Laurence Edwards argues that crowding at the hive entrance in late July doesn't mean you should add more boxes. Instead, remove excess supers, add a brood box, and treat for mites in August to prepare the colony for winter and get better honey quality.
In this video, I'm going to talk to you about overcrowding. Is it good? Is it bad? Stick or twist? More boxes? No boxes? We'll cover it all in this video. So take a look at the entrance of some of these colonies here. Underfloor entrances, and the bees have not got enough space. It's a bit rainy today, so you've not got the foragers out there, but it's clear to me that the bees in this colony do not have enough space. Nowhere near enough. Clustering outside the front, And the simple thing here to do is to say, right, the bees have not got enough space, so we're going to add another box. In this video, I'm going to tell you why I don't think that is always the right idea. Same with this colony next door, loads and loads of bees outside the front. Not a good day, bees aren't on a flow, they've run out of space, but I'm not adding any more boxes. So surely you think I'm mad? Definitely more boxes equals more space for the bees equals more space for honey. More boxes, more honey, simple as that. It's not really, because as you see in some of my old videos, like when I go into winter, I take the honey off and I trickle feed and I condense that box down to a really small space compared to the void that we've got here. So later on in the year, this is kind of what I'm looking for anyway. It's my own personal preference, but I like super big strong colonies going into winter, and the number of bees, I like to get them to a point where they don't fit in the box. So if you look at the date at the moment, 22nd, 23rd of July, we've not had a huge amount of rain and the flows around the country are kind of coming towards an end. Maybe in some places in the UK you've already kind of reached that point, you've come to an end. So learning from past experience, there comes a point in the year where if you're seeing that at your entrances, you're thinking, right, we're in a really good position, we've effectively got honey super finisher colonies. When you get your bees into this position here, they're not going to go into crazy nectar gathering mode. They will still go out and try and gather nectar, but their real modus operandi at this time of the year is to prepare themselves for winter. And what that means for your bees, what that means for your boxes, is they're going to finish off the cells, finish off the frames, cap everything over, make sure it's the right moisture content, And then they're just going to cluster down for winter. I know, I know, it's the end of July, but this is where you need to start thinking about how your bees are going to get through the winter. Don't start thinking about it in October, you've missed your opportunity. This colony here, they're going to be on 1, 2, 3, 4 boxes, 2 National Shallows, 2 National Deeps, pretty much full to the brim with honey, if not completely full to the brim with honey. That's a big enough crop for me. I'm happy with that. If I added another box now, you run the risk of bees moving stuff around, and they do do that a little bit. They might consume some honey to draw out some wax because you're getting a little bit of a flow come in. They're twisting, they're going again for like a bigger honey crop, and what that ultimately ends up with is that your boxes aren't full, and then you've got voids within the hive that you have to deal with come extraction. For me, I much prefer to deal with 3 absolutely jam-packed full, fully capped over frames and boxes when I get to honey extraction, as opposed to pretty much the same amount of honey spread across 4. Better for me, easier for me. I also think it's better for the bees as well. Gets them into the point where they start to think about winter. So don't always look at the entrance and say, right, that's a really crammed entrance, I'm going to add another box on. Start to think about where you are in the season, what's good for you, and what's good for the bees. For me, this apiary here, we've probably got only a week or so left in terms of a honey flow. So I'm not going to not give these bees any more space for the rest of the year, but what I'll end up doing, coming in, taking off all the supers, sticking on another brood box, and then letting the bees go towards the end of the year, putting my Apivar strips in kind of early August this year because it's finishing so early, And then the whole of August, the whole of September, the bees can work. They can go out, they can forage pollen, nectar. The apivar strips are working. You're breeding yourself really good strong winter bees. You're giving them the additional space in the brood area, which means that you're getting a big strong contingent of healthy winter bees going into winter. And for me, that's how I get really, really good success at getting my bees through. It's not all about absolutely maximizing your honey crop. And sometimes when you try and maximize that honey crop, it's actually not beneficial for you and it's not beneficial for the bees. So end of July, early August, if you're seeing overcrowded entrances, think twice before adding an additional box. Maybe take off all your honey, give them another brood box, and let the bees get ready for winter.
