The bee keeper diaries

[Iowanian]

It's a great time to buy stock in eppy pens.

This thread is a repository for bee keepers or those interested.

A couple of years ago, a couple of friends an my brother started puttering with honey bees. I didn't buy off because, well, I've never been a big fan of bees or getting stung by them. Last summer I tagged along a couple of times to check their hives and to remove honey bees from a house, public building and an old garage.

I realized at the end of the summer when I was helping them process some, that it's actually pretty interesting, and fits into my expanding "grow my own" logic. I'm not full blown hippy but I see a lot of logic in the self sustaining food thing and I'm doing some of that too.

That said, this thread is about bees, honey bees, bee keeping and bee fighting war stories.

I'm taking the leap and plan to get 2-3 hives this spring and maybe build some bee swarm traps to make it cheaper or to make a few bucks.

Join me and I'll share the real life lessons of an ameture bee keeper. I'm sure I'm going to learn some things the hard way.

[redfan]

Originally Posted by Iowanian

I built my top bar hive this weekend...

That looks amazing!! How many frames will it hold?
All you guys with your top bar hives, those look easier to work than these giant stacks I've got going. I'm gonna have to rethink my strategy here in a little while.

[Iowanian]

Originally Posted by Mr. Wizard

Looks good! Yea your gonna wanna keep them in the frames or they will fill your lid with burr comb imho. Did you make a divider?

I did make a divider to keep the hive area appropriate in size and so that I could split the box and use it for splitting hives or something.

I don't have an inner cover yet, but I will. Not sure if I'm going to run some strips through the table saw or just use burlap or something. I'm open to suggestions on that for sure.

I started with the 5 frames from the trap and added I think 10 more.


I did try something new...I've had trouble getting them to build on the black plastic frames....so I melted a couple of pounds of bees wax and had the kids paint that on them with a brush to see if it would help, and I'm predicting it will.

KS....
I'm doing it because it's a different way...just wanted to try it.
The advantage is there aren't boxes to lift or remove to be able to inspect the hive. You can pretty easily determine where the brood(babies) are located and just pull the frames you need to for inspection with less disturbance to the colony. If they fill it up, I'll pull the honey frames and place new ones in their place... Another benefit of this style is supposed to be the thickness of the wood used to build the box makes it easier to overwinter in colder climates.

[Iowanian]

Originally Posted by redhed

That looks amazing!! How many frames will it hold?
All you guys with your top bar hives, those look easier to work than these giant stacks I've got going. I'm gonna have to rethink my strategy here in a little while.

I'm not positive, but just eyeballing it I'd guess it will hold 35 frames? 35 deeps.I was tinkering already with the idea of a smaller box to place on top of this one for honey supers....we'll see.

It's not that hard to make one but as usual I made it tougher than it needed to be. First tried to use reclaimed barn lumber but my 2x12ish boards kept splitting. Honestly I think as long as the inside dimension is right for your frames you could build these however you wanted to do them.

I bought a piano hinge for the lid but decided against that for now.

[Mr. Wizard]

Originally Posted by Iowanian

I did make a divider to keep the hive area appropriate in size and so that I could split the box and use it for splitting hives or something.

I don't have an inner cover yet, but I will. Not sure if I'm going to run some strips through the table saw or just use burlap or something. I'm open to suggestions on that for sure.

I am not sure burlap would seal the top. I used strips and put a short screw in each one for a handle.

I started with the 5 frames from the trap and added I think 10 more.


I did try something new...I've had trouble getting them to build on the black plastic frames....so I melted a couple of pounds of bees wax and had the kids paint that on them with a brush to see if it would help, and I'm predicting it will.
Good idea. I coat them with sugar water.

KS....
I'm doing it because it's a different way...just wanted to try it.
The advantage is there aren't boxes to lift or remove to be able to inspect the hive. You can pretty easily determine where the brood(babies) are located and just pull the frames you need to for inspection with less disturbance to the colony. If they fill it up, I'll pull the honey frames and place new ones in their place... Another benefit of this style is supposed to be the thickness of the wood used to build the box makes it easier to overwinter in colder climates.

I can walk over to my horizontal hive with nothing but shorts on and inspect the whole hive in 10 minutes.... every frame... see every bee... no lifting and the bees could care less.

I reccomend getting "keeping bees with a smile" same website. I wish I only had horizontal hives now

[Mr. Wizard]

Originally Posted by Iowanian

I'm not positive, but just eyeballing it I'd guess it will hold 35 frames? 35 deeps.I was tinkering already with the idea of a smaller box to place on top of this one for honey supers....we'll see.

It's not that hard to make one but as usual I made it tougher than it needed to be. First tried to use reclaimed barn lumber but my 2x12ish boards kept splitting. Honestly I think as long as the inside dimension is right for your frames you could build these however you wanted to do them.

I bought a piano hinge for the lid but decided against that for now.

According to the book you want one entrance open, closest to your brood frames, with the divider one one end and honey frames on the other end. Bees will brood closest to the opening and store honey farthest from the opening.

end entrance ( honey on one end)

end-honey frame-honey frame-honey frame-honey frame-brood frame-brood frame-brood frame-entrance-brood frame-divider as the hive expands you move the divider and add frames always keeping the opening on the brood end away from the honey.

OR middle entrance (honey on both ends_

end-honey frame-honey frame-honey frame-honey frame-brood frame-brood frame-brood frame-entrance-brood frame-brood frame-brood frame-honey frame-honey frame-honey frame- divider as the hive expands you move the divider and add frames always keeping the opening in the middle near the brood away from the honey on both ends.

[Iowanian]

I've been thinking I wanted to slow down, but every time I say it out loud I get a call.

Last night a friend called who is tearing down a house as a donation for a local community, and it's got a large hive. He's done favors for me any time I've needed it, and he's asking me to get the bees so they don't sting his crew....At least it's a second story window.

I've also still got a tree I agreed to trap out. I've been doing a little research of forced absconding with smoke and bee repellent, and then vacuum as they come out and try to get the queen? Advantage....get it over with in first trip. Disadvantage....hive has been in tree for 3 weeks, not sure they'll leave...not sure it will work....but I'm probably going to try that instead of a trap out. Thoughts? The tree has 1, fist sized entrance and the trap-out wouldn't be terrible to do.

That just gave me an idea for a tee shirt for bee nerds.....TrapOut.....

I also saw something else that intrigued me for a way to have bees build comb into mason jars(of which I have a ton of old ones)....

https://www.iseeidoimake.com/how-to-...n-jar-beehive/

[Hog's Gone Fishin]

That mason jar honeycomb is a great idea!

[Iowanian]

I've had to use my horizontal hive a couple of times to rob frames/brood for various reasons. That said, I've been in it twice and found supercedure and swarm cells(queen cells that look like peanuts that indicate queen is being replaced, or they're planning to swarm). There is plenty of room and I'm not sure why that's happening.

The first time I plucked out the queen cells, and the last time I had decided to use them as a backup plan. I had a tree trap out the past month and I decided it was time to bring them home. When I did, it hadn't completely worked, they hadn't made a queen and the queen wasn't in there. I went back into the horizontal hive to pull the frame with the queen cells, and 3 days later they were all gone/chewed away.....and the bees were mean as hell. It was hot and evening, but they were mean and I got chewed up pretty good again, through my gloves and suit and some got up my pants let and back of my jacket.

I'm going to pull another swarm trap that has bees in it, and will merge it with the trap-out hive I brought home, hoping that queen will take over the colony.

It's been too hot for the removal a couple of posts above, but I'm still going to do it and then I'm not planning to do much more than manage hives with added boxes until time for harvest.

I've worked my ass off this year. I hope it's worth it at harvest.

[Renegade]

Hopefully the bees have been working as hard you have.

My buddy that has hives on my land lost a queen in one of the hives. He tried to combine bees with another hive. Said he is hoping to harvest 80 pounds of honey from that queenless hive. They were just making honey, no brood.

[Iowanian]

I still haven't managed to get the bees removed from the above house.....but if weather cooperates will probably try to do it this weekend. It's too late in the year, but I don't have a queen in my horizontal hive. We'll see.

I'm a couple of weeks from honey harvest. Overall I'm up to 16-17 hives this year, and they're all producing enough that they should be ok this winter, but I'm not sure what to expect on production. We'll know in a couple of weeks.

I've had a couple of new keepers I've been helping and I think one of them and a high school aged daughter of a friend who is interested are going to come down when I pull boxes for the harvest. If you want to know if it's for you....pulling honey supers in the late summer, or switching the deeps around in the spring will let you know if bee keeping is for you.

How did you all come out this year?

[Iowanian]

I pulled my honey supers last weekend. They were robbing a hive when I got down to the yard...and when I started pulling boxes it turned into a frenzy like which I've never seen. I could t keep them out of the boxes for anything. Honey bandit, and I'd blow them out with a leaf blower and for every bee I blew out, I swear 20 zipped in. It was a shit show. They weren't aggressive to me, but my God they were wild.

I processed today and as usual I'm not thrilled with the volume given the amount of work I put into it this year. I'm plus 12/13 new hives more than I had last year, but didn't make much honey off of them. I'll bottle tomorrow probably and start bringing in some money. I spent enou on equipment this year that it will probably be a loss or a wash on the year.

I worked my ass off, took a beating....hopefully they make it to spring.

I will be fogging for verroa mites soon now that temp is coming down, and I'll start feeding sugar water soon.

I did have a new bee keeper and a high school friend brother th his young son who is obsessed with honey bees down to watch, so that was fun. It's just a lot of work.

If you're buying local honey, which you should....be happy to pay more than you do at the store. They've earned it.

[Iowanian]

Ok.

I did verroa treatments in October, and had lost 2 hives. I've processed and bottled and now am in the selling/cost recovery phase of the operation.

Yesterday it was warm, so I went down to put the winter patties on the hives. For those that don't know, winter patties are a playdough texture mixture of sugar, some bee health supplements and essential oils. It provides carobydrates and some antibiotic health for the colony during the winter. They don't contain protein/pollen because that will stimulate egg laying and you don't want that due to the impact on food resources. If the bee ball works eats its way to the top of the hive, the winter patty sitting on top gives them some food to get them by for a while.

So, during this process yesterday I found 2 more dead outs and one more that doesn't look good. That's a total of 4 dead, one that probably will be going INTO winter....not good.

I did rob the comb from the dead outs and used them to backfill some of the hives that had less resources.

I'm a little baffled by what happened, but I know several other bee keepers who are losing bees this fall. One lost 17 of his 45 already. He's blaming verroa on his.

i did notice a design flaw in my horizontal hive...There just isn't enough room between the frames and the lid. I'll be building a spacer of maybe 3-4" to raise that so I have room for insulation next year.

Anway, I'm about done for the winter, with maybe a little wrapping but I haven't decided on what I'm doing about that this year. I'm now selling honey in 3 stores so that helps moving it easier. If I can keep these(most of them) alive, it shouldn't be hard to backfill my losses as I've learned alot about trapping bees this year and am confident I'll be able to catch what I need in the spring.

Hope you all had a good year.

[Renegade]

Moths destroyed 2 of the 4 hives on my land. I haven't seen activity in the strongest hive from last season, so that could be 3/4 hives gone.

[srvy]

I hate to hear about the losses but its good you all keep plugging away. It's so interesting to read this stuff.

[Mr. Wizard]

Originally Posted by Iowanian

Ok.

I did verroa treatments in October, and had lost 2 hives. I've processed and bottled and now am in the selling/cost recovery phase of the operation.

Yesterday it was warm, so I went down to put the winter patties on the hives. For those that don't know, winter patties are a playdough texture mixture of sugar, some bee health supplements and essential oils. It provides carobydrates and some antibiotic health for the colony during the winter. They don't contain protein/pollen because that will stimulate egg laying and you don't want that due to the impact on food resources. If the bee ball works eats its way to the top of the hive, the winter patty sitting on top gives them some food to get them by for a while.

So, during this process yesterday I found 2 more dead outs and one more that doesn't look good. That's a total of 4 dead, one that probably will be going INTO winter....not good.

I did rob the comb from the dead outs and used them to backfill some of the hives that had less resources.

I'm a little baffled by what happened, but I know several other bee keepers who are losing bees this fall. One lost 17 of his 45 already. He's blaming verroa on his.

i did notice a design flaw in my horizontal hive...There just isn't enough room between the frames and the lid. I'll be building a spacer of maybe 3-4" to raise that so I have room for insulation next year.

Anway, I'm about done for the winter, with maybe a little wrapping but I haven't decided on what I'm doing about that this year. I'm now selling honey in 3 stores so that helps moving it easier. If I can keep these(most of them) alive, it shouldn't be hard to backfill my losses as I've learned alot about trapping bees this year and am confident I'll be able to catch what I need in the spring.

Hope you all had a good year.

You can lay a lot if layers of newspaper in not much top space in your horizontal. You can always put a layer of cardboard or stryrofoam on the roof the wrap it. It’s also a good idea to crumple up newspaper and pack the empty scape in your horizontal in the winter. Works great and still allows a little ventilation. I lost a hive that went queenless and then they started laying drones. Weird looking inspection.