You left the honey super on and then added a feeder, so you're likely to get syrup stored in the super. If you add some green food coloring to your syrup (about 4 drops per gallon) you can show that they will store the syrup in the super because you'll see a green tinge to your honey when you extract it this fall.
Hi C.S., Yes, they are likely to use the super to store syrup but that's not a problem as I'll be using it to help another colony to overwinter on a National brood box and super (Brood and a half). I won't be extracting it as honey for consumption. Stewart
Hi Stewart. Just revisiting this and your other BCC vids. I notice you never use the 'close the bottom and open top entrance' method. Is there a reason for this? Thanks Dorothie
Hi Andrew, There is a gap that would need to be sealed but you could probably get away with a piece of correx board or similar taped over the gap to be honest. Stewart
Hi Lesley, The Bailey Comb Change is a method for replacing all combs in one hit due to them being old, dirty or diseased maybe. If you just wanted to replace combs as a general method then possibly the best alternative way without finding the queen would be using the shook swarm method. Stewart
@@TheNorfolkHoneyCo Silly question: Why not just ‘shook swarm’ all the bees from the commercial frames straight into the Langstroth box (with the Langstroth bb already mounted on the qe and the adapter), put the commercial frames back in the commercial bb, leave the commercial bb in place as you have here (entrance closed) and mount the new Langstroth/qe/adapter assembly (entrance open) on the old commercial setup in a oner? [I hope I’ve written that out clearly 😳]. There’s then no need to find & isolate the queen as a separate exercise, the manipulation would probably be quicker to do & the knocking down of the swarm/emergency qcs could be done at the same time as the old brood frames were put back in the commercial box. The workers would be drawn down into the old commercial set up pretty quickly again by the brood pheromone, resulting in the young workers being evenly spread throughout the whole setup. Or am I being ignorant of something here?
Hi Larry, There's a couple of reasons I didn't use those cells for splits. This colony does not have a particularly good temper so I wouldn't want to replicate from it and I wanted to keep all of the bees in this colony in order to draw out the new foundation as quickly as possible. Stewart
Hi Pete, Thanks for the comment. Yes, the bees will use some of the syrup to store in the super and I'll use that super to help another colony to overwinter rather than extracting it for sale/use as honey. Stewart
You left the honey super on and then added a feeder, so you're likely to get syrup stored in the super. If you add some green food coloring to your syrup (about 4 drops per gallon) you can show that they will store the syrup in the super because you'll see a green tinge to your honey when you extract it this fall.
Hi C.S.,
Yes, they are likely to use the super to store syrup but that's not a problem as I'll be using it to help another colony to overwinter on a National brood box and super (Brood and a half). I won't be extracting it as honey for consumption.
Stewart
Thank you, Sir, very beneficial video!
Hi SFA,
Thank you for the comment.
Stewart
Really liking your videos top job.
Thanks Eddie.
Great video thanks.
Hi Jimmy,
Thanks for the comment.
Stewart
Hi Stewart. Just revisiting this and your other BCC vids. I notice you never use the 'close the bottom and open top entrance' method. Is there a reason for this? Thanks Dorothie
Looks like a langstroth medium? Don't you need a deep for the brood box?
If you were to sit a Honey Paw hive on a Maisemore Commercial/National poly is there much of a gap? Would you still need to make a converter?
Hi Andrew,
There is a gap that would need to be sealed but you could probably get away with a piece of correx board or similar taped over the gap to be honest.
Stewart
Is there a way of doing a Bailey Comb change without finding the Queen, I have looked through the brood box twice but still no luck. Thank you.
Hi Lesley,
The Bailey Comb Change is a method for replacing all combs in one hit due to them being old, dirty or diseased maybe. If you just wanted to replace combs as a general method then possibly the best alternative way without finding the queen would be using the shook swarm method.
Stewart
@@TheNorfolkHoneyCo Silly question: Why not just ‘shook swarm’ all the bees from the commercial frames straight into the Langstroth box (with the Langstroth bb already mounted on the qe and the adapter), put the commercial frames back in the commercial bb, leave the commercial bb in place as you have here (entrance closed) and mount the new Langstroth/qe/adapter assembly (entrance open) on the old commercial setup in a oner? [I hope I’ve written that out clearly 😳].
There’s then no need to find & isolate the queen as a separate exercise, the manipulation would probably be quicker to do & the knocking down of the swarm/emergency qcs could be done at the same time as the old brood frames were put back in the commercial box. The workers would be drawn down into the old commercial set up pretty quickly again by the brood pheromone, resulting in the young workers being evenly spread throughout the whole setup.
Or am I being ignorant of something here?
Why don’t you use those queen cells to do splits?
Hi Larry,
There's a couple of reasons I didn't use those cells for splits. This colony does not have a particularly good temper so I wouldn't want to replicate from it and I wanted to keep all of the bees in this colony in order to draw out the new foundation as quickly as possible.
Stewart
Thanks Stewart, good luck with the transition. However won't you expect the bees to take the syrup down into the honey super you've left on?
Hi Pete,
Thanks for the comment. Yes, the bees will use some of the syrup to store in the super and I'll use that super to help another colony to overwinter rather than extracting it for sale/use as honey.
Stewart