Checkerboarding (Walt Wright)

[Van, Arkansas, USA]

Question: how does a person control small hive beetle with all the empty space, that is every other waxed comb frame is empty in 2-3 supers above brood?

[Acebird]

I don't know but are SHB's prevalent during the winter dearth?  If they are is your winter actually a dearth?

[Acebird]

The idea of checker boarding is arranging the overhead stores to a point that the hive will think it is in trouble (every other honey frame will be open) That will make the hive try to store honey to fill it up before starting swarm prep.  It is done without stealing honey or stopping upward movement.  You do not mess with the brood nest but the overhead solid honey dome.

When Walt coined the phrase he did so with the intention of expanding brood not filling in empty frames with honey.  Other people use the term as you say to fill in honey.  It adds confusion when you mix this idea with what Walt was trying to do.

[eltalia]

Question: how does a person control small hive beetle with all the empty space, that is every other waxed comb frame is empty in 2-3 supers above brood?

You don't, or should not have to Van, if the manoeuvres are done with colonies at critical mass (CM).
When you open a working honey super you will see bees on the walls, seemingly doing SFA, there
may be some also hanging around the ears of the frames. These bees are all flight enabled, allbeit
they need reason to do so. I am not going to list all their roles just the one that says "stand and
deliver or die". As SHB cannot deposit nectar they are dead meat.

Not at all pouring water over the thread but you guys should know none of this is new news, despite
Walts 'discovery'... it has been SOP here in Aussie for as long as my living memory runs to. There are
two stages to the frame switches the first being used to move honey stores up from the extents of the
brood chamber, the second to get the honey super/s filled out... and it is here amongst all this that
one chooses the time to include and exclude a QX.
Walt's method goes into elaborate niceities, maybe 'cos of the use of mediums, dunno... never used
them, never will. The actual principle is very simple with @minz nailing it in one go;
 "The idea of checker boarding is arranging the overhead stores to a
point that the hive will think it is in trouble"

Bill

[minz]

When Walt coined the phrase he did so with the intention of expanding brood not filling in empty frames with honey.  Other people use the term as you say to fill in honey.  It adds confusion when you mix this idea with what Walt was trying to do.

here is the actual paragraph from his manuscript:
SELF IMPOSED LIMIT The over-wintered colony expands the brood volume during the build-up by consumption of honey.  During this period the colony trades stored honey for population to produce the reproductive swarm.  They do not consume all the stored honey.  They save some.  To use all the honey in this effort would put the colony at risk of starvation in the event of an extended period of non-flying weather or nectar dearth.  Weather in late winter is unpredictable.  Colony survival dictates that they maintain the safety reserve of honey/nectar through the swarming season.  Although the amount of safety reserve varies from colony to colony, it is roughly equivalent to a shallow super of honey.  It is interesting that the amount is similar for different sized hives.  Both the story and a half and the two and one-half story leave the top shallow super of honey unopened, if field forage is available.  However, it is a reserve.  They will dip into this reserve if needed. When the colony has expanded the brood nest to the amount of reserve that they
Nectar Management by Walt Wright Copywrite  2000 - 2005                   -  - 10
consider appropriate, they have increased population to the safety limit.  They are now able to move into the swarm preparation phase.   Expanding brood volume to the safety limit is the first step in the swarm process.  It can be seen that weaker colonies do not reach this limit and do not entertain swarm ambition.  (Colony survival has priority.)  Brood nest expansion does not stop until this self-imposed limit is reached.  Actually reaching the limit, and stopping expansion can be viewed as initiating swarm preparation.  It is not fair to call it the ?cause? of swarming, but it would be fairly accurate to call it the swarm stimulus.  The actual cause is the colony motivation to reproduce

[Acebird]

Walt had many ideas and concepts with logical explanations for his concepts.  Walt also believed that bees would magically change from swarm mode to survival mode and yet you will hear witness of hives swarming in the fall.  What safety limit is there in the fall?  You will also hear witness of bees swarming from a nuc box all the way up to 8-9 box hive.  How could they possibly have the same safety limit?  Some swarms have been known to fill three deeps and others just a hand full.
Bees are not computer programmers with a set program to follow for their existence.  They are high stakes gamblers that can win big, just make it, or die.
Walt had some success with his checkerboarding in his area.  As time went on he changed things.  I suspect because each year was different and he was chasing the variables.
I had two copies of his manuscript.  One I gave away and the other I can't find now.  For certain the sole purpose for checkerboarding was to expand the broodnest faster then what would happen naturally so you could take advantage of flows netting you more honey.  If you did not provide the space for nectar storage at the right time the hive was guaranteed to swarm.  Apparently in his area he had some success.  No one that I have heard of in the commercial category does this and no one that I have heard of does this up here.  Some beeks do "checkerboard" top supers to draw frames out.  That is not Walt's checkerboarding technique for nectar management.

[sc-bee]

If you look at reply #1 Dennis is in Wyoming, is that not cold enough for you. And as far as timing being apple bloom, well that depends on where you are located and when apple blooms. Walt had kept records and new that for him apple bloom was approximately 6 weeks before white wax. WHITE WAX is the key and count back 6 weeks. If you can tie it to a bloom then that helps.

As far as Walt chasing the variables, not sure what you mean? He worked on a system for years and made refinements as he went. Finding NM was purely an accident of studying swarm prevention. He started looking at two deeps and moved form there. Finally ended up with a deep and two shallows of honey into winter. And then he added the pollen box at bottom which he states has nothing to do with NM but can not hurt.

As far as shb, I asked Walt. He had no issue with shb and the system in Tn. The shb should not be in a laying period at the time of the CB manipulation. And by time they are, the hive population should  be booming. As an insurance I would harvest full supers in shb prone areas and not leave them on the stack.

[Acebird]

As far as Walt chasing the variables, not sure what you mean?

Honeybees are not consistent.  I don't think any insect is.  They mass produce with enough DNA to cover any variable nature throws at them.  If you try to write a process on how to keep bees you will run into exception that don't work.  Checkerboarding as Walt has described it is one of those processes.

[sc-bee]

It is that time folks at least here in the South.... BUMP........