Swarm Threat?--The Making Of A Tussenaflegger

The making of an aflegger is what one does to split two-box hive for the purpose of making a second colony, to develop a new queen or to discourage swarming. When you do this you have the original hive and the split-off hive box (aflegger).
We have at least two main sorts of aflegger here--a "sweeper" and a "flyer". We can talk about those simple methods later if anyone wants. Perhaps you already know these techniques.

At any rate...I am digressing. The tussenaflegger: The word tussen, means in-between and the split-off hive box is called the aflegger. So, then a tussenaflegger is an in-between split-off hive. It still sounds confusing, I know. Just stay with me as I describe the process, for which there are a number of methods for a one box colony or a two box one.

I shall use an illustration taken from the "Imker Weetjes" website to help. I added the english translations.



In the illustration above you can see the one box on the left, "A". This is the beginning situation, it could also consist of two hive boxes like mine...the process is the same.

Let's say for the sake of this explanation that you have a 2-box colony that have already begun pulling queen cells in preparation for swarming. You want to prevent or postpone the swarming.

Illustration B

1--You take the whole colony apart. Place the box without the queen on the bottom.

2--Place one or two frames with open brood and eggs in the middle and remove all the rest of the brood frames. You could place these in what will become the upper hive. This bottom hive should have most all of the nectar and pollen frames. Fill any open places with foundation frames that must be built out.

3--Place now, the queen excluder on top of this lower box. What is the sense if the queen is in the upper box and cannot get back down here? Answer--to keep the drones out of the honey super. If it is not a problem for you, then you can leave this off.

4-- Next you place a honey super. This so that the flying bees can continue foraging for nectar and placing it in the super. You want the foraging to continue whilst the procedure is going on.

5-- Then you place the separator-- a mesh frame that lets no bees go through. It also has at least one little hole that the colony living up above can use to fly out of. If you have a separator with multiple openings, only open one at the time. I places my separator with the flying plank opening to the front.

6--Remove all of the nectar and pollen frames except one or two out of the upper box which you will now place on the separator. The rest of the frames will be open and closed brood frames. Place as much foundation as you can.

7--After 7-8 days break out all of the queen cells in the lower box as well as in the upper box (should there be any). Check to be sure that the bees in the upper box have enough food. If not place a frame of nectar/honey in it and exchange with an empty frame. I scratch across the cell closures to let a little honey out so the bees will smell it and begin eating. You have to think of food for the bees as in the beginning no bees that go out to forage come back to this box.

8--After 21 days from the first day of the making the tussenaflegger return the boxes to the normal positions and remove separator = ( top to bottom) Honing super+brood box with queen+2nd brood box. The queen excluder is something that one can take or leave depending on their philosophy. You can combine these two boxes full of bees without problems or special techniques because they all have the same hive smell thanks to the mesh separator. (Another bonus)

The theory of what happens:
The colony is split. The bees in the lower box feel queenless and make queen cells for a replacement queen and continue gathering and storing honey and pollen. All of the foundation that you put in must be built up and so that will also depress the feeling of need to swarm as it gives the feeling of room in the colony.

The bees in the upper box have less stress to swarm because all of the flying bees have left and upon their return they enter the old and known hive entrance in the lower box. They have not much to do, so they will begin chewing-off any queen cells that they were forming as there is a queen and the population has significantly diminished. **(to take no chances though, I would remove them upon the 8th day inspection). After 21 days (you could look, perhaps sooner) all the brood in the under box will have emerged. The math is--that worker bees begin as an egg and it takes 21 days to go from egg to emergence from the cell...so then--three weeks.

So, when you return the hive to its original situation, there will be a whole underbox that is empty of brood and the queen and her colony will perceive loads of "room" to continue. It's about giving the bees more room to suppress the urge to swarm. The honing super will have some honey.

Obviously, at the point that you want to break out all the queen cells in the under box (after 7 days), you could break out some but not all and let a new queen emerge. At the end of the process you would then have a second new colony with a new queen...or you could replace the old queen. If you choose for a new colony, you have a queen and no closed cells...so a good opportunity to give them an oxalic acid treatment and since there are no closed cells they will remain varroa-free for a time.

These are all choices that one can make based upon what their wishes or needs are. These choices are sort of the "side-bonuses" of the procedure.

Personally I do not want to expand my number of colonies, I just want to maintain strong colonies and curb their need to swarm. I have enough colonies now. I honestly do not have time for more even if I wanted them.

A few pics:


This is the construction of the tussenaflegger.


The bees on the mini fly-plank of the upper box.


The upper box is off.


The top plank is off the bottom box.


The inspection begins. I put 2 frames over to the left in my little "bee hotel" whilst I do the inspection. It gives me a little bit of extra working room so that I don't mash any of the girls.

Here you can see the queen cells that the bees made during the first seven days. I broke them all out plus 2-3 that were still in the upper box.

 

Is that better Eileen?

 

You have a lot of devotion to your little gals. Love that "extreme close-up" in the last photo of one of the curious girls.

 

EILEEN--Well, I do not know exactly what happened with the posting of those foto's the first time around, but I just re-uploaded them and it worked. It is nice that you save the postings. I hope that you get your own bees one day.

Thanks 4-G--Yeah, the curious bee in that last foto was a surprise for me too. I did not realize it until I was home and actually looked at the foto. hahaha. She was really curious wasn't she?

 

Sjoerd - I noticed the water in the background, guessing that is the canal by the allotment. Do the bees use that water source?
Do they need to drink water or get everything from nectar?

 

Hiya 4-G-- I apologize for responding so late.
That was indeed a canal next to the lottie and the bees will drink out of that. I see them drinking out of the birdbath as well if I do not refresh the water on time. When I was out clipping spinach, I noticed a bee that kept coming back and going down into the leaves to drink rainwater droplets that were clinging on the leaves.