Checkerboard Update - Have They Swarmed Yet??

Right, we're into May and we have not even taken a look at the checkerboarded colony yet. So I'm going to get inside the checkerboarded colony today, give you an update on it. I want to find the queen as well, and I want to mark that queen to make sure that I can definitely identify if that queen's gone and if they've replaced her. My strategy for the checkerboarding hive is that I'm not doing any inspections whatsoever. All I'm doing is making sure they've got sufficient space up above them, not using a queen excluder, I've done all of my checkerboarding early on in the year. I'm still a little bit dubious as to whether that's the best thing to be doing in kind of December or January. It does seem crazy to me to be going in at that point of the year, messing around with the stores, creating a huge void above. But when I look at other people's videos who are doing it, they seem to be getting success. As I've said in previous videos, I do not condone this method because I don't know if it works or not. I'm just doing this as a little bit of fun, and if it fails, I'll show you that it fails, and if it succeeds, I'll show you if it So let's get over there. I'll put my bee suit on. We're going to do a real unique mark on that queen if we can find her, and then I'll just give you a rough state of play early May with the checkerboarded colony. Right, let's take a look at my checkerboard colony, see how they're getting on, see if we can find the queen, see where they're up to in the season. Remember, I'm not doing any inspections on this colony, so I'll go through, I'll pull out a few frames, but I'm not going in. I'm not doing weekly inspections. But I do want to get in there. I want to find that queen and give her like a unique individual marking, just so if we get to the end of the year, I'm confident that that individual queen has made it all the way through the season. I'm just leaving them to it though, adding boxes when they get up to the next level. And I think we're getting quite close to adding that next box on now. Let's get inside, see how they're getting on. Right, so I've already kind of messed this up because they're right up to the top. Missed that one a little bit. Apologies, I should have been on top of these. I checked these a week ago, they weren't actually up this far, they were kind of up around here somewhere. So they're filling that box already. So okay, if they swarm, I'll take the responsibility for that one, but it's looking pretty good. They're filling a National 14x12 brood box, and then I've got 2 National deep brood boxes as well, and it kind of looks like they're full. I've got 2 more supers I'm going to add on there. When you're doing checkerboarding, you don't need to keep on checkerboarding. It's only the manipulation that you do around December, January, or February. All you need to do now is just keep ahead of them, which I kind of already failed at, and just keep on putting the boxes on. Hopefully the queen's still there. Hopefully there's brood. Hopefully there's no swarm cells. Let's take a look, see how they're getting on though. So this is the top box, and I wouldn't say the bees are completely boiling over it, but they've come up to see what's going on. Healthy amount of bees in that top box though. So I'll open a couple of frames, see what they're doing up here. But as I said, the whole point of checkerboarding is that you don't have to do inspections. That's the idea behind it anyway. I'm always a little bit scared not doing inspections because, you know, if you miss a single swarm cell, that's it, they're gone. Doesn't look like they've gone yet though, because there's quite a lot of bees in here. Okay, so we're looking quite good. We're not completely honeybound yet. They have only just moved up into this box, still repairing things. Tiny little bit of nectar. I've not lost everything just yet. Just going to shake this one out just to give me a bit of space to move up here. Right, well, you don't normally expect that at the top box of a colony like this, do you? That's very strange. And looking down into that next box, that is full of brood as well. So if you take a look at that, we've got a big, massive slab of brood right at the top box of the colony. I'm not too fussed about that because I'm going to do one single harvest at the end of the year. And I know bees towards the end of the year, they do move their brood nest down. But at the moment, we've got the top frames absolutely jam-packed full of brood. I've got another frame of brood up here as well. Not found that queen yet. I'm seeing eggs, so I'm confident there's a queen in here. That frame there, I know you can't see it. I'll give you a little close-up on it. That is a frame kind of full with honey, started capping it on this side as well. Obviously that could be one of the checkerboarded frames in between 2 frames of brood. It's a very, very interesting system, this one. I can't wait to see where we get to at the end of the year. So a very interesting top box, very interesting. I put all the frames back in exactly the same order. I'm gonna move this top box now, put it off to one side, see what they're doing in the second box. See if we can find that queen. That was a surprisingly heavy box, definitely heavier than when I did the checkerboarding earlier on in the year. Let's get down to this second box now, see if we can see that queen. So first frame I pulled out, big frame of eggs, tons of eggs. This queen is a really big, strong queen. Didn't start off the year with the strongest colony, but oh my goodness, they are playing catch up now. This is a big, strong colony, counting a lot of frames of brood. So there you go, you can see again, lovely frame of brood. It's very strange kind of seeing brood and then a honey frame and then brood. But you look at that, really nice frame of brood. I really do want to find this queen though, get her marked just so we can see what's going on. Very surreal going through these colonies. There are so many frames of brood in here. There's kind of frames of foundation that they're drawing out that are full of eggs next to frames that are just completely full of brood. No sign of that queen. I definitely should have marked her earlier on in the year, but I'd love to count the amount of frames already. I think I'm up to about 15 frames of brood. And I've not got down to the original brood box yet. So they're running out of space. I'm definitely going to get some space on them today. Right, I'm going to put this box over to one side. I'll put them all back on in the same order. The frames are all in the same order. Let's get down to the original brood box. And remember, there's no queen excluders here. See if we can find that queen. I reckon though we're up to about 15 or 16 frames of brood just on those top 2 boxes. So give it a few weeks, there are going to be so, so many bees here. I will be amazed if they don't swarm. I have to say, I'm so dubious. I so want it to work though, so we will run with it. It's just so crazy how much brood is in this colony. I was expecting we'd get down to this bottom box and no, we're not going to find any brood down there as well. And it's just big slabs of brood again. I'm so desperate to find this queen though. Right, I'm giving up because I've spent absolutely ages trying to find that queen and I cannot find her. Definitely not on this frame here, unless someone wants to point it out and tell me I can't find queens. Because, oh, you know, when you're trying to find queens and they just don't come, it is really frustrating. But check out the brood. Really, really good-looking colony, this one. Right, little summary of what's going on then. Can't find the queen. No idea where she is. I've counted 25 frames of brood, either national deep or 14 by 12, and then there's loads of frames that have got a little bit of eggs in there as well. All I can say is this manipulation hasn't hindered the colony, hasn't set it back, and I don't think I'd have this much brood if I hadn't done this manipulation. Is it going to work? No idea. I need to come back in a couple of weeks and find that queen. All we're going to do today though, put everything back together in the same configuration. I'm going to add another 2 supers on, no queen excluder whatsoever. I'm going to let this colony go on, checkerboarded colony, no inspections throughout the season other than to try and find that queen and get her marked. We will see how they get on, if they move that brood around later on in the year. How is this colony going to turn out the first week of September when I come to do my summer harvest? What do you think? Stick it in the comments. If you want to see the first video where I set up this checkerboarding, spoken about the manipulation in December and January, check out this video here which gives you all of the information.