From: "Lucinda Sewell" <lucindajohn@sewellhome.freeserve.co.uk>
Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2001 12:59:17 +0100
To: <BiologicalBeekeeping@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: Re: summer shake downs

From: "huestis" <buzzybee@capital.net>
Have one colony regressed at home yard using 8 colonies to draw one frame
each earlier this spring. I shake this colony down onto 4.9 foundation?
Clay

Sounds like we have worked in similar ways. Except you don't seem to have
had some of the problems I have. I've just 'split' a colony similar to the
one you described, mixed 4.9 and 5.? combs. Found queen, placed her on one comb of brood and rest of box 4.9 foundation. Queen includer on floor. Left other brood above excluder and super. They pulled one Q cell. I took out that frame and some others and placed in nucbox with extra bees, then fed some more eggs to top section, hoping to get a few more supercedure cells. (Time to check actually). I figure I have about 60 frames of mixed quality small cell, and about 20 good. They'll be the centres of my 'best' (in 4.9 ability) clusters this winter. Next Spring they'll be topped with, or
perhaps nadired with 4.9 foundation. Normal bees come out of the hodge podge comb, and I figure they're probably fractionally smaller and will draw
smaller comb keyed to their body size. I watched a queen raised in a Q cell
on 4.9 measuring and rejecting larger cells before accepting a nice shaped
smaller one. My hives are visibly mixed sizes now, more so than usual. I'm
not doing another shakedown. I got perfectly useable smaller comb by using
the fringes of certain colonies. My apiary is not the wild, and it's not
the colonies fault it's oversized. I figure causing needless suffering is
not part of my beekeeping. Namby Pamby say some...Gotta do what works for us I suppose. If you have the time Snelgroving proper would give you the comb, and keep the bees. I guess anything that keeps the colony together whilst keeping brood apart from the queen will work. One laying worker colony I reunited. What's all the fine stuff around the eggs?
John Sewell