# 5 Hives



## Cotton

I thought I’d start a thread about my bees. Last fall an uncle of mine had a discussion about bees about the time I found that wild bee tree. I had a failed attempt with bees a few years ago. His attempt last year failed.

He has a cabinet shop but the housing market has been slow around here for several years. We decided to get bees this spring. Build all our hives together in his shop. He also wants to become the major beekeeping equipment supplier in this area. I plan to give him and extra set of hands when he needs it.

A few weeks ago I ordered 5 packages of bees, he ordered 6. I dug all my old bee gear out of the barn, salvaged what I could and cleaned it up. He and I built every thing we could. We both ordered frames, we intend to build our own next year.

I picked up my bees last Thursday got all 5 packages into hives. My uncle and I are still building. I want everything I need on hand for 10 hives.

Tomorrow I open my hives to make sure all the queens have escaped their cages. I’ll be updating this thread from time to time. Any tips would be appreciated from you experienced beekeepers.


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## Cotton

I went up on the hill this afternoon. I have 6 acres of crimson and hop clover blooming. Thousands of my bees were feeding. Princess trees are blooming as well as tulip poplars. One huge tulip poplar is 40ft from one of my hives. The bees have more nectar and pollen than they can handle. Hop Clover has yellow blooms, so no, my grass isn't dying... lol Both clovers set nitrogen in the soil... good for my hay later in the summer!


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## Caribou

That is great. Thanks for the photos.

I get one package on the 28th and my second package on the 30th, if everything goes right. I'm starting off with two queen hives in each package. I know you're as excited as I am.


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## Cotton

Caribou said:


> That is great. Thanks for the photos.
> 
> I get one package on the 28th and my second package on the 30th, if everything goes right. I'm starting off with two queen hives in each package. I know you're as excited as I am.


That's great! Wish you well. My first attempt didn't turn out so well.

This is what this field (with all the clover) used to look like in spring when I had a 200 tree peach orchard. It had reached the end of its commercial life, dad was 78 and couldn't take the summer heat anymore. 4 years ago my plan was to replace the peach income with honey, a five year plan.

I pulled up all but 30 trees, left a few for family. I got my bees, set them up there. The next thing I saw was dad spraying malathion on the few trees left as he'd done for years. It was dripping down on the crimson clover under the trees. So much for my bees, it was slow and ugly. He didn't mean to kill my bees&#8230; different time, different age. When he grew up the government had you spay and dust every thing with DDT.


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## Caribou

Cotton said:


> The next thing I saw was dad spraying malathion on the few trees left as he'd done for years. It was dripping down on the crimson clover under the trees. So much for my bees, it was slow and ugly. He didn't mean to kill my bees&#8230; different time, different age. When he grew up the government had you spay and dust every thing with DDT.


I ache just reading it, it must have been terrible to watch. This time will be better. Rolling in clover is the expression. Pun intended.


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## Cotton

Day 4… Today I opened all my hives to check if all the queens had been released from their little cages by the worker bees. A perfect morning for it, cool, over cast. The bees were moving slowly.

I found what I hoped to, 5 empty queen cages. I saw 4 of the queens on the frames. I didn’t see the 5th one but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t there. It’s difficult to see one bee among thousands.

Bees were building comb in each hive. I have one weak hive, there was a lot of dead loss in that package. I have two really strong hives. The other two are in between. I set the frame spacing and closed the hives back up. :beercheer:


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## Caribou

Is that the 4.9mm cell size? I like those one piece frames and I plan on switching to them both to speed up honey collection with less potential damage to the frames, and to get the smaller cell size to help with mite control. My plan is to buy the black frames to more easily see the eggs.


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## ClemKadiddlehopper

Bee keeping is really fascinating. Bees are like chickens; really hard to count so its easy to do the math.


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## Balls004

Stupid question maybe, but can I just start the colonies and let them and nature do the rest? I'm not really interested in taking on more work harvesting the honey, but I do like to have the bees around...


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## Cotton

Balls004 said:


> Stupid question maybe, but can I just start the colonies and let them and nature do the rest? I'm not really interested in taking on more work harvesting the honey, but I do like to have the bees around...


If you let nature do the rest they won't be yours. Like any plant or animal, if you want to keep it you have to protect it. Predators, whether turnip greens after a frost or bees. if you want them... you'll have to take care of them. Short answer. 

Long answer... if you continue to buy packages of bees, year after year, and let nature take it's course... after a few years your woods will be full of bees. Unless predators kill all of them...


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## Caribou

Balls004 said:


> Stupid question maybe, but can I just start the colonies and let them and nature do the rest? I'm not really interested in taking on more work harvesting the honey, but I do like to have the bees around...


You are not the only one that loves bees but doesn't want the work. Contact a bee keeping group and see if they can set you up with someone looking for a place to keep a hive. Bees are arriving in my area for the next couple of weeks so you had better hurry if you are interested this year.

They will come by on a regular basis to work the hive and haul it away at the end of the season.


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## Grimm

I got to see the wild hive swarm this morning while tending the chickens. They were all over my neighbors' orange tree that hangs over the fence. After a bit they were gone until late afternoon. They are so much fun to watch!


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## ClemKadiddlehopper

Balls004 said:


> Stupid question maybe, but can I just start the colonies and let them and nature do the rest? I'm not really interested in taking on more work harvesting the honey, but I do like to have the bees around...


Yes, you can have bees with minimal intervention. I do treatment free and I was busy and didn't do anything at all with them last year other then to check they remained disease free. My loss rate is no better or worse than the hands on, treat the crap out of them people have.

You will have to do some work, but not much. This year I want to do some splits, so I will have to micro manage them a bit. Seriously though, bees are really interesting to watch and keeping a few hives is worth the trouble. Even if you get lazy with the bee keeping like I do, you still end up doing extra things like planting stuff to make them happy.

Google Micheal Bush/ the practical beekeeper for some online information and he has some good hive body ideas for making things a lot easier and keeping it simple.


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## Balls004

Thanks all, I'll look into it y'alls suggestions.


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## worldengineer

Bees are an interesting set of creatures! I started 4 years ago with them. Didn't buy any at first. Just my equipment from an old bee man getting out due to developed allergy, crazy thing. He actually helped me a lot getting started bought a bunch of equipment from him, and he ended up giving me about twice as much as I bought just to help. Went from 1 hive to 2 then to 5 back to 1 now at 3 in my 5th year? Difficult little bugs to keep going in today's world. I am 100% treatment free.

*Enough of that here are my suggestions as a novice who does for fun. *

Build you're equipment after the first few, but build to spec! You seem to be doing that.

Don't buy but your first couple hives. Splits are easy and swarms are free!

Sugar water is essential for splits and packages as well. But don't over do it, causes health problems.

Foundation isn't really necessary just keep them in check so they work in lines.

Hope that helps! Whomever reads this.


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## Caribou

worldengineer said:


> Foundation isn't really necessary just keep them in check so they work in lines.
> 
> .


Could you expand on this statement?


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## ClemKadiddlehopper

Along with treatment free, I also go 90% foundationless. I use the usual frames, but there is just a starter strip on the top bar as a guide for the bees to get started.

Bees are like people. They don't always build things the way we would like them to. If I were to put only foundationless frames in the hive box, there is a high likelyhood that somebody is going to start building crooked comb when the goal is to keep them between the lines (frame) thus preventing a big gooey mess and keeping brood damage to a minimum.

To get the bees building straight comb, it is common to put one frame with foundation next to a foundationless frame. This gives them a reference point to build straight combs. Eventually, as they fill up the foundationless frames, you can replace the ones with foundation,with foundationless frames if this happens to be important to you. 

Pretty much all bees wax is contaminated with pesticides brought into the hive from their surroundings and also from all of the treatments that are common to bee keeping. Beeswax is used to put a coating on the plastic foundations, and therefore it adds the first level of contamination to a new hive. Cell size is another reason for going foundationless and it is down to ones own opinion if this matters or not.


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## Caribou

I have just noticed ants on my property. Is this a potential problem with my bees?


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## Cotton

Caribou said:


> I have just noticed ants on my property. Is this a potential problem with my bees?


I'd find out the species of ant, they may be no threat at all. Knowing the species of ant and what they feed on will give you the answer.

I know fireants can't survive where you live... thankfully. One of my rabbits had a litter a few years ago during the night, 5 little hairless bunnies. The next morning when I checked her cage I found 3 dead bunnies and 2 that wished they were. I put them down. Fireants! They'd climbed a pole, walked across a rafter then down a small cable that suspended the cage...

I learned something the other day. Fireants hate peppermint leaves, from the plant. I bought two plants at lowes. Hopefully I'll see if fireants start to bother one of my hives... I'll drop in a few leaves, bees don't care about peppermint... Two peppermint plants and a lemon balm.


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## Balls004

Nothing good comes from fireants...

Kill them every chance you can.

The best you can do if they are in your area is keep them at bay.


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## Grimm

I love this thread! Please keep up the posts even if they are just a sentence long. I am learning more here than weeks of research and watching youtube videos.


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## hashbrown

Where did Noah keep his bees?...





















In the ark hives........ Yes, I Know where the door is.


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## Cotton

I had to move one of my hives last night. I’d stupidly put it too close to the woods at the east end of the garden. It didn’t get direct sunlight until 11am. I posted this in a beekeeping forum and learned my mistake was even more serious.

It turns out that hives in full sunlight all day have fewer problems with the “small hive beetle”. Hives in shade are almost guaranteed to have problems. 

So, I took the advice of the experienced beekeepers in the forum. I sealed the hive entrance after dark. I picked up the hive and placed it on a garden cart. I carefully pulled the cart about 30 feet to a location I’d prepared. I place the hive there and leaned a couple of objects against the front of the hive. The purpose of the objects (inner hive cover and a leafy sapling) was to confuse the bees when they came out this morning. It forced the bees to take reorientation flights, re-learn the location of their home and how it looked.

It worked, this afternoon the bees were bringing in pollen. The foragers were bringing food back to the hive in the new location without problems.

The hive still isn’t in an ideal location but it’s better than it was. 

In Dec of ’14 I was cleaning off a fence line I posted about it. I intended to put a herb bed there. I still intend to, it’s going to be a bee yard surrounded by herbs. I have to build 100ft of new fence, I sunk the gate post today. When I finish the fence I’m pulling up the old one behind the hives. This will allow me to get all my hives to a better situation.


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## divemaster19631

Hey cotton. I know you from the bee forum. Keep a eye on those all plastic frames. HB love to hide in the slots in the tops and sides of those frames. Bees can't heard them. I'm slowly rebuilding my losses from the winter. Lost 30 hives due to the very weird weather we had last winter they got caught out of cluster when cold snap happened and could not get back on stores. . Was down to 11 hives. Just picked up two swarms and divided 2 strong hives. Plan to split more in three weeks. Also have a trap out going in a 180 year old cedar tree. I do natural bee keeping with feral bees. Almost no vero mites.


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## Cotton

divemaster19631 said:


> Hey cotton. I know you from the bee forum. Keep a eye on those all plastic frames. HB love to hide in the slots in the tops and sides of those frames. Bees can't heard them. I'm slowly rebuilding my losses from the winter. Lost 30 hives due to the very weird weather we had last winter they got caught out of cluster when cold snap happened and could not get back on stores. . Was down to 11 hives. Just picked up two swarms and divided 2 strong hives. Plan to split more in three weeks. Also have a trap out going in a 180 year old cedar tree. I do natural bee keeping with feral bees. Almost no vero mites.


Hey dive master, I recognize your name. Thanks for the tip, I ran out of time this spring an ordered the ez frames. I'm building equipment with my uncle in his cabinet shop. He ran out of time too, wasn't set up for cutting frame parts. Next year we'll be ready to make frames.

I got my new fence built today and I'll hang the gate tomorrow and start ripping out the over grown fence between my hives. This is going to be my bee yard. I sowed a 50ft X 10ft strip with borage by the old fence. I also sowed borage on the 2 acres on the hill. It's supposed to rain, fingers crossed.


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## divemaster19631

No need for the fence. Great looking guard dog. For the hives. Does he like honey? Mine stands and waits till I'm finished bottling so he can have some of the leftovers.


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## worldengineer

Caribou said:


> Could you expand on this statement?


Sure can, sorry it took so long though. Bees don't need humanity's help. They've been building comb since their creation and will continue to do so.

Foundation is man's way of helping the bees produce comb in straight lines within the hive, on its removable frame. Top Bar Hives do not typically use foundation, they simply use a bar across the top with a "guide" that runs along the bar giving the bees a straight edge to follow.

The same is achievable in the Langstroth (conventional) hive. The small wooden wedge that you break out of the new frame upon purchase can be your guide. Instead of installing it back in the same way as you would when using foundation, instead turn it up on end so more protrudes downward. The bees will then use this as the attachment point and follow it downwards.

If you do chose foundation go with the 4.9 dadant, its the natural cell size. Instead of the 5.1.

I'm a better doer/shower than teller!


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## Cotton

divemaster19631 said:


> No need for the fence. Great looking guard dog. For the hives. Does he like honey? Mine stands and waits till I'm finished bottling so he can have some of the leftovers.


He's my 110lb puppy, named "Joe". He'll eat anything but ketchup... Won't even eat a french fry laying next to ketchup on a plate.  He'll eat cantaloupe with mustard on it, but not ketchup... lol. But yes, he likes honey... 

The new fence is to keep my cows out of my bee yard.


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## Cotton

I finished building and painting two bottom boards with screens. They are for the two hives that have solid bottom boards (one pictured below). I'll swap them Saturday when I inspect all the hives. I also ripped out half of the old fence, hopefully I'll get the rest of it tomorrow.

There are several stumps on the old fence line. I think I have a solution. The old field line from the septic tank collapsed. I discovered this monday when I had to get the tank pumped. Then I had to get the lady from the health department to come out. She insists on 200ft of field lines instead of the 75ft line that worked well for 40 years. I had a guy come out and give me an estimate... $2200, to dig and install new field lines. Anyway... he's bringing out a big track hoe. While he's here I'm going to try and get him to spend 30 minutes and yank out those stumps. 

This was the hottest day of the year so far. This afternoon the hive that gets more sun than the others had a little "Bearding" action going on... a behavior bees do sometimes to cool the hive. They are hanging from the bottom of their front porch in the shade enjoying the breeze.


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## hashbrown

Cotton said:


> I finished building and painting two bottom boards with screens. They are for the two hives that have solid bottom boards (one pictured below). I'll swap them Saturday when I inspect all the hives. I also ripped out half of the old fence, hopefully I'll get the rest of it tomorrow.
> 
> There are several stumps on the old fence line. I think I have a solution. The old field line from the septic tank collapsed. I discovered this monday when I had to get the tank pumped. Then I had to get the lady from the health department to come out. She insists on 200ft of field lines instead of the 75ft line that worked well for 40 years. I had a guy come out and give me an estimate... $2200, to dig and install new field lines. Anyway... he's bringing out a big track hoe. While he's here I'm going to try and get him to spend 30 minutes and yank out those stumps.
> 
> This was the hottest day of the year so far. This afternoon the hive that gets more sun than the others had a little "Bearding" action going on... a behavior bees do sometimes to cool the hive. They are hanging from the bottom of their front porch in the shade enjoying the breeze.


I scrolled down and looked at your photo and new exactly what part of the day it was. Do they allow the 10" laterals in your area? You can cut out a lot of footage that way.


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## Cotton

hashbrown said:


> I scrolled down and looked at your photo and new exactly what part of the day it was. Do they allow the 10" laterals in your area? You can cut out a lot of footage that way.


You lost me completely, I have no idea what 10" laterals are, or why they are important. And... What kind of "footage" completely ignorant here... Not in my books and can't find a reference on the net...


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## hashbrown

Cotton said:


> You lost me completely, I have no idea what 10" laterals are, or why they are important. And... What kind of "footage" completely ignorant here...


Bigger field lines mean less footage of line. Plus some of the new field lines require no gravel.


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## Cotton

I thought you were talking about bees... lol. Still don't know, seems to be a racket here with the health department and contractors (probably someone on a state house or senate select committee is getting campaign contributions). Contractors have to attend special classes for certification, and then they get on the health department "list" for being recommended to customers... (got some feedback from a couple of old timers who got shut out of the business)

However, I will give the guy a call tomorrow and find out if 10" laterals are legal here. Thank You for the tip!


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## Caribou

You might also be able to do the work yourself. They don't like it but often you can push the issue. There may be a special class but on your own property there are certain exemptions similar to being able to do the wiring on your own home.


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## Cotton

hashbrown said:


> Bigger field lines mean less footage of line. Plus some of the new field lines require no gravel.


Hashbrown...I didn't get a chance to call the guy, he showed up first thing this morning with a big backhoe and a track hoe. He and a young guy completed the job in 6 hours. No, 10 inch laterals aren't an option here. He only ran 188ft of line, the health department lady came out and signed off on the install.  I didn't expect the guy until next week... oh well.

He was kind enough to dig up a few stumps near my hives after he finished the install. Still it goes against the grain to pay a guy $2200 to dig up a perfectly fine garden&#8230;


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## Cotton

A worrisome few days with the bees... Last Saturday I opened all my hives for the 15 day inspection (actually day 16). I checked laying pattern and strength of my queens and that all seems well, lots of food coming in. lots of nectar and pollen stored, honey beginning to be stored. 

4 of my hives looked great, 2 to 3 frames of capped brood. The strongest hive had 3 1/2 frames of brood. All was well except with 5th hive, my weakest hive from the start, more dead loss in the package than the others.

I couldn’t even find eggs or larva much less capped brood. I couldn’t find the queen either. I posted for advice on FB and in a bee forum. Advice varied, some queens start slow in a new hive. Too soon to make a call one way or the other.

I called my supplier and verified that I could get another queen. The soonest would be tomorrow if I drove 180 miles to pick one up, but I could get one. In the mean time I needed to open the hive again, look for an area of cleaned cells surrounded by nectar and pollen stores, also another search for a queen.

There were two days of rain but I finally got a look in the hive this afternoon. I found eggs and larva, the jury is still out on who laid the eggs, could be a queen, could be workers. Now I have to wait a few more days to see how the larva is capped. The way it’s capped will tell me if I have a laying queen or laying workers. In a hive with out a queen workers will start laying, but they can only lay drones, rounded caps on all the brood means all drones… and no queen.

I called my supplier again this afternoon. He agreed waiting to find out is a good thing. However, he’s convinced that even if this is queen brood she’s a weak queen and needs to be replaced. 

A side note… The size of the biggest larva tells me there were a few eggs there last Saturday. It’s the veil, I can’t see anything through that thing. Today I didn’t wear it when I opened the hive. I was able to see the eggs. I wore a long sleeve shirt, glove on my left hand, no veil and no glove on my right hand. I was fine, no aggressive behavior. I used a smoker, smoked my hand and face, not a single sting! 

So, waiting…


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## Caribou

It will be a bit before I get as brave as you with my bees. I hived my second package yesterday. I counted sixteen stings on the veil and I quit counting at 50 on the back of my jacket. My pants had a few and I didn't even check my gloves. Later I took some compost over to the pile. I was about fifty yards away from the hive and one of the ladies came over to yell some very unladylike things in my ear.


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## Cotton

Caribou said:


> It will be a bit before I get as brave as you with my bees. I hived my second package yesterday. I counted sixteen stings on the veil and I quit counting at 50 on the back of my jacket. My pants had a few and I didn't even check my gloves. Later I took some compost over to the pile. I was about fifty yards away from the hive and one of the ladies came over to yell some very unladylike things in my ear.


lol  I suited up when I installed my packages, I think I got one sting through my glove, out of 5 hives, I'll take that any day. Something I've heard from every old beekeeper I've ever talked too. The temperament of the beekeeper is very important. Make slow, steady, calm movements.

Something I learned in my last attempt with bees. Bees recognize people. My bees would be slightly more aggressive attitude if a stranger walked up with me to my hives. So this time... I spend 5 minutes with each hive a couple of times a day. I bought a little fold out stool at the outfitters store. I sit right by the hives and watch them. Sometimes my face is inches away checking pollen color the bees bring back. The guards pay me no mind at all... Incoming bees bounce of the back of my head but don't sting...


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## Caribou

Here are my girls. I keep them behind a chain link fence so they don't bother the neighbors. My wife decided to name the first two queens Sheba and Latifah. I told her she needed to come up with another 30,000 girl names for rest.


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## Cotton

That's a nice package of bees. I purchased 3lb packages but all were over that weight but one. That looks close to 4lbs of bees... 12 to 15000 bees?


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## Caribou

You called that one. Both my packages were four pounds. I plan on doing my first inspection this weekend.


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## Cotton

Today was clean up day around my hives, lawnmower and weedeater. I was surprised how well the bees tolerated the noise. Not one bit of aggression. They just ignored me and went about their bee business.


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## Cotton

The clean up continues. Beside that hive is a 10ft tall mass of brambles, briars, Virginia creeper, honey suckle, sumac, buckthorn and mulberry. Normally I’d take a chainsaw to it. I can’t in this case because there are also 9 Elderberry shrubs in that mess, 5 I transplanted last year. So, the hard way, pruning sheers. I managed to free up the little ones I set out and a nice 6 footer.  Back at it tomottow!


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## Cotton

Some of you may remember the first photo. In Dec of 2014 I started cleaning off an over grown fence line. I wanted an herb bed 150ft long (there abouts). I cleaned off about 100ft of the fence. I have health issues, the project stopped there. What I had cleaned grew back up last summer. The second photo is from 24Arp16, this year’s growth on the fence. Photos 3&4 are from this afternoon. The fence line is clean except for a big stump and a few snags.

There will be a herb bed 150ft long and a bee yard, getting there. 

Hey Caribou, where are those hive inspection photo’s?


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## Caribou

Cotton said:


> Hey Caribou, where are those hive inspection photo's?


First inspection Sunday or Monday depending on the weather.


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## Justaguy987

Duplicate post, see next post.


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## Justaguy987

Ok bee keepers, rather than make a new thread I'm posting this here. Let me first say I know nothing about raising bees except what I have learned from here. I stumbled across this hive a while ago and thought it was interesting then. I just came across it again, and thought I would ask everyone here what they thought about it and share it with everyone who may not have ever seen it.

This is basically a hive that that honey can be harvested from without opening it. There is a video that shows it and explains how it works, but I can't find a link to post just the video. Here is a picture of one of them, there are several styles shown. They seem expensive but if you don't have to open your hive, they might be worth it.








http://www.honeyflow.com


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## Caribou

Michael Bush, who is giving his blessings in the video, lectured at a symposium on bees that I attended. As far as bees go he isn't in the same galaxy as I am. I purchased his book but I'm trying to get through books that I have borrowed first so that I can return them. If he likes something I'd feel it worth a try.

Here is a link to Bush's book.
http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Bee...dp/1614760640?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0

I have heard other beekeepers mention this hive but none that have used it.


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## Cotton

JustaGuy987 The price is about $50 per frame with shipping. I’m using 10 frame medium honey supers. In a good honey year I’ll stack 4 to 5 honey supers on each hive. Lets say a real good year, makes the math easy.

50 of their frames would cost me $2500, for 5 hives = $12,500

I can buy assembled honey super frames from Dadant for $1.60 each, unassembled for 83 cents each. Let’s say I wanted to assemble them myself.

50 frames would cost me about $41, for 5 hives = $205

The biggest irony no one is talking about. These “flow frames” are supposedly so as not to “disturb” the bees.

With the constant plague of wax moths, hive beetles, ants, Varroa Mites and several other nastiness here in the US you’d better be opening your hives and inspecting every frame else you’ll wake up one morning and have no bees.

So, would I pay $12,295 for the privilege of opening my hives one less time each year?

One more bit of math… On average a hive will produce about 60 pounds honey each year. The going rate is around here is about $5.30 per pound if you bottle and sell it yourself. Thats $320 per hive… 5 hives I’ll gross about $1600, subtract hives, hive parts, quart jars, other equipment, time and effort. I’m hoping I’ll clear about $500 this year if I pay the hired help nothing (me). If I bought honey flow frames I’d be $12K in the hole.

I'll pass on the honey flow frames...


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## Caribou

Cotton, I would expect that you would only put one of these on each hive and then collect honey multiple times. It still works out to not bee cost effective in that for the cost of one honey super you can buy an entire regular hive with all the components including bees.

I think it is a great idea but the cost is outside my comfort level. I was talking to a couple of my bee keeping friends today and found out that a member of our beekeeping group has one of these and will be reporting to the club this fall on his experience.


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## Caribou

...........
The one with the queen excluder is my two queen hive. The other one had two but I lost one. She is resting in some vodka and will become a lure for wild bees.


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## Cotton

I have to ask... Why are you putting 2 queens in with each package? An Alaska thing?

Last comment on "Honey flow supers" I was using the extreme ends of the picture in my above post. That said, even if everything goes right, no diseases or pestilence, it’s not cost effective for any imagined benefit. It’s sold in pairs of honey supers, 2 - 8 frame supers for $700 without shipping from half way around the world. That’s $43.75 per frame.

I can build all the honey supers I need for a hive for $32 and fill them with frames for $41. That’s $73 per hive verses $700. Add paint and call it $100 per hive, still a 7 to 1 ratio.

If a backyard beekeeper gets hit by diseases or pestilence it goes from “not cost effective” to a “disaster of biblical proportions”, a money pit!

All my prepper projects have to pay for themselves, whether knowledge gained or in cash. And that’s how I approach “Honey Flow Frames”

What is this “imagined” benefit? You open the hive one less time each year? You still have to leave regular supers so the bees can store honey for themselves for winter food. So now you have conventional supers and “Honey Flow Supers” on the same hive.

At the end of the day you still have to open each hive several times a year and inspect each frame to know it things are going badly. This is being sold as “don’t have to open hives or disturb the bees”, as if the only time a hive is opened is to harvest honey. It’s a bad idea on so many levels. In a perfect world this might make sense… we all know it’s not a perfect world.


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## Cotton

Also, maybe it’s a southeastern thing, hive beetles love pollen patties. I was instructed to give each hive a 1 inch strip and none after May 1st. My bees have been bringing in tons of pollen since day one. I had 6 acres of crimson color waiting for them.

I sit and watch, a bee every two to three minutes comes in loaded with pollen. For every bee with pollen there are 30 loaded with nectar. The pollen color can tell you what they are feeding on, a best guess anyway, lots of color charts on the net. I’ve seen pollen colors ranging from black to brown to silver to orange (several shades) and a dozen shades of yellow. I’ve learned that trees and large shrubs give the largest diversity of pollen color.


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## Caribou

Two queens produce twice as many bees. Twice as many bees produce more than twice as much honey. A queen costs about $25. It is a bit more work but cost effective. For the cost of a few honey supers and a queen you more than double the honey.

There are two ways, that I know of, to set up a two queen hive. You can start off side by side with a barrier down the middle of the brood super. Basically you have two nuc's in one box. The other way is to have one queen in the bottom brood box ant another in the upper brood box with an excluder between. This is a simplification.

Here is a video of the system I used this year. The guy that taught me made the video and he runs numerous two queen hives.
https://www.alaskawildflowerhoney.com/videos/

Next weekend I have a two queen class by another beekeeper that uses the other method.


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## Cotton

Cotton said:


> A worrisome few days with the bees... Last Saturday I opened all my hives for the 15 day inspection (actually day 16). I checked laying pattern and strength of my queens and that all seems well, lots of food coming in. lots of nectar and pollen stored, honey beginning to be stored.
> 
> 4 of my hives looked great, 2 to 3 frames of capped brood. The strongest hive had 3 1/2 frames of brood. All was well except with 5th hive, my weakest hive from the start, more dead loss in the package than the others.
> 
> I couldn't even find eggs or larva much less capped brood. I couldn't find the queen either. I posted for advice on FB and in a bee forum. Advice varied, some queens start slow in a new hive. Too soon to make a call one way or the other.
> 
> I called my supplier and verified that I could get another queen. The soonest would be tomorrow if I drove 180 miles to pick one up, but I could get one. In the mean time I needed to open the hive again, look for an area of cleaned cells surrounded by nectar and pollen stores, also another search for a queen.
> 
> There were two days of rain but I finally got a look in the hive this afternoon. I found eggs and larva, the jury is still out on who laid the eggs, could be a queen, could be workers. Now I have to wait a few more days to see how the larva is capped. The way it's capped will tell me if I have a laying queen or laying workers. In a hive with out a queen workers will start laying, but they can only lay drones, rounded caps on all the brood means all drones&#8230; and no queen.
> 
> I called my supplier again this afternoon. He agreed waiting to find out is a good thing. However, he's convinced that even if this is queen brood she's a weak queen and needs to be replaced.
> 
> A side note&#8230; The size of the biggest larva tells me there were a few eggs there last Saturday. It's the veil, I can't see anything through that thing. Today I didn't wear it when I opened the hive. I was able to see the eggs. I wore a long sleeve shirt, glove on my left hand, no veil and no glove on my right hand. I was fine, no aggressive behavior. I used a smoker, smoked my hand and face, not a single sting!
> 
> So, waiting&#8230;


I got my answer, bad news. I have laying workers in a queenless hive. Today all the larva I saw last week has been capped... drone caps

As best I understand it... I must get a new queen which I will pick up Wednesday. I have to prepare a new hive and put her in it.

Then I remove the old hive with the bees in it, take it at least 50yrds away and dump out all the bees. In the mean time the new hive I prepared will be placed on the hive stand now empty.

Laying workers will kill a new queen and have to be removed from the hive also laying workers can't fly. The good worker bees will fly back to their hive (now a new hive with a queen). The laying workers (bad bees) will die on the ground overnight.

I still have a dozen questions like the stored nectar/pollen in the old hive, moving capped brood from my strong hives etc. I've posted in a beekeeping forum. Hopefully I'll have all the answers by Wednesday.


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## Caribou

As I understand it, you should place the honey and bee bread back in the hive. You could place the brood back as well but you will only get drones. Ten to fifteen percent of drones is okay anyway. You should be able to use the same hive as long as you shake all the bees out. 

The laying workers and the nurse bees have not been on an orientation flight so they will not find their way back. The field bees will find their way home and some will fall back on nursing and queen care. I would imagine that you want to leave the queen in the cage for three or four days to let them get used to her smell. 

You might take a frame or two of brood from another hive(s) and add that in to this hive to give you a start on young bees as it may be a few days after you release the queen before she starts laying. Having eggs and capped brood should give a real good start.


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## Cotton

So much going on with this problem hive I waited until some of the dust had cleared to write about it. 

I went and got a queen in Gadsden on the 11th. About a 360 mile round trip for one bee. I picked up a few more goodies while I was there. David cut me out a nuc box. I bought another 50 frames with foundation and I got another veil and pair of gloves. I’ve seen already, some jobs need 4 hands.

When I got home I put a hive together with 2 frames in it and the queen but didn’t remove the cork from the cage. I loaded it on the tail gate and backed up to the problem hive. I smoked the hive to drive bees on the porch into the hive then sealed it. Then I switched places with the two hives.

I drove halfway down the driveway then carried the bad hive to the mail box and dumped all the bees onto the ground from every hive component, sometimes smoking them off. Dad was carrying cleared components to the truck for me.

I drove back up to the new hive and most of the bees were waiting on me. The hive was covered with angry bees, inside and out. I put in the 4 frames of brood/stored nectar/pollen and honey, put the top on and back away.

24 hours later I opened the hive and checked the queen. She had a couple dozen bees tending to her, feeding her. A very good sign that they were accepting her.

I got a surprise the next morning (Friday). There was a dead drone pupa on the porch and several more on the ground in front of the hive. After a day of messaging several experts, they took it to mean that the new queen had been accepted. The bees were now cleaning house, getting rid of all the drone pupa, and cleaning cells for the new queen to lay in.

I went ahead and popped the cork from the cage and scratched the candy. This morning there were a few more pupa in front of the hive. The queen should be free by Monday morning.

I’m not out of the woods yet. I put that package of bees in their first hive 31 days ago. If the queen is free Monday (day 33) and starts laying eggs that day (nothing to say she might wait a week), it will be day 54 before new worker bees emerge from their cells.

The problem… This time of year the average life span of a worker bee is 45 days. This hive could still collapse and die. A lot of workers will be dying over the next 10 to 12 days.

If the queen is free Monday I’m going to swipe a frame of capped brood from my strongest hive. This will give the troubled hive an influx of around 5000 new worker bees over the next 10 days. Fingers crossed I’ll be able to save this hive.


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## Caribou

When you talk about adding your queen and two frames, do you mean two frames of brood?

I got up enough guts to run the mowers next to the hives today. Neither the riding mower nor the walk behind seemed to bother them a bit. The wife was out in the yard today as well without drawing any interest. Having her more comfortable with the bees is a real bonus. She has been going along with the bee thing but with some reservations. It is supposed to be sunny tomorrow so I will do my second hive check in the afternoon.


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## Cotton

Caribou said:


> When you talk about adding your queen and two frames, do you mean two frames of brood?


No, just two empty frames, something to hang her between. There was a danger of the bees rejecting the queen if I added brood at the same time. It would give them the option of raising a queen of their own from any eggs on that frame.

Doing it this way forced them to accept or reject the queen with no other variables. Now that they have accepted this new queen I can safely add capped brood without causing more confusion.  Bees are complicated little insects...:brickwall:

This has been a very confusing two weeks, conflicting advice from every direction. I like what one guy posted on my thread in the bee forum.. paraphrase... "3 beekeepers will not agree on anything, but 2 will agree the 3rd guy is wrong"


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## Caribou

Cotton said:


> I like what one guy posted on my thread in the bee forum.. paraphrase... "3 beekeepers will not agree on anything, but 2 will agree the 3rd guy is wrong"


There are so many people keeping bees so many ways I figure that the bees are very forgiving or they are just willing to fix our mistakes.

I went to a class today on two queen hives. We spent two hours at his apiary working over two queen hives. The the four largest beekeepers in the area all use a double queen setup.


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## Cotton

Now for a bit of levity… being out smarted by birds… A week ago I noticed mocking birds and cardinals hanging out near my hives. They were eating my bees! Little varmints! Now that song birds are federally protected, I can’t shoot them!

So, I ordered a solar powered owl. The solar panel on its head charges a capacitor. When it reaches a level of voltage it discharges, causing a little lever to rake gears on a spindle. The owls head will turn about 120 degrees.

For 3 days I haven’t seen a single mocking bird or cardinal near my hives, it worked! Today I was walking by my Catawba trees behind the shop. They are in full bloom, my bees are loving it, a constant buzz near the trees!

Then I saw the mocking birds and cardinals sitting on a fence on the other side of the trees… Yes, they are still eating my bees… just at a different location…


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## Caribou

I have capped brood and quite a bit of honey. I'll have to add another brood box on the two queen hive. The bottom picture has a pollen patty laying on top of the brood box.


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## Cotton

Now I have a bee yard. It’s taken 4 weeks to clean out all the brush and trees. I still have a few stumps to deal with but no rush. I even have a head start on the herb bed. I have 9 elderberry bushes by the first hive. 2 are good sized, 2 sprouted on their own and the rest are small ones I transplanted last year.  

(the first post in this thread has a photo of how the bee yard used to look)


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## Cotton

Today was week 5 inspection day for all the hives. The first hive I opened was my problem hive. The queen was free, she wasn’t on Monday when I checked. She seemed to be accepted, a couple dozen bees were on her cage feeding her that day.

I grabbed a frame of capped brood from one of my strong hives. I smoked all the bees off, I didn’t want to accidentally take the queen and create disaster. I also gave my problem hive another brood builder patty. My other 4 hives looked great, each had 5 or 6 frames of brood. There were no signs of disease or pests. All 4 had increased in population by 2/3rds 

Fingers crossed the new queen and frame of brood will save my problem hive.

Late this afternoon I figured out an odd thing 2 of my hives do regularly. It’s called “Washboarding”. A bunch of the bees stand on surfaces outside hive entrance and seem to rock side to side. No one knows why bees do it but it is neat to watch.


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## Cotton

Big day in the woodshop… my uncle picked up cabinet grade poplar for both he and I . It’s some gorgeous wood. I cut mine up today, enough for 21 medium supers, 5 hive bodies and 3 bottom boards. It’s all prepped, ready for glue and staples.  

The wood comes “minimum width”. Two of my 1X12’s were 17 inches wide.


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## ClemKadiddlehopper

That wood almost looks too good for hives. 

I plan to start building mediums in a few weeks. I am going to start using only medium boxes and no deeps. It helps with lazy bee keeping in that all frames are interchangeable at any location within the complete hive. I don't use queen excluders so using only one size box for everything really simplifies things; including building boxes and frames. I figure two mediums to take the place of one deep brooder box.

I just split my hives today for a total of six. Next year with any kind of luck I will be up to twelve hives. The frost didn't get the apple blossoms this year, and you can hear the trees buzzing from a fair distance away. The bees are totally ignoring the lilac in preference for the apple blossoms.

Along with a good bee season, I am getting hopeful for a mega apple season this fall.


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## Cotton

It is some fine wood. I built 10 deep hive bodies a few weeks ago, went to Lowes. They had some good pine 1x12’s but the price per board foot was over $3.00 if I remember correctly. I didn’t want to spend a fortune so I went with the next lower grade. It was full of knots. I had to lay out every board at least twice trying to dodge knots at cuts, same for all the rabbit cuts. It was a pain! When I hauled them home several knots fell out so I had to glue them back in!

This poplar was $1.75 per board ft. It cost me $301. Once cut up there were over 170 pieces, only 1 piece has a knot,

As a comparison, had I purchased unassembled supers from Dadant (or another supplier) The price would have been about $600 with shipping for this many supers.


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## ClemKadiddlehopper

Another reason for making my own hives, in addition to the extra cost of buying ready to assemble hive pieces, is that who ever is cutting the crap available in my neck of the woods must be a falling down drunk. 

The notches were not the same size nor spaced correctly so I had to trim them to fit with the band saw, and once I finally got them together, I found that the boxes don't stack well; they are miss sized and some are larger than others leaving over hangs or ledges where the boxes sit on top of the other. A lot of the wood used are twisted sisters and the thinest veneer is being used for top and bottom boards instead of plywood. One lid was made of OSB board that was already swollen and flaking. :gaah: 

For the price being charged, they should be ashamed of themselves.


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## Caribou

That is some gorgeous wood.

I went out to do a hive check today and found everything going well. Tons of eggs and capped brood. It has been raining for three days so with the sun out the ladies were out doing their thing gathering the nectar and pollen. A goodly number were out doing orientation flights as well.

On my last hive check I had split the two queens into two brood boxes stacked one on top of the other with a queen excluder between them. I was really pleased to see the eggs present as I have never done this before so I am simply following directions and I am pleased to have, evidently, pulled it off.

The last two hive checks I have used neither gloves nor smoke. The ladies seem to be perfectly happy unless I blow on them to get them to move away.

I cut some burr comb off and the ladies grumbled a bit about that, but not too much. I had some insulation just above the frames that allowed too much space so I moved the insulation to above the inner cover.


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## Cotton

Caribou said:


> That is some gorgeous wood.
> 
> I went out to do a hive check today and found everything going well.
> 
> The last two hive checks I have used neither gloves nor smoke. The ladies seem to be perfectly happy unless I blow on them to get them to move away.


This is great news! I swear, the bees learn who you are! I have no proof but it seems they do.

I've a new problem with my weak problem hive&#8230; didn't realize what was happening until late this afternoon. They consumed 2.5 quarts of sugar water in the last 24 hours. They were being robbed by a wild tree hive.

They need all the help they can get. I have to stop this&#8230; The best advice was switch to a different type of feeder. Hope it works! I'll build one tomorrow&#8230; Will problems with this hive never end! :brickwall:

My other hives are strong enough to fend off robbing, don't have to worry about them.


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## Caribou

I understand that hive entrance feeders are a invite for robbers. I use nut jar feeders. I take an empty nut container from Costco, drill a few holes in the lid (about the same diameter as a paperclip), fill it with sugar syrup, invert it, and place it in the hive. A couple pencils or similar support to provide a bee space works well to provide access. Also, do not turn it upside down above the hive. You will lose a bit of the syrup until a vacuum is formed so just let that dump on the ground or capture it in a container for the next feeding. Once the vacuum is formed place it in the hive.

Some people use mason jars with holes drilled in the lid and some heat a paperclip and melt the holes. I put sixteen holes in each lid but I'd do half that next time I make one. The number of holes is not critical.


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## Cotton

I went with a top feeder, a combination of about 3 designs I found on the net. Despite having a screen to crawl down I found a bee about to drown two hours in, not having it. If there are dead bees in the pan in the morning I’ll do another combination. I’ll get rid of the pan of sugar water but use the box I built. I’ll give it a floor then try ziplock baggies as feeders, reports are no drowning loss, just the cost of a new baggie every couple of days.


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## Grimm

Cotton said:


> I went with a top feeder, a combination of about 3 designs I found on the net. Despite having a screen to crawl down I found a bee about to drown two hours in, not having it. If there are dead bees in the pan in the morning I'll do another combination. I'll get rid of the pan of sugar water but use the box I built. I'll give it a floor then try ziplock baggies as feeders, reports are no drowning loss, just the cost of a new baggie every couple of days.


What is wrong with adding marbles so the bees can drink and not drown?


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## Caribou

Cotton, A bunch of small sticks so they have something to stand on or even a single layer of the styrofoam peanuts. Bees fly really well but they don't swim for a damn.


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## Cotton

After a week of failed attempts at stopping the robbing of my weak hive I had to get drastic. I moved the hive 4 miles to a neighbor’s farm. A young couple, I buy eggs from the lady. They make specialty soaps with goat’s milk. They’ve been talking about getting bees next year and had been up to see my hives. Now they get to watch beekeeping first hand, win, win!


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## Cotton

At new tip for beekeepers. 2 things, something I learned over the last month and tested this weekend. Something new concerning hive beetles.

1) Cow urine has a really high concentration of uric acid compared to other critters. I scrapped up 3 or 4 tons of compost from my hay rings early this spring, rotted hay, manure all soaked with urine, I posted a pic (beautiful compost).

2) I know for a fact fireants avoid these piles like the plague. I suspected uric acid. I’ve been building hive pads in my bee yard from this compost as I have been slowly been moving my hives closer together. No problems from ants.

My problem hive I moved to my neighbor’s farm was immediately set upon by fireants. It took two days but as of today there isn’t a fireant to be seen near this hive, hay compost… uric acid!

I learned (though a round about means through two college professors who also keep bees) that uric acid also repels hive beetles. An extra magazine for the gun, if you have hay rings… just one more thing to help your hives.

Pic, tonight, the pad I moved a hive onto…


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## Cotton

I was futzing around my bee yard this morning. Watering the bees, water and feed for the chickens and rabbits. I was there for about an hour, bee activity was normal in all my hives. I sat beside one for about 10 minutes to monitor pollen color.

At about 11am I came around the barn and could hear buzzing, really loud buzzing. It took me a couple of minutes to find the source. There was a wild swarm of bees about 40ft up in a sweetgum tree. There was no way for me to get to the swarm or the limb they were on. 

So I quickly put out a new hive with new frames in it and a front entrance feeder. I also put a drop of lemon grass oil on top of a frame. An hour or so latter I noticed a lot of bees in my shop. Now there are always one or two but not a dozen at one time. I figured they were scouts from the swarm so I threw together two more hives, one at each open entrance.

At dark this evening the swarm was still in place in the sweetgum tree. I have no idea if this normal, staying in place most of a day and into the night. Guess I’ll see if they are still there in the morning. Not much else I can do.


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## Cotton

News flash, it wasn’t a wild swarm, it was from one of my hives and I have 3 more about to do the same thing. I stupidly listened when experienced people I don’t know on the internet who said “don’t add an extra hive body until there are 8 frames with brood”.

Wrong… My hive swarmed (and the others about too) because of over population, nothing to do with how many frames they are using.

So, I have a plan, basically, two queen hives if I can find the queens. The next night I’ll move the “splits” to the remote location… crossed fingers…

I spent 2 weeks worrying over a queenless hive. The next week working hay and a herb bed and not paying close attention to what was actually happening to my other hives… Inexperience at its best! Live and learn...

Oh, the swarm left this afternoon for parts unknown…


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## Caribou

Cotton said:


> News flash, it wasn't a wild swarm, it was from one of my hives and I have 3 more about to do the same thing. I stupidly listened when experienced people I don't know on the internet who said "don't add an extra hive body until there are 8 frames with brood".
> 
> Wrong&#8230; My hive swarmed (and the others about too) because of over population, nothing to do with how many frames they are using.
> 
> So, I have a plan, basically, two queen hives if I can find the queens. The next night I'll move the "splits" to the remote location&#8230; crossed fingers&#8230;
> 
> I spent 2 weeks worrying over a queenless hive. The next week working hay and a herb bed and not paying close attention to what was actually happening to my other hives&#8230; Inexperience at its best! Live and learn...
> 
> Oh, the swarm left this afternoon for parts unknown&#8230;


Adding a second queen into an established hive can be tricky, how do you plan to to set up your two queen hive?


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## Cotton

Caribou said:


> Adding a second queen into an established hive can be tricky, how do you plan to to set up your two queen hive?


I won't be adding a new queen, I believe 2 of my 3 remaining hives already have two queens, one for sure and certain, saw her just before dark tonight. I'll separate the queens and add a queen excluder, honey super and a hive body. Over the next few hours tomorrow the bees will separate themselves. After dark I'll add a new bottom board and top to the "new upper hive" and move it. An impromptu split if you will&#8230;


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## Cotton

Update, early this morning I went through my other 3 hives in the yard. I started with the hive whose behavior most closely resembled the hive that swarmed.

I went through them frame by frame. The first hive had 6 queen cells with pupae. I killed them to buy time. The second only had one queen cell, destroyed it. The 3rd (my strongest hive) had no queen cells and only 1 unused EZ frame.

Lessons… I’ve learned bees don’t like EZ frames from Dadant or plastic frames from any company. They like natural wax foundation such as wedge frames. In two of my hives they were trying to raise queens and form a split because of over population for the space. Not because (as I had been told on the net and in books) they had used up the available space with brood) used frames had nothing to do with it, number of bees in the hive had everything to do with it. They hadn’t used up frame space, two of the three hives had 3 empty frames without drawn wax. The other had only one frame without drawn wax.

When ever possible I replaced EZ frames with wax foundation. I also added a hive body with wax foundation. In short… I removed the reasons they had for trying to swarm - space. I doubled their available space. ( A few nasty variables still hidden there to be discussed later).

Long story short, I’ve bought time for my hives and their problems. This learning curve is tough… but I have a new ally. A man who lives just a few miles from me who raises and sells queens…. Keeps bees and sells honey. He has lots more experience than me. Better someone I know…


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## Cotton

It’s been a busy “bee” week. My weak struggling hive is still a weak and struggling hive but there have been some improvements. After a long conversation with a local beekeeper who raises queen bees to sale… He pointed out that feeding sugar water is like junk food compared to honey which a super food for bees. He asked if I had any old frames filled with honey.

That’s when I remembered a super of honey I stored away 4 years ago. I had completely forgotten about it. I checked, it looked just like the day I stored it. One of the problems with the weak hive is there aren’t enough bees to pull wax so it can grow rapidly. The new queen is laying beautifully but she has to stop and wait. This honey super had 2 frames of pulled wax without honey. There were two more frames that had pulled wax on one side with honey stocked on the other…

The weak hive has 3 new frames. “Combined” there is one of honey surrounded by empty wax and two with pulled wax ready for laying. So, things are looking up!

Saturday I helped my uncle work his 6 hives. He’d had one swarm, since I’d just went down that road… Anyway, we spent 3 hours killing queen cells and adding hive bodies. He was about to lose two more swarms. Killing the queen cells buy him 16 days to see that the bees have all the room and food they need.

He has another problem, hive beetle infestations. I was told early on… “hive beetles don’t like heat, hives in full sun have dramatically fewer beetles”. I had shared this information with him, he dismissed it. All of his hives are in shade for most of the day. Signs of beetles sealed in propolis were everywhere. We even killed a dozen or so beetles that were running around. My hives (in full sun) have no trace of beetles. I reminded him of this, don’t know if he is going to do anything about it. 

All my other hives are doing great. I’ll open them again towards the end of the week and check for queen cells again.

Caribou, how are your hives doing?


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## tmttactical

Here you go Cotton, all you hive problems solved. 

http://www.msn.com/en-us/video/wonder/beekeeping-goes-wireless/vi-AAgNVsA


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## Cotton

A likely candidate for next years Rube Goldberg contest. 

Most of the things this system does can be accomplished by a quick peek inside the hive... talk about over-engineering...


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## Caribou

I just got back from a three week trip to Oregon. Having bees had a big effect on the way I viewed all the flowers I saw.


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## Caribou

I went out today to do a hive check. I went through one hive and removed four queen cells and added a honey super. I opened the other hive and it looked full of bees so I added a honey super to that also. I should have gone through every frame on the other hive but it was too hot for this fat boy. Tomorrow is another day, I'll try to start earlier when it might bee cooler.


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## Cotton

I went through all my hives today. The 4 at the farm had no queen cells. So, expanding with another hive body, killing queen cells and feeding them all the sugar water they can drink seems to have stopped the swarming issue. 

However, 2 of them had hive beetles, I only saw 3 beetles, 2 of which I killed. Time to break out the beetle traps! I now have bait fermenting in a jar on the kitchen counter.

I also took a frame of capped brood with the nurse bees from my strongest hive and put it in a nuc box. I took it to my weak hive 4 miles away. This should give them about 8,000 more bees over the next 10 days. The hive is just so weak.

I hadn’t planned on doing this but when I saw that hive beetle season had arrived I needed to do something. Even though I saw no beetles or sign in the weak hive it’s going to get a beetle trap Monday evening regardless.


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## Cotton

No pics, sorry, I was sweating like a rented mule, would have dropped the camera… heat index was over 110 degrees. This evening after supper I added a second hive body to my remote problem hive. It took a lot of effort but I think this hive will now survive the winter.

When they killed their first queen all the advice the experienced beekeepers gave me was dump the hive in the center of my yard, not worth the effort. These guys all have dozens if not hundreds of hives. From “their” economic stand point their advice makes perfect sense.

From my point of view, this was 20% of my economic investment, so I did what was necessary to save this hive. It’s now in the clear. I only saw one hive beetle when I had the hive open. They are strong enough now to deal with these pesky critters.

Back at the ranch (or farm)… all four hives have had a second brood chamber for a month now. 2 of the 4 needed a queen excluder and a honey super which they got this week. Hive beetles are under control and no sign of wax moths was seen in any hive.

It has been a worrisome few months but things look good now. After the goldenrod blooms in September I should have 5 strong hives capable of making it through the winter.

I’ll use oxalic acid vapor to deal with Varroa mites in September. Oxalic acid drops bee loss from 30% to 1%. I didn’t want to use a chemical but these mites are nasty. When I have 100 hives I’ll consider a 30% loss but not now…


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## phideaux

Cotton said:


> No pics, sorry, I was sweating like a rented mule,


I just have to say .... that's a new one to me....
May I borrow it ?

Most of my acquaintance's wont get it...:2thumb:

Jim


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## ClemKadiddlehopper

Good news about the weak hive.

Two weeks ago, I was cleaning out the utility room and moved a cardboard box with some old frames I didn't want to keep, out onto the porch. I got busy and didn't make it to the dump. Went to do that on Saturday, and gosh, a small swarm was setting up shop in there. 

Box is still sitting on the porch but I am slowly working it further away. In another week when they are completely settled in, I will move the frames into a proper hive box and keep inching them into a location away from my front door. I will get rid of the old frames next year.

Note: a beehive in a cardboard box 2' from the front door does a better job of keeping the riff raff away then the lazy mutt laying next to it.


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## Caribou

The short hive is the single queen hive and will be lucky to feed itself this winter. The honey super on it has little honey in it and is about half drawn out with wax.

The taller hive is the two queen hive. One queen disappeared but not till she left me with a bunch of bees. It has one deep of capped honey and and 2/3 of a medium of capped honey. I have no clue whether I rolled her or whether she left or if something else happened but she has been gone for a while. I'm getting ready to harvest at least a deep of honey and possibly a big chunk of the medium.

I was going to wait till mid August but I think I'll harvest early and let the ladies have a couple extra weeks to put more away for the winter


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## Cotton

Caribou said:


> The short hive is the single queen hive and will be lucky to feed itself this winter. The honey super on it has little honey in it and is about half drawn out with wax.


Things change every day don't they? People think of bees like they are goats or chickens. Not so! Bees aren't domesticated, they are just as wild as they were a million years ago. They do what they want, we react!


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## ClemKadiddlehopper

I am like Caribou, I am up to six hives and I go the extra mile to baby a hive; even a weak one. Eventually, they make it.

I don't take much honey yet, as I am doing treatment free and don't want to feed them if I don't have too. I harvest in the spring when the dandelions bloom. What ever is in the hives at that time, I feel comfortable taking. Next year, I don't plan to take much as I will be doing simple splits in the spring to double the number of hives. I want to get to 18 hives before I get more aggressive about collecting honey for other than personal use. Because of the drought this year, I didn't do as many splits as I would have liked.


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## Caribou

Clem, you got me thinking. Perhaps I'll take the medium and leave them the deep till spring. That will give me enough for myself and for a few gifts. The deep is full and the medium is at least 2/3. I'll give them back the wet frames which should help them and relieve me of any robbing or wax moth worry.


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## Cotton

This is the weak hive I had to move to a neighbor’s farm, the package that killed their queen on the 4th day. After it got a new queen bee it was being raided by my other hives, killing bees. I decided on a risky course to save it as a hive.

It’s doing great!!! It has a second brood chamber that is filling rapidly. And now comes the pay-off for fall production. This field is filled with “Chamaecrista fasciculate” or “partridge pea”... 3 acres of nectar that will last for 4 weeks, until goldenrod starts to bloom. A one month jump on the fall honey flow!

Chamaecrista fasciculate is also a medicinal plant from old records. Though it is unclear "precisely" how Native Americans used this plant, it was used, by different tribes in different ways. In any case it wasn’t a “go to” plant for real illnesses by any of them.

But it is great for my bees!!! Three acres of yellow blooms... :congrat:


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## Caribou

I pulled a medium and a deep full of honey out of one hive, the double queen. I wound up with over four gallons. 

The single queen hive has a medium pretty much full of honey but it is mostly uncapped so I will wait a couple weeks and either pull the honey or let the bees keep it for the winter.

On the hive I took the honey from I will feed them sugar. Sugar is supposed to be digested more completely that honey so the bees will make fewer cleansing flights. Bees will not purge inside the hive and they weigh so little that if they have to leave the hive in very cold weather they may well not make it back.


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## Caribou

Today I started feeding my bees. I mixed up a batch of syrup 2 sugar to 1 water. I also built a hive top feeder. I found a 15 quart clear plastic container with a white plastic top with clips that hold it on. I drilled two holes appropriate to put two bee ladders in so the bees can get to the food without drowning.

I had put both the deep and the medium box full of the wet (already had the honey extracted but still had a coating of honey) frames to let the bees clean up and feed from. They had cleaned everything so I took the medium off and left the deep for them to fill with syrup. This should get them through the winter.

I had heard that the bees will find honey immediately but it can take days for them to find syrup. I decided to dab a small amount of honey in each ladder and then I wiped my finger clean on the top. Okay, finger licking was a part of the cleaning process. I didn't want the bees attracted to my hand after all. Yeah, that's the reason. I smoked as many of the bees off the frames as I could before I lifted the super off but there were several on each frame. After filling the hive top feeder and placing an empty deep box around the feeder I took each frame and tapped it against the top of the box knocking the bees off the frame causing most of them to land on the top of the feeder. My surprise came when the bees did not fly back up but stayed put on the feeder lid and went after the honey. I will remember this trick.


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## Caribou

Friends of mine decided not to winter their bees so I asked if I might have them. They gave me three hives worth. All their hives are weak and one of mine is also weak. I will combine two of their hives together and their last one with my weak hive so I will hopefully have three hives that will be big enough to winter over.

Now I have to find the queen in two of the hives to pinch them. I'll take the dead queens and put them in alcohol to make a bait for catching a swarm.


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## Cotton

A bit of bad luck… One of my 4 hives at the farm decided to move a few weeks ago. I have no idea where. I was working hay that week, near the start of August. Activity was normal, suddenly within a day or so (I feed the chickens next to the hives everyday), it wasn’t. It looked like robbing behavior. 

A few days later when I had time to open the hive… they were gone. The entire hive, queen and all moved and left all their stores behind. It was my strongest hive.

I was seeing robbing behavior, of an empty hive. When I opened it there were no signs of hive beetles or wax moths. I could see no reason for them to move. An unexplained riddle? A guy in the bee forum told me he had 19 hives in May but have lost 4 to unexplained moves… I guess it happens. 

So now I’m down to 3 hives at the farm. The remote hive at my neighbor’s farm is thriving. I plan to move it back to the farm in the next 10 days or so. The partridge pea will have stopped blooming by then. Last week I added a queen excluder and honey super to the 2nd hive body. I’ll need help with the move. The hive weighs about 90lbs now, packed with brood, already storing honey in the honey super.

Goldenrod will start blooming in a week or so… the fall honey flow is on!


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## Cotton

Caribou said:


> Friends of mine decided not to winter their bees so I asked if I might have them. They gave me three hives worth. All their hives are weak and one of mine is also weak. I will combine two of their hives together and their last one with my weak hive so I will hopefully have three hives that will be big enough to winter over.
> 
> Now I have to find the queen in two of the hives to pinch them. I'll take the dead queens and put them in alcohol to make a bait for catching a swarm.


I've been reading all I can about combining hives... I might have to combine 2 of my remaining 4 if they don't do well with the fall honey flow.... Keep me posted!


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## lilmissy0740

Do any of you use a queen excluder when adding boxes?


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## Caribou

I use queen excluders to keep the queen out of areas where I don't want her laying eggs. I try to not use excluders in areas where there is only undrawn frames. The bees have to work to get through the excluder so they need some reason to put forth the effort. Once they have started drawing wax or if there is a frame of honey or another reason for them to work through the excluder then I put it in. Once they start passing through then they will continue.


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## lilmissy0740

Thanks. I think I will skip the excluder this time. I hope I am not to late on putting another box on for them for the winter. I love honey, but not collecting any for awhile. Have a hive for the bees sake. When you add another box, do you put the empty box on top or on the bottom? I am a newbie. Thanks for any info


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## Caribou

lilmissy0740 said:


> Thanks. I think I will skip the excluder this time. I hope I am not to late on putting another box on for them for the winter. I love honey, but not collecting any for awhile. Have a hive for the bees sake. When you add another box, do you put the empty box on top or on the bottom? I am a newbie. Thanks for any info


I put the empty box on top as the bees like to build upwards.


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## Caribou

They replaced a power pole on my property. In the process they cleared a substantial portion of the right of way down to bare dirt. I plan on putting in a bee friendly cover. Fireweed is on the list but I need way more seed than I have gathered. 

Clover is another idea but all the honey in the store is clover honey so I'd like something else. Clover is a low cover so the fireweed might coexist with it. Mowing is not an option. Well not unless you have a real big gun.

Any suggestions for bee friendly plants especially a low cover would bee appreciated.


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