Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Place the old queen, young brood (uncapped) and about half the bees in the
bottom chamber.
Above this, place a brood chamber with drawn comb, if available.
Cover with a division board (see below).
Place a new queen with capped brood and half the bees in the upper chamber.
Above this, put an empty brood chamber with drawn comb, if available.
Carry out brood chamber reversals as swarm-prevention methods in both the
upper and lower levels, if required.
After two weeks, replace the division board with a queen excluder.
As the flow starts, super up as required.
About one month before the flow ends, remove the queen excluder to combine
both colonies. The old queen is usually killed.
Winter the colony with the young queen.
This method of increasing your honey harvest means you really need to know your local
plants and when they will give nectar so, unless you can predict the flow fairly accurately,
it isn't worth doing. One advantage of this method is that it tends to reduce or eliminate
swarming because the brood nest is split up and because you use young queens. Also,
colonies tend to be equalized during the set-up, which aids apiary management.
In the spring you manage your hives so that they can take advantage of the
honey flow. The following, therefore, are the main tasks for spring:
Inspect your colonies to ensure that:
y
they have a young queen no older than two years (a marked queen
will make this task easier);
