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Author Topic: Hive in need  (Read 3692 times)

Online BeeMaster2

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Re: Hive in need
« Reply #20 on: February 25, 2018, 08:26:50 pm »
Mickie,
LJ did an experiment where he raised split hives on top of queen right hives with a high success rate.
I just finished making a double screen board so that a can split a large hive tomorrow. It makes a lot of sense that the pheromones of the queen right hive protect the queenless hive from robbing.
Jim
Democracy is 2 wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.
Ben Franklin

Offline Dallasbeek

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Re: Hive in need
« Reply #21 on: February 25, 2018, 08:28:54 pm »
Jim,

And laying workers?
"Liberty lives in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no laws, no court can save it." - Judge Learned Hand, 1944

Offline eltalia

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Re: Hive in need
« Reply #22 on: February 25, 2018, 09:54:59 pm »
Is there not. Q on Q boxes ?
As the OP reads, yes.. and a few hundred bees.
Your question is on nurse bees moving up. One
of the problems with that concept is pheromone identification.
What with bees at the top entrance investigating, and bees
at the "cloak board" figuring who belongs where, it would get
rather messy.
All this happening when really what is desired is bees to be
focused on rebuilding after a dearth.

Bill

Offline little john

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Re: Hive in need
« Reply #23 on: February 26, 2018, 09:09:36 am »
Mickie,
LJ did an experiment where he raised split hives on top of queen right hives with a high success rate.
I just finished making a double screen board so that a can split a large hive tomorrow. It makes a lot of sense that the pheromones of the queen right hive protect the queenless hive from robbing.
Jim

Just to clarify (for anyone not conversant with this) - when raising 2 (or more) nucs over a queenright colony, I've been initially populating those nucs from the 'parent hive' below, by placing open brood combs in the nuc boxes above a QX, so that nurse bees will ascend up through the QX and cover those brood combs - so that all the bees in the 'extended hive' originate from the same source (or at least think they do, as the open brood combs themselves often come from other hives).


Jim - do you remember discussions we've had in the past about problems with absconding when using divided nuc boxes ?  Here's one guy's solution:  http://mbbeekeeping.com/5-frame-nucs-in-single-brood-chambers/

As you will read, he mentions the problems of absconding and how best to avoid it - but - if it's going to happen, then he makes it as easy as possible for the bees to do this.  Extraordinary approach.  But maybe that's another technique worth trying ?
LJ
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Offline eltalia

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Re: Hive in need
« Reply #24 on: February 26, 2018, 06:42:00 pm »
To further add to LJ's clarification?
The OP describes a queenright remnant of a wintered colony.
That's bees at term, and as the OP puts "a few hundred".

Part of the rethink required in wintering within temperate climates
is to not deplete survivor colonys in boosting - or attempting to - dead
on their feet bees.
It should be the responsible response from the knowing to
read all the factors put in building advice for the newbie.
Anything else and we get to read/hear the same story year in year
out. Of course there is always personal choice, historicly much of
which has helped nobody.

Bill

Offline little john

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Re: Hive in need
« Reply #25 on: February 26, 2018, 07:11:50 pm »
My 'clarification' was solely in regard to Jim's comment, "LJ did an experiment where he raised split hives on top of queen right hives with a high success rate."  It was unrelated to any other post in this thread.
LJ
A Heretics Guide to Beekeeping - http://heretics-guide.atwebpages.com

Online BeeMaster2

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Re: Hive in need
« Reply #26 on: February 26, 2018, 11:56:45 pm »
LJ,
I read the link. It must have miss  copied. I don't see anything about absconding.
Jim
Democracy is 2 wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.
Ben Franklin

Offline little john

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Re: Hive in need
« Reply #27 on: February 27, 2018, 05:42:17 am »
Hi Jim - admittedly, it is a tad obscure.  There are two references there which I think are relevant:

"If for some reason the queen is lost in one hive the bees will migrate over to the other side to strength that nuc."

"The nucs in one box need to be given both a queen cell or a queen. It works best if you don't gave one side a queen cell and the other a queen. If you do, then most of the bees will migrate over to the queen side and the nuc with a queen cell will find it hard to except the queen cell."

I read that as indicating that bees from one half of a shared box will 'abscond' (or migrate) from one side to the other if they consider that their chances of survival are better there.  This being in marked contrast to a setup with two separate nuc boxes in which the residents of one box are undoubtedly unaware of conditions within the other, and so absconding/migration doesn't then occur.

He goes on to say:
"At this point a solid inner cover is over the top, the bees can't get from one side to the other. Once the queens on both sides are laying, the inner cover is replaced with a queen excluder on top so the bees can mingle."   And that's the bit I find extraordinary, that he actually makes it as easy as possible for the bees to abscond/migrate, should they ever detect that there's an advantage in doing so.

Must say I would be a tad wary of selective winter clustering with his set-up, with a risk of one queen effectively being abandoned - as I've been reading some early experiments conducted around winter clustering, and one finding which stands out was that bees tend to be attracted to cluster formation itself, such that a larger cluster is more attractive to unclustered bees than a smaller one.  Again, that suggests a basic survival mechanism: that a large cluster has a better chance of survival than a smaller one.  Size - it would appear - is 'everything' in the honeybee world.
'best,
LJ
A Heretics Guide to Beekeeping - http://heretics-guide.atwebpages.com

Offline Acebird

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Re: Hive in need
« Reply #28 on: February 27, 2018, 09:21:32 am »
Again, that suggests a basic survival mechanism: that a large cluster has a better chance of survival than a smaller one.  Size - it would appear - is 'everything' in the honeybee world.
"Large" is a relative term.  Large, in respect to a feral hive yes but large in respect to a managed hive can result in starvation.  So much depends on the unpredictable future.
Brian Cardinal
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Offline little john

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Re: Hive in need
« Reply #29 on: February 27, 2018, 09:46:49 am »
Again, that suggests a basic survival mechanism: that a large cluster has a better chance of survival than a smaller one.  Size - it would appear - is 'everything' in the honeybee world.
"Large" is a relative term.  Large, in respect to a feral hive yes but large in respect to a managed hive can result in starvation.  So much depends on the unpredictable future.

WHAT ?  I was referring to an experiment where unclustered bees were given the choice of joining two already-formed clusters - one much larger than the other.  The majority of unclustered bees chose to join the larger cluster. Why ?  I was suggesting that an underlying survival mechanism was probably involved.
My comments relate to that experiment only, and have got absolutely sod-all to do with feral colonies, unpredictable futures - or even the price of eggs.
LJ
A Heretics Guide to Beekeeping - http://heretics-guide.atwebpages.com