Uh, checkboarding is not working

[psfred]

mrpush:

Check in the POV section for Walt's papers. You will probably have to read the whole set. You need to be at the home page for BeeSource to find it.

It sounds to me as if you didn't get enough empty space above the brood nest. "Shotgun" backfilling may be an artifact of brood age -- the bees are filling in the empty cells as they appear. If you had a huge pollen flow this spring like most of us had, the brood pattern was a little crazy due to lots of pollen stored in the brood area, causing un-even pattern filling by the queen. Bees had to eat the pollen they stuffed in there before brood can be laid in a cell.

Try to accumulate enough drawn comb this year. One way to do that is to move one medium down underneath the deep once the weather warms up. The bees will fill it with pollen over the summer, then use that pollen to make winter bees, leaving the comb empty. That box then becomes your supply of empty comb in late winter, and you can use it to checkerboard the hive even when it's too cold to inspect. If there are adequate stores, the bees should all be in the deep, making it easy.

This has been a screwy year, I'm not surprised CBing didn't work for you this time. We are at least two, maybe three, weeks early -- strawberries are ripe at the U-Pick, and they usually come in at Memorial Day! You may have been a couple weeks late on getting the CBing done even though it was really too cold at the time.

I'm going to try a deep and two mediums for the brood nest on my splits this year and see what happens when I checkerboard in the spring next year.

Peter

[wcubed]

M. D.
Have limited experience with plastic. Got a couple of frames of pierco in an exchange and hated them. Even with proper bee space the bees built comb on the top of the top bars, glueing the boxes together. Assumed they were trying to seal some undesired scent. Canned 'em ASAP.

Short on drawn comb, Bought 900 Permacomb. Untreated for acceptance, the bees wouldn't use them. Saved some for comb feeder boxes and sold the rest. They make good crash feeder boxes. The bees dislike them so much that they move the feed out in a hurry. Deliver me from plastic.
Walt

[USCBeeMan]

Walt,

I have purchased permacomb over the years including from you. I love the stuff. Most of the colonies will jump right on it. But you must first wax the frames with beeswax or heat some beeswax and roll it on. Rolling it on seems to work the best. That aso goes for plasticell (plastic foundation). Also the permacomb must be put in the spacers provided or they will be too close together. To keep the bees from making comb on top or the bottom of the permacomb cut off the tabs on the bottom and sides. Also slightly cut back the top of the frame to remove most of the indention. Lately I have been using hot glue to fill in part of the middle of the indentions.

Good seeing you some weeks back. Those bees I got from the cutout are unbelievable. Both highs are full. Put on a medium super yesterday and will probably add another one in the next couple of days. They were kinda hot when I opened them up yesterday late afternoon!!!

[mrpush]

Peter,

Thanks for the info. I am going to do the bottom supering for wax draw and build up more drawn comb. I always found the quickest was to pop foundation in between brood frames, but that is a bit of work, disruptive, and I ended up with eggs in cells after 1/3 drawn.

Anyone else have some methods of how to maximixe wax building?

Thx

MP

[mrpush]

Walt,

I am re-reading your CB info. Still did not see mention of excluders at all.

Anyway while reading I now have a question with the whole CB method.

Why UP and not down?

I have always read comments on "Queens prefer to lay up" but in the wild, when starting out from swam, she has to lay down.

My notion of swam control has always been one of "try to maintain new swam hive condtions" to keep them in the "were in a new home" mentality.

So in new hives, they wax down and out, Queen lays down and out, so why not always SIMULATE this in our hive configurations coming out of winter.

So have you tried CBing in a DOWNWARD fashion?

How about giving them lots of downward room in the fall by adding the extra boxes below before winter. Simply break the "honey dome" late winter / earily spring. Everyone sees empty comb below, Queen lays downward, keep foundation at bottom to satisify the urge to wax downward once whities are ready. Leave outer frames open for storage of "mild" incoming nectar?

The only thing I see missing from a new hive establishing is the lack of white waxers earily in the season.

I was going to try this this year but just decided to stick to all one method (and I messed it up a bit, lol).

I am just thinking that if they are laying downard, it will help in making them think they are still "just getting started".

If say you come out of winter with brood in top deep, remove the extra HS above and break up the stores to the sides of the cluster. You could put some stores under, but that would be a lot of box manipulations and if trying in cold, would not fly so simple do this prep in the fall. If they they fill 2 deeps (or whatever config you give them) w brood, then simply reverse as they start to store incoming and add new space on the top.

Ever tried this type of thing?

Thanks,

MP

[mrpush]

Walt,

One other thing I have not seen in your articles, is about colony size and summer starvation.
Seems to me most people harvest earily summer. The 4th of july is popular here.

However, last year, I would have lost ALL my hives had I not fed them in july. Everyone had zero stores left, nothing, no honey no pollen (new hives).

If populations are huge, how do you monitor how much to "leave on" over summer lull? A big hive can really chow it down.

Thanks,

MP

[USCBeeMan]

Rarely should you rob 1st year hives. Not unless there is a very heavy nectar flow and you got the bees early enough for them to get a large population of foragers before the nectar flow was at it's maximum.

Never put a Q excluder below frames of foundation. Bees will not go through the excluder. Trust me, I found out the hard way. If you have drawn comb or some frames with some brood, the bees will be more than happy to go through the excluder.

Never put frames of foundation in boxes with spacers. You will have a mess as they will draw the comb out every way but the correct one. Need to have 10 frames in a 10 frame box, 8 frames in an 8 frame box, etc. Trust me, I found out the hard way.

Qs like to go up. Doesn't matter what they do in the wild. If they start their comb in a tree near the entrance and the hollow goes up, then the Q lays up as the comb is built. Samething if the hollow goes down, just in reverse. I don't use excluders and I can tell you that I can have 5 supers on top of the brood box. The Q will go up through every one of them and lay eggs. It has been said that honey is a natural Q excluder. In another words, a Q wll not go past a solid box of capped honey. That's always not true either. But once the Q goes to the top and lays eggs, she rarely lays any going back down. Probably because the workers are back filling all of the empty brood cells with honey as quickly as the bees emerge.

If you don't have any comb, then you are just going to have to wait until you get some drawn out. When I go through a box and they are drawing the comb more on one side of the frames than the other, I reverse the frames. If they are drawing comb more on specific frames (Middle, left side, right side) I swap around these frames with undrawn foundation. (kinda like CBing) But once you have a box of drawn comb you are home free. Just move every other frame of comb into another super in every other frame. In between the drawn frames of comb in both boxes place undrawn foundation. If they are taking sugar or there is a nectar flow, they will quickly draw out the undrawn frames. Repeat this process as necessary. It's better to have the bees draw out comb than get honey from them the first year. Eventually they will slow down or stop drawing comb. Feed them sugar water so that they can eat and store up reserves for the winter.

[wcubed]

Preoccupied for 24 hours with failed efforts to acquire an extra large swarm too high in a pine tree. Really wanted that swarm. They obviously had the "right stuff", geneticly. What are the odds that you could drop the limb with the cluster on it twice and the queen would just move over a notch to an adjacent limb? Had half the bees in the box on the ground both times but the answer was obvious - the queen wasn't among 'em. Cluster reforming, out of reach.
Back to the subject:
MP,
"Cringe" was the right word. I actually had a physical reaction to the use of the excluder. For the purpose of honey production, limiting the brood volume with an excluder seems to me to be going in the wrong direction. We'll except Roland's labor intensive approach.

The wife who did most of the extracting complained about pollen in the supers. Went all-up with excluders. Have a bad habit of being a plunger. If something is worth trying, apply it across the board. In this case for one season only. Didn't like the overall effects, and that was prior to CB. With CB you are shooting for maximum brood volume and in any given season, there is no way to guess what that max will be. Forget you knew they existed. Yes, you will get some pollen left upstairs as the brood nest recedes, but that is a small price to pay for doubling honey production. Those frames with pollen content are set aside coming out of extraction in a "put back on" box. Added back on the hives, The pollen is quickly cleaned up during the summer doldrums.

Re up/down growth/expansion:
First, recognize that establishment (1st year) and fully established (3rd and subs) have two separate and distinct sets of objectives. We won't address the flexible middle ground of second year colonies.

As I understand your question, you want to find a way to keep the colony each year in the establishment mode of building downward. The Warre scheme, as you know, does that by supering on the bottom, but I can't make myself believe that is better. It's not only very labor intensive and subjective (can't see down there) but is adverse to the natural instincts of the established colony. Your quest is an ambitious goal, and I wish you well.

For those who advocate letting the established colony build downward in the early season on a regular basis, we have some comments. It is unnatural to their instincts. The overwintered colony's primary goal in the early season is to reproduce by swarming. To achieve that goal, brood nest expansion is a must to create the population to divide. The colony with cluster at the top must grow downward. It's a contingency or back up process and is less effective. Growing upward they have the advantage of working in the cluster heat rise. Try not to make growing downward sound "just as good."

Colony size in summer:
Locally it's not a problem. The brood volume is decreasing through the spring flow from repro c/o. At harvest, we seldom have more than a deep and shallow of brood (5 frames). If we have time, we consolidate capped honey at the top to take off. Partial or uncapped frames are left at the top of the brood nest for the summer doldrums. Keep in mind that inactive bees don't eat much and in a dearth, they are inactive. Severe brood nest reduction sets in at flow trail off and even the brood drain on honey supplies is getting less as the doldrums proceed. Sometimes, colonies are down to 2 deep frames of brood by 1 August, and they have not been deprived of groceries.

Walt

[mrpush]

Hi,

Good info everyone thanks for the clerifications on CB'ing and wax generation etc. I apprechiate all the input.

I know CBing is really simple, but I guess I over simplified / missed some details. I have had less and less time to be w my bees, and maybe I just got lazy in my readings. Ya know how when you start to understand something new and just kind of fill in blanks with what seems right to you? I must have done that along with no do dilligents in my readings.

I would have to conclude that CBing, if it has not prevented swarming for my 5 hives could be due in part to the following:

1.) Late CB date due to VERY earily spring
2.) Insufficent DRAWN COMB above the brood nest
3.) Queen excluder above brood nest

In conclusion I can easily see that the synergistic effects of these three things could wreak havoc on what CBing tries to accomplish. I will update here whenever I find time to get in some inspections on my 5 hives.

Don't forget to MAKE EFFORTS to enjoy and spend time with your family members. If you take this for granted, you will be VERY sorry if you lose them.


God Bless,

MP

[mac]

O.K. I am using all mediums. So I have been doing my concept of checker boarding the last bunch of years but I can’t quantify honey production results but I can say Swarming is not a problem. What I have been doing is reversing brood boxes in the spring if the cluster is at the top or remove the empty comb if there is a small cluster. I also move a frame of brood up into the second box and replace it with a foundation less frame if night temps will not cause chilled brood. I CB additional frames, if there are few frames of honey I just add empty comb and I CB them with foundationless frames. No excluder and the Q moves up with no hesitancy. When white wax is being produced the foundationless frames are being drawn out and the queen is using them way before they are finished. I continue moving a frame or two of brood up and add foundationless frames between them. At a certain point the queen stops using the upper supers and as the brood hatches cells are filled with nectar. I have also been able to have a super with only 4 or 5 frames left in the center of the super BUT I have to keep an eye on them, if they become filled comb is then built from the inner cover and that IS a mess. The standard way to keep bees here and the bee association teaches is to use a 10 frame deep then an excluder, folks are always complaining there bees have swarmed and are in the trees. 16 hives last year 1 swarm. 7 hives the year before 1 swarm. 4hives before that 1 swarm. 20 hives this year and it might get real interesting. Ditch the excluder. I’m just saying.

[psfred]

MrPush:

The queen excluder is definitely going to cause issues with checkerboarding, as the whole idea is to open up so much space the bees think they aren't ready to swarm and the queen lays a nice, big brood nest. You WANT her up in the two supers above the deep, making many more bees.

The very compressed spring didn't help much, either -- things moved along much more rapidly than they usually do, making the timing more critical, and this year you may very well not have been able to get it done due to weather before they took off.

Better luck next year!

Peter

[NeilV]

I am a checkerboarder, and it has worked perfectly for me the last three seasons. Not this year.

This year was weird in two ways, both weather-related. First, last summer/fall was so hot and dry that I had to feed a lot just to get the hives through winter. Then, this winter was so warm that plants were in some cases 6 weeks ahead of schedule, with some species of plants that usually bloom separately blooming at the same time.

The net effect is that checkerboarding has not worked. I usually checkerboard in late February, and that's what I tried to do this year.

When I went into my hives, about 2 did not have anything to checkerboard with -- they were crammed in the top boxes, about to run out of food. On those hives, I just did a regular reversal. They were weaker than normal -- the brood was in the bottom and there was nothing above them but comb. I also put two supers on those hives. Out of those hives, one went into full swarm mode. I have been cutting out queen cells, probably an exercise in futility but a learning experience nonetheless. The other hive is okay.

Two more hives were checkerboarded and supered. One swarmed once and is now recovering. The other was going to swarm, and I split it into four hives. Three of four parts now have laying queens. This is not a great disaster, because I wanted to have more hives, and now do. (Expanding last year was hard due to the drought/heat causing no nectar or pollen.)

My only other hive has a lousy queen coupled with varroa mite problems. I'm using thymol and hoping to catch a swarm to requeen it.

Bottom line, I think this near lack of a winter was about as extreme a weather event as I've ever seen. I don't think we had a hard frost since the end of February, which is crazy. It is hard to appreciate how extreme the weather has been, since it's been extremely nice weather. I think I should have reversed/checkerboarded about February 1. Problem is, I had no way to know that on February 1.

I will chalk this year up to weird weather, and try to remember that if its been really warm, checkerboarding/reversing needs to be done earlier (and then, of course, I will have the coldest spring ever.)

[Roland]

Wcubed wrote:

For the purpose of honey production, limiting the brood volume with an excluder seems to me to be going in the wrong direction. We'll except Roland's labor intensive approach.

Exception accepted.

The excluder also allows us to remove a greater percentage of the honey that the bees produce, increasing NET production.

Crazy Roland

[wcubed]

Seeing Niel's post above concerned me enough that I thought maybe we should check status. I had already boasted on a thread that we were into main flow and out of danger for repro swarms. We saw the early season coming, and CBed the first Sunday in Feb, instead of toward the end of Feb, so we don't have that excuse. Preliminary indications, as of yesterday, are that the largest colony had SWARMED. Not ever having seen a properly CBed colony swarm, it took it a while to register. As we went down in the stack, the evidence grew. Very few bees at the oversized inner cover vent - bad sign. Not many bees on foundation being drawn and filled - bad sign - should be covered in bees during main flow. In fact, very few bees in the 6 or 7 supers above the basic deep. Harold was the first to say "I think they swarmed." I was in shock.

Supposed to warm up from this spate of blackberry winter in the next few days. Will go back in the AM in the next few days (keep from interfering with the mating process) and confirm the preliminary indications.

Walt

[squarepeg]

not from checkerboarded hives, but had one swarm saturday, and another today. was able to catch the one from today. these were both secondary swarms. still hearing virgins piping in two other hives.

[mrpush]

Ah-ha! So CB'ing doesnt work! See that Roland! LOL.....

Ah, I'm kidding....ya know...and everyone likes a "hard worker" anyway.

Neil,

What is your hive setup? Deep-shallow, Deep -medium?

Seems to me that CB'ing TIMING is very important! And as Neil stated, how would you know spring is coming earily at the end of January? You really don't.

So why not CB late fall earily winter to avoid this problem? Just leave the "Winter setup" alone and add CB supers on top? A simple look into the super just above the brood in late winter to make sure there is no "honey dome" or to break it up?

Just a thought.

Also those of you experienced in CB, does a Med-Deep-Medium work? I am in PA and winters can be bad.

When do you setup your over winter CB setup, aka when do you drop the HS below the deep that will become the empty for CB time?

Thanks,


MP

[Roland]

Ah-ha! So CB'ing doesnt work! See that Roland! LOL.....

Ah, I'm kidding....ya know...and everyone likes a "hard worker" anyway.

Glad you don't take me too seriously. All methods are being tested with the strange weather this year. We are not having problems, but the calendar has been of little use. Because of the abnormal situation, we have had to be much more attentive to what is going on in the hive, and postulate what needs to be done in these uncharted waters.

I wish the best to Wcubed and his checkerboarding. I believe the dialog has increased our understanding of the behavior of bees, even if it has shown us that we know less that we think we knew.

Crazy Roland

[mrpush]

UPDATE:

Ok, I finally got out to my hives: I did remove the excluders one day just after starring this thread.

Hive 1: They are have filled 60% of 2 Mediums on top w nectar, a little tiny bit is capped. In those mediums, found 6-8 capped queen cells on sides and bottom. Several with smooth brown tips Also found SEVERAL OPENED queen cells.

Population looks quite large, if I were a guessing man, I'd say they did not swarm but could have.

Still some capped brood, but NO SIGNS OF EGGS OR LARVA IN ANY STAGES.

Some backfilling in brood but not lots.

Not sure what their deal is, but at least several queens emerged but population is impressive. This was my strongest hive and like I said from start was huge, 2 deep and 2 med full of brood earily on. They may have swarmed but I'm still expecting some surplus cause theres a whole bunch of them in there.

HIVE 2:

Same as hive one but NO overhead storage and was not a good CB, only a couple frames w drawn comb.

Some larve and a few capped queen cells, and 1 or more OPEN Queen cells.

A bit more stores in brood are here but although population not bad.

I added some more frames of drawn comb above brood here.


Hive 3: about 50% medium filled, not capped nectar.

Lots of capped brood and eggs and larve. Queen cells about, most span bottom of frames. Several young queen cells full of white goo. Population ok.

Hive 4: About same as Hive 3


Hive 5: Abount same as hive 3


So all hives either have swarmed, (and I just can't tell) are preparing to swarm, or are superceding. Lol!

All population seemed at least medium large to me. I have seen swarmed hives before and you most certainly can tell lots of girls are missing. Most brood frames packed. When you pull boxes, they kind of spew up onto top bars. Super frames have good bit of bees, maybe not full but at least 75%.

Well I dont have time to do drastic anti-swarm techniques, so I guess I'll just see how the flow goes.

Oh, One question, On hive 2 I think, w several opened queen cells, there was another cell just breaking open so I assisted.

She came out and looked as if she were running for her life. Workers were trying to grab her and a few looked as if they were trying to ball her. She appeard to sting a few but I saw no worker stingers stuck in her. They would bite her legs etc and she ran around like crazy!

What is this about?

Thanks much,

MP

[wcubed]

Status in Elkton (this will get cumbersome.):
Background: I have no hives. Friend and neighbor, Harold, acquired my last five 3 years ago - all 1st year starters. Got duped into starting over to assist a family member who gave it up before he saw his first frame of brood. They were located on Harold's place,and he took them over. He does the physical stuff and I watch. As he puts it, my system is the only system he knows, and he is a quick learner. He no longer waits for me to tell him what he should be doing this week.

In early April, two of the now 7 were getting overly defensive. The big hive and a cutout were moved to the "back forty," because it was not known which one had taken to patrolling the area and stinging when unprovoked. The timing was reconstructed as follows:
10 April; Moved 1/2 mile.
15 April; Harold checked hives in the back; big hive full of bees. I was in Nashville.
22 April; Bees in the big hive were drastically reduced. My first visit to the new location. Thought I might have an out on swarming if harold had not taken precautions against losing foragers to the old location. No dice. If that was the reason for the loss of population, it should have been seen 5 days later. I believe they swarmed without any verification of swarm cells. On the 27th they had recovered and bees were again working upstairs.

Reviewing the season management, another possibility comes up. My interpretation of the season advancement was based on tree bloom. All the species of trees were not advanced by the same amount, but the average was about three weeks, and the bees seemed to agree with that estimate. We checked for Repro c/o wax purging on March 18, (Normal 7 Apr) and 2 of 6 showed some new wax. Since all colonies in a given location read the season within a few days of each other, thought we had hit repro c/o right on the money.

Using that data point, we expected "main flow" to start on, or about 10 April. (normally May 1) On that date, we rippled through with 3 separate objectives:
...Check for V mite by pulling a few drone pupae. The right answer there.
...Look for the sustained new wax of main flow. Answer, yes on most.
...Add a super of foundation at the top of the broodnest. Harold had been pleased in the preceding season with how quickly that super is drawn, filled, and capped. This season, we barely had enough drawn comb to properly CB, and we've added a couple more hives already. Drawn comb inventory is a driver.

My other possible defense of the reliability of the CB system is the early addition of a box of foundation at the top of the brood nest. We could have been premature in adding it when we did. Isolation of the broodnest from overhead storage may have given the big boy just what it needed to switch to swarm mode. A feeble excuse. They should have been well past repro c/o, and we have to write it off as a season anomaly.

Walt

[squarepeg]

i had three out of five second year colonies swarm. they also began swarm preps after getting a super of foundation over the broodnest. swarm issue for my yard and a neighboring yard was april 3 to april 26. an atypical year for sure. in retrospect walt, would you have introduced the foundation some other way?