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My swarm prevention system

68K views 180 replies 42 participants last post by  jmgi 
#1 ·
Mr. Palmer of VT stated on a thread a couple months back that anyone who said he could stop swarming was either a lier or a fool. He is a respected authority here on the forums. So, the statement must be true. Since I'm one of those persons who claims to stop swarming, I must be one or the other.

I'm not a lier. Learned as youngster that if one conducts himself in manner that he not ashamed of, there is never a reason to lie. Not many among us that can say truthfully that we didn't tell our parents a fib in our rebellious teen years.

That leaves a fool. After reflecting on that question for some time, I think I might qualify as a fool. I have a history of poor investments in marriage, business, and personal health. My beekeeping time has poor judgements in all of those categories. When I had a reliable swarm prevention system, abandoned my original objective of supplemental retirement income. Thought other beekeepers ought to know about it. Very naive! Not only did they not want know about it, they were quite abusive about telling me so. But I persist. Foolish, no?

Walt
 
#110 ·
Re: "lier or a fool"

Of course checkerboarding does the same thing - empty drawn comb, triggering hoarding behaviour and storing of pollen. Since the queen can sidestep up and down in an artificially stretched broodnest, the effect of becoming pollen bound is prevented. (Nectar binding can be prevented by simple supering.) I reckon this is the same mechanism as in Tim's method. Lot's of comb, lots of escape possibilities for the queen.

By method A you restrict the broodnest, which restricts excessive pollen foraging in early Spring. With a super and a queen excluder you prevent the broodnest from becoming honeybound, and because the size of the broodnest is restricted with a follower board, the bees readily populate the supers, so the excluder is not much of a barrier. (Some Carnolians still tend to flood the broodnest with nectar, though.)

Just presumptions. One needs to look more deeply into the matter.

Bernhard
 
#111 ·
Re: "lier or a fool"

mike palmer said:

>>In fact, a strong colony on a strong flow with no overhead nectar storage will swarm. It doesn't matter if it's May, June, July, or August.<<

thanks for replying michael, and let me start here by saying that my few years of experience pales in comparison to your life long career with bees. i would also like express thanks for your 'sustainable apiary' talks and posts here, which have inspired me to raise queens and overwinter nucs.

but with regard to reproductive cut off and whether or not all you need is a strong hive on a strong flow with no overhead storage to get swarming...

i have been keeping careful records for most of my 3+ years of beekeeping. when i look back to when in the season i experienced swarming it was not spread out over three to four months but rather three to four weeks in the early part of the season, with no swarms after that except a few really small ones in the fall.

more interestingly, swarms are issuing prior to what would be considered our 'main flow', which coincides with the tulip poplar bloom and is evidenced by very strong foraging and new wax production. swarms are issuing well before the colonies get to full strength and nectar availability peaks.

with regard to the availability of empty comb overhead, i had several colonies swarm this year after stopping their expansion upward even though there were supers of empty drawn comb for them to store nectar in. these colonies stopped at a functional break between boxes and created a solid honey dome on the early flows and went on to swarm.

i realize that i am only observing a dozen or so colonies and i concede that what i am seeing could be do to chance, and maybe it's a matter of location because i live relatively close to walt, but my observations are similar to his.

i.e. my bees are swarming before the heaviest flows, all within a pretty tight time frame, and the ones that don't swarm at that time don't swarm. they tend to supercede instead and fill many more boxes with bees and honey.

oldtimer describes a similar timeline in another thread, in which his bees are swarming prior to the heaviest flows. he is also is a milder climate similar to what we have here in the southeast.

my thinking is that checkerboarding the supers is one way to discourage the bees from establishing an upper limit to their working level. i'm leaving more honey this year, and i suspect that having some honey frames in the upper boxes will help draw the bees up into them. if it doesn't, and they get 'stuck' at a break, i'll move up a couple of frames they are working to the next box.

as i said michael, i have a lot of respect for you and the other veterans who are kind enough to share their experiences here. walt goes out of his way in his writings to say that his interpretation of his observations are only just his best guess, and he has openly welcomed competing hypotheses.

it comes as no surprise to me that observations and interpretations vary from place to place and from beekeeper to beekeeper. indeed, for me it's what makes all of this so interesting.
 
#121 ·
Re: "lier or a fool"

i'll move up a couple of frames they are working to the next box.
I think that is the crux of checkerboarding. You are breaking up the honey dome and giving more space. Up here I think it is safer to just pull two frames straight up into the next box and replace with empty comb. Continue doing that until the hive is as high as you want to go. It is a much quicker manipulation.
 
#112 ·
Re: "lier or a fool"

The Imker wrote:

In studies it has been shown, that bees do hoard nectar when empty comb is present, the more empty comb, the more they forage for nectar.

So why make your tower hives? Remove the supers as soon as they are full. Less lifting, eh?

Walt, If you like deeps better than mediums for brood, why not go to Jumbos in the vrood chamber. The will be even less breaks in comb.

Crazy Roland
 
#114 ·
Re: "lier or a fool"

I have been doing this long enough to have seen any number of times that while there are many things a beekeeper can do do lessen the probability of swarming the only sure things in my mind are that bees are unpredictable and the urge to reproduce is the most basic of instincts. I have no doubt that when properly done, Walt's procedures are quite effective. But then, swarming is something that I always figured I had a pretty good handle on controlling as well. Our "secret"? Young queens, lots of room overhead, and mixing in a few sheets of foundation directly above the broodnest for good measure. Seems like it worked every year.....well until this year anyway when many of our hives chose a different path and made significant contributions to the "feral" bee population of the area. :).
The only real issue I take with the kind of hive manipulations advocated in this thread (and there are many well thought out procedures here) is that this forum has a pretty high percentage of enthusiastic yet inexperienced beekeepers that may not recognize this stuff as the advanced beekeeping that it is and that it should only be undertaken by those who have mastered the basics of beekeeping.
The basics? Dont let bees run short on feed or expansion space and understand your locality, how to recognize the timing of local honey flows and how heavy they might be. How to recognize hive diseases and how you should cope with them and that you can be a successful beekeeper without ever doing any of these more advanced manipulations.
Soooooo with that in mind, carry on. No liars or fools here.
 
#118 ·
Re: "lier or a fool"

...swarming is something that I always figured I had a pretty good handle on controlling as well. Our "secret"? Young queens, lots of room overhead, and mixing in a few sheets of foundation directly above the broodnest for good measure. Seems like it worked every year.....well until this year anyway when many of our hives chose a different path and made significant contributions to the "feral" bee population of the area. :)
Exactly Jim. All swarm control works until it doesn't. Never say never, eh?
 
#115 ·
Re: "lier or a fool"

Bernhard,
In post #108, you ask if my opinion on the pollen reserve are "observations or assumptions?" Candidly, it's some of both. The observations were made in Lang hives, and the assumption is that the observations can be considered valid for the wild hive in the tree hollow.

Walt
 
#117 ·
Re: "lier or a fool"

Neither Mark. Walt took my quote out of context to discredit my opinion. The original post containing my quote wasn't about Walt, checkerboarding, whether or not Walt's bees ever swarm, or the repro-swarm c/o date. It was about whether or not one can raise queen that will never swarm. Of course he wouldn't mention that, would he.

I believe Walt...who said in an earlier post in this thread, that we're overdue for a confrontation, had an agenda in his postings. Time for Mr. Wright to apologize.

And as far as his skyscraper photos...nice photos. Nice flow. Proves one thing.

Walt's is bigger than mine.
 
#119 ·
Re: "lier or a fool"

And as far as his skyscraper photos...nice photos. Nice flow. Proves one thing.

Walt's is bigger than mine.
Snapshots are just that, snap shots. I could show you photos of hives in apiaries in Chateaugay or Louisville, near Massena, had I taken photos of those hives taller than me. What would that prove? Since, as you, Michael Palmer, know, my crops are never as good as yours.

Besides, just because a hive is stacked high doesn't mean it is full of honey. If enough hives were above shoulder height, why wouldn't you extract them?
 
#120 ·
Re: "lier or a fool"

>>squarepeg; but with regard to reproductive cut off and whether or not all you need is a strong hive on a strong flow with no overhead storage to get swarming...

i have been keeping careful records for most of my 3+ years of beekeeping. when i look back to when in the season i experienced swarming it was not spread out over three to four months but rather three to four weeks in the early part of the season, with no swarms after that except a few really small ones in the fall.<<

Well, if the strong colonies swarmed early, why would they swarm later?

>>more interestingly, swarms are issuing prior to what would be considered our 'main flow', which coincides with the tulip poplar bloom and is evidenced by very strong foraging and new wax production. swarms are issuing well before the colonies get to full strength and nectar availability peaks.<<

Well, of course. You didn't know what you were doing and didn't know how to manage your bees so they wouldn't swarm. No different that any other beginner.

>>with regard to the availability of empty comb overhead, i had several colonies swarm this year after stopping their expansion upward even though there were supers of empty drawn comb for them to store nectar in. these colonies stopped at a functional break between boxes and created a solid honey dome on the early flows and went on to swarm.<<

I don't doubt it. Did they stop short of entering the supers because of the space between the brood nest and the honey supers or because the colony wasn't populous enough to enter the supers. Swarming is a re-queening process that some stocks use to re-queen themselves. Is has nothing to do with a so-called functional break between supers.


>>i.e. my bees are swarming before the heaviest flows, all within a pretty tight time frame, and the ones that don't swarm at that time don't swarm. they tend to supercede instead and fill many more boxes with bees and honey.<<

Well certainly, some swarm readily and must be managed early. Some never swarm no matter what management method you use. And, some will swarm later in the summer on any strong flow when there isn't any overhead nectar storage room.

And that's my point. The idea that prime swarms issuing before some contrived date are reproductive swarms, and those after are considered as something different is just false. All prime swarms are reproductive swarms...if that's what you want to call a prime swarm before Walt's special date.

Just because in your 3+ years you haven't had prime swarms go off during a heavy flow...after the special date...doesn't mean that it doesn't happen. It does, and it will if you don't keep ahead of the bees with proper supering.

The main trigger to swarming is the backfilling of the broodnest. But, is backfilling the result of swarming preparations, or are swarming preparations the result of backfilling? I believe the later, and why I see swarms when there isn't enough overhead nectar storage room...emerging brood comb space is backfilled because there is no where else to store it. Walt believes that backfilling comes first, as an intentional procedure the bees use to initiate a reproductive swarm. I believe backfilling is caused by lack of storage room and is the trigger for swarming.
 
#122 ·
Re: "lier or a fool"

> Walt believes that backfilling comes first, as an intentional procedure the bees use to initiate a reproductive swarm. I believe backfilling is caused by lack of storage room and is the trigger for swarming.
Two beekeepers with different beliefs, imagine that! So what's with the topic "liar or fool"? Kiss and make up.
 
#123 ·
Re: "lier or a fool"

You guys have been busy this morning. Walt believes that backfilling is intentional because it starts at a given point in colony growth, and is not relative to flow intensity at that time. The colony deliberately leaves a fixed amount of capped honey reserve overhead to carry them through the swarm prep period. Wintered in a shallow and a deep, the colony doesn't open honey in the shallow (usually) before starting backfilling of the deep. They use the break in functional comb as the demarcation line between the honey reserve and the broodnest.

Mike does not see this in his hives where the cluster is at the top. They have consumed their reserve to survive the winter. Some northern beekeepers have to feed in late winter to sustain the colony until field forage is available.

We, collectively, have forgotten their heritage as forest dwellers. The honeybee's survival format, instincts, and activity timing are oriented to life in the extended forest. Those characteristics were selected for, long before man cleared land for his purposes. Even the fall flow is an anomaly to their instincts - not many weeds in the forest.

As that heritage applies to the question of backfilling, the colony must get survival requirements accomplished on the early-season period of tree bloom. That includes both reproduction and accumulation of winter provisions. Their format serves them well. The same backfilling that generates young bees to go with the reproductive swarm also gets a leg up on accumulation of winter stores. I can't make myself believe that it's either accidental or coincidental.

Walt
 
#127 ·
Re: "lier or a fool"

Bernhard,
The reason I wanted to know about your deeps was the deeper they are, the more likely they are to have a band of capped honey at the top. The follow up question is do those 12 inch deeps sometimes have a band of capped honey all the way across the top? I would expect them to, if the colony was situated in a single deep to prepare for winter.
Assuming a band of honey across the top of the deep, it would be difficult to break up that band of honey with a super above.

Most colonies seem to percieve the top of their honey as the top of their residence cavity. It's so prevalent in some colonies in the early season that even in a loose-cluster period, there are no bees patrolling above the honey in an added empty super. That trait seems to be rooted in their instincts developed for the tree hollow where the top of their honey IS the top of the cavity.

Reading the steps in your spring management, my first thought was that you are inducing a "mode" change. We have described the mode changes with colony age in years.
1st year: Objective: Build enough comb and stores for wintering. Building an adequate size brood nest is top priority. Reproduction not on the agenda.
3rd year, and subsequent: Reproduce in early season while protecting existing colony survival.
2nd year: Have the flexibility to either complete establishment or perform as established.
Two distinct varients: early supersedure and early wax making capability.
The over-simplifications above make a world of difference in worker duties to meet the season objectives.

Mike P. is correct in his assertion that reproductive swarms can come after the normal swarm season. The bees have a long list of contingency plans or work-arounds. Back up plans A, B, C.....for more than just reproduction. Some can handle almost anything Mother Nature throws at them. I don't see that as a good reason to reject the NORMAL process. Knowing the normal process can help you plan your management.

Where I was headed with the above tangent was that I think CB taps one of those latent contingency plans from the past. Why the extra strong colonies do not swarm is still a mystery to me. My best guess is that somewhere in their ancestry, they selected for suvival in a circumstance similar to checkerboarding. I don't need to know what that circumstance was.

Walt
 
#128 ·
Re: "lier or a fool"

have a band of capped honey all the way across the top?
difficult to break up that band of honey with a super above.
Well, that depends. If you throw out all the combs that are not populated in early spring, narrow the hive with a follower board, you sort of pressing the Bien up. In a Warré hive this is a build-in feature without follower board. You only have eight combs in a Warré and the combs are rather small in length.

1st year: ...Reproduction not on the agenda.
There are lots of swarms here that swarm again in their very first year. We even have a name for such swarms in German.

Two distinct varients: early supersedure and early wax making capability.
It is a pitty, that you can't read a German book written in 1905, which explains how the processes in a hive are driven by broodfood/Gelee royale. It does make a lot of sense what the author is writing about young bees and the need for those bees to feed brood in order to get rid of their food sap (Futtersaft in German) that is produced by their glands. And how brood feeding, drone raising and comb building are valves for their pressure. That pretty much explains a lot, including swarms in year one.

In that book "Der Bien und seine Zucht" by Gerstung, it is described that you can take one or two combs of capped brood and replace them with open brood combs from another hive, you can lower swarming tendencies that just started. From my experience it works pretty well and it also fits into the temperature related brood activity like shown in another thread. (Brood/bees relation.)

(Side note: in that book the MDA-splitter method is described as well, but without the on the spot queen rearing.)

NORMAL process. Knowing the normal process can help you plan your management.
CB taps one of those latent contingency plans from the past.
I reckon there is no such a "plan", which of course I understand just as a descriptive word for the processes taking place. I reckon the deep connection of the Bien to the outside world is by outside temperatures, which not only drives flight activities but also restricts brood cluster size in early Spring. Temperature is the main key for the understanding of the processes inside the hive and how the bees tune with the outside world. Plants and flowers depend on temperatures, too, and through outside temperatures all the natural processes organize themself and make a well organized concert.

I also bees are like humans a bit. Think of yourself foraging for walnuts or so. You easily get into the "squirrel mode" and you start hoarding like crazy. I do have a garden and I always get into that squirrel mode and overproduce where there is an opportunity to do so. Hoarding what I can get hold of.

Bees are not much different. Bees fly like crazy when there is a flow. In early Spring there is a lot of pollen and less nectar. So they hoard a lot of pollen. Especially if there are empty cells available.

Now, in nature the bees swarm with a certain number of bees, all well prepared (more or less) with provisions. The number of bees in that swarm define the number of cells that swarm builds initially. So the initial nest size is perfectly synchronized with the swarm size. The rest of the year the growth of the bees' nest is defined again by the number of bees in that colony, which of course is a perfect picture of the fertility of the queen.

Bottom line: nest size and comb size is perfectly tuned to each other.

The same is true for the brood to comb ratio. The first patch of brood is surrounded with a ring of pollen. The young bees emerging are eating up that pollen and by doing so, they free and clean and warm the cells for the queen to lay eggs into them. Perfectly tuned!

Now, modern hives are somewhat misshaped. The width of the combs provoke the bees to store nectar and pollen to the sides of that comb. While nectar is shifted around in the hive easily, pollen doesn't get shifted. It has to be eaten up by young bees. Bees prefer fresh pollen over old pollen.

In a modern hive bees tend to store too much pollen in early Spring which disrupts the development of the broodnest and young bees do not find enough acceptors for their food sap. They start to excrete wax plates and do start building comb as they start drone comb. Drones are a good sink for the too much food sap in a hive. Once this sink is full, the bees start "small hives" within the colony, means: queen cells. Queen cells also use up a lot of food sap.

So the management of the bees by the beekeeper is best achieved if you think in food sap and it's path through the hive. Just a try to figure it: 100 emerging bees produce food sap for let's say 500 larvae. 500 emerging bees produce food sap for 2,500 larvae. 2,500 for 12,500; 12,500 for 62,500...

It's exponential character points out, that there has to be an end to that growth somewhere, something has to happen!

First they try get rid of it by wax making, then by drone raising, by queen raising and finally by swarming and the founding of a completely new nest. Swarm bees build best. For a reason.

The only way to stop swarming is to add more acceptors (young brood), remove young bees/sap producers (capped brood, about to emerge), reduce the colony's growth by the removal of the queen, or to let them build a lot of comb.

(Another but rather poor possibility would be to let the bees starve, by reducing the pollen and nectar income. And in fact, pollen trapping for instance reduces swarming tendencies a little.)

Most certainly there are a lot of ways to achieve the above, managing the food sap, but of course some are more material+labour intensive, more disruptive than others. With a deep understanding of the processes you will find a good way to produce optimal honey harvests, which might be not the highest yields possible, but the most economical and efficient. Thus sustainable.

Sorry for the long post.

Bernhard
 
#130 ·
Re: "lier or a fool"

Ace, part of the problem would be that the brood nest really should not be messed with. when the band of honey and the brood are on the same frame it presents some undesirable issues. Moving a frame or two of brood up in itself can trigger the forming of queen cells. So some care would have to be taken in the selection of the frames to be moved. I also believe that at the very best you have then removed those frames from a somewhat orchestrated system set up to tend for that brood. The bees decided how to configure the nest. I consider it extremely disruptive to mess with that. Keep in mind this may happening in late winter or very early spring. keeping brood warm is still very much of an issue. For me this past spring it would have been the first week of March. That happens to still be winter according to the calendar.

IN this case I have found the additional side expansion of the brood nest to be helpful.

Typically any brood nest has 2 frames of honey at it's outer edges. I tend to take those two frames and move them up then place two fraems of either foundation or drawn comb in their place. depending on the brood nest those frames may be place in the 2 and 9 position with the frames that had been in those spaces being moved to the outer edges. This still allows empty space to be placed near the nest breaks the honey cap at the top of the nest and still does not disrupt the placement of brood. In a brood frame with a pollen and honey cap I consider the food source for that brood is on that frame so I am not concerned with where I move the rest of the honey to. I also found that moving up frames of brood later results in frames of honey with patches of pollen left in them.

As for Micheal's claim that any Data is "Contrived". I am interested in a much more thorough explanation of just what has been contrived. The observations have in fact been made and no influence was exerted to cause them. I agree that the interpretation of those behaviors are very likely to not be accurate. but that is the nature of interpretation. As Walt mentioned earlier though. the why is not nearly as important as the result. It is not necessary to accurately know why bees will delay swarming if given space. it is only important to know that they will. I also do not agree with your 100% prevention criteria. I consider the prevention of one swarm as some level of effectiveness. 90% prevention is another. I also do not by that you where miss quoted. did you or did you not say swarming cannot be prevented? And if so did you say it based upon the requirement that swarms are prevented to 100%? Including when the method has been performed poorly? Including when a given method has not been performed at all bu merely claimed to have been? You support keeping nucs. I have one out of 11 that is doing poorly and is not likely to survive winter. So I now claim your methods as unreliable and in fact yo can't keep bees over winter in nucs. And I base that claim upon the criteria you seem to have on the swarming issue. that if 100% of all nucs cannot be over wintered regardless of how poorly I managed them. then the method does not work.
 
#132 ·
Re: "lier or a fool"

Ace, part of the problem would be that the brood nest really should not be messed with.
Well that pretty much puts the kabosh to beekeeping. I believe that a honey bee colony is a super organism and any manipulation you do to such organism is an intervention and effects the colony.

Yes, you don't want to go into the brood nest area in the dead of winter but as a swarm prevention in the spring after you have already reconfigured the hive, pulling the two center frames up into and empty box to break up the honey cap (assuming there is one) creates more space in the brood chamber and encourages the bees to fill the box above. Cold areas don't have a honey cap in the spring unless you walked away and the bees went into winter with three full boxes of honey on top.
 
#133 ·
Re: "lier or a fool"

Ace, Okay quit beekeeping. I really don't care if you decide what I said meant you can't touch your hive at all. I don't think what I wrote is all that hard to understand and if you are incapable of doing so I really am not interested in getting it sorted out for you.
 
#135 ·
Re: "lier or a fool"

I don't think what I wrote is all that hard to understand and if you are incapable of doing so I really am not interested in getting it sorted out for you.
I don't think you understood my point. Anything that you do to the hive, especially if it is effective in changing the natural instinct of the bees to multiply is a serious intervention. If it were not it would not work. I do intervene to try to prevent swarming.
 
#136 ·
Re: "lier or a fool"

Bernhard,
That's certainly an interesting interpretation of function of the jelly in swarm impetus. Is it OK if I believe that it is not the controlling influence? It may be entirely accurate but still be coincidental. I believe the steps to swarm commit are controlled by instinct. You are right about my use of the word "plan". I more often use the word format for a description of steps to swarm commit.

Our PhDs are sure that all the operational activities in the hive are controlled by pheromones. That will not stand up to scrutiny, either. At some point in the process, a colony-level DECISION must be made. That can happen overnight. The available pheromones didn't change that fast.

The instincts of the social insect have to be more complex, but complexity is not unique to honeybees. One of my favorites is the lowly mud dauber. They instinctively "know" where to look for spiders to feed their young. And they make mud in the dry season by going to a reliable water source, taking on water, going to suitable soil for their nest, and making the mud. Note that there are no pheromones at the water source or the patch of soil. (Guessing)

Walt
 
#140 · (Edited)
Re: "lier or a fool"

Mark, The entire conversation started about expanding a brood nest and my comment about not disturbing the brood nest by moving frames with brood in them but add space next to the nest.

Ace considers even opening the hive a disturbance of the brood nest. So I suppose the method I described will not work for him. What I pointed out is that I do not consider opening of the hive a disturbance of the brood nest and I am not accepting his definition of disturbance.

Make the manipulations without disturbing the brood nest and I defined disturbance as don't move frames of brood. And I don't care if you agree with my definition of disturbance. Can you figure out which frames have brood and then not move them? I have my doubts.
 
#141 ·
Re: "lier or a fool"

Ace considers even opening the hive a disturbance of the brood nest.
That is how my words are coming across to you but that is not want I said. Opening the hive is a disturbance of the hive as it is a super organism.
Checkerboarding as I have read in the pamphlet, is a manipulation of the honey frames to encourage the expansion of the brood nest. Does it matter that you are just moving honey frames if your intention is to affect the brood nest? I cannot envision any workable manipulation that would effectively curtail swarming that does not affect the brood nest even if you don't move brood.
 
#143 ·
Re: "lier or a fool"

The above chart is extracted from my presentation handouts to explain the increased honey production of checkerboarding. (The manuscript has not been updated to include this info.)

Starting at the bottom of the chart, our seasonal field forage colony support is provided for reference. It does not look like a scale hive weight change record because the weather effects have been removed. No giant peaks and valleys. The "flows" have been truncated at the point in forage availability where all the available foragers in a given colony can be sent to the field with the prospect of gain for the trip. Note that during the mid summer dearth, some forage is normally available. A patch of something here and there that they like, but not enough to exceed colony feed requirements. Wax making stops when incoming nectar drops below colony feed needs. To divert feed nectar to make wax would be quite inefficent - the bees are efficiency experts, and protecting accumulated stores is mandatory.

The relationship between "flows" and wax-making is somewhat garbled. The general perception is that wax making is an indication of "main flow." We do not see that as true. There are times in the season when there is plenty of field nectar and the bees are NOT making new wax. And conversely, times when there is less field nectar and they do make new wax. Not a popular opinion, but some examples might help make the point. We believe that it is a function of colony objectives of the period and whether or not the incoming nectar exceeds colony feed requirements. The dates on the chart are for my area. As we move north from here, the dates will slide to later on the calendar for the spring "flow", and earlier for the fall "flow." Shorter growing season.

Our spring forage starts in early Feb. and runs continuously to early June, peaking with black locust and the overlapping tulip popular. Locally, overwintered, established colonies are not making wax or storing overhead for black locust, but doing both for tulip popular. This in spite of more BL than TP in our wooded areas. My conclusion is that the new wax of main flow is a function of colony internal operations and not nectar availability. Just preceding the BL bloom period is the prime reproductive swarm issue period. Not an accident that the repro swarm has a wealth of forage to get started on establishment. Colony timing for repro swarm issue is about last frost of the spring season, and they are very good at making it happen on time. Here, that's normally about the first week of April. They have had ample nectar to support backfilling of the broodnest (redbud) in swarm preps, but any wax makers generated are intended to go with the offspring swarm.

All the wax makers generated in swarm preps do not leave with the repro swarm. Those left behind dispose of their wax holdings to prepare for a job change. This temporary new wax appearance is treated in the old literature as the "early flow." It only lasts for a few days, and then the new wax of "main flow" comes a week or two later. That's my interpretation of what I see, and I'm sticking with it against all doubters.

In recent years the fall "flow" has failed to materialize here. No wax making in the fall. Incoming pollen and nectar is obvious, but apparently does not exceed colony feed requirements. Backfilling of the broodnest at closeout has been iffy. In the 1990s, winter preps were more reliable, and most got the broodnest properly backfilled. Only remember two seasons when maybe 30% of colonies needed fall feeding. At this time, it does not look like it's going to get better soon.

Spent too much time on field forage - bottom line on the chart. Will have to come back to the chart when I have more time.

Walt
 
#144 ·
Re: "lier or a fool"

playing catch up here after being away from the computer...

walt, is the y axis representing brood volume, showing how far up in the stack that the broodnest gets, or both?

i.e. did you observe brood volume peaking in mid-march in your double deeps vs. early april with the single deep and checkerboarded shallows? and did you observe twice the brood nest size at peak with checkerboarding vs. double deeps?
 
#145 ·
Re: "lier or a fool"

squarepeg,
Yes to the questions. When the undisturbed colony reaches max broodnest expansion, backfilling starts. Saving the reserve of capped honey, if they have one. In the double deep, the arch of capped honey is about half the volume, and the arc of the broodnest expansion dome is in the lower center of the upper deep.

In the deep/shallow config expansion and backfilling is all done in the deep - saving the full shallow of capped honey as the reserve in most seasons, locally.

A colony with field forage support and periodic flying weather can about double the brood volume for each brood cycle. The doubling effect is not shown on the chart - drawn with straight lines for my convenience. The peak in brood volume shown for the undisturbed colonies in mid March is an average start of backfilling here. If you let them start backfilling on their schedule, you will get less population for main flow. You will not recover the lost brood volume of the backfilled broodnest. The more brood volume you lose to backfilling, the less honey you get.

The extra honey production of checkerboarding comes from the effects of increasing brood volume for an extra brood cycle. (Yes, approximately twice the peak of the swarming colony.) Main flow starts with, on average, 6 to 7 feet of concentrated bees, including 2 supers of nectar stored in the buildup. Twice the height of standard management.

Not shown in this version of the chart is the timing of reproductive swarm cut off or the start of main flow. Repro c/o is the end of the first week of April, and three weeks later, May 1 is the start of main flow. The CBed colonies change from broodnest expansion to reduction at repro c/o.

Walt
 
#147 ·
Re: "lier or a fool"

Walt,

THinking more about your system. So basically the key to backfilling is when they reach the honey reserve overhead.
Assume one does not checkerboard. Assume they reached the reserve and begin to backfill. Assume there is a large number of boxes of drawn frames of empty comb added under the broodnest. So they backfill, but the queen can go lower and lower to lay in the empty cells. How would they react to that? Should this not defer swarms for the rest of the season too?

Basically I am trying to draw a difference between destruction of honey reserve overhead and adding empty drawn frame over the checkerboarded hive, vs. leave a minimal reserve over head and instead add empty comb under the broodnest? I suppose I always envision swarming inpulse activated by nectar pressing from the top to the bottom, and brood next collapsing under the pressure of fixed bottom. What if the bottom became a variable, intead of a constant position.
 
#150 ·
Re: "lier or a fool"

Walt,

THinking more about your system. So basically the key to backfilling is when they reach the honey reserve overhead.
So they backfill, but the queen can go lower and lower to lay in the empty cells. How would they react to that? Should this not defer swarms for the rest of the season too?

Basically I am trying to draw a difference between destruction of honey reserve overhead and adding empty drawn frame over the checkerboarded hive, vs. leave a minimal reserve over head and instead add empty comb under the broodnest? I suppose I always envision swarming inpulse activated by nectar pressing from the top to the bottom, and brood next collapsing under the pressure of fixed bottom. What if the bottom became a variable, intead of a constant position.
I cannot say to much about the variable bottom thinking. other than I think it is game over at that point. Here is why.

Backfilling is not so much top to bottom and is not even close to "Filling" they put a drop of nectar in every cell of the hive and do it in lightening speed. they simply render all cells unsuitable for laying an egg.

Including back filling in the entire description of the method is a bit light including that all goes black in the description of the life of a light bulb. It only serves to let you know it is over. Same with back filling. if you find it in your hive, it is over. The queen has booked her flight and has her bags packed. If she is not gone already.

One thing I did notice. the emptying of comb up to the backfilling was definitely not due to lack of nectar to forage for. in fact bees where filling comb right next to cells they emptied all at the same time. When the bees wanted the cells filled. they filled them and they did it in 3 days. There was no urgency to locate nectar when they wanted it.
 
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