and summer is progressing. We have 60 cm snow, bee season far away...

But anyhow, my comment, that greenhouse plastic is what I use as hive cover. Do not throw it to waste pin.

Can you link a picture of what is your average hive looking at the moment?


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## Fusion_power

2019/02/17 temp near 60 with sporadic heavy rain

Yes, I too am a victim of SquarePeg. He trapped me with words and offered only one way out.

I have quite a bit of spare greenhouse plastic right now and agree that it would be a way to protect the top of my hives. I'll give it a thought or two and come up with a way to attach it to the covers.

My average hive is a single square Dadant box with 14 frames of which 10 are full of honey and 4 to 5 frames are bees and brood. One colony is far ahead of the others with 10 frames of bees. I will take a picture or two tomorrow when the rain stops.

Bees were foraging today though not as much as they were Friday. Most of my colonies have to be split in about 3 weeks to prevent swarming. As stated above, this fits my plan to double or more the number of colonies this year.


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## squarepeg

i've yet to have the nice days line up with my days home from the day job so i haven't gotten to look deep into most of my hives yet. the activity at the entrances is looking encouraging however at all but one of my hives.

assuming the one not foraging pollen is queenless, and the ones bringing in mass quantities of pollen are queenright, that should have me starting the season with 20 overwintered colonies, same as you dar.

this might be a good opportunity for us to compare and contrast the square dadants vs. traditional langstroths, especially since we are both working with similar stock and reside in similar locations.

i'm going to concede up front that your approach wins the manual labor category hands down.


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## Fusion_power

2019/02/18 cloudy, high near 55, with a stiff cool breeze most of the day.

The forecast is for temps in the 70's this weekend. I'll try to get a few pictures of a typical colony to use as a comparison point for you and Juhani. Meantime, today gave only a little foraging with a high near 55 degrees. We have henbit in bloom along with maple, pear, elm, and willow. If we were not getting so much rain, I think my bees would be producing a small surplus.

I'm especially satisfied with the reduced amount of work involved when managing the square Dadant hives SP. There is still quite a bit of work involved in handling supers.

I got the roof on my greenhouse yesterday afternoon and will be putting up the two ends tomorrow if I can catch a dry spell between rain showers.


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## squarepeg

dar, you mentioned doing some combining of weaker colonies last fall. how did you determine which colonies needed combining and which of the queens to dispatch?


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## Fusion_power

Any colony with less than 2 frames of bees and a queen more than a year old is a candidate to combine. Farrer recommended taking winter losses in the fall. I've found this to be excellent advice. (note that this is Dadant frames of bees so less than 4 deep Langstroth combs would be equivalent)

I've had 2 colonies pulling drones out and discarding them over the last week. I haven't opened them to see what is going on because of the cold temps the last few days. If the weather cooperates, I will open all colonies tomorrow and add a frame or two of honey if they need it.


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## squarepeg

understood dar and many thanks for the reply. 

i am going to try a little harder this fall to identify colonies having a poor chance of overwintering, as well as try to have a few more 'spare' nucs made up to take through the winter.

also had a couple of hives hauling out drone pupae today. fingers crossed for good inspecting weather tomorrow. expecting to have to donate nurse bees from the strongest to the weakest.


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## Fusion_power

I inspected all colonies and found surprising results. There were abundant mature drones. This is about 2 weeks earlier than drones have historically been ready for mating. There was only one weak colony and it had 4 frames of brood. The rest of the colonies were overflowing with bees. I will have to split within the next week to avoid swarming. It is time to fill some frames with foundation.

The weak colony had a surprisingly good brood pattern and an abundance of honey to build up with. I'm uncertain why they are so slow getting in gear. What about the strongest colony? They fully occupy a double square deep Dadant hive. That is roughly the equivalent of 3 Langstroth deeps plus a shallow on top. When I say fully occupy, I'm talking about bees overflowing all edges and covering the top bars.

My plans are to raise queens from my best queen and requeen all of the splits with a queen cell. I will start queens this week, perhaps tomorrow if I can find time.

This year is shaping up to be a year of rampant swarming unless serious control efforts are used.


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## Clayton Huestis

FP maybe equalizing your colonies as br. Adam did might be a good idea to put all on equal footing? Slow swarming down and bump up overall honey crop.


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## Fusion_power

I will equalize, but there is not much to do. All colonies are roughly the same with the exception of one very strong and one moderately weak. When they hit this strong this early, I have to split to control swarming.


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## Juhani Lunden

Juhani Lunden said:


> Can you link a picture of what is your average hive looking at the moment?


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## JRG13

Fusion, give me a ring when you get a chance.


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## Fusion_power

I made a split in a strong colony with a queen I want to use as a breeder. The old queen and half the brood is on a new stand. I gave the split a frame of young brood and most of the older brood and put it in the old hive location so the foragers will return to the queenless split. Tomorrow I will give them a jar of feed and a cut a few slices out of the comb so they can easily rear queens.

Juhani, my average colony fills up a square deep box with 14 frames. I have one colony that occupies 2 square deep boxes, one colony that occupies 1 1/2 square deeps, and one colony that occupies 1/2 of a square deep. The rest of them are getting supers to prevent swarming conditions. I just split the 1 1/2 colony to raise queens so that one is no longer so large.


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## Fusion_power

I checked the hive and found 7 nice looking queen cells. I will make splits tomorrow and put the cells in the splits Saturday. Why wait a day? Because I've found splits with my bees will destroy a queen cell if given the same day the split is made. They usually accept a cell the day after when they have had time to recognize they are queenless.


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## squarepeg

thanks for the update dar and from what i can see your timing is perfect on the splitting. are you dividing up one of your square dadants into two or three section in queen castle fashion to accomodate these splits?

it may interest you to know that my first pick for breeder queen this year is a descendant from that colony i acquired from you in 2016. they have come out of winter all three years in top strongest tier of colonies, have responded well to swarm management, and have been excellent honey producers.

mighty fine job with your selection dar.


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## Fusion_power

I made splits with 4 made so far and 2 more that will be done tomorrow. The first colony I opened today was on the verge of swarming. They had queen cells nearly ready to seal and the queen had stopped laying and was shrunk to about half her normal size. I put the queen into a new hive and left a cell with the parent colony. The rest of the colonies that I split were at least a few weeks away from swarming. I had one colony that was a breeze to work with very little smoke required to keep them manageable. That queen will be a candidate for breeding on the next round. The last colony I opened was extremely aggressive. I put the lid back on them after verifying they were not preparing to swarm. They were not strong enough to split. I will replace that queen as soon as possible.


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## lharder

I'm curious about the size of splits. 

Has aggression been a big issue or just an occasional hive. My hives have tended towards more aggression and have to be more proactive about this moving forward. I just went through a set of overwintered nucs the other day checking stores and space and the difference between them is pretty big. I didn't have any super aggressive ones, but some are calm on the comb, methodical at the entrance. Another strong nuc was a bit more aggressive, responded to smoke, but full throttle at the entrance as well. Very high energy. 

I've noticed a big difference with bees given a sugar shake test as well. Some are just vibrating, probably not much need to shake and some bees are much more placid. The energy difference is big. 

On the calmness/aggression/energy scale, are there some nuanced preferences out there?


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## Fusion_power

I make splits with 4 Dadant combs, 1 honey and 3 sealed brood plus shake nurse bees from a couple more combs.

I've had problems with aggressive colonies since I stopped treating for mites in 2005. This was made worse when i got queens from BWeaver in 2015. This particular colony is derived from the BWeaver stock. On the positive side, I got quite a bit of hive beetle resistance from the BWeaver line that I retained. The key is to eliminate any colony that shows excessive stinging and to raise queens only from highly productive but gentle queens. Over time, I will get them back to the level of gentleness where I can work a colony without protective gear if I choose to do so. I would rate 5 of my colonies as more aggressive than I like so roughly 25% of my colonies. So long as I do due diligence to raise queens with the traits I want, the genetics will shift in the direction desired.

The best producers in my experience are colonies that can be worked without a veil but will sting if inappropriately handled. They are defensive of the hive, but easily controlled with smoke.


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## lharder

So strong splits. I have found a definite shift I think as well. Not near as far along as you in terms of genetics of course but I am seeing the need to requeen some aggressive colonies. That high energy for the best hives may lead to some stinginess I'm thinking, but like you I want them to respond to smoke. Some don't seem to that much.


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## trishbookworm

Three things that seem to go together for the hives that are more defensive than their neighbors - large population, preference for the top entrance (so more foragers/guard bees involved when lid is popped), and workers are shakier on the comb. The workers move around in an unsettled manner, rather than slowly meandering. 

Anyone else notice workers shaky on the comb for a highly defensive hive? be nice if this was a trait that is visible early in the life cycle of the hive, before the hive is large...


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## Saltybee

Do not know how consistent this is but wound a bee in a nuc, if they react at all ( fly out without stinging ) it will get ugly.

Positive test, maybe not reacting will still turn mean.


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## GregB

trishbookworm said:


> Three things that seem to go together for the hives that are more defensive than their neighbors - large population, preference for the top entrance (so more foragers/guard bees involved when lid is popped), and workers are shakier on the comb. The workers move around in an unsettled manner, rather than slowly meandering.
> 
> Anyone else notice workers shaky on the comb for a highly defensive hive? be nice if this was a trait that is visible early in the life cycle of the hive, before the hive is large...


Shaky bees on the comb is a classic and well documented AMM trait.


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## Fusion_power

Today I put 28 deep frames on splits made a few weeks ago. I need at least another 28 to finish filling up colonies. I also harvested one super of honey taken from 3 different hives each of which had a few frames of fresh sealed honey. This looks like a mediocre year so far. The main flow is well under way. How long it lasts is determined by the amount of rain we get.

I added supers to several colonies that needed them. I will need another 12 supers within the next week.

One colony had swarmed as shown by opened queen cells and a hive no longer full of bees. This appears to be the only swarm so far. Usually, May 1st is swarm cutoff so it is unlikely any more will swarm this year. Splitting in early spring is a very effective swarm deterrent.


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## Fusion_power

I went through the three colonies here at my house and added several deep frames to be drawn out on the main flow. One of the three is a split with a new queen. It has made about 50 pounds of honey which will all be used as winter feed. One of the overwintered colonies has filled most of the deep frames and has a full shallow super giving it a total near 100 pounds of honey so far. The shallow super is not quite fully cured. The third colony has filled 7 deep frames with honey and badly needed room to expand. I gave them 8 deep frames to work on. They currently have a deep hive body used for honey storage. I expect to harvest about 40 pounds of honey from #3.

I have to finish cleaning and putting foundation in another dozen deep frames to take out to my land and put on colonies that need a few more deep frames in the brood chamber. As I put them in, I am removing any seriously mucked up combs and bringing them to the house for cleanup.


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## Fusion_power

Today was the first summer honey harvest. I waited until we had several weeks of relatively dry weather before pulling honey so it is low enough moisture to store for up to a year. The climate here is very humid so patience is required to get honey to the right moisture level. Two harvested square shallow supers weighed 97 pounds total and should yield nearly 70 pounds of honey with plenty being left on the hives for winter stores. There are more to pull over the next week or two.

I also made 2 splits today and will use at least 2 of the queens to make more splits when cells are ready. This is unusual as I don't normally make fall splits, but this has been an abnormally wet summer so the fall flow should be heavy enough to carry the bees through winter. I have sugar available just in case backup is needed.


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## Fusion_power

I went through the splits from last Sunday today and verified queens present in the hives that were left with old queens and queen cells being built in the queenless portion. I placed the queenless splits in the original hive locations to ensure huge populations of bees for cell building. Today consisted of moving a few frames around so there is plenty of cluster space.

I saw fresh nectar and several bees loaded with pollen which indicates there is enough bloom to suppress robbing. There is an abundance of drones which is one reason I was willing to make splits this late.

The number of queen cells started under these conditions is always relatively low. I saw a total of 7 cells with two of them looking too small. If I come out with 5 good virgin queens, I will count this as well worth the effort.


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## Litsinger

Fusion_power:

I appreciate being able to read your narrative thought processes as you make late-season decisions. It is helpful to us who don't have near the depth of experience you have to learn what to be looking for when deciding whether to complete a particular manipulation.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on here. We appreciate it.

Russ


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## Fusion_power

I'm glad to give as much perspective as possible. You would think that I would have learned a bit more about what works and what doesn't over the years. Then the bees surprise me with something new. About 25 years ago, I made a split in late October. We had a warm day on the 5th of November that was just enough for the queen to find a few drones. She wound up being a mediocre queen, but was impressive because she mated so late. I tried again for 3 or 4 years after that but the weather did not cooperate again.

I've had excellent success with queens raised in August so long as there is an abundance of drones available. This round should work out as I found large patches of sealed drone brood in 2 colonies and plenty of mature drones hanging around in the hives. Why am I emphasizing this? Drones have to be available and the weather has to cooperate to get good mated queens. I can do something about the drones but still haven't figured out how to change the weather other than to shake my rain rattle and do a rain dance.

I have a colony here at my home that is hotter than I like. As soon as cells are sealed, I plan on dequeening and splitting the hot hive and giving each split a cell. That is still a long way from having mated queens, but at least improves the odds a bit.


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## squarepeg

excellent reporting dar, many thanks for keeping us updated.


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## Litsinger

Fusion_power said:


> I can do something about the drones but still haven't figured out how to change the weather other than to shake my rain rattle and do a rain dance.


Thanks again, Fusion_power. If you do figure out how to conjure up rain, do you mind to let us in on your secret?

In all seriousness- we do appreciate you sharing your experience with us novices.

Russ


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## Fusion_power

A quick check showed cells in the process of being sealed. I am going to split the "hot" hive tomorrow and move cells into it Tuesday. I will also remove the breeder queen that supplied the eggs from which these queens were raised and put a cell in her colony. The breeder queen and a frame of brood will be used to requeen a hive out on my land. I want her to be available next spring so I can raise a few more queens for early splits. The end result should be 6 splits here at the house that each have a queen cell and the source queen in a hive out at my land.


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## Fusion_power

I split the hot hive this afternoon putting 3 frames of brood into a Langstroth box. These are the last 3 Langstroth size frames I have in my bees. The queen was on the 3rd frame. I put the hive on the old hive's stand and moved the rest of the colony to a nearby location. I expect the foraging bees to return to the Langstroth box making it very strong by tomorrow evening. When I removed the old queen, I placed her into a queen shipping box along with about 50 of her bees. They will protect her for a day or two. I don't need her, but want to keep her around just in case I find a failing queen in one of my other hives.

At this time of year, there may be 2 queens in a few colonies, usually a mother and daughter both of which may be laying. It is unlikely, but given that I want good quality queens and don't want to waste good queen cells, I will verify the splits are truly queenless before inserting cells. I will be able to tell by the bee's behavior if they are queenless by tomorrow evening. This colony was distinctly mild tempered compared to last spring. I did not get stung and the bees were much less aggressive. This suggests they may have superseded the old queen a few months ago which highlights the reason I want to verify the bees are queenless before giving cells.

I started with 3 colonies here at the house and now have 6 splits. There is one breeder queen in a colony that will be removed in the morning. I will relocate her to a hive on my land 7 miles east from here.

I observed the two that are building queen cells and saw an abundance of fresh pollen being brought into the hives. The cells should now be sealed with the oldest holding an 11 day old (from the date the eggs were laid) developing queen. I have 4 days to distribute the cells.


One key to doing this is that I know there is a small flow and sufficient pollen coming into the hives. If there were no flow, I would have to be much more careful to avoid triggering robbing.

One thing I am doing that I would not have done in the past is to remove frames that are not covered by bees after making the splits. I wait until the day after making the split before moving frames. This is important as the disruption of being split will trigger beetles to lay eggs on any unguarded combs. I want the splits to remain calm and continue foraging as the new queens fly and mate. Beetle infestation or for that matter just about anything that disrupts a colony will usually prevent getting a healthy queen from a fall split.


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## Fusion_power

I moved 3 queen cells with two going into the splits from the hot hive and 1 into one of the other splits after removing the laying queen. At this time, I expect to have 5 queens emerge in a few days. I also have 3 or 4 more cells that can be moved if I decide to do so. I'm going to check colonies out at my land tomorrow and see if there are any that need a cell. This will work if I can give the bees at least 12 hours to be queenless before adding a cell.

Two of the splits are a bit weak for fall. I will have to boost them with brood from other colonies. This can be done in a few weeks after the queens have mated.


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## Fusion_power

I can tell 4 of the splits now have virgin queens by the dramatically increased washboarding at the entrance. I plan to check one that is not looking right this afternoon. A little detail that often causes problems with getting new queens mated is disturbing the colony before the queen has mated and started laying. That is why I won't open the other colonies that have all the signs of newly emerged queens.

On a trivia tangent, I found this plant growing on my land several years ago. You might find the history a bit interesting. The flowers range from an inch to 2 inches across making them rather showy. I've never seen a honeybee working the flowers so have no idea who or what pollinates them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clitoria_mariana aka butterfly pea


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## Litsinger

Fusion_power said:


> I can tell 4 of the splits now have virgin queens by the dramatically increased washboarding at the entrance.


Fusion_power:

I appreciate the update. So I must confess that I have never heard about washboarding being indicative of internal colony dynamics. In your experience does it's presence or absence yield some clues as to what is going on internally?

I see the 'butterfly pea' is native to Kentucky but I have never encountered this one. Looks like an impressive late-season bloomer.

Thank you for the feedback. 

Russ


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## Fusion_power

Washboarding is a fall activity that healthy queenright colonies engage in the most. A queenless hive will have a few washboarding bees. This changes dramatically when a virgin queen emerges with about 4 times as many washboarding bees compared to a queenless nuc. This can't be used as a queenright indicator in spring, however, the behavior of a queenright nuc is almost always calmer with more bees out foraging. When a queenless hive/nuc is opened, bees make a distressed buzzing roar that is very distinctive.

Butterfly peas are impressive because the flowers are so large relative to the plant. I've grown Sword Beans (Canavalia Gladiata) that have similar size flowers but are on plants 5 times larger than a butterfly pea. The flowers on sword beans are pretty but not so impressive in perspective.


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## Litsinger

Fusion_power said:


> Washboarding is a fall activity that healthy queenright colonies engage in the most. A queenless hive will have a few washboarding bees. This changes dramatically when a virgin queen emerges with about 4 times as many washboarding bees compared to a queenless nuc.


Thank you for your reply, Fusion_power. This is a good observational technique to keep tucked-away for future reference. Seeing you post frequently on growingfruit.org, I get the impression you know even more about botany than apiculture- and that is saying something because you are a wealth of knowledge about bees!

Thanks again for your feedback and for posting your thoughts regarding what you are seeing. It helps us novices learn how to interpret what we see.


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## Fusion_power

The hive that was not aggressively washboarding was indeed still queenless. They have about 8 nice looking queen cells that have been sealed a couple of days. I might harvest a few of them and put them into other colonies this weekend. What happened to the cell I put into this hive? It was missing as in torn down entirely with nothing remaining including the base. Why did this happen? I gave this colony a cell a few hours after removing their queen. Had I waited another day, they would probably have accepted it. It is not much of a loss and perhaps might even be a gain as I get a few more decent cells from the same breeder.

A quick check of the two splits from the hot hive showed queen cells torn down which is a sure indicator they are now queenright. This indicates a virgin present that should be flying to mate over the next week.


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## squarepeg

Fusion_power said:


> The hive that was not aggressively washboarding was indeed still queenless. They have about 8 nice looking queen cells that have been sealed a couple of days.


good eye dar.


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## Fusion_power

Results: One colony with 4 frames of brood with sealed brood on 3 combs. Two colonies with queens that just started laying. Two colonies hopelessly queenless. I gave a frame of brood to one of the queenless because they are strong enough and have young enough bees to raise a queen. One of them will be combined with a queenright split so they can make it through winter.

The colony with a very good laying queen and 4 frames of brood just happens to be the colony with Langstroth frames that I am going to give to SquarePeg. Be on the lookout for this one SP, she shows early signs of being one of the best queens I've raised.


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## squarepeg




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## Litsinger

Fusion_power said:


> Be on the lookout for this one SP, she shows early signs of being one of the best queens I've raised.


I won't lie- I'm a little bit envious... but happy for SP.


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## Fusion_power

It is always best to wait until a new queen has her own brood hatching before moving or otherwise disturbing them. This brood was sealed a day or two ago so should emerge in about 10 days. They are also attempting to draw comb so I may put in a few more frames with foundation to get them better set up for winter.


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## Fusion_power

Geoff Williams with Auburn University came out today and collected bee and mite samples from 8 of my colonies at one apiary location. I have only taken mite counts from one or two colonies over the years so today was rather eye opening. Criteria was that each colony sampled had to be at least 2 years old, not treated, not manipulated to reduce mites. I had 8 colonies that met these criteria. i have not treated since the winter of 2004/2005. I routinely split very strong colonies in spring to prevent swarming so these colonies represent the 8 that were not split. I do not manipulate my bees to reduce mite counts by for example cutting out drone brood. We found plenty of hive beetles in all colonies. We found drones in 4 out of the 8 colonies with 2 colonies having most of the drones. Samples were taken as 500 bees for DNA extraction, 300 bees were used for an alcohol wash.

#1 - 29 mites, 9.7%, Buckfast daughter
#2 - 12 mites, 4.0%
#3 - 8 mites, 2.7%
#4 - 2 mites, 0.7%
#5 - 4 mites, 1.4%
#6 - 17 mites, 5.7%
#7 - 23 mites, 7.7%
#8 - 35 mites, 11.7%, queen raised this year, colony had problems last year but made it through winter.

#8 showed stress from mites which was mostly shown by a low overall population. #1 was deliberately included as a check. She is a Buckfast daughter mated to mite resistant drones. If you read carefully through the percentages, half of these colonies could be considered resistant to highly resistant. Sample size is obviously small so don't read too much into it.

The 500 bee sample will be sent to Switzerland for further tests.


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## squarepeg

nice report dar. your numbers look better than the samples dr. williams took here in jackson county yesterday from navy bee's and flatrockboy's yards. 

over here the mite infestation ranged from about 7% to 17% in the seven colonies sampled. these numbers were similar to the handful of counts i had taken in previous years and reported in my thread.

there were a couple of colonies with dwindled populations too small to pull samples from, but generally speaking those sampled looked pretty good population-wise for this time of year, even the ones with the highest counts.

given the high infestation it appears we may not be seeing so much resistance here but more tolerance to the mites and their associated viruses.

our samples are being sent to switzerland to be analyzed for genetic markers and compared with samples taken from tf colonies in europe.


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## Litsinger

Exciting developments Fusion and SP. Thank you for keeping us all posted on what the bio-markers uncover.

Thank you both again for the updates.

Have a great weekend. 

Russ


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## Juhani Lunden

squarepeg said:


> nice report dar. your numbers look better than the samples dr. williams took here in jackson county yesterday from navy bee's and flatrockboy's yards.
> 
> over here the mite infestation ranged from about 7% to 17% in the seven colonies sampled. these numbers were similar to the handful of counts i had taken in previous years and reported in my thread.
> 
> there were a couple of colonies with dwindled populations too small to pull samples from, but generally speaking those sampled looked pretty good population-wise for this time of year, even the ones with the highest counts.
> 
> given the high infestation it appears we may not be seeing so much resistance here but more tolerance to the mites and their associated viruses.
> 
> our samples are being sent to switzerland to be analyzed for genetic markers and compared with samples taken from tf colonies in europe.


Navy bees and Flatrockboy´s ? They are your bee yards?



Fusion_power said:


> If you read carefully through the percentages, half of these colonies could be considered resistant to highly resistant. .


Dam it would be great if someone inseminated and made crossing with the offspring of the best four.


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## Fusion_power

> it would be great if someone inseminated and made crossing with the offspring of the best four.


 I'm going to move the 4 most susceptible colonies to a different location in a few weeks. This will leave only the most resistant for next year's queen production. It is not an ideal system, but will increase the likelihood of mating to drones that carry mite resistant traits.

I have more colonies that can be tested to see if any have very low counts. If I move only the most resistant to this location, the odds improve a good bit.

The queen with the lowest mite count is golden/orange on most of her abdomen. She should make some very pretty daughters... that are also mite resistant.


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## squarepeg

Juhani Lunden said:


> Navy bee's and Flatrockboy's ? They are your bee yards?


these are two other beekeepers that started a few years ago with nucs from my yards. they have since made splits with those and caught additional swarms from the area.

the efb outbreak left me with only one colony suitable for sampling, but there was not enough time in the day to get to it.


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## Fusion_power

Temps hit 68 degrees about 1:00 pm with bright sun so I opened the 3 nucs up that I have at my house. The nuc that I've set aside for SquarePeg was strong on bees but short on stores. I gave them 1/2 gallon of honey that I saved for the purpose. With a bit of luck, this should be enough to get them through winter and into spring. The second nuc had about 10 frames each of which was half full of sealed honey. I left them alone. The 3rd nuc had maybe 3/4 of a frame of honey and desperately needs to be fed. I mixed up some syrup with about a cup of honey and will give it to them tomorrow. I had to let it cool down as I mixed it over heat to get very thick syrup. One colony out on my land needs to be fed. I have a box of honey waiting for them, just have to make time to move it to their colony. The reason they are short on stores is that I used them to make nucs a few months ago which depleted the colony quite a bit both of bees and drawn combs with honey.


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## Fusion_power

I took 2 supers of honey off of a colony today that was being used to store them. One was moved to a hive that needed the stores for winter. One is here at the house waiting to be extracted.

It was interesting to watch the bees today as the temperature was just below 50 degrees. The colonies that were flying had the darkest colored bees while the colonies that were not flying were mostly light colored.


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## Fusion_power

It has begun. Spring that is. I drove to Birmingham yesterday and saw numerous pear and plum trees either partially or fully in bloom.

I finally got my 1993 S10 pickup truck running and now have a way to move hives.

Frames? Yes, frames. I need a bunch of them this year as I intend to renew some combs and add a few more colonies.


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## Litsinger

Fusion_power said:


> It has begun. Spring that is.


Thank you for the update, Fusion_power. Good reminder to get cracking on the final preps for the upcoming season.

Best of success to you in the Spring build-up.

Russ


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## Fusion_power

Today was my first major time to go through the bees and put supers on. Please keep in mind that I have very few early nectar sources in this area other than fruit bloom. The bees were mostly low on stores and just getting into heavy buildup. The main flow should start in 3 weeks or a tad less. I put supers on all but 2 colonies that are too weak. I split two colonies that were very strong. One was hive #4 which had the lowest mite count last fall. They had one queen cell with a small larva. That was the only queen cell I found today with thorough checking of each colony. The weakest colony was #8 which had the highest mite count last fall. I was surprised they were still alive.

I have to get 4 boxes of deep frames ready to go on by next weekend and I need at least 10 more supers ready within 2 weeks. I have the supers sitting in my greenhouse waiting on foundation to be inserted. The deeps are there too, but are frames that need to be cleaned and new foundation installed. After 4 years of use, a lot of my frames have been re-worked into drone cells. I want to renew the frames after 4 years use. Since this is the 5th year from starting with Dadant depth frames, it is time.


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## Litsinger

Dar:

Saw this article by Jerry Hayes in the most recent Bee Culture and thought of you- I hope all is well with you, your family and your bees.


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## backyard smallcell

Fusion _power

You and M.B. help spur the inspiration for how I modified a standard 8 frame onto a 14 frame Double decker, I've still need advice as how to compress the hive without taking away the boxes, because I've got a modified layens in an 8 frame build, and the brood is in the top 8frame deep while I'd like to get them to move to the lower double decker.

Currently I intend to build a telescoping cover that is much thicker and heavy and deeper on the sides to increase the insulation and thermal mass value in the hive. Suggestions!


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## Gray Goose

backyard smallcell said:


> Currently I intend to build a telescoping cover that is much thicker and heavy and deeper on the sides to increase the insulation and thermal mass value in the hive. Suggestions!


on my double deep lang long hive I used a 6 inch rim board, then put 2x1.5 foam in the lid, cut 1/16 over size, so I had to press fit it. seems to work ok. the 6 inch keep the wind off the seam.

the top BTW was 1/2 inch green ply painted several times.










GG


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## backyard smallcell

G Gwhat improvements would you have made if you were to do it again?
Is there anything between the foam and the bees?

I'm thinking of having insulation sides come down at least the same depth as the insulation on top, and covering it with flashing.


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