Checkerboarding
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- Опубліковано 7 тра 2015
- Checkerboarding is a term that is applied when a beekeeper takes out old comb and puts in new comb that appears similar to a checkerboard, in that it is new, old, new, old...or dark, light, dark, light. However, the main principles of why we checkerboard have been misunderstood.
The reason we put foundation into a hive in a checkerboard fashion, as opposed to a few frames of foundation in a row is that it is easier to get each frame pulled to the correct dimensions.
Honey bees treat a cell used for honey storage different than one that is used to rear brood. It is easier for honey bees to utilize a honey cell that is deep rather than to build a new cell. A cell used to rear brood, however, has to be a specific depth, which is the length of a worker bee. Each comb has two sides, each of which is as deep as a worker bee, so each frame has a depth of twice that of a worker bee. Honey cells however, can be quite deep which is the principle behind using 8 or 9 frames in a ten frame honey super...so as to have the bees build the comb deeper in order to uncap the cells easier, while extracting.
So, checkerboard refers to the method in which we get frames pulled optimally. However, there is always a secondary goal in "checkerboarding". The secondary goals are usually either to cull comb or to make a split, both of which are a form of swarm prevention. In making a split, four to five frames are taken out of the donor hive and given a new hive body. In their replacement you can put frames of foundation in a checkerboard fashion to get those new frames pulled optimally. If you are inserting combs that are already pulled, there is no need to checkerboard.
The other reason to checkerboard is to replace old comb, which is what I am doing here. Honey comb over time gets laced with spores, fungus, bacteria and most importantly, pesticides. At some point, there is such a combination that it is unhealthy for the bees and you start to see "shotgun" patterned brood. There can be more than these reasons alone to see a shotgun brood pattern, but in this case those were ruled out. In this case I am sure that the comb is unhealthy for the bees, most probably because the beekeeper that started this hive used every recommended varroacide on the market at one time or another since 1998. I know, because I partnered with him and did it myself along side him. Since these combs need to be culled, checkerboarding is a great way to replace old comb and still keep the hive strong and healthy, while getting well built comb at the same time. I almost never take brood from a hive, but in this case it was unavoidable. Checkerboarding in this case will allow the hive to keep getting strong, get new and fresh comb in the hive and break up the brood cycle so as to further hamper the Varroa presence.
The main point to remember is that checkerboarding is done with brood comb...not honey comb. Checkerboarding a honey super does next to nothing for swarm prevention because it does not affect brood space. Also, when checkerboarding a honey super the comb will not be pulled optimally. You will have alternating heavy and light combs, at least the first year those combs are used.
If you need to rotate out old comb, this is a good method to use, but the draw back is that most hives have a hard time building up to make surplus honey in the year you do so, unless you only do a few frames a year. Start early in the spring and by the time the main honeyflow is on, you're hives will be ready to reap it in!
This hive had such bad comb that I thought it more important to get new fresh comb in this year, forego the honey crop and have a healthy and robust hive next year! - Домашні улюбленці та дикі тварини
VIEWERS: LET ME HELP YOU, for those of you who don't understand checkerboarding the reason for checkerboarding is NOT to draw frames. The whole reason checkerboarding started was actually for the honey band on top of the frames, for once every frame has a band of Honey the queen sees that as a barrier and now it is time to swarm, it was created to break up the honey band. People do this in brood nest to open the brood Nest so the queen can lay ,For Swarm prevention, other people do this to get frames drawn quickly because putting foundation in the center of the brood Nest is a violation of bee space and they will quickly correct it by drawing the comb out. But checkerboarding is definitely not to draw Combs, it IS to break the honey band up for swarm prevention, you're welcome..
Thankyou for your clear and concise instruction from Downunder!
Thanks! I appreciate the feedback!
Very thorough explanation! Very good sound and I appreciate your presenting this checker boarding video.
+Larry Peterson Thanks again. In case you hadn't read the comments or viewed by follow up video "Checkerboarding II" there was a viewer who took issue with my title and term of Checkerboarding. So, I made the follow up video, but this is just a semantic game and the principles I attempted to present are solid. Thanks for the comments and views!!
I change, via shook swarm or Bailey Comb exchange, brood every year. This reduces the varroa load substantially. Not surprised the Queen keeps getting replaced.
+Carlie Mayes Hi Carlie, since this video was published, I did the same thing with four more frames. They still have the same queen as when the video was published, and the queen has a solid brood pattern. Despite having to pull eight frames last spring, they still made about 50 pounds of honey. They're doing very well. Glad your bees are as well!
Hi - great. Advice in UK is to replace brood comb every year - visit NBU site for more info.
look forward to more videos.
+Carlie Mayes Thanks for the support!
Excellent work- thanks
I'm very much a noobee - two top bar colonies since early April - and although you're all about Langstroths I've been binge watching your videos here in North Texas. You have great presentation skills and showed some verrry interesting stuff that seems to be relevant to pretty much every beekeeper, no matter what style of hive they prefer. As for my bees...
They're about 150 ft from our house in Texas, in the pasture. Colony #1 is shaded in the afternoon but going gangbusters, full of bees bringing in lots of pollen, building plenty of comb, etc. Colony #2, about 50 ft away is in full sun but nowhere near as successful. Still collecting pollen, but fewer bees, less comb, etc.
I've been wondering exactly how to diagnose what's going on in Colony #2, and I now know so much more about how and what to do and to look out for, plus deciding what to do about whatever I discover.
Thanks for making so many useful, well produced videos, and I hope you'll continue coming up with new ones.. (If you have any specific hints or tips for our Colony #2 feel free!) :)
Thanks for the kind remarks. There will always be some differences between colonies like you are experiencing, but not usually that dramatic. Check the brood pattern and see if there are any signs of dead brood, or are the cells just empty. If the brood is solid in pattern, and you see no signs of dead larvae or pupae, they are probably fine but either don't have enough food resources to produce more brood than they already are, or not enough bees to cover the brood they are rearing. If those don't seem like the culprit, you may have a lethargic queen. Let me know.
Sorry it's been a while, but I have good news!
I'm pleased to report the colony in TBH #2 seems to be doing well now. It's still a few bars behind hive #1, but the girls are building all sorts of comb quite quickly and filling it nicely. I've got 2 different ideas about what may have happened:
1 - A bunch of #2's bees may have drifted to #1 soon after being installed.
I neglected to mention these were two packages... Due to weather issues we had to keep them in the barn for a couple of days and the boxes were stored only a couple of inches apart, so I assume the girls were all quite familiar with each other's scent by the time we were able to install them. The hives are only about 50 ft apart and looked almost identical at the start, so perhaps some went to the wrong door but were let in anyway...
Or...
2 - Perhaps more of the bees in #2 package were older than the ones in #1, which would (I assume?) mean that for a few weeks there would have been less bees on comb building duties, and forager bees would have been dying in larger numbers than could be replaced by new bees until the balance tipped the other way and new bee numbers started to build.
Either option seems plausible, but the main thing is all seems to be well at the moment! :)
Thankyou. This was really helpful.
Great video. Thanks for the tuturial. It was very beneficial.
+Spencer Herrick Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it.
spell tutorial
A simple task is to write the year on the top of the frames to keep track of the age. 20 years is way too long.
agreed no wonder the mites took over ! dig into that wallet and get some fresh frame!
candler,n.c.blueridge mtn... good eye that ya seen a lose in your col. and when they requeen so often that tells you something is not going rite, I'm with ya bro, keep up the good work ....... daddy from the man cave...........
Thanks again.
I know it's 2 years ago, but wouldn't that honey have also been toxic to the brood??? maybe even more than the comb, since the honey sits in the comb for weeks, months, or years before being used...
Hi I'm just wondering what your opinion is on foundationless frames.
i want to get rid of the old comb that came with my NUC this spring as it is very dark, can I move some of it above a queen excluder to save the brood in it? I dont want to lose any of the bees if I can help it.
Hi Dennis, yes you can. I often do this to let the brood finish hatching. The key is to only leave it on long enough for the brood to hatch, the remove it swiftly, otherwise they'll start filling it with honey and taking it away at that point will put them in a scarce resource situation in the winter.
I am curious will an artificial form make them draw wax faster
Edevaldo apicultor ✌️✌️👍👍👍👍
Are the cages for in the front of the entrance to prevent animals etc?
They are skunk guards. Skunks like to scratch at the entrance, which draws bees out and then the skunk eats them. These guards prevent the skunk from reaching the entrance. A very old, but tried and true method.
What do you do with the old comb? Burn, dispose, melt? Some of the junkiest frames I have come from the nucs I have bought. Some of the edges worn thin on the wood has me concerned about proper spacing. I recently examined the shape of the cells on some appearing old comb. Bad shape... some cells occluded, I removed them to try to create a 'clear brood nest'.
You can melt it down with a solar extractor, make candles, etc. And, yes...the frames in nuc's are usually old frames that sellers want to get rid of! Don't melt them down and then re-use it for foundation though because of the possible infection of AFB spores.
I hate my Nuc frames
Why when I try to shake my bees off, I only knock off like 20 of them
20 year old comb is pretty old! LOL
do you let the brood hatch out of the old frames? if so how?
thanks
+Jknudsen0523 It just depends on what you are trying to accomplish. If you are trying to rotate comb, as I was in this video, you can put the frames that contain brood above a queen excluder that sits on top of the brood nest. However, you have to stay on top of it because the bees will start to put honey in those frames if there is a strong honey flow, instead of pulling the new frames. So, pull the frames as soon as the brood hatches. If you are making a split, of course the brood will hatch with the split, and the new frames will get pulled correctly because brood frames are pulled to specific dimensions, unlike honey frames. If you do split a hive, make sure you keep all of the frames going in the split together (the brood frames) at first so they can cover all of the brood. Hope that helps?
what is the reason for having the wire in front bottom of your hives???
It is to prevent skunks from eating the bees!
How do you keep from being stung?
Learn bee behavior. However, I do get stung once in a while, just part of beekeeping.
Can you not queen exclude those combs until the brood hatch and then remove the comb and avoid killing innocent babies?
Yes, you can. Sometimes I do, but in this case the comb was poisonous.
I am a beginner with this.
I understand why you want/need to checker board.
But, isn't there a danger that your '' disease, brood dying '' will be carried over to the new frames with foundation when checker boarding, since the old and new frames are so close together?
Also, can it be assumed that the honey supers have the same '' disease '' on those old frames and that those old honey frames should be replaced also ?
I can see where new frames with foundation will put a break in mite populations.
I am still wondering how often someone would have to replace the foundation?
Thank you for your excellent explanations of your video.
Hi Bonnie,
If it were disease, there would definitely be concern. However, it is usually a buildup of pesticides. The pesticides come from the pollen which is rarely put in honey supers, so honey supers aren't contaminated. Varroa also stay down with the brood and don't go up into the supers either. Honey is also highly acidic and therefore an anti-viral, anti-bacterial and anti-fungal, so disease can't live in the supers either. In the case you are worried you have a disease, the best approach is to catch it early (spring time) and then basically shake the bees out onto foundation (all frames) and let them pull new frames all at once. You will not get a harvest, most likely, but any disease (or pesticides) in the old comb will be removed this way and fresh comb built. You will see an immediate change in brood patterns. I have a video on AFB and then a follow-up video to show how well the hive did after this procedure was performed if you want to check it out.
Thank you very much for your response. I did not know any of this and this information is worth the weight in gold, especially for an beginner like me.
Every 3 to 5 years it is a good idea to change out your comb.
Honey Bee Honey
I totally agree with you sir! I believe the supercedures he mentions are from all the crap that is being dumped in to the hive.
I hope he acquired these hives from someone. Id be embarrassed if I had this hive for 20 years.
Plus I'd be more aggressive about culling out my combs.
J & B Homeliving
Look up Michael Bush. He is a a great resource for beeleeping
Why is your queen in the top box?
Where did you get your
My purpose this year is to build my stuck how would you do it not worried about honey I want to build wax and bees
After Researching over the past few months, I have discovered that Walt Wright even said in his research and video that this was "his method" of checkerboarding and went on to explain what he does. As with many beekeepers, he found a different way to do things that worked for him. However, as you can see many people wrote in and reported that they too used the term "Checkerboarding" as I have, and many of them since before I was ever a beekeeper. So, this is my method of "Checkerboarding"! The only thing that I might add is that when trying to rotate comb, or even make splits, I checkerboard frames that I need to change out or need for a split, which is only usually four to five at a time. To have a complete checkerboard pattern you could do so in both hive bodies and make sure that they are opposite each other (i.e. on the bottom you might have B-F-B-F... and in the top F-B-F-B... where F=Foundation and B=Brood, and you could use E for Empty instead of Foundation as well). The point is that the only reason that you Checkerboard is so that brood comb gets pulled as brood comb. If you add a series of foundation frames in a row, you will end up with frames that are not easily removable as the top of the frames where honey is stored will get pulled out too far and on the facing frames, not enough! Because of viewer support I am going to continue using the term Checkerboard as I have for over twenty years.
To explain the difference, Walt Wright believed that if you checkerboard the honey supers, to which he exclusively used the term, you could fool the bees into not swarming, to which I hold no belief. In fact, if taking every other frame above the brood nest would stay them from swarming, why not take all of them...they do have honey in the brood nest? Or, of that were the case...putting on two honey supers above the brood nest that are empty would keep the hive from swarming...but it doesn't usually do that, only sometimes does it work.
The only true reason to checkerboard is so that we can get perfectly pulled combs. In doing so, in the brood chamber, you open the brood nest (opening the brood nest simply means that you relieve congestion, in one way or another, no specific procedure), relieve congestion and thwart swarming! Hope this helps!
I still call it checkerboarding. It is the term I learned from my grandfather in the 70's.
My grandfather also taught me to nadir at least one box each year for fresh brood comb. That way, you didn't have to lose any work the bees have/are working on. His system has worked well for me.
+Tim Brown That sounds like a good system and would certainly make it easier in the spring, it seems. Thanks for the comment.
Why wouldn't you just leave the queen out of the hive until you are done checkerboarding, rather than risk injuring her by pulling frames out and putting them in while you still hadn't finished checkerboarding?
what's with the audio?
Id just trash the whole frame and comb. It's called PUBLIC HEALTH.
Why are you pulling frames out of the center of the hive ! Teaching beginners to roll the queen !
seriously? 20 years old combs? wow. I would suggest using maximum 3 y/old. even better to change combs every 2 years.
MrFlyfisher123
I would like to think these frames or hive were someone else's and he acquired the hive. After all the pesticides he mentioned that were dumped in the hive. The wax is no good. And morally he should not use or sell it. Pesticides shorten the fertility of the queen and as a result there are numerous supercedures. As he mentioned.
Good video. But I think I would be more aggressive at switching combs out.
No. He didn't say the old queens died due to pesticides, did he? He said the brood is dying because of DISEASE - you just twisted everything to fit YOUR OPINION that pesticides are the problem with this hive, so you GOT IT ALL WRONG - WATCH IT AGAIN AND _LISTEN_! Maybe you will learn something.
Where did you get your Caucasian bees from
I believe this is not checkerboarding. Walt Wright describes it as 'above the brood boxes.' This is a method for preventing swarming and obtaining new, drawn comb but it isn't true checkerboarding.
Kevin Krebsbach Sorry, I disagree. Walt Wright is splitting the brood nest as there is no such thing as a pollen box. Bees store pollen in a frame or two and above brood in a semicircular fashion. What he did was break up the brood nest and intermingle honey supers with brood supers. When he switched out frames he did it is a checkerboard fashion, but it is non-traditional and is not even needed in honey supers. Checkerboarding is used to relieve congestion in the brood nest and draw out fresh comb either for the purposes of replacing old comb, as I did in my video, or making splits. The reason you checkerboard is to get the comb pulled evenly which can only happen "in the brood nest" because honeybees store honey in cells with a variety of depth.
Honey Bee Honey
This is not checkerboarding www.bushfarms.com/beesswarmcontrol.htm#checkerboarding
Jim Alner
Opening the broodnest and checkerboarding ARE not one of the some ..
www.bushfarms.com/beesswarmcontrol.htm#opening
We can have a discussion if you would like, but an argument I will not have. The term checkerboarding is now being used as a replacement for "intersplicement" of combs. You can checkerboard anywhere in the hive as the term only refers to the old frame versus the new comb being next to each other a "checker board" apearance. However, when checkerboarding above the brood nest since there are no brood in that cavity, the frames will be pulled differently. One Fat, one skinny. The advantage of checkerboarding in the brood nest is that all of the combs will be pulled with correct bee space because of the nature of brood comb - making adult bees. They require an exact length of comb to be drawn out and no further, therefore new comb is pulled to that same length. When using the same manufacturer's equipment combs are drawn perfect. It also opens up the brood nest and requires that there be a break in the brood cycle (Varroa Control) a slight weakening in strength of the hive and increased space between every other comb combine to prevent swarming, use fresh beeswax to build the new comb and at the same time change out some comb so that comb rotation can be achieved. If you want to call it something else, I could care less. But, there is no point in checkerboarding in the honey supers because you will get the new comb pulled only slightly, in contrast to stacking foundation say in a group most of those will be pulled, at a mimimum to the edge of the wood. The only exception is if you have pulled comb to put into the hive and you would like to harvest a few frames at a time. But, even if that were the case, there still is no need to checkerboard the frames in the super because the bees will pull and cap the frames no matter where they are in the brood nest!
What are your references that the terminology has been changed ?
Honey b honey have you ever heard of Dfm probiotics
As a commercial keeper I assume you know who Michael Palmer is and that he is one of the most trusted sources in the bee keeping world. Have you watched his video on importance of getting stung? Absolutely eye opening and terrifying. that keeping bees increases your families chance of getting a deathly allergic reaction from 1:200 to 1:10... Anyone In the medical community understand how HUGE of a difference that is, that is almost a guarantee for a lot of families. If you , your wife, your kids are not stung once a month then you are at SERIOUS risk
What