From: grizzly bearnolds <mkittner@telus.net>
Date: Mon, 08 Oct 2001 20:03:50 -0700
To: BiologicalBeekeeping@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Shaking down to reduce size

>From: "joel acheson" <joeljed@hotmail.com>
>Date: Mon, 08 Oct 2001
>Subject: Re: [BioBee] Re: How do you tell diseases apart
>
>Probably I just don't understand the shakedown process.

Several shake down's I did this summer, but only for the purpose of leaving
a drone laying queen or worker in the grass, and for the flying bees to go
back to where they came from .. with whatever you provide for them to get
into. I thought I had calm bees this year so the shake down's weren't that
bad. Wonder what would happen with mean hives. Brrrrr.

>But if one puts a hive body with new foundation under the existing stack,
>and puts the queen down into it with an excluder above her, doesn't that
>do the same thing as would "shaking down" the workers into it. I mean,
>they're going to follow her down anyway, and create new comb for her
>without any severe disruption to the colony.

Ok .. back to the basics, the start, that's good for people like me. Don't
know if I can get small sized foundation here in Canada yet, but probably
could order from the States. Or, to avoid foundation altogether, pretend I
have a top bar hive (what little I have learned about them yet), that is ..
use the normal brood box, put in ten just frames (no foundation), with
maybe a bit of wax drawn up top for them to start their comb (it's
described somewhere's, I can't repeat it well enough yet since I have never
done that).

So, with that, I put bees and queen into that box and they have no choice
but to start somewhere's quickly. Or as Joel said, move the queen below,
put queen excluder on top, leave the rest of the box as was on top, and the
bees will spread out, most hopefully go below to join the queen and start
drawing foundation, the rest continue working on top.

I need something that isn't too drastic, something even I could do with a
hive or two .. all assuming there will be hives in the spring. I would be
willing to try something in the spring, I just don't have too many hives to
fool around with, and I need to get some understanding into my tough skull.
One nuc cost me almost $100 last spring, I can't afford to pay that much
too often. My main objective continues to be survival, though of course,
reducing cell size is one avenue of the survival techniques.

I hear several encouraging comments about the open mesh floors / screened
bottom boards on that other list, so I'm pretty happy about them so far.
I'm ok with those now, therefore can try something else next year. So ..
let the lessons begin for the newbees. There must be a few others on this
list that need to learn, beside me.

As there just came another letter from Dee explaining the matter further, I
now realize that the thread was about shaking down the bees off diseased
comb, different matter therefore. I was thinking instead about the shake
down process to reduce the size of bees and cells.

>From: "deelusbybeekeeper" <deelusbybeekeeper@excelonline.com>
>Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2001
>Subject: Re: [BioBee] Re: How do you tell diseases apart

A shake down - meaning, to shake bees off comb .. take them out of a hive
box, shake off comb directly into another hive box ?? Or move away from the
hive, shake out into the grass (after saving the queen of course), and let
the bees find their way to their old spot, where a new box and foundation
awaits them, and the queen installed already ??

>Often times the bees will stay with the brood and the queen will be left
>by herself.

Give the brood to other hives, and so there will be no brood with this
shake down colony ?? Pretend the shake down colony is just a fresh new
colony, like a nuc just bigger, and they have to start with everything anew
?? Obviously, approaching winter is not the time to attempt this, I would
say, but rather in the spring when the season starts up and the hive seems
established enough to continue ??

>So what is an "Old Shakedown". This is done by placing a queen excluder on
>the bottom board. Upon that then placing a tight super, flush to the queen
>excluder and adding newly mounted foundation to be drawn out, plus adding
>feed, if no major honey flow is currently on to sustain the colony, until
>new combs can be redrawn and the queen and bees are established again (2-3
>combs with sealed and emerging brood).

Sealed and emerging brood on OLD enlarged comb? Just be added amongst the
new reduced foundation? That cannot be what you mean .. .. instead, you
mean, when the bees have raised 2-3 combs of brood THEMSELVES on the new
foundation.

Again, I am thinking ahead for next spring, not for anything to be done
right now, except learning and understanding. Learning new stuff is a tough
job.

Ma. / Nass Valley .. British Columbia .. CANADA
(near the Alaska border) .. mailto:mkittner@telus.net