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Page 23
B) long Distance Move Over 10 hours -
If you are moving your bees
over a long distance or long time (i.e. over 10 hours) then you need to
transfer your bees in the following way. Instead of transferring your bees
to their new home immediately on arrival, you should place your nucleus
where your Beehaus will ultimately go. You should then let the bees fly
for a day in order to settle and recover from travelling. It’s a good idea to
put some grass in front of the entrance to slow the bees as they come out.
This makes them more aware that their surroundings have changed.
Day 1 - Place nucleus box where the
hive will be.
Day 2 - Beehaus in the same place as
the nucleus was positioned.
After one day of flying, you can then transfer the bees to your
Beehaus in exactly the same way as for a short distance move. Any
flying bees will then return to the Beehaus.
Transferring frames from nucleus box to Beehaus.
Transferring bees to your Beehaus
If you are new to beekeeping then starting with a nucleus colony is a
great way to get started. A nucleus colony contains around 10,000 bees
on frames with a new queen. It’s essentially a mini hive but will grow
rapidly once transferred into your Beehaus. You can purchase a nucleus
from April – September. Your nucleus colony will come in a small box with
between 5-6 frames containing a Queen, brood, some stores and bees.
During the spring and summer, you can also buy an established colony
but this is not recommended if you are just starting out as they will be
harder to manage. It’s a bit like buying a Ferrari while you’ve still got
learner plates on.
Whether you have a nucleus colony on 5 frames or a full size colony on 11
frames the principal for transferring them into the Beehaus is the same.
A) Short distance move less than 10 hours
If the bees are only travelling a short distance, you can transfer them on
the same day. Here’s how:
Step 1
- Place the nucleus box next to the Beehaus so that transferring the
frames can be done quickly and conveniently.
Step 2
- Smoke the bees a little through the mesh ventilation panels and
wait 2-3 minutes.
Step 3
- While you wait for the smoke to take effect, take the lid off the
Beehaus, remove the cover boards and entrance adaptor from the side
that you are going to use.
Step 4
- Open the travelling box and lift out the first frame. Transfer it to
the Beehaus and place it against the divider board. Repeat this until all
the frames have been placed in the Beehaus.
Step 5
- It is good practice for the queen to be caged during transport to
protect her from accidental damage. If this is the case then you can release
her on to the top of the frames. If she doesn’t come out straightaway
don’t try to knock her out, the bees will guide her out.
If the queen is not marked with a spot of colour on her thorax, then now
is a good time to do this. See the queen marking section on
Page 39
to
learn how.
Step 6
- Add 3 frames of foundation in front of the nucleus frames and
then the dummy board. Make sure that the dummy board is closest to the
entrance of the Beehaus, as in the pictures.
Step 7
- You need to encourage your bees to draw out wax on the new
frames. You can do this by feeding heavily with syrup so that they have
the energy to spend all their time making wax, see page 37. You may need
to feed up to 8kg. If you received your colony of bees towards the end of
the season in August or September then you may need to feed even more
than this please see the feeding section for more information.
The nucleus in place.
Adding 3 frames to the front.
Most nucleus colonies are on frames which are the same width as the
Beehaus frames but slightly shorter. They can be put straight into the
Beehaus but once the bees have drawn out the larger Beehaus frames you
should remove them once the brood in them has hatched out, this will
take around 3 weeks. The queen will naturally want to lay on the new
frames as they are closer to the entrance and the shorter nucleus frames
would then be used by the bees to store honey in.
What happens if I don’t remove the nucleus brood frames?
If you leave the shorter frames in the Beehaus then the bees will build
comb in the space underneath. This will probably be drone brood (larger
cells with domed caps) and can be usefully removed as soon as it is capped
as a means of controlling Varroa mites which prefer to lay their eggs in
the larger cells. You should definitely cut this out as if you leave it
in you risk inadvertently increasing the Varroa population when the
drones emerge. It’s actually good practice to always leave one or two
shorter frame in for precisely this reason. If you do this make sure you
leave it at the edge of the brood. If you put it at the back the bees will
use it for storing honey.
You can reduce the space underneath the shorter brood frames using a
cardboard box cut so that the top of the box is just 5cm underneath the
brood frames. This will speed up the drawing out of the new frames and
will stop comb being built under the nucleus frames. Again, once the
brood nest has moved on to the deeper Beehaus frames by the bees you
can remove the nucleus frames and the cardboard.
Transferring bees from short to deep frames
