The bees are hauling nectar and pollen by the satchel-loads. The fact that they are bringing in so much pollen especially, tells me that the queen is laying. This means a census increase in the hives. The hive is up to speed now and so it is time for trying a new technique (for me). We call it the "Renson Methode". Basically it is a method of beekeeping in a limited space. The method was conceived by the Belgian, Henri Renson. The benefits of doing this is: (1) A higher honey harvest (2) Easier to check for swarm cells because of the smaller brood space (3) Less swarming tendency because the colony size is te4mpered and stable (4) If they should swarm, the queen cannot accompany, so the swarm will return to the hive (5) The queen will live longer because of less egg laying Before I begin, I just want to say that after researching this, I have discovered that there are several variations to this technique. Sadly no other imkers that I know here have ever done this, so it was purely down to research. What I describe here is what I decided to do in the end. What is needed: 3 brood boxes 2 queen excluder's 6 frames of brood 4 space-filler-frames 1 partitioned drone frame I shall give the steps in the order in which I set this hive up. Step 1-- Prepare the under brood box: place any left-over brood frames, 3-4 frames with food and the rest with built-up brood frames Step 2-- Place a queen excluder on top of bottom box, then set the middle brood box (the Renson Box/chamber) on top of that. Hang 6 frames of brood and the queen, one three-partitioned drone frame and 3-4 space-filler-frames Step 3-- Place the second queen excluder on top of the Renson chamber then set the third brood box on top of that with built-up and foundation frames in an alternating fashion. Close the hive and then leave them to it for 9-10 days. Here I am placing the Renson box on top of the under box plus queen excluder. Here you can see the construction for the Renson Method. The illustration was taken from KONVIB site and Dirk Desmadryl was the author of the web page. For clarity, a bit of translation: HZ= Honey super, vulblokken_ space-filling frames, darrenraam= 3-partitioned drone frame, stuifmeel= pollen frames and R- queen excluder. After nine days you check the under box to see if there are any swarm cells present. There shouldn't be any because the under box is full of foragers and foragers do not build. Check the Renson chamber for swarm cells, and repeat this every 10 days. Since there are only "house bees" present here they ought to be easy to handle. Should there be any swarm cells present, remove them. If the bees continue to make swarm cells , remove the queen...wait 5 days and then introduce a new, young, fertilized queen; or, make a tussenaflegger ...see: http://www.gardenstew.com/threads/swarm-threat-the-making-of-a-tussenaflegger During each of the 10 day checks, try and let as many drones as possible escape. Also remove one section of the partitions in the 3-partitioned frame. You want to remove sealed (capped) brood because if your colony has varroa mites, they will be in these drone cells. Around the first of July, remove the queen excluder which is between the middle and lower brood boxes. The bees will perhaps be out of the swarming mode and they will then continue stocking up honey for the winter. They will fill the lower boxes as well as the honey super. The honey in the middle and under box is for the bees...the honey in the super is for you. Well, fingers crossed now--we shall see how this goes.
S, do you freeze the drone brood frame and put it back in for the bees to clean out and reuse the frame to capture more varroa mites? or what do you do with it? I have seen drone brood frames for that specific purpose, but I haven't been a very good bee keeper these past few years to invest the time to try it. I just am stretched a bit too thin for it all.
Hiya Carolyn. You put one of three-section frames in and then the idea is to cur out one section every 10 days when you do your normal hive checks. The bees keep re-building each compartment that has had a bit of drone comb removed...and then the imker keeps removing them, once capped. The normal technique that I use is to place an empty honey frame in the colony right next to the brood nest ...or in the frame slot right before the outer edge of the brood box. What happens then is that the bees then make normal cells and the queen lays eggs in them--these grow up to be worker bees, but underneath the the frame the bees make comb and fill this with drone larvae. I then just remove this strip of drone brood from time to time. This can then be frozen and then fed to the birds. This second method that I use means that you would not have to invest in any new material...just use an old honey frame--they are shorter than the brood frames...voilá!
I doubt it Sjoerd as Ian is no longer as keen to have them. I think John (our next door neighbour) has put him off keeping bees as his hives have had so many problems.
Oh darn, Eileen. That is too bad. I can tell you that if he would take an introduction course he might be able to get a feel for what all bee keeping entails. As for problems--well, anyone can have problems, but if you take care of the bees and follow the techniques, the probs will be at a minimum. I find it too bad that he is put off by someone else's problems. The next time you guys come over, he and I can have a talk and you both can look in my bees with me. We have extra suits. But as I say--it would be a good idea to take an introduction course in beekeeping anyway, as the course will give enough info for him to decide if beekeeping is for him or not. Of course if I can help in any way, please let me know.
Yikes SJ--you are one busy little Bee with trying that new method. Hope it works out super for you and the Bees.
Thanks very much, 2T. Me too. I have done all that I can now, so now I shall just check on them every ten days or so. We shall see. It is a learning process for me.
