# Regression to 4.9 in one step??????



## BULLSEYE BILL (Oct 2, 2002)

I think you better put an INCLUDER under the brood or they may abscond.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

If you do it that way, the bees will abandon the queen and raise a new on from the brood above. Been there. Done that. Seemed like a good idea to me too.

I'd put all the capped brood above the excluder and all the honey and pollen above the excluder. I'd put all the open brood and the queen below the excluder and fill all the rest of the space (above and below the excluder) in with the SuperCell. In a couple of weeks when the open brood below is capped you can move the capped brood up again.


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## BWrangler (Aug 14, 2002)

Hi Guys,

Anytime a hive is greatly disrupted, supercedure and absconding can occur. And any kind of shakedown or regression is very disruptive. Use the includer as noted above. It will help, but sometimes the bees will still blame the queen and kill her.

It's the disruption and not the difference in cell size that causes the problems. I have regressed bees, un-regressed bees and re-un-regressed bees without any problems related to the difference in cell size.

This was done on wax based comb. Using an all plastic comb may introduce some additional factors. The Permadent guys could give you some advice concerning this.

In a top bar hive with its natural sized comb, the queen will readily lay in a variety of cell sizes. In the summer, those worker sized cells will range from slightly less than 4.6mm to almost 5.6mm. She freely lays in all of them.

If all goes well, your bees should be operating normally within 3 to 7 days, thats the time it takes for my Lang bees to get back on track after I've messed them up by putting them in a top bar hive :>). The queen won't have any trouble laying on the small cell size and the colony will function normally.

Regards
Dennis


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## Guest (Mar 2, 2005)

I hadn't thought about them absconding. Thanks for the tip about the includer. Would it speed things up to use only Super Cell in the brood box and cutting queen cells in the top box after waiting a week? 
Also, what kind of results should I expect? It sounds like many colonies are lost or severely weakened when regression is done with wax foundation.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

My problem, when I put all the brood above, wasn't supercedure. It was abondonment. They left the queen behind (except for four or five attendants) and they all moved above the excluder with the brood. They just left her. Then, of course they started raising a new queen. You need some open brood down there to keep the bees with the queen, or NO open brood above so they aren't drawn away from her. You need to either take out all the comb and give the brood to another hive, or leave some open brood with the queen. Either of those works.

If you just leave the open brood with the queen and the capped above the excluder you should have no problems. They will take right off. I'm assuming, of course, that the new SuperCell stuff will work like the PermaComb. I don't know that to be true, having never tried it (nor even seen it) but I assume it will.

I hope everyone will keep us all posted when it's actually available. I want to see some.


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## Guest (Mar 2, 2005)

It sounds like you are all telling me not to try for all 4.9 in the brood nest. It would be more natural to have say the middle 4-6 frames with 4.9 plastic comb and the rest with large cell comb. Is that the consensus?
I guess that I would need to put all of the uncapped brood in the middle of the brood nest until everything has settled down from the regression,and then move the plastic comb to the middle. Right?
In a colony with 6-8 frames of brood and bees how long before she starts laying in the 4.9 cells?


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>It sounds like you are all telling me not to try for all 4.9 in the brood nest.

If it was a package, yes. What I'm saying is the bees have more loyalty to the open brood then they do for the queen. If you don't leave the open brood with the queen, they will abandon her. All 4.9mm in the brood nest is a wonderful thing. But the only way to do it is to remove all the brood to a different hive.

>It would be more natural to have say the middle 4-6 frames with 4.9 plastic comb and the rest with large cell comb. Is that the consensus?

That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying work the brood out as it gets capped and move it up above the excluder after it's capped.

>I guess that I would need to put all of the uncapped brood in the middle of the brood nest until everything has settled down from the regression,and then move the plastic comb to the middle. Right?

Yes.

>In a colony with 6-8 frames of brood and bees how long before she starts laying in the 4.9 cells?

When she runs out of room, probably. On my wax coated PermaComb the queens prefer it. But since the SuperCell is just bare plastic, I'm guessing she's not going to prefer it until there's no where else to lay.


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## BWrangler (Aug 14, 2002)

Hi NC,

I wouldn't risk loosing the brood. It's a valuable resource. Just work the small cell frames into the center of the broodnest and gradually work the larger stuff to the outside, then up and out. Don't let the mites kill any of your hives. But don't contaminate any of the new comb either. Use a non-contaminating mite treatment like sucrose octanoate, oxalic, etc. until your bees have a broodnest with small cell size comb.

Regards
Dennis


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

I had no patience for the "regression" I had read about. I basically just moved frames of sealed brood to supers above an excluder and replaced them with small cell (4.9mm) foundation. All wax before plastic base small cell and plastic base after it was available. Have not had much of a problem getting the bees to create nearly perfect combs of small cell and then fill them with brood.


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## Phoenix (May 26, 2004)

> Have not had much of a problem getting the bees to create nearly perfect combs of small cell


Of course not Mr. Clemens, you've probably got "Lusbees".


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## Guest (Mar 3, 2005)

OK Guys, Come clean now. How many of you run "Lusbees", africans, or african hybrids in your SC colonies?


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

I have very little doubt that my SC survivors are africanized to some degree. Their behaviours are so very different from the Starline and Midnight varieties I kept back when I first started keeping bees in 1966. In many ways I miss those days. I could have been naked and have the hive wide open, as long as I didn't breath on them they would never cause me any problems. With my current bees I can't even approach my koi pond, where they drink, without getting stung and attacked by many of them.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>OK Guys, Come clean now. How many of you run "Lusbees", africans, or african hybrids in your SC colonies? 

I started out with Carni's, Italians, Russians etc. I started catching local swarms and am now breeding queens from that. But they all do well on SC. The only thing I've had the seemed Africanized were the Buckfasts from Weaver that went ballastic and I disposed of those queens. As far as I know the "official" line is that AHB can't live this far North. I have my doubts about that, but I'm certainly not interested in raising AHB. Mean bees suck.


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## BWrangler (Aug 14, 2002)

Hi Guys,

I've been everywhere man
I've breathed the mountain air man
I've seen the desert bare man...
I've been everywhere

Buckfast, Harbo, All American, Weaver Russian
Strachan New World Carniolan, Strachan Italian, Strachan Russian
Miska Italian, Miska Carniolian, York Caucasian
Glenn SMR, Glenn Russian White, Glenn Russian Blue and another Glenn Russian line cross or two...
Koehnen Italian, Bolling Bee Caucasians,
USDA Russian Breeder Purple Line 
Black Lusbees, Yellow Lusbees and my own Wyoming mutts....

I've been every wherrrrrreeeee. :>)

And I'm getting older and may have missed one or two. But they have all done well on small cell. And were mite tolerant. I didn't like some of the other characteristics of some of them though.

My overall favorite has been Weaver Harbo stock outcrossed with my mutts. The New World Carniolans are a very close second. And the Buckfast are third. 

Although very interesting, all the Russians I've worked with had temperament problems after the first cross. And the Lusbees, although interesting in others ways, were not very well adapted to my climate. And any disturbance to the hive without smoke provoked the kind of response you might have read about with AHB's. PS if you are thinking of getting some Lusbees put them in a location where you have miles between them and the nearest anything that moves. Advice from a beekeeper with 35 years of commercial experience!

Mite tolerance and small cell acceptance isn't even a selection criteria for me anymore. I look at temperament, overwintering, brood production, disease resistance and honey production. Just like before the mites arrived. I'm not a commercial beekeeper anymore and I just won't tolerate a hot hive.

Regards
Dennis


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## Robert Brenchley (Apr 23, 2000)

I regressed some typical UK A.m.m./Italian hybrids successfully, , in two stages, but ended up losing them from queen failure. I then got some native A.m.m., and regressed them in one go by adding a box of 4.9, waiting till the broodnest expanded into it, then splitting the two boxes. 

Regressing bees with foundation only is hell, but you do get there. Once you have drawn 4.9, it's easy. You certainly don't need LUSbees or AHB, since neithe is found in the UK.


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## naturebee (Dec 25, 2004)

--- OK Guys, Come clean now. How many of you run "Lusbees", africans, or african hybrids in your SC colonies? 

As much as possible, I am using local feral bees in my operation, because they are responding well to small cell and are also productive. Trouble is, I cant get on the phone and call a breeder to purchase more of a particular genetic line that happens to show traits that appeal to me. So what I am doing is assigning the coordinates of where the bees where caught to the queens ID. Now, a particular feral line in my bees are showing a high degree of allogrooming. I may go back this spring and place a few mating nucs at the location to retrieve more genetic material from the area.


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## Guest (Mar 7, 2005)

Hi Naturebee, I ran a search and couldn't find a thing...So I'll bite, what is ALLOGROOMING?


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## naturebee (Dec 25, 2004)

Autogrooming is 'grooming one's self'. 
Whereas, Allogrooming is 'grooming that is done to another'.

Heres a PDF on grooming:
http://www.edpsciences.org/articles/apido/pdf/2001/01/m1107.pdf

Allogrooming, is grooming performed on another nestmate, after a solicitating tremble-dance said to be performed.

Im studying this behavior in my bees, and I cant say that I have aver seen a tremble dance performed that solicited any type of grooming behavior what so ever from another bee. I have seen many times bees kinda hunching their backs and 2 or 3 other bees will immediately respond with vigorous grooming that will contine for 10 to 20 seconds. I have witnessed during the mornings, bees awash in an impressive display of 'group allogrooming' on the landing board of one of these grooming colonies. I am going to attempt to get quicktime video of this behavior this year if I can sneak a digital camera purchase past my Wife.









Only 52 days left till first swarm!









Joe


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I've watched the "get it off me dance" many times in my observation hive. Unfortunately it usually ends with the mite leaping off of the groomee onto the groomer. It's interesting to watch the groomer chase the mite around on the groomee. You find out how quick a mite can actually be.


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## naturebee (Dec 25, 2004)

I've observed it many times also, but the grooming dance I am seeing is nothing like what you are describing, but it seems to solicit vigorous allogrooming grooming by up to 3 bees. These colonies are exhibiting a rather high degree of grooming behavior, and one needs not wait long to observed it.


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## Branman (Aug 20, 2003)

Does anybody have any information on Honey Super Cell? like a link or who is going to carry it?

I did a google search and couldn't find much info on it. Was there a thread I missed?


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## Jim Young (Aug 31, 2004)

Honey Super Cell website. I've emailed them inquiring when the frames would be available to order... have not received a reply.

http://www.honeysupercell.com/4436.html


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

They told me, when I emailed them, that they would post it on their web site when it was available. That was less than a week ago.


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