ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers
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- From: Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com>
- To: Shadi Cinpinski <shadikaze AT gmail.com>, ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org
- Subject: Re: [ocba] 1st year bee-keeper question
- Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2017 16:16:13 -0500
Shadi, Do you have 10-frame or 8-frame boxes? That's an important piece of information when talking about space. If 10-frame, then you shouldn't need two deeps plus a medium super yet. As a year-round brood chamber, that's too much space for the bees to keep under control, in my opinion (7,140 square inches of comb space versus the recommended 5,440). Even with 8-frame, two deeps and a medium is 5,712 square inches, nearly 300 more than optimal. Don't worry about that right now, though, just keep it in mind when you pull surplus supers off the hive in June. You have the classic condition for reversing: a totally empty bottom box. (Never reverse there is brood in both boxes and so reversing would split it up.) If you've got lots of nectar/honey in the second deep, then go ahead and reverse the deeps if that's what you want to do. As a purely practical matter, I've never found this to make the slightest difference in swarming. The queen isn't stupid -- she'll "reverse herself" and move to the bottom to lay if she runs out of room in the top. But -- reversing gives us something to do, allowing us to feel like we are a real beekeeper. So go ahead and reverse. Or don't. For swarm prevention, even better than reversing would be to take a couple of the empty frames and intersperse them within the actual brood nest. This is called "checkerboarding," and it genuinely addresses the swarming impulse by providing space in the brood nest. Simply adding supers or reversing doesn't add space in the place that matters so is generally ineffective wrt swarming. Checkerboarding is best done in warmer weather, though, when there are more nurse bees and the nights aren't so cold that the cluster will tighten and leave the edges of the nest uncovered, chilling & killing the brood. Does this help? Randall
On 2/23/2017 3:26 PM, Shadi Cinpinski
wrote:
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[ocba] 1st year bee-keeper question,
Shadi Cinpinski, 02/23/2017
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Re: [ocba] 1st year bee-keeper question,
Randall Austin, 02/23/2017
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Re: [ocba] 1st year bee-keeper question,
Mark Waller, 02/23/2017
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[ocba] Splits,
Rob Zelt, 02/23/2017
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Re: [ocba] Splits,
Randall Austin, 02/23/2017
- Re: [ocba] Splits, Rob Cook, 02/24/2017
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Re: [ocba] Splits,
Rob Zelt, 02/26/2017
- Re: [ocba] Splits, Walter Starks, 02/26/2017
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Re: [ocba] Splits,
Randall Austin, 02/23/2017
- Re: [ocba] 1st year bee-keeper question, Randall Austin, 02/23/2017
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[ocba] Splits,
Rob Zelt, 02/23/2017
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Re: [ocba] 1st year bee-keeper question,
Mark Waller, 02/23/2017
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Re: [ocba] 1st year bee-keeper question,
Randall Austin, 02/23/2017
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