How to Begin using Small Cell Bees

[Dave W]

Greeting . . .

I have read most of the small cell info posted. Lots of good, persuasive, discussion of the CONCEPT. But, cant find a "single-source" for HOW-TO.

Need to know:
1) How to begin using package bees.
2) How to change/switch (regress) established hive.

thanx

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Dave W . . .

A NewBEE with 1 hive.
First package installed
April, 2003.

[Solomon Parker]

Packages bees are simple compared to established hives, simply put the packages on 4.9mm foundation when you start. then keep adding foundation to the middle of the broodnest from time to time and slowly regress them further.

As far as established colonies, I have not done them myself and there are others with much more experience.

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Sol Parker
Southern Oregon Apiaries
http://www.allnaturalhoney.com

[Michael Bush]

>1) How to begin using package bees.
>2) How to change/switch (regress) established hive.

I think you'll find that Dee had more detail than you could sort through. She has researched this thoroughly and she has a lot of detail on what to do.

Some of it depends on how you WANT to do it and how important you think certain steps are.

Since the chemicals are actually part of the problem with the mites (see Dee's reference to studies that fluvinates cause mites to reproduce faster if it doesn't kill them). Some take getting chemcicals out of the hive very seriously. They want a clean slate so they either scorch the hives and make new frames with foundation (the one end of the scale) or they scrap all the wax that has checmicals in it (middle of the road) in order to have a clean system. You have to decide how important this is to you.

I am trying to get all the old wax out, but a little at a time.

Also you have to decide how quickly and drastically you want to regress.

Dee's method, shakedowns:

A shakedown is when you shake all the bees off of all the combs and put the bees on bare small cell foundation. Usually you put an excluder on the bottom so they don't abscond.

If you do a couple of shakedowns on a hive you can get down to 4.9mm cells in the brood nest. I'd focus on the brood nest first. Personally I'd just focus on the brood nest. That's the important part. If you get cells in the center of the broodnest that are mostly 4.9mm or smaller you'll do well. If you get 5.15mm or so (what you'll probably get on the first regression) then you want to swap out those combs.

Part of the delimma of regression is what to do with the brood comb when you do the shakedowns. You can give it to another hive. I WOULDN'T put it above an excluder. The bees tend to abondon the queen on the bare comb and raise a new one from the brood and you still have a large brood nest.

The method I'm using (besides wax coated PermaComb:

Personally I find the shakedowns too drastic. I would start with small cell bees if you can (Buckey bee has 4.9mm packages and I have some nucs but the packages will be cheaper). Then whether they are or are not small cell bees, just use small cell foundation or starter strips. I like the starter strips. I think the bees should be able to build what they want.

Then as time goes I would put new 4.9mm foundation in the brood nest where the comb is bigger than 4.9mm. Measure across 10 cells and divide by 10 and you'll get the cell measurment. Take a honey frame off the outside and move the combs to the outside. I hate to split a brood nest under most circumstances, but to get them to draw small cell the foundation needs to be in the middle of the brood nest. So I would try to do this kind of thing (splitting the brood nest) in May or so when it's not going to get very cold at night. If I needed to do it earlier I'd might just put it on the edge of the brood nest.

Basically once the core of the brood nest is small cell you've arrived. Just keep culling the larger stuff out as time goes on.

Simplest method:

Easiest and shortest version but takes longer is just buy small cell foundation and use it. Cull a few combs from each brood nest each year and replace with small cell foundation. Eventually you'll be there with minimal effort.

[Scot Mc Pherson]

>>>>Personally I find the shakedowns too drastic. I would start with small cell bees if you can (Buckey bee has 4.9mm packages and I have some nucs but the packages will be cheaper). Then whether they are or are not small cell bees, just use small cell foundation or starter strips. I like the starter strips. I think the bees should be able to build what they want.

Although I think getting small cell bees to begin with makes life easier, if you ALREADY have bees, then I don't think getting small cell bees from a few breeders is the best idea. There is a GREAT DEAL to be said for genetic diversity, and getting SOME small cell packages, and reducing some of your own, or packages from other large cell bee suppliers is the most consientious decision. If buckeye and 1 or two others are the only small cell bees around, then you can contribute to a shallow genetic pool.

This is just my opinion, but I feel strongly about it. I am getting my pacakges from Buckeye, but I don't currently have any bees and starting small cell is the best idea for me I think, but I also plan on replacing the queens in all but 1 hive, and am getting queens from other family trees for the other hives. My criteria is a docile bee in selecting which buckeye bees gets to stay, I have children and a small yard, and neighbors whom I'd like to get into the idea that having honey bees around in the neighborhood is a good thing and no a bad thing.

I already have retailers intrested in selling full complete bars from my top bar hives, and I am going to try and get a grant and permission to keep bees within public easements and permission to keep bees on private property within various local neighborhoods that will allow it.

I already have one person who is interested in keeping bees with me and he's going to keep 2 hives on his property.

This will be a fun community oriented thing. Selling to local retailers who are interested in buying and selling honey that was harvested within a 5 minutes walk. So far the interest has been at health food stores that already sell "natural" honey */snicker/*. And some have said that if they had "raw comb honey" that it would be the first thing to sell off of their shelves.

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--
Scot Mc Pherson
BeeSourceFAQ: <A HREF="http://linuxfromscratch.org/~scot/beewiki/

Linux" TARGET=_blank>http://linuxfromscratch.org/~scot/beewiki/</A>

Linux is a Journey, not a Guided Tour" ~ Me

"Do or not do, there is no try" ~ Master Yoda

[Scot Mc Pherson]

Oh yeah, the beewiki could be fleshed out a lot in the Small Cell area. I am working again tonight through the weekend, but as before I will work some more on the site starting monday.

This last monday and tuesday I spent mostly figuring out the structure of the site and arranging re-arranging the existing content to help set the "mode" of the site.

Again as always everyone is welcomed and encouraged to add their knowledge and experiences to the BeeWiki. Small Cell is an excellent area to get started.

How about you Michael, Dee?


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--
Scot Mc Pherson
BeeSourceFAQ: <A HREF="http://linuxfromscratch.org/~scot/beewiki/

Linux" TARGET=_blank>http://linuxfromscratch.org/~scot/beewiki/</A>

Linux is a Journey, not a Guided Tour" ~ Me

"Do or not do, there is no try" ~ Master Yoda

[Michael Bush]

Part of my hesitation (besides not having the time at the moment) is that I have my opinions and other's have theirs. I don't consider mine any more official than anyone elses. In the case of small cell, many of us have taken different routes to get there and many of those are working. I suppose we could each do a section on what OUR method was, but I hesitate to imply that it is THE method.

[Scot Mc Pherson]

Michael,
You seem to misunderstand the purpose of the BeeWiki and Wikis in general. They are ABOUT user input. For example, one person can write about their methods and thoughts on cell reduction, and others later can edit your work in include their thoughts as well. It is also possible for someone to create an another page for an alternate point of view, but I don't think this is necessary...Regardless of what I think though, the fact remains that someone else might come in and say, "Hey this can be arranged better, so I am going to move this page over to a subsection, and create my own subsection." And that's OK, that's the idea of a collaborative project, though it won't work if everyone is afraid of putting down their words for whatever reason.


The idea of the Wiki is so that we all can provide input, refine the input already given, make things more digestible, so on and so forth. Its not a conversational thread, but more like a shared document. Putting your thoughts to words thusly can only enrich the community. I please hope that no-one is refraining from contributing to the site because they fear other's opinion or because you take a view that is so humble as to stay quiet.

No one is going to think that your way is the official way, there is no such thing in beekeeping, otherwise much of the material posted on these very boards would not exist.

Please allow me to reiterate, this site is not "my" site, its *our* site that we work(ed) on together.

[This message has been edited by Scot Mc Pherson (edited February 14, 2004).]