Dummy Down Colonies using a Follower Board

Hi, I'm Laurence Edwards from Black Mountain Honey. Welcome to another episode of No Nonsense Beekeeping. If you enjoy our channel, if you enjoy our videos, please hit the subscribe button. Got loads of content, plenty of videos for you to catch up on over winter while you're getting ready for the season. So today's video, I'm going to talk to you about dummying down a colony Ready for overwintering. So early on in the video, I showed you how I made follower boards or dummy boards. There is a slight difference between the two of them, but it's really not much. The difference basically is a follower board completely fills the box and a dummy board gives you a bee space, but I use them interchangeably in terms of what I use them for. The main reason that I made the follower boards was because in my Suyenti boxes, they're basically a 10-frame box. Plus some space, which is rubbish. Terrible design. We've been through that before. Really don't like the spacing inside a Suyenti polybrood box, but they're cheap and it's what I've got, so you've got to make do. So I made these follower boards to fill that gap. That was my main reason for them. I'm not a massive fan of using them throughout the season for doing inspections. I know some people do that. They'll take out the follower board or dummy board and then inspect the frames and move them through one by one. And that's quite a good way of working, it's just not something that I do. However, what I do use the follower boards for, and this is a really good way of using them, is I use them to dummy down— hence the word dummy frame— to dummy down the colonies to get them into a suitable size for overwintering. Now you might think, what, what does that mean? Effectively, all I'm doing is I'm reducing the size of the box or the cavity that they are in, in terms of its volume. And I'm doing that by manipulating that follower board to reduce the size of the colony. Now you might think, why do I do that? And in my experience, the best way of getting colonies through the winter in terms of volume of the box is to match it as closely as you possibly can to the size of the colony. So what I should do with this colony, and it's just one of the ones over there that I've just done a quick check on, I should move this colony to a 6-frame nuc. This is a 6-frame nuc size colony in a normal size hive. It's first week of October here, the colony is doing that at the moment, so it's not going to do that, it's not going to get bigger. I'm not going to fill it to fill those frames because it's a waste of feed. What I should do with this colony is I should take the 6 frames out and I should put it in a nuc and overwinter it in a nuc. However, I'm all out of nucs. Every single nuc that I've got is full to the brim with bees. I'm not just going to order 1 or 2 nucs just to do this manipulation. What you can do is you can dummy that colony down using follower boards, using dummy boards, insulated dummy boards in this instance, and reduce the size of that cavity to fit the colony. So that's all I'm going to do in this video. I'm going to show you how to do it. I'm going to show you how I do it with my follower boards, and then I'm going to show you how I attach just a piece of insulation to the back of that follower board just to insulate the colony. So you've basically got 4 sides all insulated because you've got 3 of those sides that are the poly hive, and then you've got one side that's wood, and I'm just going to put a piece of insulation, Correx, behind it. Now what you can do, and this is a really good kind of thing to have around the apiary if you're all on a standard frame size, is you can build insulated dummy boards, and they are like the easiest thing in the world to build. You just cut a rectangle of Correx out and you put a strip of wood on the top, and you've got an insulated dummy board. So if you haven't already built your follower boards and you want to follow this video and dummy down some of your colonies, I highly recommend just building a standard insulated dummy board. I'll show you a couple of pictures just so you know what I mean, but it's the, it's the easiest construction in the world. Anyone can do it. It's just a rectangle of Correx to match the dimensions of your hive, strip of wood, and just glue and screw down the top. And that's it. It's as simple as that. So like I say, in this video I'll show you what colonies need to be dummied down. That's the important one. I'll show you how much space to give them. I'll show you where to put the follower board, and I'll show you just a couple of extra tips and tricks to make sure that colony gets through the winter. So this is the colony. I was doing my final checks, going through, giving everyone a little bit extra feed. This one was particularly light. It was strange activity, so it prompted me to kind of open it up, take a look. Obviously, I'm going in, taking out all my Apivar strips now, so I'm going through every colony and looking. But this one's really, really small, so I'm quite interested to see what's going on with this one. Could be a drone-laying queen, could just be a small colony, but I'm going to go in and I'm going to show you how to manipulate that to reduce the colony size down into the void that fits the colony. So you can see we've got the feed on at the moment, and as you can see, very, very small colony. All of the rest of them filling all of the frames. This one is over 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 frames max. Like I said, it's a nuc, and it's not even probably one of the stronger nucs. Um, is on a 14 by 12 frame though, so if they do go all the way down, that's probably equivalent to a slightly smaller than average national. You've got to take into account these are big frames, so if they do go all the way down, it's not the smallest colony in the world, but still it's wasted space, wasted frames. It doesn't need to be that expansive. So we're going to go in, take a look how it's going, do the manipulation, reduce the size down using the follower board method. So that's worrying. First thing you see is foundation. This colony is not expanding the way that all of my other colonies are expanding. So I'm expecting to see in here drone laying queen. That's kind of my guess. I'm hoping it's not, and I'm hoping it's just a really small colony. I know this one started off very, very small, so it could just be a small colony. If it is, then perfect. I mean, this video shows you what to do. Don't leave your colonies with foundation over winter. It's not what they need. Big strong colonies will draw out foundation this time of year, and they'll draw it really nice with no drone brood on it at all. But not little piddly colonies like this. So we'll carry on going through and hopefully we'll see some worker brood. Might as well do a bit of an inspection because it's such a small colony and they are quite active today. So we'll see if we can see some eggs, see if we can see some queen. We'll get it into a position to get it ready for overwintering. So there goes— proves my point. I mean, they're drawing out that one now, so that's, that's really positive. Second frame in, they're They are drawing out the foundation. Very, very unlikely for it to be a drone layer, I think, at that point. Not because they're drawing foundation to raise brood, just because there's sufficient bees there at this time of year in order to draw foundation. So my guess is now I'm changing it. I don't think it's drone brood anymore. I'm going to go, this is just a very, very small colony that needs dummying down. So back of frame 2, nothing. Front of frame 2, tiny little bit of drawn foundation. So frame 3, back of it drawn foundation, empty. Front of it, stores, and a nice amount of stores, probably 50% capped. No brood yet though. Lots of nice pollen on there as well. Just give you a close-up of that frame there. That's a nice outer frame. Third frame in, fourth frame in really without that fake one that was just foundation, we've got brood. So I'm really happy we've got worker brood. Can't see the queen and I can't see much in the way of eggs, but I'm not worried about eggs at this time of year. As long as I can see some worker brood and I see the queen, then I'm confident that they're just having a bit of a brood break. That's not my concern at the moment. So as you can see, nice amount of bees, nice ring of brood. Taking my Apivar strip out. That's the reason I came here today, was to get my strips out. 8 weeks. Do not leave your Apivar strips in for longer than 8 weeks. Can build resistance. And that's it. I'm not going to go any further with this inspection because you don't need to. And I highly recommend nobody go into your colonies this time of year. Doing inspections. You do not need to inspect this time of year. I'm doing it because this colony has got too much space in the box. We've identified that there's worker brood in there. Not even fussed about seeing the queen. If there's no queen, so be it, the colony will fail. Confident that the queen will be in there. So that's what the colony is looking like. As you can see, it is just not big enough. Like we've identified there, 2 frames on the left foundation, Third one in from the left, kind of maybe like 20% drawn. The 3 on the right, mainly foundation. Like, this at best is a 6-frame nuc, and it's not even a very strong 6-frame nuc. So we definitely need to do this manipulation, and I'll show you exactly how to do it now. Right, so the manipulation is a really simple one. You basically take out all the foundation frames, take out all the empty drawn comb frames, move everything to one side, stick your follower board in, Insulate it, put the feeder back on, close it up. Really, really simple. So here is our follower board that we made before. It's just a bit of ply baton, a bit of plywood sealed with wax, and that's it. Yeah, really, really simple follower board. I'll stick the video up there so you can see how to make these, but it's as simple as that— 2 bits of wood glued together. And then you want to go through and just take out any frames that don't have anything that's beneficial for the colony. So anything empty drawn comb, anything foundation. Make sure you're not taking out empty drawn comb that they need to fill up with syrup. You've got the feeders on, you need to make a judgement on that, but you can kind of guess roughly how many frames they're going to need. So one like that where they've started drawing it out, that goes. Definitely don't need that. So that's shaken off. And then we're on to that one. The other side of it, it is kind of mostly drawn, but I can feel there's good weight in it. So that one's definitely staying. Move to the other side. Do you know what I mean? They're starting to draw that one out, but I don't need it. That one goes. And again, starting to draw it out, but just not going to be used, that one. So I'm going to take that one as well. Now this one is a bit borderline. But on this side here, they're kind of drawing that out nicely, and there's some stores in it as well. So I think the rule of thumb is if there's any stores in it whatsoever, keep it in. You need to make sure though that there's enough stores for the colony to feed on. So I'm going to keep that one in, but what I'm going to do is I'm going to turn that round and I'm going to get them to draw out the other side. So that's it, I've got my 6 frames now. So 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. They've all got bees on them. There's 4 frames of brood. Just being really careful not to damage any queen or the queen. Can get 2 queens in colonies this time of year if they're superseding. You'll see here we've got national frames in our 14 by 12 hive. We always keep a couple in there. Helps for making up splits, help for kind of a bit of drone brood control if needed as well. We don't tend to mess around with that too much. As you can see, this one here, they've just put normal worker brood underneath anyway. Although this is a small colony, do you know what I mean, bees look really healthy. Not seeing any deformed wing virus, not seeing any diseases present. I'm seeing new bees emerging. I've still not seen the queen. I would like to see the queen before I put this one away because it's so small. Right, can't see the queen. Not going to dwell on it too much. I said at the beginning, you don't need to see the queen here. That's not what this is about. This is about reducing that colony size down. I've been as careful as I possibly can be in terms of kind of any damage. So if the queen is in there, which I'm confident she is, I mean, she'll be fine. And then it's as simple as take your follower board and you just place that in. Now that will form a seal on all 4 edges, so it's not like a dummy board where the bees can kind of go underneath it and come up the other side. That has reduced that colony down to the size of a 6-frame nuc, 14 by 12, 6-frame nuc. So what you can do now is you can upgrade that follower board by adding some insulation onto it. So that's all I'm going to do. So I've got loads of this old Correx lying around. I use it for feeding fondant, I use it for crown boards, I use it for insulating follower boards. Now, I don't— I mean, you don't need to get this neat, just get it roughly the same, the right width like that. And I pre-cut these, they're pretty much there. Don't worry too much about getting it neat. Obviously, I mean, I chop these on a chop saw, get them nice and neat. You just want to get it so it's going to fit in there like that. Get the right depth. Like I say, really don't worry too much about it. All you need to do is make sure that you've got a nice chunk of it in there. Place that in like that. Then to hold it in place, get a couple of frames in there. The sun's come out, beautiful day now. So that's it, that's what it looks like once it's finished, do you know what I mean? Make a neater job than me if you like, but, um, the end result is the same. You've essentially got all your bees over here, you've got a follower board here that seals all the way down, the bees cannot get over to this side. You've then got some Correx, and then you're just kind of putting something in there just to hold the Correx in place. And that's it, it's as simple as that. You've made that, the size of the box fit the colony of bees. So I'm just going to get the feeder back on, get those bees off it there. You see a few dead ones in there, they're old dead bees, they're not from today. You might get a couple. Get that feeder back on now. Now the bees can be a little bit confused with this because obviously they can come up into the feeder from that side and then they go back down the other side, but they do work it out after a while. I've done this a few times now and you don't tend to get stray bees in the other side. The chances of the queen going in there are minuscule, so I really wouldn't worry too much about that. They'll continue to take down that feed now and expand that colony out. Any of those undrawn sections of that frame, they will draw them out and they'll store that feed in there now. So let's get the roof back on, let's get rid of a few of those bees, and that's it. We're pretty much done. Um, obviously put your hive tool away, keep that for next time. Such a great little tool that comes in handy for so many different things, always lives in my bee suit. But yeah, that's it. Like, the final thing to say, I guess, is— I mean, we'll talk a little bit more about benefits in the later part of this video, but the big, big benefit of that, yeah, is you've got 6 frames in a hive that are being used, and you've got 4 frames that are not being used. So when that queen comes to raise her winter bees, she has to make sure that the volume of that entire box is at the correct temperature, or at least the sections of the volume of that box are at the correct temperature in order to allow her to raise sufficient winter bees to get that colony through the winter. Now, if the box is big, she needs more bees in order to keep that temperature up. So you can see this box has not got a lot of bees in it, so the amount of winter brood that she can raise is reduced. So what you've done there is you've reduced the overall size of the box, put that Correx in place, And then what she has to do now is keep a smaller section of the box warm. Sorry, what the colony has to do now is keep a smaller section of the box warm with the same amount of bees. So it's easier on those bees, they can keep the temperature up warmer, which means you can have a greater area of winter brood, which means you get more bees going into winter. And that's the logic behind it. And it definitely works. There is no point in overwintering in a bigger box. It's just there's no benefit to it whatsoever. It can only be detrimental or it costs you more to get them fed. So there we go. It's as simple as that. Just make sure when you're going through your colonies this time of year, you see a lot of advice is just to kind of heft it, give them a feel, see where they're at. That doesn't give you the whole picture. So I'm going to do a video later on in the year doing my last round of checking. and what you're looking for in that last round of checking. And just to summarize what it is, is I go in, I open the box, I take out any Apivar strips or any varroa treatments that need to come out. I do a quick visual on the top of the colony just to give me an indication of cluster size. I don't go in, I don't look for the queen, I don't even take out any of the frames. I do a quick check on the floor to make sure there's no blockages, there's no kind of vermin entry, and then I close them up and then I strap them down. And it's at that point when I'm doing those checks that if they need dummying down, which is what I've showed you in this video, that's when I go in and that's when I do the dummying down. You don't want to do it at any point when they're moving, when they're expanding like that, because they will expand up against that and they can potentially swarm. So this really is kind of like an October onwards kind of manipulation that you want to do. Get it done early though, and it gives the colonies a really, really good chance of getting through the winter. So the benefits of doing this, and I've not really touched a huge amount on the benefits of doing this in this video, is the colony doesn't need to consume as much stores to maintain temperature in that smaller volume of box. And it's as simple as that. So you're reducing the chance of your colonies running out of stores, and you're reducing the chance of them dying due to exposure to cold, which I know is a very, very kind of Slight chance. Bees tend to not die due to exposure to cold. They'll die due to kind of ingress of moisture or isolation starving. But if you're reducing that size down, I think you're reducing the chance of isolation starving because they don't need to move around the colony like that and move around the box like that to find the food. You've put it all into one place and you've got all of the bees to cluster that. They know where it is and there's less movement for them to do. To find that food. So I hope you've enjoyed watching this one. As always, if you enjoy watching our channel, please hit the subscribe button, please hit the bell so you're notified of every video, and I'll see you next time. See you again.