I’m not knocking what you do in Canada, however my mentor & I are confused as to how adding a frame of sealed & emerging bees to a weaker colony can lead to chalk brood issues. We’re wondering if you let the brood get chilled during the process. As always, we need to pick the right day, weather wise to carry out such an activity & not let the brood get chilled during the process.
Having said that, a frame of sealed & emerging bees is less vulnerable to chilling than a frame of open brood. Did you transfer open brood? … which led to chalk brood issues.
With beekeeping, there are always caveats…you know that JeffH as well as anyone…and I did say it could work.
During that first spring inspection (what Bianca is posting about) here in Canada, I don’t ever see frames of solid capped and emerging brood…the bees are coming out of winter mode…they are just getting going…there is brood at every stage but only on a few frames . Those beautiful frames of sealed and capped brood that would be ideal for boosting…that I often post photos of…come much later after our first inspection. So in my conditions I would never be transferring booster frames to weak colonies at our first inspection time…that comes during a subsequent inspection.
But there are some cardinal rules…caveats if you wish… when transferring brood to weaker colonies:
- Keep colonies strong in the ratio of adult bees to brood. This means matching the physical size of the donor frame brood area to the adult workforce of the recipient weaker colony.
- Resist any manipulation that will result in a low number of adults…this means that typically brood frames transferred to a weak colony should be coming from a different beeyard so the adult bees don’t fly back to their original location
- To lessen stress and improve success at this early point in the season, use more than one frame of brood with attendants…my experience shows that very early in the season, those extra attendants are much less aggressive towards the queen heading up the weak colony than later in the season.
- Move this newly boosted colony to a nuc sized box…and insulate.
As an additional comment, I have come to realize that there is often a trade-off to sprucing up doggy hives in the early spring at the expense of the donor hives. Rather, I try to run a few extra hives going into winter to compensate for those hives emerging weak in the spring. And just focus more on my stronger colonies…my good hives are the most vunerable at this time of year…even if they have wintered well.
5 Likes
The frame of brood I’m talking about is just that, a frame of brood. Otherwise I would have added “with bees”.
It is not the transferred brood that gets chalkbrood. The local brood suffers. Sealed brood contributes very little to the thermal management of a colony, and needs external input for that. Usually, it needs bees to keep it at the required temperature. When we transfer a frame of brood to another colony, the local bees have to take care of the thermal management of this frame. And they do only so much.
In colder climates, when we add brood frames, we can reach a point, when it is simply not enough bees to provide heat to everyone. In severe cases, we may get what is actually called a ‘chilled brood’. Usually, it happens on the periphery of the frames (sides and bottoms) where the effect of external conditions is the greatest. But it also upsets the thermal regulation of a colony in general. Brood weakens and diseases take hold.
Heating and feeding are the things where the bees to comb ratio mainly comes to play. For a beekeeper in Alberta, this ratio is very important because of the cold climate. I guess they may experience occasional frost and snow events as far to the season as May. On the other hand, a beekeeper in Buderim operates in conditions that are not too far from an incubator when compared to Alberta’s climate. The bees to comb ratio is different for different climates. The margin of error is way more narrow for places where the climate is more severe. That is why the idea of moving frames liberally is hair-raising for a beekeeper who is accustomed to bees/comb ratio fine-tuning and a beekeeper from gentler conditions does not even see what set the former off 
5 Likes
Which is why I transfer nurse bees with the brood. No, they don’t fight. Really, they don’t! 
I think that foragers and guard bees are more interested in fighting than nurse bees. A good dose of smoke, and they settle in very nicely.
7 Likes
The question needs to be asked "what constitutes a weak/weaker colony. It can be anywhere from 300 bees to even 20,000 bees & higher.
My advice, however sound, needs to be taken & used with a degree of thought & common sense. For example: you wouldn’t give a frame full of sealed & emerging bees to a colony of only 300 bees.
I have to apologize for not thinking of Alberta for example, when giving my advice to @Bianca , she is not all that far south of me, so therefore I was thinking that her bees would be doing something similar to mine & my second mentor’s hives on the other side of Buderim.
2 Likes
Hi Dawn, I totally agree that nurse bees don’t fight, on top of that, they are readily accepted by a receiving colony.
I’ll share my latest favorite strategy which I’m constantly using. I don’t put them directly into a hive, just in case the older bees want to fight. I mount a piece of ply, or a lid or something flat adjacent to & touching the receiving hive’s entrance. Then I shake the frames of nurse bees off brood frames from a strong colony onto the board. The flying bees will immediately take flight before returning to the donor hive. Within a matter of minutes, the nurse bees (the crawlers) start moving towards the receiving hive, then march straight in without getting challenged. It’s actually pretty to watch. Therefore as you can see, a colony containing a mere 300 bees can get quickly populated, then turned into a reasonable size hive. The only limit is how many frames of brood one can afford to shake nurse bees off. Then we’d have to add some of those frames of brood to the receiving hive to accommodate all the nurse bees we’ve added.
On a side note: I finished up letting the crazy comb hive go to someone else (just in case you read that). It was a moment of insanity on my part for offering to pick them up, during a time when I’m literally run off my feet with my own bees. Plus the weather is absolutely perfect to do a 2 day leisurely fishing trip, which I just can’t do right now.
2 Likes
Spring is in the air alright. After a very cold start to the day, I got away late to do a split & grab some honey frames. I got home at about 1pm, only to be greeted by Wilma with the news that one of our nucs swarmed, I’m guessing with the first virgin queen to emerge. I added nurse bees to that nuc, which I thought was a bit light on. Obviously I added too many.
With a frame of very young brood from the only possible source in our yard, a nuc that was due for a queen rite check in 3 days, I managed to catch the swarm from our mulberry tree.
4 Likes
Just a 1st of spring update: I’ve caught up with my own hives, however a Flow hive client phoned me yesterday with bearding, but very little honey coming out when he “tapped” a few days ago. I agreed to go down to do a split & take that as a fee.
With my mentor, we took a 7 frame split, leaving only one brood frame (the one with the youngest brood) in the middle flanked with fresh foundation frames on account of new eggs in a couple of queen cells. Luckily we found the queen.
Doing such a large split should change the bees mind about swarming, seeing as the population growth has stopped for the time being. I told the owner that we’ll probably have to do the same thing again in about 5 or 6 weeks time.
Now the Flow frames: There’s plenty of honey in the 3 I lifted out & you can see the empty sections that drained, as well as the large sections that didn’t drain.
The strategy is: The owner is ordering a second key. If that doesn’t work, he’ll wait till next time I split the hive, so he can see what’s going on with the Flow frames outside of the hive. If that doesn’t work, he’ll order new frames.
PS @Bianca , I’ve changed my mind about breaking swarm cells down at this time of season. My reason being that I’m splitting the splits down to small colonies, (this is after the queen cells have developed) so that they hopefully wont swarm.
Hi All, first spring inspection today after a long cold, wet winter here in Canberra. Also my first spring since I set up my hive in December 2020. I would like the ‘brains trust’ on here to give me some feedback on my 8 frames. Some things I noticed today, a lot of drones and drone cells. A few queen cells on some of the frames. Couldn’t get close enough to get some images from inside. I couldn’t find the queen but there were eggs, larve (various stages of growth) and young bees. I have marked up some of the images with a red square, for anyone with more experience to give me some feedback. Any thoughts/advice on what I should do, if anything, to prevent a swarm. I added a super with 8 frames with wax foundation to give them more room, as they seemed to have out grown the first box. Grateful for any feedback, KSJ
Looks very nice. Nice brood pattern. Looks like they made it through winter with lots of resources.
Were there eggs or larvae in any of those queen cups? A few play cups is nothing to worry about but if they have larvae, then you need to split ASAP.
For naturally drawn comb, there were fewer drone cells that I would expect, the bees usually will maintain ~10-20% drone cells.
On the topic of naturally drawn comb, those wavy combs make rolling bees and the queen harder to avoid. Make sure you scrape down the bars to make inspection easier. If you had a 10 frame box, getting that first frame out would be hairy. A little more wiggle room in an 8 frame box.
I won’t get into the foundation vs. naturally drawn discussion but you should do your research and reading and decide what works for you.
1 Like
Thanks @chau06 (Alok) I am hoping they are play cups, I am really nervous about doing a split as my contact (mentor) is in NSW and can’t come and help because he can’t come into the ACT at the moment cause of COVID lockdown 
It was really hard to see if there were larvae in the cups. I added a second brood box with wax foundation so am hoping this will give them some more room to expand. I would be interested to see what others might suggest @JeffH @ABB @skeggley @Dawn_SD Really appreciate your advice, love this forum 
If I am not sure, I put the J-hook of my hive tool into the cup and open it. If it is a serious attempt, you can then easily see an egg, and within a day or two, you will see a mound of royal jelly too.
The number of cups on your frames makes me suspicious that they are developing swarmy intentions. Especially as you have plenty of drone cells too, and a huge amount of brood. I would seriously consider a split if any of those queen cells are loaded.
Not sure if you have seen these, but in place of a mentor, these 2 booklets are really good at telling you what to do:
https://wbka.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/wbka-booklet-english-PDF.pdf
2 Likes
Hi Karen, I agree with @Dawn_SD . I previously mentioned that I only use single brood boxes, so therefore I would discourage adding a second one, with a preference to doing a split instead.
The fact that all those queen cups are made with fresh wax, even if they were empty indicates that the colony is getting ready to swarm. Going by the length of them, I wouldn’t be surprised if they contained eggs or grubs.
Are you seeing any bearding? because the other day I got called out to a hive that started bearding a few days earlier, to find queen cells in the brood containing eggs. This was a Flow hive with no access into the roof, which was against my recommendation. The roof area allows the bees more space to occupy before they start preparing to swarm. It didn’t matter in this case because the bearding was the catalyst for the phone call. This time last year the bloke called me one day too late. He decided not to make that mistake again.
Hi @JeffH, No bearding, but the hive was very full when I opened it yesterday. I didn’t find the queen yesterday but did notice new eggs in the brood comb in some of the frames. So I presume she is still in there somewhere. I am trying to get some help with doing a split, as I have never done it before - and my local mentor lives just across the border in NSW so he can’t come and assist because of the stay at home and lockdown orders. I’m not even sure whether I have enough equipment to do a split, hence me trying to contact a local beek
Hi Karen, a mentor should be able to guide you over the phone. It sounds like you probably have what’s required to do a split, minus two bits of board. One for a floor & one for a roof. You can do a split into a super sitting on top of a board cut the same size as the super. Then with the frames secured so they don’t move or wobble, place a same size board on as a roof. Then wrap packaging tape around both ends before taking it away so that no bees return to the old hive. With the hive in place, remove the packaging tape before shifting the box forward on the floor, creating an entrance under the end of the hive. I do this after I run out of lids & bottom boards.
1 Like
@JeffH @Dawn_SD Thanks so much for the advice, much appreciated I have made contact with my mentor and we will be doing a split as soon as the weather is fine again. Rainy and maximum of 15 degrees C here in Canberra today, the last few days were a teaser 
So glad I was able to open up the hive on Thursday just gone. Loved seeing the colony had survived winter, (it was a weak hive going into winter and I had to feed syrup throughout). We also had a very small infestation of SHB in late summer. Now the hive is thriving, and no SHB. Cheers and thanks, again KSJ
3 Likes