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Checkerboarding verses Opening the Broodnest

43K views 157 replies 25 participants last post by  wcubed 
#1 ·
Hi Guys,

I'm just getting back into beekeeping after several years and I've recently read a lot about Checkerboarding and Opening the Broodnest to help prevent bees from wanting to swarm and to also help build up larger populations.
Has anyone done any tests or seen scientific studies with a number of hives that compare the two methods?

It would seem that Opening the Broodnest by inserting empty frames requires more bees to stay in the hive to maintain brood temperatures, due to the increase in the volume of the nest area. So may not be useful at lower temperatures.

So what about a combination of both? For example using Checkerboarding in early spring when temperatures are low and Opening the Broodnest in early Summer once temperatures are closer to brood temperature?

Thanks
Matthew Davey
 
#73 ·
Yes, and did they still go to the top? I want to know because my first successful winter they went to the top but they almost starved too. This year I have more then enough honey and I am wondering if they will still go to the top. I also put a chunk of insulation on the top but this season is very mild so there still isn't a good comparison to last year.
 
#74 ·
Ace

One of the best tools you can have for checking on hives in the winter is a stethoscope. You can listen to all sides of the hive to locate the exact location of the cluster without disturbing the bees and opening the hive in the winter.

I have a Littmann, cost about $100.00 and worth the investment. The cheap ones don't really work well because it is hard to hear much through them.

Yes they still go to the top even with honey in the top box. IMO starvation is rarely the primary cause of winter death... usually secondary to some other issue.
 
#75 ·
I have one but there is so much background noise I can't get an accurate location. We bought a new 200 dollar one for my wife's daughter because she went from a heart unit to a pulmonary unit and needed a special one. I didn't dare try it out for fear of wrecking it. I will say that thing is like putting on head phones. No background noise what so ever.
 
#76 ·
Do you have a lot of traffic near your hives? That could be an issue.

Is you step daughter a nurse? I am also, I work on a stroke unit. The amplified stethoscopes are nice, I would be afraid of messing it up too...don't blame you there.
 
#78 ·
minz:
We deliberately moved away from double deeps many years ago. Too many reasons to go into here. We shifted to one deep and the rest shallows for flexibility. The brood nest is anchored in the deep by colony preference. The colony expands upward and decreases brood volume downward reliably with this config. Full season brood in the deep.

The pollen box was incorporated by '98, but we didn't learn until '07 why wintering was improved. CCD where nutrition was a suspect cause, prompted an investigation of when and whys.
Current config. from the top, down in late winter follows:
Shallow of mostly capped honey - To be CBed when forage is available.
Shallow of all capped honey - To avoid having to feed syrup in the early season. It's there for the odd season when they need it.
Deep basic brood nest, with overwintered cluster.
Shallow of empty comb. This box was last fall's pollen box, used in August of the preceding season to support fall needs, and left in place for the winter. It will be used to CB with the top box. It's brood comb. Susequently (maybe two weeks after CB) a full shallow of brood will be moved to this position to be filled with long-term pollen for this season's pollen box.
Bottom board.

Does this help?
Walt
 
#80 ·
Walt, I have a question that you spoke about in the book too, brood comb. Why does brood comb matter? In a natural hive the bees do not move frames of comb around they just make it into what ever they want be it storing honey or pollen or raising brood.
 
#85 ·
The established colony doesn't have wax making capability in the early season, even with nectar coming in. In the swarm prep period they generate wax makers to leave with the swarm, but the overwintered colony doesn't have sustained wax makers until main flow.
Walt
 
#86 ·
i am coming into spring with five colonies, and enough drawn comb to checkerboard them. i also have some meduim supers that still only have foundation.

i am not going to use a queen excluder. my plan was to move the first super to the bottom if it got filled up with brood, leave it there through winter for pollen, and use it to checkerboard next year.

my question is: would i be better off putting the supers with foundation on the bottom to start with, leave the drawn comb upstairs, and let it get back filled with honey later in the season?
 
#87 ·
Sq.
The colony is reluctant to draw F any time through the season when it is used below the brood nest. While 1st year colonies are programed to build down, overwintered tend to avoid it. Your supers of F are usable at the top after the start of new wax at main flow. To get more F drawn during the flow, add the F at the top of the brood nest - bottom super. The broodnest will be receding, so add the next below the last. More work, for sure, but you will get more comb drawn.

If you only have five supers of drawn comb, you might be better off to only CB a couple of hives and use some other technique for swarm reduction on the rest. You need to keep the CBed in overhead drawn comb up to repro c/o. Brood nest expansion through the CBed supers is accellerated and may only take 2 weeks. Foundation above that doesn't help much.

In Jackson Co. you have a fair spread in season timing as a result of elevation. Depending on whether you are in the river valley or the mountains makes a difference. Somewhere in between, you could be exactly the same as my timing. Note that Huntsville in the valley is almost a full 2 weeks earlier than here. (Only 30 miles)

Good luck with your choice of options,
Walt
 
#88 ·
very much appreciated walt. and yes, i am on a ridge top. i have a total of seven supers with drawn comb, enough to begin checkerboarding on the five hives, with some extra, hopefully enough to make it to new wax.
thanks again for the advice of bottom supering the foundation.
 
#89 ·
walt, i have one hive that is already raising brood and even has drones. on inspection yesterday, the one medium super had five frames of capped honey and four frames of empty comb, so i alternated the honey with the empty comb. there are still plenty of stores in the deep. i did not add the second medium of empty comb, because there was not enough in the first medium to checkerboard with. any suggestions?
 
#90 ·
Tough one. Check when you get a chance. If they fill the deep to the point of being crowded, and are not putting nectar in the med, pilfer a few outside frames of honey from the others to create another alternated box. Add it at the top.

If I understand, you have a deep with one med box of alternated above. The problem with that is the colony works to the top of their honey, and they seem to not be able to tell the difference between solid honey and alternated frames of empties. By having two supers of alternated, they build through the lower and you are home free.
Let's take this off-line via PM.
Walt
 
#91 ·
Walt, thanks the box configuration is exactly what I was looking for. By the sounds of it I don’t have nearly enough drawn foundation to try this year. A quick question about drawing wax, since we have been on it a fair bit in this thread, if I give them some capping wax will they “rework” it to draw out the foundation? I was adding some wax to my plastic frames today and thought about that.
 
#92 ·
If you are in an area where there is hive beetle.....Be carefull spreading and breaking up the brood nest. You spread the bees too thin, you are liable to find the hive slimed or powdered, depending on which of the two phenotypes of beetle you have. Here in Alabama, beetles can cause damage from February to November. WE try to keep the bees tight as much as possible and expand only when it is a must. Beetles changed our management. TED
 
#94 ·
We control swarming by pulling a couple of frames to make up nucs in the spring. And yes we do walk a tight line on almost swarming. And we do loose swarms...We used to produce thousands of two and three pound packages of bees for sale each year. Canadian border closure and later the advent of the beetle changed all that. Now if you shake a colony too hard, it then is a death sentence for that colony. So if you spead the brood chamber, you thin the bee's coverage of those combs, and the beetles have a feast..The people that do produce packages, use an awful lot of things like filiprinol in their bees. Stuff I consider items that should never be placed in a beehive. TED
 
#95 ·
minz; (playing catch up)
If you put cappings wax above the inner cover it disappears with time. I think its used as a substitute for stored wax (burr comb) in the brood nest. I see no evidence that it is used for drawing new comb. That may be because new comb is fashioned by the wax makers themselves.
Walt
 
#98 ·
Rurbanski - I am not qualified to answer your question. My climate is too different. Wcubed might be a better source of info. I can say that putting foundation in the brood area when there is no nectar flow often results in chewed out foundation because the bees use the wax elsewhere.

Crazy Roland
 
#99 ·
Ted, It sound to me like you are describing what I call "With every blessing comes a curse" I suppose you can turn that around and say with every curse comes a blessing if you want.
I grew up in Kansas where you can grow just about anything. But there is also every insect swarm , plague, fungus and disease also. I now live in Nevada where you can't grow much more than rocks. and there are no pests to speak of either. I cheat and make my own soil and am able to grow some very nice gardens with few diseases and such. You may have a mild climate to keep bees in but then you never get a break either.
 
#100 ·
Hey, rocks are nice. That is what I got an actual education in but only work in the field when a job comes along-economic geology. Since those jobs with an occasional mining company are sparse in the hills of the southeast, beekeeping has filled the niche nicely for my adult life. TED
 
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