15 hives all doing good, yet no honey again

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frazzledfozzle

Founder Member
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Nelson/Tasman District
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Commercial
Hi got 15 hives ,yet no honey again,,find a better site

what is your hive configuration ?
where I live we don’t get a good nectar flow.
if we ran double brood hives we wouldn’t get a crop to harvest.
the bees would generally just fill the top brood box with honey and not bother going into the honey boxes.

so come honey time we split the doubles into singles and put a couple of honey supers on .
The bees will fill them and it’s one for us and one for the bees.
 
5
0
Hamilton
Experience
Hobbyist
what is your hive configuration ?
where I live we don’t get a good nectar flow.
if we ran double brood hives we wouldn’t get a crop to harvest.
the bees would generally just fill the top brood box with honey and not bother going into the honey boxes.

so come honey time we split the doubles into singles and put a couple of honey supers on .
The bees will fill them and it’s one for us and one for the bees.
That's good try your way,
I have two queen hives ,2 brood box, full queen excluder, 1 brood box,foundation supers,I'll break them up on the honey flow this year,
 
1,030
748
Christchurch
Experience
Hobbyist
what is your hive configuration ?
where I live we don’t get a good nectar flow.
if we ran double brood hives we wouldn’t get a crop to harvest.
the bees would generally just fill the top brood box with honey and not bother going into the honey boxes.

so come honey time we split the doubles into singles and put a couple of honey supers on .
The bees will fill them and it’s one for us and one for the bees.
Sometimes I wonder if I should do that with my ¾. But I’m worried that a single ¾ is too small.
 
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maungaturoto
Experience
Commercial
I have two queen hives ,2 brood box, full queen excluder, 1 brood box,foundation supers,I'll break them up on the honey flow this year,
do you have some pics of the hive(s) and showing the bee numbers and brood?

something sounds wrong with your hives. you won't get a crop if you don't have the bees to go get it.
that setup is small and i suspect excessive brood space, so you loose all your crop into your brood.
 

frazzledfozzle

Founder Member
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Nelson/Tasman District
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Commercial
Sometimes I wonder if I should do that with my ¾. But I’m worried that a single ¾ is too small.
a single 3/4 on a flow can do a surprising amount of honey but it’s only good for the flow not good for management throughout the year.

My brother put a heap of single 3/4 into honey dew with a box of full depth foundation over an excluder and they were all filled drawn and capped by the time he went back to check.
 
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maungaturoto
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there is the trick of removing the brood at the start of the honey flow.
ie you build up the hive to max bee numbers, then remove the brood so there is no young to feed, so they pack it into stores instead.
tho its not without risk. with no replacement bees coming through the hive declines pretty quickly.

the more common method is dual FD broods then drop the excluder down and turn it into a single brood box.
however a single FD is ok where as a single 3/4 can run into swarming issues or lack of replacement bees.
 

frazzledfozzle

Founder Member
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Nelson/Tasman District
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@tristan I wouldn’t ordinarily use a single 3/4 as a hive but I was amazed at how much honey they did.

Also would never do the whole brood removal thing.

It wasn’t that long ago that hardly anyone used single broods for honey most hives being doubles.

interesting how things change with more people prepared to trial different ways of doing things.
 
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maungaturoto
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It wasn’t that long ago that hardly anyone used single broods for honey most hives being doubles.

interesting how things change with more people prepared to trial different ways of doing things.
i think it all depends on your aera and what works with it.
single broods have always been common here. the big change was really wintering as a single, tho that may be changing due to the honey prices.
 

tommy dave

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That's good try your way,
I have two queen hives ,2 brood box, full queen excluder, 1 brood box,foundation supers,I'll break them up on the honey flow this year,
I don't understand the set-up you have described. Are you saying two unseparated queens per hive? Are you saying a brood box above queen excluder, how can this have brood in it?

Almost seems like you're calling boxes "brood boxes" base on size not use or something?
 
11
14
Northland
Experience
Commercial
@tristan I wouldn’t ordinarily use a single 3/4 as a hive but I was amazed at how much honey they did.

Also would never do the whole brood removal thing.

It wasn’t that long ago that hardly anyone used single broods for honey most hives being doubles.

interesting how things change with more people prepared to trial different ways of doing things.
Not enough honey at most manuka sites to run double broods now days, youl just get the top box half full.
 

frazzledfozzle

Founder Member
9,128
7,989
Nelson/Tasman District
Experience
Commercial
What was your previous answer? Does it match the answer this time? :p
I've checked @CHCHPaul posts back to Sept and I can't see anything similar

well the question was asked days and days ago possibly more than a week and I went into a very detailed description on how we split.
maybe it was a different person on a different thread :)

I remember the person also asked
whether we take the split away or leave it onsite.
 

frazzledfozzle

Founder Member
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Nelson/Tasman District
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Found it :)
im not losing my mind....

 
11
12
Hastings
Experience
Semi Commercial
That's pretty much what we do.

It is perhaps important to mention for someone trying to understand the vertical configuration, that when stacked on top of each other, the two colonies are are separated by a division board. (A hive mat with a notch out of one side)

So a vertical split, from the bottom up, looks like this:

First brood box with queen, excluder, super, division board (opening to the back), next brood box containing either new queen or cell (or eggs for that matter), excluder, super, hive mat, roof.

The foragers from the top box exit through the rear opening in the division board and go back to the bottom brood box.

The new queen builds up the top 'colony' while the bottom one carries on as normal. This reduces the swarm impulse. Once the flow starts, only the best queen is kept and the two colonies are reunited using newspaper. You end up with a big strong hive ready for the main flow.

If you end up with two really good queens, one can be used to start another nuc or to requeen another poor hive.
The downside is that if the bottom colony is pumping, then you need to lift all those top layers off in order to add another super above the bottom colony.
 
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