Episode 84: Bad Backs and Brood Box Capacity

Hi, I’m Stewart Spinks and welcome to Episode 84 of my podcast, Beekeeping Short and Sweet, This week I have a question for you, how big is your brood box? Having just taken ownership of my first 14 by 12 hives I thought I would take a look at how this brood box compares to the other hives I have, so stay tuned for some interesting results.

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First up this week a little moaning whinge, I’m still suffering from a bad back and it’s really frustrating me, I managed to get the 14 by 12 hives moved finally but the journey and humping the hives around has caused my back problem to flare up again so I’m stuck resting up when I’d really like to be out changing floors still.

Ok, that’s my moaning over with, it’s no good moaning about it for long, it is what it is and I just have to work around it. Looking back at my week there are some really positive highlights, for one, I managed to get the 14 by 12 hives moved as I mentioned and the apiary looks fantastic now the hives are on the stands. I do need to get over and inspect them as I wasn’t able to last week because of the back issue and that has been a major issue for the last seven days. Elsewhere I did get into the BS Honey nuc and check out the two, three frame nucs and as I suspected, the mini colony that looked a little out of sorts were completely broodless and there were no signs of the queen, no eggs and I certainly didn’t spot the queen. As time was getting little short, and to be honest as I was getting a little frustrated, I decided to remove the core divider and let the two, three frame colonies unite themselves. I’ve done this on a number of times now and despite beekeepers telling me that they will fight, they always seem to sort themselves out and settle down, maybe it’s because they are being united laterally rather than vertically, who knows. All I know is, one side was queen right and the other queenless so hopefully they’ve got themselves sorted now.

The collection of the 14 by 12 hives went well, I travelled over to collect them from a beekeeper near Peterborough so it’s about a four-hour return journey for me and of course there are the obligatory conversations about beekeeping to be had that it delayed me a little too. In the end I didn’t leave for home until nearly 9pm and had to make a quick stop for some fuel so didn’t get tot he apiary until around 11:30pm but it was a pleasant moonlit night and quite mild still. The bees travelled back just with their open mesh floors, no travel screens this time as although it was a mild night, travelling at speed in the open back of the truck meant they were quite cool enough, no overheating and no need to spray with water to help them keep cool.

If you’ve seen the Patreon videos you’ll be well familiar with the apiary site by now, in amongst the fishing lakes nicely secluded and completely protected by locked gates. The beauty of having completed the work to open up the apiary meant that I could literally drive the truck right up to the hive stand and simply lift the hive off the back of the truck and down onto the stand, no walking through brambles and nettles as it would have been previously.

If you’re moving hives to new sites it’s important to give them a little time to orientate themselves to their new location before disturbing them with inspections and the like. My intention was to give them forty-eight hours and then go back to inspect them but as I say, the back pain has just got worse and I was in no fit state to get into the hives.

I’ll hopefully get back to them this weekend and inspect them, they’re also going to need feeding and although it’s getting late I do have some heavy sugar syrup to feed them and the forecast does look ok for the next couple of weeks. By that, I mean overnight temperatures are going to hold up in low double figures so the bees won’t yet be forming