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Abdulah VejzovicOnly healthier bees produce more
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Chapter 5

Productive colonies

From the video: Practical Beekeeping Part 5

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Transcript
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This location is 12 kilometers from the house, in a village in the direction of Muška Voda, on the slopes of Konjuh. Tomorrow we will be at the other apiary where we will practically carry out this operation — making productive colonies from support colonies. My dear beekeepers, here I am, 15 days ago I started making productive colonies. I wintered the Farrar hives with four of these supers, and the Langstroth I wintered on two Langstroth supers. And in early spring I was developing the bee colonies, on the Langstroth with two supers, all the way until preparations for the main honey flow. And likewise on the Farrar hives, with four shallow supers, I was preparing colonies for the main honey flow. How I do this — it's roughly 15 to 20 days before my main honey flow, and my main honey flow begins here on this part of the Konjuh slopes around June 5th to 10th. Sometimes earlier, June 1st, but let's say The average here is around June 5th. Which means we need to do this operation around May 20th, which I will now demonstrate for you. Let's go first to the hive that will be our productive one. The productive hive. First, let's set it up. We write the date of the setup in our logbook. On the bee colonies, and day zero. So we can track the following operations that will come. Let's smoke it a little. We wait 1 minute, 2. We open it up. This is now an empty hive for demonstration purposes. Where around May 1st, during the fruit blossom flow, we placed One Drone comb frame. One drone comb frame to catch varroa through biological means. During the setup, we remove this drone comb. Here you see the drone brood has been built. The queen has laid, sealed it, and whatever is sealed we remove and sort into a separate super. Here you can see all these drone cells. Now here we sort, we look for the queen, we look for the queen — and roughly we found her here on the third frame. We leave the queen here, lift this super — into this super we will sort all frames with honey and pollen. Into this super we have sorted all the sealed brood from This productive colony, and here we will sort all the open brood — we add the frame with the queen and the open brood. So now the queen has room to lay; in this lower super are empty, drawn-out frames like this, and here is the open brood. And here is the first one with the honey cap, with frames of honey, pollen, and another two, three empty frames arranged alternately. So we have now given the queen plenty of room to lay, so the swarming impulse won't kick in. But now in this operation we will do the following. We place the divider to physically separate, to physically separate the queen from the honey supers. Now here comes the sealed brood — now behind the divider board we have sealed brood, about eight frames of sealed brood and two frames with honey and pollen. And on these frames we also partially have honey and pollen alongside the brood, so we have organized this productive colony.

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Guide

Setting up production colonies

Wintering and spring development

The Farrar hive is wintered with four shallow supers, and the Langstroth with two deep supers. In early spring, colonies develop on these supers, all the way until preparations for the main honey flow.

Timing of setup

Production colonies are set up approximately 15 to 20 days before the main honey flow. On the slopes of Konjuh, the main honey flow begins June 5th to 10th, which means this operation is done around May 20th. The date of setup is recorded in the logbook and marked as day zero, so that subsequent operations can be tracked.

Preparation — biological varroa removal

Around May 1st, during the fruit tree nectar flow, one drone comb frame is placed in each hive for catching varroa biologically. When setting up the production colony, the drone comb with drone brood is removed and discarded.

Sorting frames

The queen is located, and the frames are sorted into three groups:

  • Honey and pollen — into the upper super (honey cap)
  • Sealed brood — set aside separately
  • Open brood with the queen — into the lower super with empty drawn frames

In this way, the queen gets plenty of space for laying and the swarming impulse does not develop.

Placing the divider

A solid divider is placed to physically separate the queen in the brood box from the honey super. Behind the divider go about eight frames of sealed brood and two frames with honey and pollen. With this, the production colony is organized and ready for the main honey flow.

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Auxiliary colonies and treatment →