10-frame bee hives
We mainly operate with small size colonies. We work with only 150 Dadant 10-frame bee hives.
- They produce the right amount of males required for the saturation of our fertilization zone.
- A few of them are provided with pollen traps in order to produce the protein dough used for the breeders and the jelly hives.
- When the colza starts to blossom, we remove 1 or 2 package bees to fill the Kielers.
- At the end of the season, we generally collect one swarm on 3 different frames to renew the frames.
- During summer time, they guarantee a honey income to indemnify the apiaries’ owners.
Behaviour of the bee hives:
The change of queen in the hive:
We try to maintain a large genetic diversity to strengthen the queens against the diseases.
- At the beginning of the season, we renew ¼ of our hives by putting queens from tested breeds in new hives.
- At the end of the season, we eliminate the 2 to 3 year old queens (1/4 of the bee population) and replace them with fertilized queen bees coming from the nuclei.
N.B. The average age for a queen in the hive is two years old. In the small hives, 90% of the queens are less than 1 year old.
Anti-varroa treatments:
- Summer: 2 oxalic acid treatments by drops + pieces of cardboard soaked with amitraz. The treatments start as soon as we begin the honey chambers’ crop (before the winter laying)
- Winter: 1 oxalic acid treatment + pieces of cardboard soaked with amitraz, out of the brood.
Struggle against diseases:
- As a consequence of our good behaviour (very fast rotation of the frames, 90% of our queens are less than 1 year old…), we maintain a low rate of diseases. -* We strictly NEVER use antibiotics even to treat the Foulbrood or Nosema.
The feeding:
- We never feed the hives. As well, we never stimulate the colonies with diluted syrup.
- At the beginning of March, when the males’ laying starts, we distribute a little quantity of protein dough to all the hives. Meanwhile, we insert the males’ frames.
Hives’ behaviour:
The different formats of hives used on our farm specializing in queen rearing and the swarms production
Multilingual apiarian lexicon
Our production 
We are French bee-keepers. Our whole production is located on a perimeter of 10 km around our town, Giroussens, which is a little village in the (...)
10-frame bee hives
We mainly operate with small size colonies. We work with only 150 Dadant 10-frame bee hives. They produce the right amount of males required for (...)
Production of honey
Until 2010, our work was more than 90% orientated on the breeding. Since the arrival of Fabienne, my wife, and Xavier, my son, our honey (...)
Production of pollen
At the beginning of spring, we place the pollen traps on about 50 hives, while the willows and cistus are flowering.
We use some pollen bottom (...)
Divisible hives
In July 2007, Mister Christian Nicot from Nicoplast establishment introduced me to his colonies behaviour in his Dadant 1 shallow-frame honey (...)
6-frame bee hives
The 6-frame bee hives represent the main element of our production. We actually own more than a 1000 and overwinter more than 800 yearly.
End of (...)
Maxi-Plus bee hives
"Maxi plus”, or “maxi +”, is our naming. It refers to the honey chamber’s size for Dadant 6-frame hives. It is twice the volume of a size "Mini +". (...)
The nucleus mating "Mini plus"
In the past, we were using some wooden MiniPlus for the production of queens during the season. The size was sufficient to overwinter some queens (...)
The nucleus mating "Kielers"
We essentially produce our mated queens in Kielers. Starting up of the Kielers:
The Kielers are put into service from mid-April (blossoms of the (...)
