I wanted to go to Imbil but my partner is not well and loathe to leave her for any length of time, sounds like it was a good day.
!!!!I hope that her health improves.
Did many turn up? Saw pics of morning and it was a bit quiet but I know there was a bus coming up from Vegas.
!!!A slow start but very busy from about 10 AM until the draw of the prices.
Converted 3 splits I made going in to winter in to 10 FD yesterday...busting at the seams. Should have been done weeks ago but circumstances have conspired against me. The lids alone had about 6kg of honey in them!
!!!!!We have been taking honey off early last week and some had built into the lids. I use an inner-lid and generally the honey is between the inner- lid and the lid. I leave it for the bees to clean-up.
Am thinking of going to 8 frames purely from a weight perspective but being a traditionalist am hesitating or maybe it is procrastinating!
!!!!!I don't have much experience with 8 Frame gear. A friend of mine went for 8 frame supers for weight reasons. The issue we found was the 8 framers tend to swarm rather quickly. I guess there is less space. Spoke to a Beek yesterday and he is going back to 10 frame from 8's. A few reasons - basically he felt he was always running out of frames
Have one hive with a queen that lays a beautiful pattern wall to wall so am using that for nucs.
What do you make your nucs out of?
!!!I keep a pretty good record of all hives. I mark the best ones and use them to provide 3 brood frames. I use these 3 frames ( not all capped brood, I like some un-capped as well to keep the generations coming) with two frames with new foundation to make a 5 frame nuc.
The early ones this Spring I let make their own queens. Try NOT to open them for a month and you will find generally eggs, some larvae in them. Occassionally some capped brood.
The absolute "best" ( exeptional pattern, large queen, quiet..) ones I transfer into a 10 framer and split them until Christmas. Some I will keep and some are sold - there is always a demand for instant singles for those who had a FLOW gifted to them - and they want bees.
The other nuc's I sell when the pattern is up to scratch.
I also make nuc's as per above but buy a mated queen - much quicker. Two weeks and they are just about readdy to sell.
At this point queens are still in rather short supply and I'm only set-up to make Queen Cells - and I use them.
At the moment I'm making some nuc's pretty well every week. Not too many as I have a space issue.