Sooo much pooping

[MedusA]

When I got my bees last summer, I had to swap 7 of my lovely new Hoffman frames for the ones the bees came on. They looked like they were quite old (dark brown comb).

 

Anyway, I wondered whether I should do a Bailey Comb Exchange this spring. Any thoughts?

[Guest]

Not interested in how you do it - Bailey or Joe Bloggs or whoever - but it is always better to remove old brood wax and replace with fresh. It removes potential disease sources from the hive. Everyone should be replacing at least a third of the brood combs each year.

 

Regards, RAB

[chickenanne]

I agree that you should be changing the old frames for fresh, and thereafter changing a third or so of the frames annually- it really helps keep nasties down. Mine were on filthy old comb when I received them, so I know just how you mean!

A Bailey change has the advantage of putting them onto entirely fresh combs to start anew. However I guess that what you have currently is undrawn foundation? So it could be worth feeding syrup to help them draw the foundation out if you go down this route.

If you have 7 old frames and 4 new (well, last years drawn) frames the other option is to remove the 7 old frames as and when you can: i.e. when they are near enough empty or have an amount of pollen/brood which you are prepared to waste/loose. The downside of course is that that could take a while.

[Olly]

I've not heard of the Bailey Comb Exchange (I assume it's a method, and not some sort of market ) but I've been advised along the same lines as RAB mentions above.

 

IF you're doing an artificial swarm, apparently that's a good time to put new combs in.

[tehnellie]

If you don't know the heritage of the frames that you've got the bees on currently then a bailey or even a shook swarm might not be a bad idea. Personally I like all my frames to basically be the same age and replace them all in one go. I'm still small scale so replacing an entire apiary in one go isn't too horrendous a situation to deal with, that way I know exactly how old every frame of comb is and I like them all to be 2 years old at most.

 

From a practical point of view I've no idea if you can use the bailey method with a Beehaus but the national bee unit has a handy word doc covering how to do a bailey comb change: Here (courtesy Blackburn Beekeepers)

 

Shook swarming is another method which will allow you to change over all your frames in one go. However from personal experience I'd say that you need to consider:

 

1) You're going to destroy a lot of what might be healthy brood.

2) You need a relatively strong colony to begin with to be able to cope with a shook swarm, I'd say that you need bees covering at least 7-8 frames before considering a shook swarm but the stronger your colony the better.

 

To shook swarm you basically do the following:

1) Put a Queen Excluder between the floor and a Brood box on an empty hive.

2) Put 3-4 frames of Foundation at either end of the brood box leaving a gap in the middle

3) Move the original hive and place the new hive in its place.

4) From your existing brood chamber take each frame of bees and literally shake them off into the gap in the middle. 2-3 firm shakes should accomplish this.

5) Gently fill the gap with the remaining frames of foundation, if you've still got a big "ball" of bees let the frames settle on their own, DON'T push them down.

6) Feed the colony with a 1:1 (1lb sugar to a pint of water or 1 kilo sugar to 1 litre of water) syrup solution. Obviously if you have honey supers on, don't feed syrup, you'll just have to take the hit from your honey crop.

7) After a week, remove the queen excluder.

 

If you've got chickens as well, give the old frames to the chickens for some extra protein before you try and render the wax, they'll happily clean out the brood from the frames leaving you a less messy job.

 

You put the QX below the brood chamber to stop the queen and the colony absconding, without brood or drawn comb the colony might just decide they don't like it there anymore. Bees will draw comb at an astonishing rate and once they have some comb and the queen starts to lay brood in it, they are much less likely to leave.

 

If you have honey supers in place, DONT feed with syrup otherwise you might contaminate your honey crop with sugar syrup.

 

I'm not personally a fan of shook swarming an outwardly healthy colony, it has its place and we're only talking about a box of bugs but it removes not only the comb but all the brood from a colony too. I don't know a suitable analogy, but would you deliberately kill one of your chickens if it meant saving a few minutes work, you might get some extra eggs and you'd have to throw the dead chicken away too?

 

Shuffling frames does work but I feel it's labour intensive and requires detailed record keeping so I much prefer to cycle all the brood frames in one go and, personally, prefer the bailey method.

[Guest]

Basically perhaps.

 

You shake your queen from a frame over a box of frames and gap and then replace frames, possibly over the queen?

 

I think all should be aware that temporarily caging the queen is a very good idea!

 

RAB

[MedusA]

Thanks to all of you for your comments and advice. I have a standard cedar national, not a Beehaus, so it should be fairly straight forward. The Bailey method sounds much less extreme than the shook swarm method, but still useful to know there is another way.

 

I will give it some further thought and post back if I go for it. I must admit, it does appeal to think of starting the season with lovely clean new combs.

[tehnellie]

it wasn't intended to be a full guide hence stating it was the basic technique. I don't like shook swarming in day to day management and as you're removing all the brood from a colony, yes you're right, treat the queen with kid gloves, place her on cotton wool and under armed guard because if you lose or damage her, the colony has nothing left to raise a new queen from.

[Guest]

For those newish beeks contemplating a complete frame change: the difference is basically as stated, the brood is lost with the shook swarm. But so too, can the varroa. If effectively treated during those first days, before new brood is capped, a very low mite count can be achieved for the coming season. This, I think, compares favourably with the potential health risks associated with oxalic acid trickling. Also the situation with no brood to feed means the house bees will concentrate on rectifying the shortage of drawn comb, so the colony will tend to appear to 'surge' after a shook swarm.

 

I would distribute those 'otherwise wasted' frames of brood among my other colonies, so little would be lost, as those colonies are checked for varroa, and treated accordingly, on an on-going regular basis.

 

The first brood, of the shook swarm, to be capped would be removed, along with hopefully the last of the varroa mites, and either slotted into another colony or simply s"Ooops, word censored!"ped, dependent on method. Needs attention and time, but the extra brood strengthening for the other colonies will get more honey, or split earlier. Of course, one needs rather more than one colony to swap frames around like that and an absence of health issues too.

 

If you wish to trace foundation age, and cannot tell from the look of it whether it needs changing, one can always use coloured drawing pins in the frame to indicate the year (same code as queen marking would do). Side bars are a better place as the top bars often need s"Ooops, word censored!"ing.

 

I simply made an excluder frame for my Dartington hives and is appropriate to separate the frames of brood in my beehaus too, although with a long hive one could simply move the frames backwards until there is no brood left to hatch, before removal. One risk is that they will start to fill the frames with honey as they are vacated! With a National (or other), it is easier to recover stores in frames - just place it under the brood nest, with a queen excluder over, and the bees will do the job.

 

Remember new disease-free combs are not expensive - a couple jars of honey about covers the cost of foundation for a brood box. There is always a cost; the wax drawn needs about 5 times it's weight in honey production and is lost - but it is not that heavy and you can always convert it into a candle!

 

Regards, RAB

[beesontoast]

I would distribute those 'otherwise wasted' frames of brood among my other colonies, so little would be lost, as those colonies are checked for varroa, and treated accordingly, on an on-going regular basis.

 

Thus spreading any nascent foul brood throughout your apiary? Bad practice IMO.

[Guest]

Beesontoast,

 

Bad practice IMO

You probably read the following paragragh.

 

It is fairly common practice to swap frames of hatching brood from one colony to another to boost the weaker one (or even a queenless one). While there is a risk, I am very careful that colonies are healthy, and would not move frames if in any doubt.

 

But I also know I am never going to be perfect 100% of the time, but the risk is that any nascent foul brood spores are spread within the apiary anyway (drones, drifting workers are two possibilities). I would be concerned of EFB, but not devasted. It can occur, and I would have little hope of detecting it before symptoms appeared. The much more important aspect is that it is not hidden/left to spread elsewhere. AFB is a very different matter.

 

The question would be 'where has it come from, to be in my hives?'. Keeping colonies strong is a very good deterrent for many of the bee ailments.

That may be that my smaller apiaries are so much better than large accumulations of hives in a small area.

 

Regards, RAB

Edited March 23, 2010 by Guest