My eco solution to rat problems

[Daphne]

We have acquired 3 or 4 frames with a Queen and brood - they decided to go and live in an old unused spare hive at my mentors and he didn't want them. I was away and so my bee buddy transferred them into an unused hive of ours, strapped it up and transported them home (very proudly!) in his car. However, apparently the frames she's building on are very old and manky (I've not seen them yet), although the rest of the frames/foundation in her new home are brand new. My question is - do we slowly move the manky frames towards the outside of the brood box over the next few weeks and then come the autumn before we close up for the winter whip them out and replace with new ones/new foundation? Or leave her to it? Or???

[Sookie]

I personally would leave them for the time being as the colony will be quite busy drawing out the new foundation in the rest of the hive - you don't want to over stress them. Also, those old frames will hopefully be full of your new workforce.

[v8landy]

I would say the same as sookie, BUT as long as you know the full history of the frames! You dont want AFB ro EFB or even nosema from these "mucky" frames. or worse be passing anyting on to other keepers via your bees.

[OXFORDBEE]

The providence of the frames is known and assuming your mentor knows what they are doing and have no incidence of disease you should be OK. No need to panic.

 

Your main objective now is to help the colony expand, probably with some slow stimulative feeding. Your mentor should be able to advise you on this. Three or four frames of bees is not many at this time of year and the main flow is slowly coming to a close.

 

Wasps sniffing around hives are telling me that autumn is on its way, therefore keep the entrance to the hive small so your colony can easily defend it. Defendable entrances are the best method of preventing disease transfer (most diseases are spread when colonies get robbed out and the robbers take their ill gotten gains home...) to other colonies as well as preventing your colony being attacked by wasps.

 

I don't know what old and mankey means in the context of your frames, But old comb in old frames will help you get your bees through the winter this year. As Sookie states they contain workers that will help your colony expand, and it can be awkward to get the bees to draw lots of comb at the tail end of the season. Your combs are aleady drawn and in use so this is worth bearing in mind.

 

If the combs contain lots of drone cells then you can sort them out when the colony starts to expand next spring. You can always do a Bailey comb change or shook swarm next year to get the bees onto fresh comb. If you are worried about nosema then you can include fumidil-B or thymol in your winter feed this year.

 

Finally, if in doubt give your mentor a ring .. that's what mentors are for!!

[Daphne]

Thank you all for your help We hope to inspect today so I'll see whats what. My mentor is the local BBKA secretary so I hope all is well with the frames, and we usually use thymol so we'll treat them with the rest later in the year. Its been particularly helpful to have the message reinforced about minismising the entrance space and also the point about the foundation already being drawn - I hadn't thought of that.