Transferring bees from National to Langstroth frames - Ogston Bee Farm

[@wildoutdoors8089]

Thanks for the video on transfer between different types of hive. Very good job 👍🏻

[@5Bird5]

Hi Kim. I love that you share your carefully thought out practical solutions to common problems. This year I followed your method to successfully move a colony from a BN poly nuc to an 8 frame Langstroth hive. I had to make a simple plywood combining board with a cut out section in the entrance area, then when I installed the queen excluder, I placed the combining board on top of it, removed the entrance cut out and hey presto. All done with a scrap bit of ply!

[@kimberesford2444]

Thanks for your comment, I'm glad you're enjoying my videos.

[@davidtichy3546]

Awesome video, very smart idea and great help! :D

[@InTheHive-Beekeeping]

What a great idea, thanks for sharing!

[@horizontalbees]

Love that nuc design!! Very well thought out... I hope you have a busy honey season!!

[@kimberesford2444]

I hope so too Rickey. All the best to you and your family.

[@williamjohn-r8y]

Hi Kim having kept bees on nationals and 14x 12 for nearly 60 years i thought that i would like to keep my bees on Dadants but am finding it a little difficult. AS i have a neuc per honey producing hive i was wondering if Abelo do neucs in dadant sizes then this would be my answer. I am presently buying my hives from Germany made by STEHR AT UNDER £100 for Hive Super ,floor and roof frames are made in my own workshop great video and wishing you every success for next year Regards John

[@johnmurphy380]

Great video, you will be busy , I have just been introduced to a flow hive which a mate of mine purchased 2 of these flow hives and wants me to supply bees. Flow hives from USA are all based on a Langstroth brood box. Hence my dilemma , Thanks for the informative video and method . What time of year would be best to start this. I presume March April as soon as weather warms up

[@kimberesford2444]

Hi John, I’m glad you found the video useful. It was exactly the same reason that induced me to do this…… flow hives that is. I had a few customers wanting bees for them and of course they need to be on Langstroth frames. As soon as the bees start to build up yo can do this. If you want to speed things up a bit by placing the queen on a National frame with some emerging capped brood into the Langstroth box by extending the frame tabs. I made some push on sleeves from a bit of thin folded steel or aluminium plate or by screwing a couple of 2 inch wood screws into the end of the frame tabs. Put a queen excluder on straight away to keep the queen upstairs. Don’t attempt this unless there are plenty of nurses bees to keep the brood warm or you could end up with chilled brood. Once the queen starts laying the Langstroth frames you can slowly move the extended National frame to the outside of the box an d remove it. Have a good season. Cheers Kim

[@johnmurphy380]

@@kimberesford2444 Thanks for the reply, what I have been planning is on making a double brood box to Langstroth dimensions. Place 10 empty langstroth frames and foundation in this half, The other side I hope to pad out sides and floor with wood/ polystyerne to bring it to suit nation frames. Then place full national colony here when bee activity and weather improve. Place feeder on top and too many kgs of sugar later I would hope colony have expanded across and then do a split taking 5 to 6 of the langstroth frames out to new hive and then repeat process. Thanks mentioning temperature and cold brood. I was wondering myself on how much floor ventilation I should have and reckon a strip of veroa mesh approximately one third of the floor area should be adquate. As hive will not always be full. That's my theory, whether it will be successful or not only time will tell. Shall keep you posted as project progresses.

[@kimberesford2444]

@@johnmurphy380 it sounds like an interesting project. I’ll be interested to hear how you get on..

[@SWeeks_CS]

Great video! Do you have any dimensions for the nuc conversion?

[@kimberesford2444]

Hi there, apologies for taking so long to respond to your comment. I'm not quite sure how I missed the notification as normally I take great care to reply to everyone. Thanks for the sub by the way. I don't have dimensions for the conversion to hand. It was a prototype and I just subtracted the width of the national frames from the langstroth ones. I divided this distance by two and made each end cheek to that size. I hope that helps. I'll try and find time to measure up and make another video of the construction now the winter months are approaching.

[@JP-nx9rm]

Could you not just use two national frames mixed in with the langstroth frames then remove the original frames once they’ve drawn the Lang’s and replace with Lang frames and found ?

[@kimberesford2444]

Absolutely yes and I have done it that way with push on lug extenders and even just by putting a screw down the end of each lug to bridge the gap and it works but you get surplus comb build up underneath the extended lugs and it’s a bit long winded. Also I wanted to transfer the entire five frame nuc onto Langstroth frames without too much messing about and stressing of the bees by swapping frames in and out, so I thought I’d give this a go and it works well for me. It was cheap and easy to make and I will get a good few years use out of it. It also goes back into two separate Langstroth nucs with no messing too so I’m very happy with the result.

[@JP-nx9rm]

@@kimberesford2444 yes that’s good ! I want to do just the one transfer this spring so the screw idea is good !