Complete list of Walt's articles on Checkerboard, click here. Complete list of all of Walt's articles, click here.   Send a message to the Webmaster Pictured with Walt are Butch Adams and Fritz Freese at the first checkerboard demonstration session

Walt Wright (center above) is a member of the Madison County Beekeepers Association and resides just north of Huntsville, Alabama USA in Elkton, Tennessee, USA.

The above picture was taken on Saturday March 5, 2005 at the first session of a demonstration of Walt's Checkerboard technique.   The demonstration will last all summer and is available for anyone who would like to drop by and participate in or just to see the progress.   

The two above hives are to be used only for this demonstration.   The two hives were wintered in 1 medium super on the bottom board followed by one deep and 2 shallows (as shown).   All boxes have 9 frames.   All frames have drawn comb.

The schedule of events for the demonstration is roughly as follows:

March 5, 2005 the two hives stacks were disassembled and reassembled with the deep that contained the brood ball on the bottom board, followed by the medium that was empty, followed by two "checkerboard" shallow.    Checkerboard (in simple terms) amounts to alternating combs "with honey" and combs with no honey such that when placed back in the hive stack the "honey filled" and "honey empty" frames are alternated vertically and horizontally.  (In theory it is a bit more complicated).

Specifically frame 1, if filled with honey, will have a frame of empty comb next to it and an empty comb above it.    Frame 2 in this case would be an empty frame with a "honey filled" frame on each side and one above it.   Hence the term "checkerboard".  

Ie....the filled and unfilled frames alternate in each shallow supers.  The frames in the two shallow supers are staggered so that every empty frame has a filled frame to its side and above.

Where "F" represents Filled with honey and E represents empty the two super frames would be as follows: 

Super 5:E F E F E F E F E

Super 4:F E F E F E F E F

Note: An error in this picture was corrected on Sept 29, 2005.   Specifically, the bottom medium was added.   Correction 2 was made made Oct 21, 2005 to change from all "E" to all "F" in the bottom super.  These were drawing errors, the hives were not changed.

It does not matter if super 4 or 5 is on top as long as they alternate "F" and "E" pattern is maintained.    

March 26, 2005 No further manipulation will be made only need to meet is to monitor the brood build up in all 5 boxes.   The bees had removed the honey from the checkerboard frames that originally had honey.   From this point through fall the only activity will be adding supers and removing honey.

May 27, 2005 The honey flow is pretty near over but the top super on hive 2 was full so a second shallow was added.

June 30, 2005 Hive 1 has 6 shallow production supers with no empty space below the top most super.   Hive 2 has 5 shallow production supers with no empty space below the top super.

August 31, 2005 Starting at the bottom board and counting up, supers 4,5,6,7 and 8 were removed from hive WR2 (Walt's left side) and supers 4,5,6,7,8 and 9 were removed from hive WR1 (Walt's right side)  and  processed.  

The very top super was left on both colonies (click here for details as to why).  It will be removed just prior to fall medication around 15 September. Any additional honey these supers contain will be included and the yields will be updated. 

Both hives passed the "heft" test so it appears they have adequate winter stores at this time.   Honey produced was determined by weighing each super prior to uncapping and again after extracting the honey.   In reality, the weights given include what beeswax that came off with the cappings and what little Propolis was scraped from the supers as part of cleanup.   

In this part of Alabama it is not that uncommon for a colony the size of these to make an additional super of fall honey.    This possible additional honey will be sacrificed in favor of more effective medication and to assure adequate winter stores.   Yield could be increased if this honey was removed and the bees fed for winter survival.

September 28, 2005 All hives in the demonstration yard were "hefted" to approximate winter stores.   The two checkerboard hives were estimated to have in excess of 100 lbs of honey which is more than adequate for this part of Alabama.   One of the non-checkerboard hives (BOG-2) was quiet light and will require winter feeding.   All others including the high yielding BOG-1 appear to have adequate winter stores (100 lbs or so).

DEMONSTRATION RESULTS

BOG 5 and 6 are current year splits.   BOG 7 was used for another experiment this year. BOG 8 was a current class "trap colony".		BOG 1 and 2 are second year colonies.   BOG 3 and 4 are first year colonies.   WR1 and WR2 are Checkerboard colonies
Not part of demonstration	This picture was taken 31 August 2005.	Part of demonstration

Background

The above is a picture of the entire yard in which this checkerboard demonstration was conduced.  The yard is located on the grounds of the Huntsville Botanical Garden.   The yard location within the garden was based more on ascetics than honey production however most hobby beekeepers are likely to face the same options in their apiaries.  

This yard is used for training and educational purposes.   The colony in the foreground near the fence was a trap hive that the spring 2005 class set up and it captured a nice size swarm.   It was not part of the checkerboard demonstration.  

Each new class starts 2 new colonies each spring.   Every winter the two colonies that are three years old are removed.   This leaves 2 new start colonies, 2 one year and 2 two year established colonies for them to work with.   The thought behind this practice is to teach 3 years of beekeeping in one series of sessions.

In an effort to compare the results of checkerboard colonies to non checkerboard colonies.   Records were kept and yield comparison made.   Only the 1 and 2 year old colonies were included (four total hives).

The first week in March the non-checkerboard hives were manipulated to prevent swarming.   From 4 colonies, two strong (5 brood frames each) splits were made and the boxes were reversed so that the brood was on the bottom and the empty box on top.   The checkerboard colonies were manipulated as described above and no brood was removed for splits.

As is evident by the above picture that neither of the checkerboard hives swarmed.   One of the non-checkerboard hives did not swarm.  The other 3 non-checkerboard did swarm.

When the honey was removed, each super was weighed (dry), then the honey extracted and the super and frames (wet) were weighed again.   Yield was determined by subtracting the "wet" weigh from the "dry" weight.