Checker Boarding Revisited

[D. Murrell]

Hi Guys,

I conducted a small test this spring. I went back to running my hives much as I did before running an open broodnest and checker boarding.

The hives were setup to overwinter in two deeps with the top box full of honey and the bees essentially in the bottom box. During early spring, hives were checked for weight to make sure none starved. At the first signs of congestion or swarm preparation, the hives were supered at the top.

The results were dramatic. Over ninety percent of these hives decided to swarm. Their broodnests were quickly backfilled. The extra space provided by the supers had no effect on the rate of backfilling.

These figures are almost exactly opposite those when I checker board my hives. Less than 10 percent choose to swarm, even though they have hugh hive populations.

The checker boarded hives would continue to raise brood while those in this test case have essentially shut down brood rearing in preparation for swarming. The population differences in these two kinds of colonies should really be apparent in about a month.

And foraging has greatly decreased in most of the hives that are preparing to swarm. In the checker boarded hives, much of the backfilled honey would be converted into bees. In the swarming hives most of that honey will still be around for awhile.

Final thought. I'd forgotten how much work it takes to keep large, healthy hives that are fully committed to swarming out of the trees. I appreciate the elegance and simplicity of checker boarding alot more now :>)

Regards
Dennis

[Tors]

Great post, you cannot beat experiance "in the field".

Alex King (K142)

[Winterhawk]

My first year of trying checker boarding. Have you also seen how much more calm the bees seem to be?

[BerkeyDavid]

Thanks for sharing Dennis. I have had great luck too. (Knock on wood!)

[swarm_trapper]

tried checkerboarding on a hive this year wow what a diferance on that hive problem is im getting on 4.9 so drawn comb is worth its weight in gold (not quite but close). the hive that i did checkerboard i still used an excluder (cause we still have big size cells in the supers) so it is not true checker boarding but as soon as we get enought drawn comb i think all hives will get it done to them. Nick

[wayacoyote]

Dennis,
When you checker boarded, what winter configuration did you use, double deeps? And how did you checkerboard, in the second deep? With mediums/ shallows above the deeps?

Waya

[brent.roberts]

I noticed the change in mood too. Last season I checkerboarded ( is that a real word ? ) from spring to maybe mid August. That was my first season. After getting over the initial fear, I did all the work without gloves of bee suit. When I stopped checkerbaording, they were not so nice. Needed the suit and gloves again. Might have been other factors, but they were still filling the honey super in late Aug and Sept so they were getting stuff from somewhere.

[Junior Pryor]

Hi Men
I am new to this and this Forum.I live in western NC.
Been keeping bees about 12 years, and never heard of Checker Boarding ?????? It sounds great,But just how do you do it? I am going to love this Forum, This is my frist time.
Junior Pryor

[Parke County Queen]

Hi Men

Junior - just a reminder - there are women on this forum too!!

Try a search on checkerboarding. You will get lost of into.

[Parke County Queen]

Ooops,

I meant lots of info - not lost of info

[brent.roberts]

My beekeeping tutor called it frame manipulation. Essentially taking empty ( with foundation or comb) frames and inserting them into the middle of the brood, alternating brood and empty frames. They will build up the empties to make new brood much faster than waiting for them to expand the brood outward. There are much more elegant explantions here if you do a search for checkerboarding.

[ June 01, 2006, 02:14 PM: Message edited by: brent.roberts ]

[Junior Pryor]

Oooooopps
Parke County Queen, Yes we have 5 women in our Bee club and they are all great Beekeepers.
I will do a search.I know I am going to learn A lot of good stuff on this Forum. Thank you for being here.
Junior Pryor

[Wee3Bees Apiary]

Has anyone tried checkboarding in the honey supers? I did it this year also and I believe that they tend to draw out the frames quicker in the honey supers also. I had some packages that I started on April 28th and already they have two deeps and a honey super (they flow around here has been pathetic this year, but they are finding something and appear to be motivated).

Does anyone think that is my imagination?

[Michael Bush]

>My beekeeping tutor called it frame manipulation. Essentially taking empty ( with foundation or comb) frames and inserting them into the middle of the brood, alternating brood and empty frames. They will build up the empties to make new brood much faster than waiting for them to expand the brood outward. There are much more elegant explantions here if you do a search for checkerboarding.

That's a good description of what I would call "opening the brood nest". But Checkerboarding is not in the brood nest. It is directly ABOVE the brood nest in the supers.

>Has anyone tried checkboarding in the honey supers?

That's what checkerboarding is. It's drawn capped comb alternated with empty drawn combs.

> Does anyone think that is my imagination?

No. It's not your imagination.

[D. Murrell]

Hi Guys,

I've added an addendum concerning my little test to my checker boarding page at:

www.bwrangler.com/ (http://bwrangler.farvista.net/qmar.htm)bee/gche.htm (http://bwrangler.farvista.net/gche.htm)

There's some surprising results and observations concerning checker boarding, swarming, and general swarm management.

Wayacoyote, I detail my checker boarding on the same page above under 'Checker Boarding My Langstroth Hives'

Regards
Dennis

[ December 31, 2006, 12:20 AM: Message edited by: D. Murrell ]

[BerkeyDavid]

Hi all,
Dennis thanks for the update to your web site on checkerboarding. Just a couple of thoughts that come to mind after reading it.

"checkerboarding not helpful for nucs." Agree. It seems to me that the swarming impulse doesn't really hit a hive until the 2nd year, therefore no need to checkerboard a split, nuc or package.
I think Walt addresssed this in one of his articles recently. His methods are designed for 2nd + year colonies.

"congestion" There was a recent article by Walt where he says that congestion does not cause swarming. But I am still a little unclear about what does cause congestion and its relationship to swarming.

"top bar hive swarm management" - probably should go in TBH forum as a new topic. I will post something there.

"reproductive swarm cut off" I am still trying to figure out this date for my area. Any clues I can look for? Yellow Sweet clover is going full bore now. I have done my checkerboarding in March and so far have had real good luck with it, but I have been unable to figure out the date and the "lull" that is associated with it.

Thanks!

[Michael Bush]

I would say congestion doesn't cause reproductive swarming. But you crowd a hive enough any time of year you can cause swarming.

[Wee3Bees Apiary]

Michael Bush,

Thanks for your response to me on June 2nd. I have been a little delayed in responding. This is my second year as a beekeeper and I am learning a lot from the forum and from you.

Opening up the brood nest is the way to go . . . we were having drought conditions here and 2 weeks ago I wasn't preparing to get any extra honey unless the fall honeyflow was good. My second year colonies only had one deep full of honey each (not even capped yet . . . still cooking).

That all being said, against my better judgement (not having any experience with mature colonies of bees that is), I opened up the brood nest a week before Labor Day.

What a difference some rain, opening the brood nest, busy bees and extra supers can do to improve the honey crop. It is amazing to me how quickly bees can draw out comb, fill it and cap it.

We seem to have gone from not having any excess to having about 3 mediums per hive full of honey (unfortunately, I am out of equipment . . .).

I plan on extracting this weekend most of the surplus.

[Wee3Bees Apiary]

By the way, until about 3 weeks ago I didn't have a local beekeeping mentor. Now I have a beekeeper with over 30 years of experience helping me.

He was suprised at what I already know about beekeeping for only 14 months. I'm not that smart or observant. It definitely comes from the knowledge that I have gleaned since finding beesource last fall and reading all of your posts.

Thanks for all of the long distance advice!

[wfarler]

ditto on the productivity, calmness and swarming.

however, walt says it cuts repro swarming but not overcrowding swarming or supersedures which takes place after the repro season. something about green wood that I still don't quite get. Experience forces me to agree with Walt.

best 8 bucks I spent.

[Tia]

I've been checkerboarding now for two years. Last year I neglected to checkerboard one of the hives and that's the one that swarmed. This year, no swarms (so far--don't want to jinx myself). What I thought were swarms at my two "swarm traps"--actually complete hive setups with drawn comb and the whole thing--were actually just my very nosy bees! My hives have never been stronger, larger, calmer or more productive than since I've started checkerboarding. The colonies are huge this year. Between the hours of 2:30 and 4:30 pm the hum in the beeyard is almost deafening. I can't even get a count at the entrance of how many are coming/going in the course of a minute! It's been so dry around here that once again I think it's going to be honey from the marsh--it was absolutely delicious last year. Had a hint of apricot to it(?) Anyway, I feel it's all thanks to Walt Wright's checkerboarding.

[Walts-son-in-law]

I missed printing this for Walt.