Problem with Honey Storage Pattern in Standard Flow Hive Set up? possible solution

I believe so. As you know, freezing certainly kills wax moth pupae (and larvae). However, they still manage to come back next season! :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

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Yes, I do think I could potentially have a swarming problem like any beekeeper on the planet. But I will elaborate later on what I do to address this issue. The swarming tendency sure seems to vary from ecosystem to ecosystem and the impression I get is that my conditions are not severe in swarming tendencyā€¦but to be more definitive, I would actually have to beekeep first hand in those other locals to compare.

Like that idea and I can see youā€™ve stated it has to be done early in the season. And I would then reverse the ideal after 10 days/2 weeks (on a healthy hive) ā€¦the bees would have polished the cells in the ideal below by then in anticipation of the brood rearing to comeā€¦ and the queen would quickly go up into the ideal above and flood those cells with eggs. Some queens will be laying in the ideal already when it is below but not usually all of themā€¦depends on the hive. And then you could move the ideal above the QX after shaking all the bees from the frames. With this procedure you are always eliminating that dome of honey above the brood that for some reason makes the bees reluctant to cross that QX. That dome of honey above the brood precipitates swarming.

Iā€™m so unfamiliar with your conditions thereā€¦but during the above process we make sure that a wet honey super is also put above the queen excluderā€¦and under my conditions it would go on the QX and the ideal with brood on top. Traditionally in our area, installation of wet honey supers are used as a swarm prevention techniqueā€¦they draw the workers above the QX immediately and make the hive think they have been on a honeyflow as there is a film of honey on every cell and there isnā€™t any capped honey anywhere near the queen nowā€¦they forget about swarming and go to work for another 3 weeks before they entertain the idea of swarming again.

As far as more work, you will see that my management is more box (super/brood) manipulationā€¦an easy taskā€¦but earlier in the season we are sure pulling out those side frames of pollen and honey to make room for the queen. Every time we pull honey later in the seasonā€¦which can be up to 4 times per yearā€¦a stack of wet supers replace the full supers removedā€¦we scramble to keep that honey dome above the brood from forming and want brood right up to the top bars (which are right against the underside of the QX).

Not good:

Goodā€¦2 cycles of capped brood on one frameā€¦no honey domeā€¦appears as if the hive could be starvingā€¦but agressive queen laying says not.

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I love it, @Doug1. Very nicely explained, thank you. :blush:

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I canā€™t recall a link, but I remember reading that drones keep hive morale high, happy colony.
I havenā€™t seen any evidence yet that drones donā€™t defend a hive, but if their presence keeps the happy fighting spirit up, thatā€™s all a colony needs. So the drones may help in ways that we as non insects canā€™t fathom.

Just look at a struggling nuc. All they want is to grow big enough to support drones. Once they have drones, they are happily expanding.
Doug, thank you for your thoughts. Even if your observations are for a different situation, we can all learn from it.
I will reread your comments again to try understand what drives our bees.
Thank you for sharing your experiences and thoughts on this forum.

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Thanks Dawnā€¦but my way of beekeeping today is influenced by a by-gone era when most beekeepers in northern Canada relied on package bees. To bring in a crop in a very short seasonā€¦sometimes only 6 weeksā€¦we had to use every technique in the book (and then some) to maximize the growth of hive. It was a race against time every season to make sure the population was peaking prior to the flowā€¦the more bees there were in the hive, the more honey was produced. Honey production was the goal and Iā€™m still a huge fan of package beesā€¦which are man-made swarmsā€¦itā€™s what I know.

I attended Apimondia in Montreal, Canada this year and was talking to some Slovenian beekeepers and they were amazed that swarming wasnā€™t a problem for me as I use Carniolan stock. Carniolan stock supposedly originated from the Slovenia area and they wereā€™t too impressed with the swarming tendency of that bee line. So itā€™s difficult to predictā€¦or understandā€¦what works in one part of the world may be a flop in another part.

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Hi Doug, I use the juice as a cold drink. I limit how much I drink every day. Probably 3 small glasses. The sugar cane juice contains all of the goodness that gets processed out during the refining of sugar. I get a bit of a work-out while juicing it as well. I did 21 stalks the other day for 24 liters. That took about 6 hours.

One of my honey customers gave me a sugar cane cutting to plant, so it went from there.

Hi @Webclan, itā€™s been my belief ever since I started beekeeping that drones donā€™t contain a sting because they donā€™t defend. They leave that to the workers. In fact they do nothing in a hive whatsoever. Their function is to pass on the genes of that colony. If a colony contains many drones, that increases the chances of that colony to pass on itā€™s genes. So naturally the more drones in a colony during spring, the happier that colony will become.

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Your comment about drones is as I understand it also Jeff. What has a drone got to defend a hive, nothing would be my answer. If the aim of a nuc is to produce more drones then why in hard times are they ejected from the hive? My learning is that the aim of a colony is to become larger and to support the queen in reproducing. I suspect that drones have a calming effect in a hive but to defend a hive is a bit too far. I have yet to hear of a drone working as a guard bee in a robbing situation. Links can lead to some good information but they can also lead to misinformation also. I have yet to read of any valid evidence that drones do anything to defend a hive. I might be using ā€˜old schoolā€™ thinking but not seen evidence to contradict it yet.
Cheers

Hi Pete, I suspect that the calming effect would be the fact that they are able to pass on the colonyā€™s genes. I guess if drones leave the hive & donā€™t return, thatā€™d be a reason for the colony to feel good because the drones got lucky. Iā€™m thinking the higher the number of drones that donā€™t return, the better the colony would feel.

On the subject of whether drones defend or not. I put that down to Webber fishing for a bite :slight_smile: ā€¦ In the Aussie tradition.

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you are not the first to reach that conclusion:

" ā€œThe droneā€ wrote Butler, in 1609, ā€œis a gross stingless bee, that spendeth his time in gluttony and idlenessā€¦ā€

I read a scientific paper once that suggested that may not be the case- and that drones do play a role as heater bees. I cannot find it now- but I did find this:

ā€œDrones help to regulate the temperature in the hive or nest, and this is especially important for the development of young bees and larvae. Honeybee larvae and pupae are extremely stenothermic, which means they strongly depend on accurate regulation of brood nest temperature for proper development (33ā€“36Ā°C) (2).
Although each colony has far fewer drones than workers, they nevertheless pull their weight with regard to heat generation. Research indicates that Drones can produce one and a half times as much heat as a worker bee, and that even those Drones not directly next to the brood, are never the less assisting with heat regulation inside the nestā€

edit: I found the study

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