whatcha'll think about this?

[rober]

at a recent beekeeping function I talked to a guy has been pulling a frame of brood with the queen & starting a nuc when the spring flow starts. he then lets the hives make their own queens. if a hive doesn't make a queen he recombines one of the nucs with it after the flow. he says that by doing this he keeps his hives from swarming & gets 3-4 times more honey. does this sound feasible? I can see the swarm control aspect of this but i'm wondering about the added honey production.

[Chip Euliss]

Pulling a frame with brood, food and the queen to make a nuc at spring buildup is mostly what I do with my hives.  Those nucs can be used as replacements and are an excellent way to get a failed going quickly.  I don't let mine raise their own queen (if I can help it but I will keep a really good queen at times) because my game is all about keeping a diverse gene pool so I use many different races and sources for queens; I prefer to re-queen the main hive or splits from them if they are large enough.  I don't see how the method would yield such an increase in honey production unless he's talking about honey production if you let the hive swarm but I've been wrong many times before!  If you run into him again, you might ask why his bees increase honey production so much.  I'd like to hear the answer too.  To me, maximizing honey production is all about getting the number of bees (and healthy ones) in a hive to nearly peak, without swarming, at the time your main nectar flow gets going.  Since that varies regionally, among different apiary sites, seasonally and from year-to-year (due to weather variations within a year), optimizing honey production requires knowledge of the area, the site and of current weather patterns and likely weather trends.  Not fool proof and even folks who've been keeping bees in a specific area for many many years still misjudge the conditions at times. 

[Lburou]

Interesting account Chip. 

I have heard and subscribe to the belief that without a queen in that situation, and when there is no more brood to raise & emergency queen cells are capped, 100% of the effort of the hive goes to honey hoarding until brood rearing commences with the newly mated queen.  Just how much honey would be produced has a lot of variables. 

My experience is an increase of up to 50% more honey, but, that is when timing, weather, and hive populations are just right.  The picture below shows three larger hives on the bench.  The one on the left made 11 gallons of honey using the technique we are discussing, the tall one on the right made 9 gallons leaving the queen in.  The hive with the blue top made 7 gallons leaving the queen in.  The NUC beside the tallest hive contains the queen that was taken out just before the flow.  These are VERY GOOD honey crops for this location.

I read where one beekeeper keeps up on the Growing Degree Days (GDD) for his local area (that is how gardeners do it).  He feels like he can predict early flows fairly accurately from year to year.  Has anyone here heard of using GDD to know when the honey or pollen flow would commence?

[Chip Euliss]

Lee, I'd guess the difference with me is that when I pull the queen and start the splits is during our early bloom in April that really helps the hives grow but doesn't yield much in terms of honey.  The early honey is poor quality anyway, being mostly from spurge and a variety of fruit species.  Our main flow doesn't happen till July when the sweet clover starts so my strategy involves hitting optimal populations about then. Some years it produces into August but it can last only 2-3 weeks in a dry year.  Don't know anyone who splits or practices this technique so late in the year in this part of the country.  It would be interesting to try and your explanation makes sense.   Once I scale down, I may have to give it a try.  You'd need strong hives but that would work out time-wise and may offer an alternative way to re-queen, especially for locally-adapted stock. 

[Lburou]

Agreed Chip.  I don't see an advantage to your trying this, from your description it probably would be better to let them build up on their own for the July flows.  I've tried this manipulation several times, this is the one time I got the timing right.  Our Spring flow is variable and short compared to yours.  Then, there is an unpredictable fall flow that tastes bad. 

[Chip Euliss]

Lee, I was thinking your idea could work as a re-queening technique for me.  I'll be at 700 hives this year so not much time but I will drop to 250 or so for the 2018 season.   I'd like to progress from there with a different re-queening strategy to free up some time (mostly for fishing ).   I plan to experiment with 2-queen systems but I want to try this as well.  When our hive population peak is timed to our main flow, the extra bees produced from then till mid-August don't really do much for honey production or as winter bees.  Their main role would be to bring in pollen for winter.  That's very important too but feeding patties can supplement that function.   Anyway, it's worth a shot.  Our spring honey is poor quality and our fall honey is good but darker than the white honey from clover and alfalfa.  Trying new things is what keeps me in the game and why I've kept bees all these years.

[Gypsi]

pulling queen and brood during a flow does indeed increase honey production, as long as it doesn't go laying worker it's all good

[Lburou]

Lee, I was thinking your idea could work as a re-queening technique for me...

Two things Chip.  I'd like to say I thought of this manipulation, but I just read it somewhere.  Requeening like this might work for you, just have a few extra queens as backup if it's not during a honey flow.  JMO

So, Rober do you think you will try this?

[rober]

he had photos on his phone of hives with 6 or more supers on them. depending on how things look this spring I will try this on some stronger hives.

[Lburou]

he had photos on his phone of hives with 6 or more supers on them. depending on how things look this spring I will try this on some stronger hives.

Good luck rober!  Timing is everything with this plan...But, this timing also comes on a sliding scale, you never know.  I've felt like I was on ice skates with the laces tied, trying to catch the sweet spot on that sliding scale. 

[Lburou]

pulling queen and brood during a flow does indeed increase honey production, as long as it doesn't go laying worker it's all good

Agreed.  You need to check for the presence of the new queen about 30 days after removing the original queen Gypsi.  With BWeaver bees, it can be 5 days earlier than that.

[rober]

I will watch any hives I try this out on. it can be a hard time of the year to buy queens because most suppliers are sold out that time of year. but there's always the option to combine removed queens back into needy hives. I did pull a queen & install her into a nuc once as a learning experience. the original hive failed to make a queen so I put her back a month later. the nuc she was in placed however did make a queen so I ended up with a viable split anyway. never a dull moment when it comes to working bees.

[Knucs]

Rober, yes I have heard this technique to increase honey & get a brood break which helps with mite populations. Brood rearing does consume alot of honey/pollen and work for bees. Mel Disselkoen speaks of this as well.
Also, check this link out where in 1905, a well known beek employs this technique, around page 40.
https://archive.org/stream/cu31924003201054

[Gypsi]

Going into spring with limited flow period and only 2 hives, I think I am going to do this.  Now is he leaving any eggs or brood in the hive or moving all out?

[iddee]

Leave eggs and brood. They need to raise a new queen and also turn the newborns into foragers in their earlier life.

[Gypsi]

Sounds good Iddee.  I was scrambling for cash last spring and didn't even look in my hives, cost me a couple.  going to do better in 2017, this is a good way to start

[rober]

definitely leaving brood with eggs.

[Bakersdozen]

 

I read where one beekeeper keeps up on the Growing Degree Days (GDD) for his local area (that is how gardeners do it).  He feels like he can predict early flows fairly accurately from year to year.  Has anyone here heard of using GDD to know when the honey or pollen flow would commence?

This is a very thought provoking thread.  I've had to read it several times and it certainly contradicts a lot of what I have been taught about doing splits. Moving the old queen to the nuc reduces the chances of swarming.  I was always told to place a new queen in the old colony. This sounds interesting and might be a case for raising a few of your own queens in case of a laying worker or they fail to raise their own queen. 

Lee, I have never heard the term Growing Degree-Day.  So I Googled the subject.  Instead of relying on the calendar to predict bloom periods, or animal and insect development, temperature is recorded and compared to existing baseline recordings.  So, not only can blooming of a specific crop or nectar source be predicted, insect pests can be predicted as well.  (Anyone who has grown tomatoes know they will just sit there until the ground warms up. )
I don't want to hijack this thread as it is a very good subject.  Perhaps we can start a new thread?

[sc-bee]

And it is a method some use to produce comb honey...

[riverbee]

"at a recent beekeeping function I talked to a guy has been pulling a frame of brood with the queen & starting a nuc when the spring flow starts. he then lets the hives make their own queens. if a hive doesn't make a queen he recombines one of the nucs with it after the flow. he says that by doing this he keeps his hives from swarming & gets 3-4 times more honey. does this sound feasible? I can see the swarm control aspect of this but i'm wondering about the added honey production."

i take the swarm cell frames, put them in a nuc.......raise their own queen from the swarm cells leaving the older queen in on my bigger hives for honey production......it works.  if the nucs fail, they get combined. i accomplish avoiding swarming from these hives, and still make a decent honey crop.