View previous topic :: View next topic |
Author |
Message |
ironchemist New Bee
Joined: 16 Jul 2018 Posts: 2 Location: Indianapolis, IN
|
Posted: Mon Jul 16, 2018 6:10 pm Post subject: Removing plastic foundation |
|
|
Hi All,
I'm a quite new beekeeper and have a home built top bar hive. I acquired a local NUC on Langstroth frames and used the "crop and chop" method of cutting the NUC frames down to fit in my hTBH. It worked well, the bees have both built fresh comb on my bars as well as filling out the plastic foundation and have laid brood in both.
What I'm wondering is at what point I should try to get the original frames out. I had to add shims to both sides to get the spacing right between bars and I'd like to remove the plastic foundation combs as soon as practical. I don't know at what point that should be. It is my first season, I am sure I shouldn't do it so soon while there is brood there, but will there be a time when there is no more brood on those bars, or will the queen continue to lay there in perpetuity, and will I at some point have to remove a comb that has brood on it?
Just a little unsure what comes next and also I don't know of many hTBH resources in the Indianapolis area.
Thanks in advance!
Chris |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
Barbara Site Admin
Joined: 27 Jul 2011 Posts: 1857 Location: England/Co.Durham/Ebchester
|
Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2018 11:55 am Post subject: |
|
|
Hi and welcome.
Well done for successfully chopping and cropping. I know it can be a daunting task and with plastic foundation that must have been trickier.
I would not try to remove those combs this year. It is late in the season and they will need all the brood they can raise.
You would be looking to insert an empty bar between them and the other brood combs in the spring next year, gradually expanding the broodnest onto those new bars over a period of weeks adding one a week, so that the plastic combs are slowly moving away from the entrance towards the back of the hive where they will eventually be filled with honey and can be harvested. If you move them more than a bar or two at a time, the nurse bees on those combs may start to raise emergency queens because the queen doesn't immediately return to lay into the empty cells that have hatched and that triggers those nurse bees to make new queens in case the old queen has been killed. This can cause issues and upset the balance in the hive, so moving them back a bar at a time is best.
Depending on your climate and forage, it may take a second year to get them all out if you don't want to sacrifice the brood on them.
Best wishes
Barbara |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
ironchemist New Bee
Joined: 16 Jul 2018 Posts: 2 Location: Indianapolis, IN
|
Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2018 1:06 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Thanks Barbara,
Thats very helpful! its been an interesting experience getting the hive up and going and its great to have this forum available for questions and good reading.
Chris |
|
Back to top |
|
 |
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
Quality Top Bar Hives by Andrew Vidler
|
Conserving wild bees
Research suggests that bumble bee boxes have a very low success rate in actually attracting bees into them. We find that if you create an environment where first of all you can attract mice inside, such as a pile of stones, a drystone wall, paving slabs with intentionally made cavities underneath, this will increase the success rate.
Most bumble bee species need a dry space about the size a football, with a narrow entrance tunnel approximately 2cm in diameter and 20 cm long. Most species nest underground along the base of a linear feature such as a hedge or wall. Sites need to be sheltered and out of direct sunlight.
There is a spectacular display of wild bee hotels here
More about bumblebees and solitary bees here
Information about the Tree Bumblebee (Bombus hypnorum)
|
|
Barefoot Beekeeper Podcast
|
|
|
|
4th Edition paperback now available from Lulu.com
|
site map
php. BB © 2001, 2005 php. BB Group
View topic - Removing plastic foundation - Natural Beekeeping Network Forum
|
|