Spring Time Manipulation in Two Parts...

[tecumseh]

I am cutting and pasting a description of what a beekeeper often does in the spring time from a post I made on another bee keeping forum..

I wrote the following two parts description of what I do here in the early spring time for a Texas bee forum and though I would share it here also.. mind you this is just how I do things. Part 2 -Reversing- I will add tomorrow.

Part 1:
i suspect there are some bee keepers new to this stuff that really have little direction as to what might be an appropriate or well tested method. below I will give some idea of what I am doing at this time of year to get the bees ready for the coming season.

lets start at the end objective of this manipulation..

the ultimate object (end results) of the first manipulation of the season is three fold... 1) set up the brood chamber for the coming growth season 2) access how much stores you have on hand (remember here historically a lot of hive will starve in early March) and 3) clean off the bottom board.

again starting from the last or #3... inspection of the bottom board can tell you something about the hygienic tendencies of the hive. the idea here is to scrape any accumulated debris from the bottom. if very clean this suggest some hygienic capacity. if you find some shb, live or debris, burn this <do not toss this on the ground.

#2: the reason for this should be self evident. with no experience for the audience to fall back upon act here in a very conservative manner. if you have some question at to 'is that enough' then be prepared to feed. feeding also stimulates brood production which can and will somewhat enhance the honey harvest a bit later on.

#1: the meat of this tread and what you do here will have a large effect on how your bees do in the year/season that follows. the idea here is to set up the brood nest in some fashion and to more importantly remove any limitation to the expansion of the brood nest horizontally. typical road blocks to brood nest expansion horizontally are 1) a solid frame of pollen and 2) a solid frame of capped honey <what is happening here... pollen is consumed slowly and 'the girls' have this resistance to uncapping honey.

this process is often times called 'opening up the brood nest'. it is not checkerboarding....

about 1/3 of hive will have began brood rearing at which ever side of he box warms up at this early spring date. as such the brood nest will appear very much uncentered in the box. I myself like to slight adjust this by sliding the frames of the brood nest to be more centered in the box. the first thing you should make certain of is the queen is laying in an adequate fashion... some small number of queen will come out of the winter as drone layers. these hives need to either be stacked (on other hives) or a frame of young larvae added to get some possibility that the hive may rear a new queen <the old queen needs to be killed.. or if she can not be located the bees should be shook out on the ground prior to the box being stacked on another hive.

next the area of and around the brood nest needs to be closely examined and most especially any limits to an expanding brood nest should be relocated. I myself move capped honey to the outside position in the box and any frames of solid pollen the next/second position from the outside wall. often times the frames at the outside of the box will be empty these need to be moved up next to any currently brood up frames... it is good to notice the quantity of drone cells in these empty frames and if you think there is too large a proportion of drone cells situated these as close to the outside position as possible. this simply limits too many drones being produced too early <if you were in the queen rearing business* like my good neighbor to the south you would look at this in a quite different fashion. a resevation: do not move feed resources too far from the brood cluster most especially if the later winter cluster is small... location of frames of feed beside or above the early brood nest are both quite acceptable <added feed/syrup in the same location are good substitutes if there is litte feed in the hive.

*my long term primary theme in beekeeping is that PURPOSE does drive a lot of decision in regards to beekeeping. different purpose often time yields a very different decision.

[tecumseh]

Part 2
Reversing

often times Reversing is considered to be the primary purpose of the first inspection. my take is that 'sometimes' this does become a part of the process by just as often (ie about 50/50) a hive does not need to be reverse. at other times reversing may be used to accomplish other purposes (see classical example below).

Reversing in the typical case takes place when the brood nest has moved to the top of the stack and you have one box or so beneath that is almost entirely empty. In this case reversing is done since the bees have a natural tendency to build upward. This also reduces exposer to the lower box/frames from various pest (essentially shb and wax moth). Since in the reversed mode the brood nest is now up adjacent to the bottom board the bottom board tend to be better cared for and cleaned. Really the largest benefit from reversing is mental.... once done you (the beekeeper) can no longer assume the bottom box is full <so many time these hives are also in need of feed.

the classical case...
let assume you are new to beekeeping and are in a constant need for more drawn comb. upon the first spring inspection you come across a well populated hive that has the brood nest at the bottom of the stack in a deep and a medium above that is packed with honey that is still capped.

the first alternative would be to just leave this hive alone and perhaps add a medium just in case the season turned off early. <any frame in the medium with uncapped honey I would move towards the center location or would scratch one frame in the same center location.

the second alternative (more directed to the assumed purpose of getting more comb drawn) would be to remove the box full of capped honey. then remove the three center frames and scratch the capping at the center of these three frames (doesn't take a lot you are just trying to get 'the girls' headed in the right direction). then reverse the boxes placing the box of honey on the bottom of the stack and the brood nest above. then above the brood nest add one box of frames with foundation. the bees really don't like that much feed resources 'at the front door' and they fairly quickly will begin moving and uncapping and moving these resource upward. as cells become empty in this lower box it will become used for brood rearing purposes. as this feed is moved upwards the top box gets drawn in the process.

in almost all reversing schemes down the road a month or so (still spring time) the boxes get reversed once again back to their original position. <this is not really an essential part of the process although reversing to keep the bottom box 'unempty' has large benefits in regards to reducing the pest to a bee hive.... a lot of beekeeper would benefit from reversing boxes as more than a spring time routine. again an empty bottom box unguarded by bees is a tempting treat for shb and wax moth.

trick:
most time we think of dismantling a hive from the top downward...one layer at a time. as we begin this dismantling and reorganization process we really have no idea where the brood nest is located or where the feed resources may be situated. with taller hives (three to four layers) most times it is easier to lay the entire box down on it's front or back and dismantle it from the bottom upward... simply placing boxes back on the bottom board in the order we desire.

[blueblood]

Thanks for the wealth of experience there Tec.  I hope new keeps take the time and really read it line for line.  As for reversing, I have been looking for a thread on that to start soon. 

[riverbee]

thank you tec,
i printed this to a pdf file, it's attached for anyone who has trouble trying to print this page of information. click on the attachment and save it to your pc to print it off.

[Perry]

"trick:
most time we think of dismantling a hive from the top downward...one layer at a time. as we begin this dismantling and reorganization process we really have no idea where the brood nest is located or where the feed resources may be situated. with taller hives (three to four layers) most times it is easier to lay the entire box down on it's front or back and dismantle it from the bottom upward... simply placing boxes back on the bottom board in the order we desire."

When ever I do any inspection that is more than cursory, I do as Tec mentions.
I actually lay my cover upside down and without even removing the inner cover I stack my boxes reversed on it and begin my inspection starting in the bottom box.

Great info there tec.

[iddee]

I do as Perry does, keeping the boxes in an upright position and keeping the bees fairly calm until ready to cover them with the next box going back on.

[Ziffa]

trick:
most time we think of dismantling a hive from the top downward...one layer at a time. as we begin this dismantling and reorganization process we really have no idea where the brood nest is located or where the feed resources may be situated. with taller hives (three to four layers) most times it is easier to lay the entire box down on it's front or back and dismantle it from the bottom upward... simply placing boxes back on the bottom board in the order we desire.

This is cool.  I will need to retrain myself, but I really like this.  I sometimes don't go as deep as I need to because I get intimidated or the bees get loud cuz i've messed up somewhere.  This would prevent me from wimping out, because I have to put it back together anyway.

Thanks Tecumseh!  This is really valuable to me.

love,
ziffa

[Slowmodem]

trick:
most time we think of dismantling a hive from the top downward...one layer at a time. as we begin this dismantling and reorganization process we really have no idea where the brood nest is located or where the feed resources may be situated. with taller hives (three to four layers) most times it is easier to lay the entire box down on it's front or back and dismantle it from the bottom upward... simply placing boxes back on the bottom board in the order we desire.

This is cool.  I will need to retrain myself, but I really like this.  I sometimes don't go as deep as I need to because I get intimidated or the bees get loud cuz i've messed up somewhere.  This would prevent me from wimping out, because I have to put it back together anyway.

Thanks Tecumseh!  This is really valuable to me.

love,
ziffa

There have been times that I couldn't get the boxes apart because the frames were "combed" together really bad.  Because of the above advice a year or two ago, I laid the hive down and pried the boxes apart that way (laying on it's side).  Much easier to separate when not lifting!

Worker smarter, not harder!

[G3farms]

Really good info there tec, thanks for the post.

[tecumseh]

slowmodem writes..
There have been times that I couldn't get the boxes apart because the frames were "combed" together really bad.  Because of the above advice a year or two ago, I laid the hive down and pried the boxes apart that way (laying on it's side).  Much easier to separate when not lifting!

tecumseh...
I have the same problem here and it seems when I get to the very bottom empty box any force upwards simply lifts everything upward and nothing comes apart as desired. 

perhaps oddly enough I didn't get to this trick because anyone showed me how this might be a bit easier.  some time ago in browsing thru some old journals I ran across an advertisement for a well known bee keeping operation (I think with very Canadian roots) advertising their wares and there was a foot note in the picture of a person with my own last name assisting in evaluating stock and it was quite obvious from the picture that he was tipping the hive and laying it down on it's face.  At that point I began thinking about my own habit of peeling off one layer at a time and began thinking about why I always did things in that manner.  with a bit of encouragement even an old dog can learn a new trick from time to time.