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General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
 #3579  by Japey Edge
 14 Jun 2019, 19:59
Interesting!

I carried out my inspection today. On the bright side, they had plenty of stores and have built up since inspection last week.

On the negative side, as per my other thread, I found sealed queen cells.

As per Nigel's advice I moved the partially drawn frame in next to the last brood frame. Had to do some reorientation with other frames to make everything fit but yeah all good now.

Now to make a plan for next week if I get more queen cells!
 #3580  by Alfred
 14 Jun 2019, 20:54
BBC weather app was fairly spot on so I got a window of opportunity to revisit after the Wednesday fiasco.
Very well behaved all round by comparison,no stinging ,no bumping.The escort back to the car was still there but nowhere near as insistent
I know plenty disagree but I tried smoking the entrance well first as I got the lid off then smoked each layer allowing it all to perculate a while before removing
Lots of variables to muddy the water but it was a different set of hives tonight and the nasty nuc was in line with the rest of them for behaviour.
 #3592  by Adam Bee
 15 Jun 2019, 11:17
I was just happy to see bees flying this morning. If the weather works out, I’d like to get an inspection in this weekend. Between the weather and a new job that took me away from 7am to 8pm, I hadn’t really seen any activity all week. I’ll admit all of this talk of rain and starvation was making me beyond nervous and borderline paranoid. Now I’m relieved.
 #3600  by Japey Edge
 15 Jun 2019, 23:19
Adam have you noticed your bees braving the rain and flying about? Mine must have got sick of the weather the other day and just went for it despite the showers...

Today I was in the garage making planters for the wife, but whenever I go in I convert a cardboard box or two into smoker fuel - NigelP style!

Image
 #3603  by Adam Bee
 16 Jun 2019, 10:16
Japey Edge wrote:
15 Jun 2019, 23:19
Adam have you noticed your bees braving the rain and flying about? Mine must have got sick of the weather the other day and just went for it despite the showers...
They are now, that’s for sure. I’ve been leaving too early in the morning to see any activity. All good busy bees are asleep. Dumbass human worker bees are trudging to the station. But now, it’s raining - med/light rain - and they are at near full activity. When the rain is heavier, it’s more a “return and try to land in bad weather” scenario, with only a few leaving.

I’m dying to get in today and have a look as it will be another week before I can if I don’t. After 10 years of working from home and having my own schedule, this return to a regular schedule takes getting used to.

I also want to build 2 or 3 dummy boards today so when I do look in, I can reduce the frame count down from a full 12 and give myself a non-populated frame to remove before inspecting.
 #3605  by Adam Bee
 16 Jun 2019, 11:02
Light Rain Video

https://dl.dropbox.com/s/7ydtptmavobj169/2019-06-16%2010.22.53.mov

Sorry, but I can’t find a way to embed that content, or even link it, so it’s going to have to be a copy and paste.
 #3608  by NigelP
 16 Jun 2019, 16:46
Adam Bee wrote:
16 Jun 2019, 10:16
, I can reduce the frame count down from a full 12 and give myself a non-populated frame to remove before inspecting.
If you are using Nationals it's not a good idea to fit the 12th frame in...11 is the usual standard. The bees will propolise the edges and you will struggle to get the frames out. Some go for 11 and dummy board, but I find even this is quite tight so go for 11. If you scrape wax off flat sides of DN4 frames then you will create a small gap which I leave usually at entrance end and you (mainly) find this is respected by the bee who seem to use it as a free passageway into the supers....but not always :)
 #3611  by Adam Bee
 16 Jun 2019, 18:13
NigelP wrote:
16 Jun 2019, 16:46
Adam Bee wrote:
16 Jun 2019, 10:16
, I can reduce the frame count down from a full 12 and give myself a non-populated frame to remove before inspecting.
If you are using Nationals it's not a good idea to fit the 12th frame in...11 is the usual standard. The bees will propolise the edges and you will struggle to get the frames out. Some go for 11 and dummy board, but I find even this is quite tight so go for 11. If you scrape wax off flat sides of DN4 frames then you will create a small gap which I leave usually at entrance end and you (mainly) find this is respected by the bee who seem to use it as a free passageway into the supers....but not always :)
Nigel: thanks for the feedback. I’m running “all mediums” and no queen excluder, as I’m not honey farming, per se, and I want the simplicity of interchangeable equipment.

As we are in the UK, I’m using the Rose OSB (one size box) so I can stay compatible with all other National dimensions. The main difference is depth, at 190mm. My nuc came on DN4s, so I have a 35mm eke under that box.

Now, these boxes take 12 frames and there is a small amount of free space that I can use to move the first frame a little bit away from the next frame and pull it out. This was not problem until the last two inspections where the bees has full occupancy of all 12 frames. I had to be very careful getting that first frame out and I was worried about rolling someone.

My feeling was to make up a set of dummy boards to push up against frame 2 that would make it easier to remove as it wouldn’t have (that many) bees on it.

I have this feeling that there is a little more space in the Rose over a National as the external dimensions are identical to nationals but in the construction of the box they use slightly thinner timber for the end boards, giving what I see is a little more volume. I should measure this to be sure.

My worry is that with only 11 frames, I would get brace comb at one end to fill the gap. Maybe this won’t happen? Don’t know.

So, your comment made me do some research. You said “you will create a small gap which I leave usually at entrance end”. This was something I hadn’t really thought about: “What orientation should frames be in a hive? Parallel or Perpendicular to the hive entrance?”

It’s easiest to inspect from the side with my hive, so I have oriented my hive so the frames run perpendicular to entrance. This means the bees just enter and go up into the frames, rather than ducking under the first frame.

So: what do people feel? Dummy board? Empty space? Parallel? Perpendicular? Do you have a preference? And why?
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