FYI: Are You a Checkerboarding Beekeeper?

From: "CIBA MEMBERS" <donotreply@PROTECTED>

Date: March 14th 2023

Are you a beekeeper who uses Checkerboarding is an early spring hive-management strategy? - If so… Heads Up. - The date for action is coming up quickly.

This is an FYI, awareness only email. It is primarily intended as a reminder for experienced beekeepers who may wish to use the technique. - It Does Not provide detailed instructions. (Though links to additional information are provided below)

Checkerboarding is a hive management strategy based on the premise that, in early spring, in advance of the honey-flow, honeybee colonies can assess colony status. Then, depending on the perceived status, the colony will proceed in one of two ways:

Build up colony strength for swarming. (Remember, from a species perspective swarming is colony reproduction. This is a very strong natural drive).
Or, Forego swarming and build up colony honey stores.

Checkerboarding requires advance preparation. It involves adding at least two supers, with drawn frames placed in an alternating pattern: Drawn-Empty frames alternated with Drawn-Capped Honey. This requires having available capped honey frames from the previous fall. You will need at least 10). Supers are best set-up in advance.

When should checkerboarding be done? Target date for checkerboarding is based on accumulated Growth Degree Days (GDD), a measure of the rate at which warmth is accumulating in the soil.

50 GDD is the target value. This day varies from year to year, this year it is accumulating much more quickly than normal. Accumulated GDDs, by zip code, can be viewed HERE.

The video links below go into more detail about the theory and practice.

Brief introduction to Checkerbording - about 20 minutes