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More advanced beekeeping discussion forum.
 #7442  by Chrisbarlow
 27 May 2020, 23:27
Does anyone run queenless colonies during flows like OSR.

A mate has a couple of colonies and hates swarming , so come the osr flow, he's moves his queen into a nuc box from his main colony and leaves the main colonies queenless. As the nuc fills up, he moves frames of brood and stores into the main colony and just waits for it to raise a new queen. Every week they get fresh eggs so if anything happens to the new queen, they can have another go.

It seems quite straight forward, gets him a honey excess, minimises his chances of losing a swarm. Maximises his chances of getting a new queen each year, minimises inspections and generally makes his beekeeping in swarm season straight forward.

He only has a couple of colonies and is happy with his process.

Anyone else tried it?
 #7447  by NigelP
 28 May 2020, 09:10
Only accidentally. But You can buy queen cages (Dadant sized) that will hold the queen and 2 frames, so her laying is restricted and achieve the same thing.
 #7452  by AdamD
 28 May 2020, 11:36
The problem I see is that restricting the laying by putting a queen in a nuc will hammer brood production for honey collection AFTER the OSR flow as the colony would be depleted. And I would prefer to have non OSR honey if possible. I guess at least some brood is going in, but at, say, 1/4 of the usual rate of production.
 #7453  by Chrisbarlow
 28 May 2020, 12:02
AdamD wrote:
28 May 2020, 11:36
The problem I see is that restricting the laying by putting a queen in a nuc will hammer brood production for honey collection AFTER the OSR flow as the colony would be depleted. And I would prefer to have non OSR honey if possible. I guess at least some brood is going in, but at, say, 1/4 of the usual rate of production.
I see your point, it certainly would reduce colony population for a period afterwards, It certainly addressed any swarming issues unless he lets the nuc get overpopulated. Would the June gap not be sufficient to let the colony recover? It would have a new queen inside who would probably be more vigorous at laying... dont know/not sure.
 #7454  by Chrisbarlow
 28 May 2020, 12:05
NigelP wrote:
28 May 2020, 09:10
Only accidentally. But You can buy queen cages (Dadant sized) that will hold the queen and 2 frames, so her laying is restricted and achieve the same thing.
I am not sure it is. you don't get a new queen out of the deal. However super sized queen cages is an interesting idea.

There might be more faffing with removing brood frame from such adevice but that doesn't affect the outcome.

It might also be easier checking a small nuc outside of a large colony as well but also that doesnt affect the outcome either.
 #7458  by NigelP
 28 May 2020, 16:04
As it happens I have a comparison at the moment, although not a very good one.
At one site with 4 hives three all decided to swarm at the same time. Rescued one queen from the grass but lost the rest. ....but no work force was lost as all queens clipped. KOed queen cells down to 1 in each hive and added 2 fresh supers on the 12th of May.
Effectively I wouldn't expect any more brood rearing to begin with new queens until around now. This afternoon I added 2 more fressh supers and clearer boards under 2 supers on each of these three hives; all are full and fully capped....
The fourth hive is queen right and I am taking one super off them. However don't draw too many conclusions this queen has had a weird laying pattern of lots and lots of drone brood mixed up with normal brood, so the work force is not as large as the other 2....she is currently about to be dethroned.
 #7459  by Chrisbarlow
 28 May 2020, 16:49
NigelP wrote:
28 May 2020, 16:04
As it happens I have a comparison at the moment, although not a very good one.
At one site with 4 hives three all decided to swarm at the same time. Rescued one queen from the grass but lost the rest. ....but no work force was lost as all queens clipped. KOed queen cells down to 1 in each hive and added 2 fresh supers on the 12th of May.
Effectively I wouldn't expect any more brood rearing to begin with new queens until around now. This afternoon I added 2 more fressh supers and clearer boards under 2 supers on each of these three hives; all are full and fully capped....
The fourth hive is queen right and I am taking one super off them. However don't draw too many conclusions this queen has had a weird laying pattern of lots and lots of drone brood mixed up with normal brood, so the work force is not as large as the other 2....she is currently about to be dethroned.
cheers Nigel, still interesting. a few years ago an old beekeeper said to me, in reference to queen excluders being on or not, you can either rear more bees or get honey. I can see the comparison in this. strong workforce, stop them rearing brood for 4 weeks and the honey piles up. good for a varroa treatment and good for excess honey
 #7474  by MickBBKA
 29 May 2020, 02:50
This is a very difficult subject to understand. Often once a colony is queenless the nectar / honey production falls. But if its lost its queen is another matter and if there is a nectar flow is also another matter. But in times gone by keepers used to take colonies to the Heather queenless to maximise honey production. How they never got laying workers or if they did I don't know.

I now run 2 queen colonies while determining if to split or unite and do this for several months if required. This way there is no loss in production and I can do what I need when I like.