In this video Laurence Edwards returns to a hive that was previously subjected to a checkerboarding experiment, where boxes of different depths were alternated to discourage swarming while maximizing honey storage. After an eight‑week gap he inspects the colony, describing the condition of each super and deep box. He finds several supers completely full of capped heather honey, one super untouched, and irregular honey and brood placement throughout the hive. The colony has produced a large honey crop (up to 35‑40 lb in a single box) but contains very little brood—only three to four frames of brood were found, and the queen was a clipped, dying individual that will be replaced. Despite aggressive bee behavior, the colony did not swarm, confirming the primary goal of the checkerboarding technique. Edwards reflects on the practical challenges (awkward brood placement, difficult extraction, aggressive bees) and proposes future adjustments such as using a queen excluder and testing the method on calmer colonies in subsequent years.
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Right, we're finally back up at the checkerboarded colony. I've not been in this colony for 8 weeks. I'm doing what I'm supposed to do, which is leaving the bees to it. Last time we thought maybe did they go a little bit backwards? I'm hoping we're going to go in here today, find the queen, find lots of honey, and we're going to declare checkerboarding a success. Is that going to happen? I'm not 100% sure. Let's get in, take a look. Right, if you remember back to the previous video, we added loads of boxes on and there was still a huge amount of space. But I wasn't worried about that because we're in the heather apiary and the bees are working the heather really well. We're on 1, 2, 3, 3 shallow boxes, 2 national deep boxes, and 1 14 by 12. We'll have a look, see if there's honey, see where the honey is. Hopefully we'll find some brood. Hopefully we'll find the queen. Hopefully the bees don't batter me because they are horrible, and this colony is due to be requeened within a matter of weeks. I'm excited for this one. I'm excited to find the queen, but I know that her days are numbered. So that's a very good start. I reckon that's about half full. Smells of heather. There's bees up to the top. Definitely a good start for the checkerboarded colony. I'm gonna pull out a couple of frames in each box all the way down just to show you what is going on. Well, I don't think you can argue with that. That is a fantastic start. Every single frame in that box, barring the outside frames, are not only completely full, but they are 100% capped over, and they are coming with a beautiful heather smell. Perfect start. I have to say, I wasn't expecting that. I was kind of expecting to go in there and say, yeah, we put too much space on, the bees haven't done well, they've swarmed. And you never know, they may have swarmed. But that was a really, really good start. Heavy box, capped honey, really happy with that. Let's get into the next box, see how they're doing. Now that's just so interesting, a completely empty super. And I mean, they have not touched that one bit. It is empty, it is still foundation. How weird is that? Top super full, next one down completely empty. I was not expecting that. Like, I'm not even going to bother going in and showing you that. Trust me, every single cell of every single frame Foundation. They've not touched it. And then the next box down, probably somewhere in the middle, some frames of foundation on the outer edges, few frames of honey in there. Don't think it's fully capped over. I'll get some frames out of this one and show you how they're getting on. So when I spoke to John about checkerboarding, he said watch out, they do strange, strange things. There's a nearly full frame there, another one there. Look inside, that is heather honey, unmistakable color and smell. And then you just got Random frames in the middle foundation that they've just not touched. So, so strange. 50% full, 50% they literally not touched them. Really strange things going on in this checkerboarded hive, but there's honey in here. Good amount of honey in here actually. But unless that queen is still in here, then I'm not going to be a fan of this technique because the whole point is that you don't need to inspect them and they're not going to swarm. Let's get a little bit further down, see if we can find that queen. Right, first of the National Deeps now, and you can see pretty much full of bees. All of this is drawn out. These were the original 2 checkerboarded boxes. Let's have a look in some of these, see if we can find any brood, see if we can find that queen. Okay, okay, I'm liking what I'm seeing here. Big capped frames of honey. Unfortunately, because I've got them on a DN4 configuration, they are going to be a real nightmare to uncap, but very heavy frames full of honey. And again, beautiful, another big heavy frame of honey. They really have progressed quite a lot since we were last here. Okay, there's a couple of frames of foundation they've not touched, but there is some serious amount of honey in this hive. Not found any brood yet, no eggs. Still going to go on the search for that queen. So I won't come over to the camera. Another big heavy frame of honey, another big heavy frame of honey, another big heavy frame of honey. This isn't just me on repeat, this is genuinely frame after frame of capped honey. Very happy with this. Another frame, a little bit uncapped in that one, so I'm not going to bother going through that. That box there looks like it is entirely honey. Lots of honey in there, maybe 35 or 40 pounds. Right, yeah, that is insanely heavy, that box full of honey. Bees are not too happy with me though. As I said before, they're getting requeened. Horrible bees in this hive, but I wanted to get them all the way through the season to prove that they're not going to swarm. I didn't want to put a new queen in because that would have messed up the experiment. So wow, this is just going on and on and on. No brood yet though, which is very concerning. Lots and lots of honey. Another frame there. And wow, I won't tease you to the end. First frame of brood that I've found, and there is the queen. Unmistakable clipped queen, much blue and white. She is getting killed because these bees are really going for me. Not quite as bad as earlier in the season, but definitely still pinging me. I don't enjoy working bees like this, so this queen is definitely going to get killed. So I've just been going through the frames there. I've only got about 3 or 4 frames of brood in this entire colony, and they backfilled the rest of it with honey. Insane amount of honey in here. Like, we've got 2 supers pretty much full, one completely empty, one national deep that is full, and then this national deep here is mostly full with about 3 or 4 frames of brood. Just gonna have a quick look downstairs in that 14 by 12 because the last time we looked, there was nothing there. It was pretty much void apart from a little bit of nectar and a little bit of pollen. No honey, no brood, nothing like that. Really curious to see how they're getting on downstairs in that original 14 by 12 brood box. Right, that is very interesting. No brood. Oh my goodness, it is full to the brim. Lots of capped honey, lots of nectar going in as well. That would be heather nectar. Bees are doing really well down there, but it's a little bit of a nightmare to have to deal with all of this, you know. Like, the brood isn't where I want the brood to be. It's going to be very difficult extracting these frames on 14 by 12. Even though my extractor does it, it is a real pain. But there's no denying it, we set out on this quest. Will the bees swarm? No, they've not swarmed. Will they provide a lot of honey? Yes, they provided a lot of honey. Does it make my life difficult? Makes extraction really difficult. You know what though, I've not done many inspections on this colony and they've not swarmed, so I'm relatively happy. So there we go, we've pretty much got to the end of the season and the bees haven't swarmed. and the checkerboarding has been a real success. A few things I've learned. One, the bees in this colony are absolutely horrible. That's probably going to be the last time you see that queen because this behavior is not acceptable. She's getting squished. She's going to get requeened. Really nice F1 Buckfast. This colony will be very calm next year. Other things I've learned is they produce a real good amount of honey, but they do not put it where they're supposed to put it. There's no real order. There's honey here, honey there, big gaps, brood in a weird place. But if you're just keeping a couple of hives in your back garden, maybe that's not the end of the world. And maybe what I would do is later on in the year, once you get past the longest day of the year, maybe in future I would put a queen excluder in and confine the queen downstairs to that brood nest. Would make this time of the year a lot easier. But we will definitely revisit this next year. We'll do checkerboarding again. We'll do it on a calmer colony. We'll do it on 2 or 3 colonies, and we will see if those colonies swarm.
