02: Shook Swarm - Stewart Spinks at The Norfolk Honey Co.
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 ส.ค. 2024
- Welcome to Happy Valley Honey, Honey Paw Polystyrene Bee Hives
How to carry out a shook swarm on a colony of honeybees.
The shook swarm method is an exceptionally effective method of replacing all the comb in a beehive in one go.
It can be used to help with the control of pests and diseases particularly Varroa, Nosema and Chalkbrood.
Here in the UK, the National Bee Unit uses the method as a treatment for European Foulbrood although I would always suggest the destruction of a colony with European Foulbrood.
In today's video, I show how this procedure is carried out by using it to convert from a commercial brood box into a new Happy Vallet Honey, Honey Paw Polystyrene Hive.
This season we are delighted to have our TH-cam channel sponsored by Happy Valley Honey. Each week we will be uploading videos featuring our bees in the Honey Paw poly hives supplied by Paul Beardmore at Happy Valley Honey.
We'll be showing all the usual inspections, tips and techniques specifically housed in the Honey Paw Poly Hives.
These are a Langstroth hive which is a hive type I'm not familiar with and have been keen to try out for some years now so I'm very pleased to be collaborating with Paul and Happy Valley Honey in presenting these hives on our TH-cam channel.
Check out the Happy Valley Honey range here on their website:
www.happyvalle...
Happy Valley Honey are situated in Bollington Cheshire, UK. Happy Valley Honey produce honey, beeswax candle and retail Beekeeping Supplies including the Honey Paw Hives.
Paul Beardmore, owner and beekeeper of HVH started beekeeping in 2008, With around 3 hives, situated at his workplace and had no idea that beekeeping was actually the profession he wanted to be in. Largely single-handed, Paul has around 120 colonies of bees, divided between 10 apiaries.
The Bees forage for nectar and pollen in the fields, gardens and hedgerows of The Macclesfield Borough, and During the spring and summer months some hives are moved to take advantage of the changing nectar flows from the Heather in the Peak District and the Oil Seed Rape.
Happy Valley Honey are members of the UK's Bee Farmers Association.
Happy Valley Honey have supplied me with all of the beehive equipment featured in this series of beekeeping videos.
About the Norfolk Honey Company TH-cam channel: During the 2018 active season, I will be producing three videos per week. All three of these videos will firstly be uploaded to my Patreon website. Following this, I will select one to make public on my TH-cam channel. We can only produce our regular videos with the help and support of many people. You too can help us continue to provide quality beekeeping videos by becoming a Patron for just $1 per month and have access to all of our videos, that's 12 videos per month.
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This is great- really clear instructions, clear video. Thank you! Will be my first time executing this method to help control EFB. -Ava
brilliant, love your simple explanations and hands on demos,
Hi Alan,
Many thanks for your comments. Much appreciated.
Stewart
BTW: the Shirt ' Warning...' is cool... like it
Fantastic shirt!
Hi Steve,
Thanks for the comment. I have several designs!
Stewart
Fantastic....... again. Thanks.
Hi Martyn,
Thanks for the comments.
Stewart
As always, pleasurable to watch, tried and tested today, your easy to follow tutorials.
Great video on a shook swarm. Makes me wonder if you could do a variation of that and make a split instead. Kind of like a shook split though. Love the shirt too. I will be watching for the next one.
Hi bluzervic,
thanks for commenting. I guess if the purpose is to remove old comb it's best to leave all the bees in the one hive just so you have plenty of bees to draw out the foundation as quickly as possible.
I'll post an update in the near future.
Stewart
I just saw Emmy use a similar shake method for a split on Instagram stories. It was called a Taranov Split, I'd never seen it before. It looked like it worked for her! Not sure exactly how she did it but it involved a ramp
Allison Hi, what’s Emmy’s Instagram info? Can’t find it.
Great video, many thanks, I had a swarm last year make their home in a hive with a half empty of frames brood box a super and stacked up so what’s in there is anyone’s guess. When they get going maybe May time I’ll give them a new home it will be interesting shaking bees from wild comb. Maybe I’ll have to lay it on the ground in front of the hive and finding the queen no doubt be an issue on wild comb. Any tips would be appreciated from anyone. Many thanks H.
Hey Stewart, Sorry if you have mentioned this already in another video but I would like to know where I can purchase the same bee suit you use? Thanks and regards, Marc
Hi Marc,
if you go to my website www.norfolk-honey.co.uk there is a link on the front page to the bee suits that will also get you a 10% discount from BBWear.
Stewart
Did you not need to block up the end bit ? Is that because she's not going into an existing colony?
HI Maria,
The queen belongs to this colony so the workers will accept her without any problem and that's different to introducing a new queen into a queenless colony.
Stewart
Oh where can I buy one ... make it 5 of those shirts?
Hi Ted,
Thanks for commenting.
I have them printed for me.
Let me know what sizes and I can get some for you!
Stewart
Hi Stewart
do you not put any drawn comb for the queen to lay in or is it just foundation, how long willl it take for the foundation to get drawn out for her to lay.
whats the latest time of year you can do this and could you use is as swam control
thanks
simon
Hi Simon,
Just foundation in the top box and the workers draw it out really quickly. Under normal circumstances, a strong colony and with fine weather the bees take about 10 days to fully draw out the new comb.
You could use this method of comb replacement any time as long as you had the warm weather to help them draw out the comb. Remember they have to then fill it with stores so don't leave it too late in the season.
Stewart
Hi Stewart
When do you remove the Queen excluded ?
Regards
Tim
Hi Tim,
I have literally removed it this morning. But generally once the queen is laying and there is brood in the newly drawn comb you should be safe enough to remove the queen excluder.
The update video is just about to be posted on my Patreon site. www.patreon.com/norfolkhoney
Stewart
So what was the purpose of this? I mean, why pull the bees out of a healthy looking hive with brood and all? I’m sure there was a reason
Hi DRB,
It was a demonstration of how to perform a shook swarm for people who hadn't encountered or perform it before. I would normally choose to randomly "shook swarm", but do know of beekeepers that use it annually as a disease and pest management technique by replacing all of the wax in the hive every year. Not for everyone but it is a great way to renew all the wax in the hive in one go.
Stewart
The Norfolk Honey Company ah, that makes sense. So, this wasn’t a reactive procedure from you. It was simply a demonstration. Very nice! Thanks
Good morning Stewart, is it just a co-incidence that you are transferring from a Maisemore to a Happy Valley hive, or have you found features of the Maisemore with which you have reservations?
Hi Christopher,
The Happy Valley Honey hives are a Langstroth sized hive which I've not used before. Contrary to some comment, Paul at Happy Valley Honey approached me with the suggestion that we could collaborate by producing our videos this Summer using his hives.
I've never used them before so it will be interesting to see how they perform.
The Maisemore hives are still in use and seem to be performing just as well as the wooden hives that I have, no better or worse really just a different material and design.
Stewart
Hi Roar,
I'm guessing you watch my videos because you find them of interest or of use?
I don't really understand the hostility, I'm not forcing you to watch any of my content. If it so appals you, simply stop watching.
Anyway, I hope you are getting some value out of the videos and I appreciate your support.
Stewart
Hello Stewart, I was interested because I have been using polystyrene (Langstroth) hives by another Paradise Honey for three years, very similar in design to those of Happy Valley. They also have the plastic runner built in, which I think is essential to ease removal of frames, particularly when propolised, without damaging the polystyrene. The great advantage is their lightness, for those like us suffering with back problems, and also the high insulation values that help the bees to keep temperatures in the hive at the level they prefer, winter and summer.
Hi Roar,
I appreciate your feedback and honesty. Beekeeping is my only source of income, long story but I'm not a large producer of honey, queens or nucs and need to try to find other avenues of financial support. Rather than spend my money on beekeeping equipment I chose to invest in recording and editing equipment to try to help other beekeepers via videos, podcasts, blogs etc. The income from TH-cam currently is barely $100 per month and I have to find alternatives to help fund my work. I try to keep the "adverts" to a short intro section and think that with all of the content I am working so hard to provide that $1 per month is well worth it. I understand not everyone can either afford it or want to pay for watching videos and I will continue to provide videos on youtube for free.
Please do keep watching, I'm a beekeeper first and foremost and I don't always get things right, when I mess up I try to acknowledge it and improve.
Stewart
Hi Christopher,
I think you're right, those plastic runners are a key component to ease of inspections, I damaged one of the commercial poly hives trying to move a propolised frame, it tore away a chunk of polystyrene.
I am very happy to have lighter hives, my back problem has disappeared at the moment and I don't want to have it come back any time soon, hopefully, the lighter hives will help with that. I'm really looking forward to seeing how the bees develop in these hives through the season and into next Winter.
Stewart
hi why was the bees trying to sting the queen ?
Hi Shane,
It's really interesting that having been out of the colony for such a short period of time they seem to have got confused as to her pheromone and attacked her. I watched her move down into the colony and she seemed fine so fingers crossed she is ok!
Stewart
May I ask, what did you do with the frames of brood you took away from this hive?
Hi 1952toots,
Many thanks for commenting.
I've actually removed the wax and rendered it down and about to boil up the frames to clean them all.
Stewart
The Norfolk Honey Company so, you essentially destroyed the brood? That is usually considered a precious commodity of a hive.
Yes, my question as well. It makes sense to destroy the brood if you're dealing with disease, but an awful waste otherwise. Stewart, would love your thinking on this.
Hi Mark,
These frames had some very old, dark comb in them and I like to renew comb every few years to reduce the pests and diseases loading. If it were new comb and free of AFB and EFB then I tend to reuse it if I'm happy with it.
Stewart
It seems a crime doing away with all that good brood
How do the bees access the sugar syrup?
Hi Energyhill's Bees,
Thanks for the question. On the feeder, there are two slots to the rear which have clear perspex covers which allow the bees to climb up and access the sugar syrup without falling into it and drowning.
Stewart
What was the reason for the shock swarm?
Hi Peter,
Thanks for commenting.
A couple of reasons, the brood had quite a high number of varroa which are obviously removed when you take away the frames of sealed brood. Also, I'm trying out a new type of hive for me which I've not tried before and it is a different size. This method allows you to transfer a colony into a different sized hive without any problem.
Stewart
The Norfolk Honey Company n
Hi Stewart. I did a shook swarm this week to tackle high levels of Varroa 3 days later the bees are flying in great clusters all around the hive and have been balling up underneath the hive not sure if I have done the right thing in opening the hive to check things but I did and the inside is very full of bees lots of patches of comb being made a bees in the feeder so looks fine inside but not on the outside am I right in thinking that the bees are doing this outside the hive due to having very little room in the B box? I have put an empty super above the q excluder and below the feeder in the hope that this will give them more room what would your advice be?
Hi Neil,
Did you put the queen excluder beneath the brood box? The set up should be Floor, Queen Excluder, Brood Box, Feeder, Crownboard, Roof. It sounds like you have put the queen excluder above the brood box and the queen has absconded outside and is probably under the floor maybe.
Stewart
Hi Stewart. Many thanks for the very quick response. The set up I had was floor, Q ex, BBox, Q ex, crown board, eke, feeder, so i am pretty sure the Q remained in the BB but that said I have now done as you suggested and have set up Floor, Q ex, BB, Feeder with Eke, crown board and the roof I have not put a second Q ex above the Brood Box so the Feeder is directly on top of the frames (which does make more sense as it is closer contact with the bees. They all seemed very calm as they usually are and nearly all the bees have cleared from under the hive so touch wood it is fine now. Thank you once again for your help and your excellent Vids.