# When to checkerboard hive on Gulf Coast



## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

the best time is when you see your colonies starting to expand the broodnest as they begin their post-winter build up. that usually corresponds to the first pollens of the season coming in.


----------



## emilyjaneJMJ (Jul 13, 2016)

Thank you very much, Squarepeg!


----------



## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

you're very welcome ej. 

i usually wait until we've had a handful of good flying days with lots of pollen coming in. it's rare for me to find that the colonies haven't resumed brooding by then.

for me that's usually late february up here in northeast alabama. i would expect it to be earlier for you down there on the gulf coast. if you pick a day warm enough for the bees to bring in pollen you don't have to worry about exposing the cluster to the cold.

if you post what you have in terms of hive body sizes, frames of honey, frames of drawn comb, where in the stack the broodnest is situated, ect., i'll try to weigh in on how i would go about setting things up.

the late walt wright was a personal friend and mentor to me. i have found his checkerboarding recommendations to make a big difference when it comes to preventing swarms and getting better honey yields, (although i have made a few 'tweaks' to the technique as he presented it in his writings).


----------



## emilyjaneJMJ (Jul 13, 2016)

Oh, Squarepeg! I really appreciate your willingness to help!

One of my sons has been helping me, his weak little old mother, and he has been so busy we haven't gotten into the hive at all yet so I regret that right now I don't have the information you requested! But we only have one hive and it is composed of all medium supers, five boxes in all. We have taken no honey from the hive, wanting it for the bees this year. 

If it is okay, I will post our findings to you as soon as my dear son can get us in the hive! In the meantime, I found this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brvZeuPewoM and will continue to study Walt Wright's techniques. Your suggestion that early February is when we should tackle checkerboarding here is very helpful!!! As you can no doubt tell, we are extremely inexperienced with these beautiful creatures!

Again, thank you so much!


----------



## DavidZ (Apr 9, 2016)

Walt's Writings


edit: seems kineology is down and his writings are gone

but the Archive has his good stuff stored


----------



## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

all mediums makes it easy. are they 8 or 10 frame boxes?


----------



## emilyjaneJMJ (Jul 13, 2016)

Thank you for the Archive!!!
They are 10 frame mediums.


----------



## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

and do you have 9 or 10 frames in those 10 frame mediums?


----------



## emilyjaneJMJ (Jul 13, 2016)

I should have thought to tell you that we have 9 frames in only one of the lower boxes. The rest are all 10 frames!


----------



## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

perfect. the last thing i need to know is what your objectives are with the bees, i.e. are you wanting to harvest honey, make a split or two, just prevent swarming, ect.

if you plan on extracting honey you may want to consider spacing out to 9 frames in all of the boxes. this will make it much easier to uncap the harvested frames as they will become 'thicker'. it also makes it easier if you want to 'open up the broodnest' with empty comb.

when the weather starts warming up and the bee are bringing in lots of pollen it would be good for you to do the first thorough inspection of the season. 

mostly what you need to do is make sure the colony is queenright and that there is a solid pattern of healthy brood. if the broodnest in not already in the bottom box (or two) go ahead and reverse them down to there.

in addition try to take an inventory of roughly how many frames there are of brood, honey, pollen, empty comb, and foundation if any. frames of empty comb and honey will get checkerboarded over the broodnest.


----------



## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

Squarepeg


> mostly what you need to do is make sure the colony is queenright and that there is a solid pattern of healthy brood.


What do you do if the hive has no queen? Will adding a frame of brood from a differrent hive cover this?
Thanks
gww


----------



## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

gww said:


> Will adding a frame of brood from a differrent hive cover this?


finding a colony queenless (or with a failed queen) on the first inspection coming out of winter is typically associated with finding a serious depleted population and/or laying workers.

for us here that first inspection happens well before drones are produced and flying; so even if a frame of brood were added and even if the depleted colony made a decent queen she wouldn't be able to get mated.

i would probably shake out and let them join up with other hives. i might consider combining (if there are not laying workers) with a queenright microcluster if there were one of those available.


----------



## emilyjaneJMJ (Jul 13, 2016)

Squarepeg, 
I really want to prevent swarming and support a healthy hive. Last year, we had two hives and ended up losing one and almost losing the other because they threw so many swarms! All the swarms went to the high limbs of the trees around us and we were not able to reach them at all. If we can just keep this one together I would be so grateful! It would be lovely to have a second hive again, but that is not my main priority. We want to support bees in our area but, also, I just love them!

Thank you so very much for your time and advice!!!


----------



## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

understood ej. if i were in a simiar situation i would not rely checkerboarding alone to prevent last year's scenario from happening again.

if preventing swarming and keeping bees on hand is the priority i am going to recommend facilitating a strong build up with checkerboarding and then performing an 'artificial swarm' once the colony gets big enough and you have drones flying.

this means splitting out the existing queen, some brood, some pollen, and some honey to start a second hive while leaving the parent hive nice and strong so that it can make good queen cells.

if your space, time, and budget allow i would encourage you to consider making 2 more hives out of the parent colony after it makes new queen cells, (assuming you find cells on more than one frame and you probably will).

in my opinion trying to keep just one colony going is a recipe for disappointment as everyone is going to lose a colony here and there. even with 2 colonies losing 1 of them deprives the beekeeper of resources to rescue the other if needed as qww suggests in his post.

with 3 hives there an excellent chance for not running out of bees but it's entirely your choice as to how to proceed.


----------



## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

Squarepeg
Thank you for answering my question.

Emily.......
I know this is off subject but you might consider putting something like this in front of your hives incase you are unsuccessful in stopping swarming.

I have a cedar tree that all my swarms so far have landed in low enough to reach. First one that lands too high will be when I build one of these.
http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?303234-The-Russian-Scion
I hope this helps.
gww


----------



## Hayden01 (Jun 22, 2015)

squarepeg said:


> perfect. the last thing i need to know is what your objectives are with the bees, i.e. are you wanting to harvest honey, make a split or two, just prevent swarming, ect.
> 
> if you plan on extracting honey you may want to consider spacing out to 9 frames in all of the boxes. this will make it much easier to uncap the harvested frames as they will become 'thicker'. it also makes it easier if you want to 'open up the broodnest' with empty comb.
> 
> ...


What would you do differently if you were wanting to harvest honey?


----------



## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

Hayden01 said:


> What would you do differently if you were wanting to harvest honey?


definitely space out to 9 frames in all boxes; checkerboard, open the nest, and pyramid to promote the broodnest expanding as high up in the stack as possible; watch weekly for swarm preps and if i see them then 'artifical swarm' as described above; start adding more supers once new white wax is getting drawn.

i don't know how the flows are on the gulf coast, but up here after the main honey flow was over (late june/early july most years) i would still want to make splits (using purchased queens if necessary) to end up with the 3 hive minimum.


----------



## emilyjaneJMJ (Jul 13, 2016)

Squarepeg,
Thankfully, we have the equipment for 3 hives so we will definitely follow your directions and try to get all three established.
I appreciate your advice so much! Thank you!!!

Gww! Those are such great ideas for attracting swarms!!! And so simple! Thank you so much!


----------



## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

If you get some use out of it and I am not just wasteing your time, then I am tickled to death. Even in langstroths old book from way back when, he mentions putting a branch in front of your hives for that purpose. My cedar tree is to the side of my hives but I did catch three swarms out of my hives on it. I would rather get better at swarm control though.

Squarepeg is a helpful guy isn't he.:thumbsup:
Cheers
gww


----------



## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

good deal mj and i believe you will have much fun in the process. 

i feel making increase from you own colonies is an important part of the craft. 

doing so will help you become self sustaining and take a little bit of the 'sting' out of losing a colony here and there.

let me know what you find with the first thorough inspection and we'll go from there.


----------



## Lburou (May 13, 2012)

Excellent advice squarepeg. 

I would like to ask for more discussion on how many frames you keep in the brood nest:



squarepeg said:


> ...consider spacing out to 9 frames in all of the boxes...


Do you leave the extra spacing between frames in your brood nests too? Seeing no advantage to a brood nest with 7 frames, (in an 8 frame hive), or 9 frames, (in a 10 in ten frame), my hives have 8 or ten frames in the brood nest. I understand why you put 9 frames above the brood nest, but cell depth in the brood nest is going to be fairly consistent by nature's design. Using every frame in the brood nest gives the bees 3,000 more cells to use for brood rearing and put less pressure on upward expansion. If you do keep 9 frames in the brood nest, would you share the advantages you see from doing so? My bees would put a lot of burr comb in a 9 frame brood nest.


----------



## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

Lburou said:


> If you do keep 9 frames in the brood nest, would you share the advantages you see from doing so? My bees would put a lot of burr comb in a 9 frame brood nest.


many thanks lee. 

the advantage is mostly to the beekeeper at harvest time with perhaps some slight disadvantage to the colony with regard to the spacing out to 9 frames like that. for some reason i don't get much burr comb.

since my goal is encouraging the brood nest to grow upward to the top of the top super during the build up coming out of winter, and then expect the nest to migrate back down to to the bottom once the main nectar flow starts by mid spring, it turns out that what frames had brood in them earlier in the season end up with honey in them by harvesting time.

so it's easier to just go ahead and have them spaced out like that to begin with even though the colony may have to work a little harder in the early part of the season keeping the brood warm. 

walt used the 9 frame spacing even in his bottom (single) deep. he liked to be able to pull any frame he wanted to without having to move the others.

i like to have 10 frames in the single deep at the bottom of my stack. i find it quicker to pry the frames loose with a hive tool and i like to create more space from which to pull a frame out to avoid bumping into adjacent frames.

if i wasn't harvesting honey i would use 10 frames in every box just to avoid having the ends of the top bars getting heavily propilized and making frame removal more difficult.

my manipulations strive to set the frames so i end up with a frame of honey on the outside, with a frame of beebread just inside of the honey frames, and 5 frames of brood occupying the middle slots. 

with 3 supers this equals 15 medium frames for brood which is the space equivalent of about 10 deep frames. 4 supers with 20 frames for brood is the equivalent of just over 13 deep frames.


----------

