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  • Repeated Beekeeping Myths and Folklore.

  • General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
 #2758  by NigelP
 18 Apr 2019, 22:29
DianeBees wrote:
02 Apr 2019, 08:58
Because most people work during the week and can't take time off.
They don't have warm evenings free?
Still doesn't make 7 days as the correct timing though.
 #2759  by NigelP
 18 Apr 2019, 22:46
I'll let you work this one out.
3 miles or 3 feet.
Beginning to think this is not giving the full story by a long way.

Small apiary site came out of winter with 1 drone layer and a hive with no queen. So all old winter bees that had been in that site for over 7 months.
Decided to bleed bees off into 2 new hives placed in their original position.
Moved the drone layers hives hives about 6 feet away and entrances 180 degrees to previous..
4 days later....some had relocated ( increase in bee numbers in "new hives"), yet the majority hadn't....they had reoriented to their new site and where bringing in pollen and nectar.
According to "beekeeping lore"...these where all old bees that should have gone back to original site and been absorbed into the new hives...yet they weren't.
Feel free to discuss.
 #2763  by Chrisbarlow
 19 Apr 2019, 14:35
I agree 100% the 3ft/3mile rule is tosh. But this spring I had an aggressive colony and because of this the queen was Doomed. So I put a weaker colony on the same spot and moved the nasties about 20ft away. Sure enough about a week later, the nice colony rammed with bees, the nasty one virtually bee-less.

And the queen has now expired btw.
 #2773  by MickBBKA
 20 Apr 2019, 03:38
I moved a nuc in my garden last winter to put it in the sun. I hadn't seen any flying bees for ages. Sun came out and so did the bees, I had a cloud of them flying in circles around the original site so I had to put it back and yes I then had a cloud of bees around the new site...…… I just gave up...LOL
 #2777  by Jim Norfolk
 20 Apr 2019, 18:31
We are taught that drones take 24 days from egg to adult and workers 21 days. I put some frames with empty drone cells into a colony on Friday 29th March which had no drone brood or adult drones and watched drones emerging today Saturday 20th April. That is 22 days assuming the queen laid straight away. I am sure some drones emerged yesterday or even the day before because of a sudden rise ( 28 per day) in Varroa falling through the OMF and a few dead drones on the landing board. So definitely 22 days and maybe 20 days.
 #2789  by Jim Norfolk
 21 Apr 2019, 13:56
It is warm in the hive due to insulation but outside temperature was in single figures most of the time. I think it could be down to nutrition. The frames are stacked with nectar and pollen from diverse sources and there were plenty of young bees to ensure the drone larvae were well fed.

Of course one could speculate that local unselected bees have evolved a shorter drone rearing period to cope with Varroa or that the original 24 days refers to a different strain of honeybee. Maybe 24 days is for A.m ligustica in the USA and A.m.m genes which are still very prevalent in local bees give a shorter drone rearing period.
 #2820  by Chrisbarlow
 23 Apr 2019, 21:50
there seems to be a perception (myth) that if some one has been keeping bees a long time then they automatically know best. IMO some times they do, sometimes they dont.
 #2821  by Patrick
 23 Apr 2019, 22:31
Chrisbarlow wrote:there seems to be a perception (myth) that if some one has been keeping bees a long time then they automatically know best. IMO some times they do, sometimes they dont.
That will be true of so many things in life, Chris!

One example I remember from when I started was an old guy from Glos. confidently stating OMF's were a total waste of time because bees simply propolise them all up. Had never actually used them and in practice they don't.

Few things in beekeeping are linear and extrapolations of logic are often not reliable. A lot of people have kept bees for many years but in practice have done the few same things many, many times.

By contrast, I am a sucker for trying different things at least once - and then regretted doing most of them! :lol: :lol:
 #2823  by Chrisbarlow
 24 Apr 2019, 08:10
Patrick wrote:
23 Apr 2019, 22:31

By contrast, I am a sucker for trying different things at least once - and then regretted doing most of them! :lol: :lol:
Me to :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
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