# OHHHH the hard lessons I've learned.



## FordGuy (Jul 10, 2005)

Oh, the lessons I've learned,
the dollars I've burned,
the hives I've lost-
and Oh the cost,
of teaching myself,
My teachers: ignored
-even ones on Beesource!
But some bees are still there,
and for those I will care
and my new knowledge, I'll share...

1. to make honey, you need a field force produced and maintained by 2 deeps full of brood, and a queen that can use the deeps. Don't kid yourself, anything less than two deeps of brood (16 frames) and all you have is a large nuc.

2. if you make splits, you WON'T make honey. You have fewer field bees than is a critical mass, their energy will be spent creating a home that will feed them through winte.r

3. set your yard up with two rows: a row of honey producing monster hives in the back (the western side), and in front of them, a row of nucs or young hives. The row of honey monsters should be managed differently - they need swarm prevention up to the nectar flow, ensuring the queen isn't honey bound, has an open brood nest, and all your honey supers prior to the flow. Nucs need food, (in March, cold starved is as dead as regular starved!) drawn comb (NO FOUNDATION) and robbing prevention. They will also need a second deepto expand their brood nest .

4. Draw only one super of foundation at a time! 10 per frame. Don't mix drawn with undrawn.

[ March 22, 2006, 02:26 PM: Message edited by: FordGuy ]


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## Sundance (Sep 9, 2004)

Good lessons you've learned. 

I only question #4 in that I do mix (and recommend) mixing undrawn foundation regularly in the brood chambers.

My lessons and screw ups are too long to list


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## FordGuy (Jul 10, 2005)

SD, talk to me about mixing - I'm open minded to re think it...tell me why you do, and I'll tell you why I don't


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## Sundance (Sep 9, 2004)

Mixing in undrawn brood frames keeps the nest open and greatly reduces swarming and congestion.

I'm not saying toss a bunch in there mind you. Just slide one or two in the center now and then.

I'm doing small cell so it is and important part of regression as well. But even if fully regressed I'd still do it.


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## Jim Williamson (Feb 16, 2006)

The errors I've made are plenty for sure.
Now I pop onto beesource, looking for a cure.
I do a quick search and what do I spy?
That mistake's done been made by old Fordguy!

Here's to that monster flow!


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Mixing drawn with undrawn doesn't work. Mixing capped with undrawn works ok. If it's not drawn they just make the thick thicker and ignore the foundation.


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## TXBEE (Feb 23, 2006)

Ouch! Hard lessons. Mine could go on and on,.. like when I uh, sorta, well, actually, what I really did was, ok, I'll tell you, I clipped a virgins wing.  Long story behind that! 

Only thing I would change on that list is making honey with nucs. A lot of that is where you like. I can make 2 medium supers full of honey from a nuc/split made from that year. But, it warms up a lot quicker here. Later!


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## TXBEE (Feb 23, 2006)

Ouch! Hard lessons. Mine could go on and on,.. like when I uh, sorta, well, actually, what I really did was, ok, I'll tell you, I clipped a virgins wing.  Long story behind that! That error make you feel better Fordguy?









Only thing I would change on that list is making honey with nucs. A lot of that is where you like. I can make 2 medium supers full of honey from a nuc/split made from that year. But, it warms up a lot quicker here. Later!


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## iddee (Jun 21, 2005)

Sorry, I've never made a mistake....Thought I did once, but I was wrong....


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>I clipped a virgins wing. Long story behind that! 

Been there. Done that.







Realized it was a mistake about five minutes later.


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## Robert Hawkins (May 27, 2005)

Two of you? So it sounds like I've been doing this backwards. First we sample the mead, then we work the hives?

Hawk


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## George Fergusson (May 19, 2005)

>First we sample the mead, then we work the hives?

Trying to figure out what what this has to do with the thread... but whatever, you got it wrong Hawk, it goes more like this:

First you sample the mead. Then you sample again. You sample a third time. You decide to try the new batch and see how it's coming. You sample the first batch again. Then you take a small jug with you while you drive up to the yard to work the hives but forget to zipper your veil when you get there. You open a hive and get 4-5 bees buzzing around inside your veil. You get distracted, drop a deep full of honey on your foot and feel your big toe snap. A large cloud of bees now envelopes you. Now there are a lot of bees inside your veil and they start stinging your face. Hopping around on one foot, you lose your balance, trip over the dropped box and stumble head long into another hive, knocking it over completely. Your hive tool which you're still clasping in your hand ends up embedded in your thigh. Your veil is knocked off completely. Your smoker, which was sitting on top of the hive you knocked over, popped open when it hit the ground and has now started a small grass fire. The wind begins to fan the flames. You crawl away from the scene of devastation as best you can with a broken toe and a hive tool in your leg while being stung all over your face. You hear a loud buzzing inside your head. Everything goes black. Eventually you hear sirens. You are dragged back into consciousness when you hear your truck's gas tank explode. You roll over and raise your head, feeling weak from loss of blood but can't see anything because your eyes are swelled shut. You feel heat on your face from the fire consuming your truck and apiary. You are greatful that the wind is blowing south and you had the presence of mind to crawl north. Meanwhile, you're feeling no pain. You lie back and wonder what time it is.


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## iddee (Jun 21, 2005)

>>>Then you take a small jug with you while you drive up to the yard <<<

But did you spill the jug???? The important thing is,

DID YOU SPILL THE MEAD????


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I was just thinking, here's the queen I'll just clip her and mark her. So I did. Five minutes later I think, did I look to see if there were eggs and brood? I didn't. There wasn't.


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## George Fergusson (May 19, 2005)

You drank most of it on the way to the apiary. The rest was consumed by the fire that consumed the truck. Very little was wasted.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Is this the Mead Efficiency Ratio? Is that what you are talking about?


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## JBird (Feb 2, 2006)

"Mixing drawn with undrawn doesn't work. Mixing capped with undrawn works ok. If it's not drawn they just make the thick thicker and ignore the foundation."

Now I'm nervous. I am expecting 5-frame Nucs in April and had been planning on putting them into a 10-frame deep hive body, alternating with frames of start strips. Am I to understand the bees won't draw the starter strips well unless the drawn frames are all capped?


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Starter strips and foundation mix fine. Drawn comb will get filled and drawn out deeper, IF it's used for honey storage. If it's used for brood it's not really a problem. They will build really fat combs for honey storage and if there's a drawn comb they will make it fatter before they draw a new one.


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## JBird (Feb 2, 2006)

So if you had a 5-frame Nuc on its way and didn't have any frames of drawn comb, what would you do? Obviously the 5-frame Nuc needs to be expanded to a 10-frame hive body. How is this usually done without pre-drawn comb available? 

I was planning to stagger the Nuc frames with starter strip frames in a hive body, but now it sounds like I should re-think that plan and perhaps place all the starter strip frames beside one another rather than staggered with the Nuc frames.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I would do all starter strips and put the five nuc frames in the center of the box. I would NOT stagger the nuc frames with starter strips. Let them get going first. Then you can feed one in the brood nest now and then.


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## Jeffrey Todd (Mar 17, 2006)

Broodnest size doesn't necessarily have to be so large, in my experience. I used to make 150-300 pound crops per hive using one deep or one deep and medium broodnests. (I credit good years and a great location - my parents' backyard - for this, not my skills as a 20 year-old in his first years of beekeeping)
I, too, have had luck making excess honey from first-year nucs, for the same reason stated above.
As far as mixing foundation and frames, it depends on your definition of "mixing" and, as always, the honeyflow. During a honeyflow I used to get bees to draw foundation by placing 6 frames of it in the middle of supers and drawn and filled or partially-filled frames on the sides.
My biggest mistakes have always involved me either not providing for the needs of the bees soon enough or not recognizing those needs in the first place.


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## Bill Ruble (Jan 2, 2006)

Ok, I've had it. After reading whatg George Fergusson said, do you honestly think I am still going to raise BEES???? I am going to go out and burn them all right now!!!


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## iddee (Jun 21, 2005)

Don't do that, George lost most of his bees this winter. Send them to him, freight collect, and add a good bottle of mead to the order.


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

FordGuy,

I'm curious to hear what led you to your #1 conclusion. I'm a bit surprised to hear that you haven't gotten more responses to the contrary. In my club, there's a guy who produced large crops (5 supers) from just nucs! I'm moving away from the standard two deep brood nest configuration, simply because on a strong healthy hive it turns out to be a full box of honey each spring, which is great for splits, but I'm not looking for increases. I do think that one deep brood box will require more attention to prevent swarming, but would eventually yield overall better yields. This subject has come up before, and general agreement was that 1 deep for the southern states was probably enough. 

Nice poetry though.


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## iddee (Jun 21, 2005)

Fordguy says two for two purposes, splits and honey...I agree.

Astrobee says one for one purpose, honey...I agree.

Where's the problem???


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## Bill Ruble (Jan 2, 2006)

The problem is my hives are all under snow and they won't burn!!!!


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## George Fergusson (May 19, 2005)

>Ok, I've had it. 

Bill, dood, that wasn't meant to disuade you from raising bee, it was supposed to disuade you from DRINKING!! You know, the Evils of Alcohol! The Devil's Brew! Rot Gut! Stinkin Thinkin!


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>This subject has come up before, and general agreement was that 1 deep for the southern states was probably enough. 

I have no experience raising bees in the South. However, I'd be dissapointed if I couldn't get more than one Deep of brood going in a hive in the Spring. I expect two mediums (which is about 1 1/2 deeps) full of brood. Of course that takes some managment to accomplish.


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## iddee (Jun 21, 2005)

George, there aren't many things that would make me stop keeping bees, but if I had to choose between bees and booze, well, I don't know. I may have to send you the bees.


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## George Fergusson (May 19, 2005)

>if I had to choose between bees and booze, well, I don't know.

Heh. Well Iddee, here's hoping you don't have to make that choice


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## Sundance (Sep 9, 2004)

Made my choice in 1985........


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## iddee (Jun 21, 2005)

So who has kept your bees for 26 years...


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## Sundance (Sep 9, 2004)

smart arse....... back to sewing with you!









Seriously when you say 26 years it blows my mind.... seems like only yesterday I was galavanting around raising hell.


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## Sundance (Sep 9, 2004)

smart arse....... back to sewing with you!









Seriously when you say 26 years it blows my mind.... seems like only yesterday I was galavanting around raising hell.


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## Sundance (Sep 9, 2004)

jezzzzzzzzz I stuttered!


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## FordGuy (Jul 10, 2005)

Astrobee - I think the consensus is that a nuc may or may not make a good crop, depending on a lot of things, including type of bee, amount and timing of precipitation, late freezes, location, whether there are other hives in the same yard, (pressure, robbing etc.)

I don't know if your friend's experience was an isolated incident or not, but my first point was just from my own bad experiences, mainly from aggressively splitting then wondering why I had no honey. 

Above all, remember I have the least experience and knowledge of most folks here, as I am a newbee among newbees, in fact, I am the newbee gopher, and hope to graduate to senior newbee in a few years. Your mileage may vary. Remember this, the reason I did the agressive splits to make nucs is i heard about people that made good crops from nucs and tried it myself. I failed. As a result, I have altered my procedures as oulined above.


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## Luthar (Dec 13, 2005)

>I have no experience raising bees in the South. However, I'd be dissapointed if I couldn't get more than one Deep of brood going in a hive in the Spring. I expect two mediums (which is about 1 1/2 deeps) full of brood. Of course that takes some managment to accomplish.


I have limited experience, but right now, both of my hives are two deep brood chambers, filled with brood, honey, pollen, and nectar. I've been able to stack supers on just recently, with only foundation, and they are working it like there is no tomorrow. I don't see the big concern with not running two deep for brood chambers. It gives the bees more room, and it's less to worry about for space and ventalation. But again, this is just my opinion.


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## RAlex (Aug 18, 2001)

Last spring (late apr/early may) I found a capped cell in one of my hives. I took that frame and two frames of capped brood. (one each from other hives) and two frames of honey. put them into a nuc, took it home ! That nuc filled two brood boxes and 1 full super and started on another super before I closed them up for the winter . Among all the mistakes I make once in awhile I do something right








...Rick Alexander


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## FordGuy (Jul 10, 2005)

Luthar, I am willing to bet I have less experience than you! haha, but let me ask you about your statement above - you seem to disagree with my feeling that you NEED two deeps or equivalent as a brood rearing engine, yet you say that two deeps is exactly what you have and you are doing just fine...havent you just made my point for me?

Even if you only had one deep, and they were still drawing comb just fine, I didn't say you needed two deeps to draw comb, I am talking about forage collection. I am assuming it takes X number of foragers to build stores to carry a hive through a winter. I am assuming that every bee over X number of bees can mean more honey. 

I believe when you have a critical mass of bees, they can collect enough stores to make it through a winter, anything over that critical mass and you risk causing a swarm from overcrowding, but if managed correctly you can also increase your honey yield. 

This notion is the basis of my change in procedures this year. So essentially, I and my hives are the guinea pig, I will let you know if this has been another FordGuy monumental mistake!


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## Luthar (Dec 13, 2005)

well, i'm sorry if my statement seemed to be against running the two deeps. I was actually meaning that running two deeps is better, personally, but who knows. Also, the way i got my hives through the winter, take some hives that have supers on near the end of fall(granted it's pretty much capped) and then take and move 4 of the 9 or ten frames to the top deep, giving the bees four full capped frames of honey to last the winter. This worked really well with my hives, granted I got the frames from another beekeeper due to the fact that I just started keeping the in September. It worked really well. Both hives are running very well, they still have a large amount of honey, and brood. Now what I have done is taken some of those frames they didn't use of the capped honey, moved it up into a super, and gave them frames with foundation to give the queen a place to lay. I'm guessing the queen doesn't lay during winter, or if she does, the eggs aren't hatching.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

The compromise between crowding them into the supers and giveing them room to rear brood, is to give them room early and do a cut down split before the flow. That would be my vote.


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## FordGuy (Jul 10, 2005)

I would have guessed you did a split after the flow so as to take advantage of large numbers of field bees.

If you cut down before a flow, are you more focused on what you leave with the old hive, or what you create with the new one? In other words, assuming a strong hive, are you more worried with leaving the formula for a honey producing hive, with plenty frames of brood left over to make one or two nucs, or is it a case of leaving a weakened parent hive but ensuring the split has enough to make it? 

Again, seems either of those scenarios are less desirable than letting the large parent hive gather loads of honey and then splitting it so it can build up for winter on the second flow (goldenrod)

if you can make it past the reproductive swarm cut of date, and manage them to prevent an overcrowding swarm, then seems that hive would be perfect for honey production.

[ March 24, 2006, 12:17 PM: Message edited by: FordGuy ]


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## drobbins (Jun 1, 2005)

FordGuy

read Michaels description of splits Dec 30 here

http://www.beesource.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=002910#000003

Dave


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>I would have guessed you did a split after the flow so as to take advantage of large numbers of field bees.

It works ok to do one after the flow.

>If you cut down before a flow, are you more focused on what you leave with the old hive, or what you create with the new one?

The main focus of a cut-down is maximizing the number of bees and minimizing the brood to care for and the space in the old hive so they are crowded up in the supers and have a lot of field bees to gather the harvest. The up side is you also get a split out of it.

> In other words, assuming a strong hive, are you more worried with leaving the formula for a honey producing hive, with plenty frames of brood left over to make one or two nucs, or is it a case of leaving a weakened parent hive but ensuring the split has enough to make it? 

My goal is to maximize the harvest, but the end result is that the split usually does well. If you put the queen with the split it does very well and you leave one frame of young larvae with the old hive and they will have a broodless period right when that is of maximum benefit.

>Again, seems either of those scenarios are less desirable than letting the large parent hive gather loads of honey and then splitting it so it can build up for winter on the second flow (goldenrod)

But a cutdown is removing all the open brood, that needs caring for, a lot of the honey, so they can feed that brood and so you can minimize the space in the old hive, and letting all the field bees and house bees stay and/or fly back to the old hive. So the old hive makes MORE honey because it has less drain on it's resources and more workers to get the job done.

>if you can make it past the reproductive swarm cut of date, and manage them to prevent an overcrowding swarm, then seems that hive would be perfect for honey production.

Certainly, it will do fine if you do all of that. But it will do better if they end up broodless right at the flow.


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

FordGuy 

> Astrobee - I think the consensus is that a nuc
> may or may not make a good crop, depending on a 
> lot of things, including type of bee, amount 
> and timing of precipitation, late freezes, 
> location, whether there are other hives in the 
> same yard, (pressure, robbing etc.)

Agreed, but all those reasons apply nearly equally independent of hive size. 

> I don't know if your friend's experience was an 
> isolated incident or not, but my first point 
> was just from my own bad experiences, mainly 
> from aggressively splitting then wondering why 
> I had no honey. 

Well he consistently does well with nucs - not just based upon a lucky year. However, I haven't fully adopted his approach, in fact this year I intend to more closely test this hypothesis. I'm going to run a few 2 deeps, a few 1 deep, and a few nucs and see for myself what's the optimal configuration. My prediction is the 1 deep will result in a better overall apiary yield. This is not to say that a 1 deep will collect more honey than a 2 deep, but more like two 1 deeps will (on average) outperform a single 2 deep. What about four nucs? Could they outperform a single 2 deep? I think part of the appeal about the smaller/more vs. the bigger/few approach is that it gives some relief to the always-present variability that we get from queen to queen. Its not unusual to have a couple of queens that just don't get the job done and if not caught early enough will result in sub-par honey yields. The smaller/more gives you more chances to "hit" a great queen for roughly a similar investment. 

Just my 2 cents.


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## Propolis30 (Aug 25, 2005)

I'm trying something similar this year as well. I'm running half my hives 2 deep and half 1 deep. Supers are on now....we'll see. I may even try to overwinter 1 deep and see how it does. I'm guessing it will do fine in my area. I had a 1 frame nuc (YES 1 FRAME) make it through the winter this year with no feeding from me. Now watch with my luck when the flow starts it will die.


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## FordGuy (Jul 10, 2005)

Propolis, can you tell me more about the 1 frame? size, activity, location to include wind protection and temperature there, race, time nuc was made, stores it had versus brood?


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## FordGuy (Jul 10, 2005)

Mr. Bush, what is it about removing openbrood that causes nurse bees to change assignments to field bees? If nurse bees normally change assignments anyway, what is it about removing open brood that speeds that change up?

Do nurse bees go directly to foragers, or do they become waxmakers somewhere in between?


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Mr. Bush, what is it about removing openbrood that causes nurse bees to change assignments to field bees?

The open brood gives off pheromones that supress them converting to field bees. Without these they become field bees.

>Do nurse bees go directly to foragers, or do they become waxmakers somewhere in between?

I'm sure some will become wax makers if those are needed. Thats another reason it works well for comb honey.


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## Zarka (Jan 14, 2006)

> 1. to make honey, you need a field force produced and maintained by 2 deeps full of brood, and a queen that can use the deeps. 

Why? I got over 60 lbs from one hive with one deep box and three supers last year in the suburbs.

> ensuring the queen isn't honey bound

what is honey bound and how does it happen?

> drawn comb (NO FOUNDATION)

what's wrong with foundation? If that's all there is, they'll make comb.

> Draw only one super of foundation at a time! 

Why?

> 10 per frame. 

An old timer I met this week always has 9 per box to get the caps up higher for uncapping and fewer frames to extract.


> Don't mix drawn with undrawn.

Why? How do you know? What happens? What do you mean by mix? I have one super with only foundation, one with partially drawn foundation and one with a mix of foundation and a little bit of capped honey (not a full frame of honey, just some of it). I guess i'll find out, but give me a heads up what to expect.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>> 1. to make honey, you need a field force produced and maintained by 2 deeps full of brood, and a queen that can use the deeps.
>Why? I got over 60 lbs from one hive with one deep box and three supers last year in the suburbs.

And I've gotten 200 lbs each from four hives (all I had at the time) with three deeps and five supers.

>> ensuring the queen isn't honey bound
>what is honey bound and how does it happen?

Mostly it happens when the bees are trying to swarm, but sometimes it happens because they run out of storage space.

>> drawn comb (NO FOUNDATION)
>what's wrong with foundation? If that's all there is, they'll make comb.

Nothing WRONG with foundation. I've just had better luck detering swarms with empty frames. It seems to have a different effect on the direction the hive takes than foundation. With foundation they seem to move other wax around sometimes, where with an empty frame they start making white wax earlier and I think that changes the direction the hive takes.

>> Draw only one super of foundation at a time!
>Why?
Because they don't drawn it well when you throw three or four boxes of foundation on. Sometimes they chew the top ones up to build the comb on the bottom one.

>> 10 per frame.
>An old timer I met this week always has 9 per box to get the caps up higher for uncapping and fewer frames to extract.

Most people do when they are drawn. But you have less problems with "in between" combs and not building on the foundation, when they are crowded 10 to a box. Once they are drawn they are much easier to uncap at 9 or even 8 to a ten frame box.

> Don't mix drawn with undrawn.
>Why? How do you know? What happens?

What happens is they draw the already drawn comb out deeper and don't draw the foundation. This makes it impossible to pull the frame with foundation out because the two drawn combs on each side have grow into the space under the top bar.

> What do you mean by mix? I have one super with only foundation, one with partially drawn foundation and one with a mix of foundation and a little bit of capped honey (not a full frame of honey, just some of it). I guess i'll find out, but give me a heads up what to expect.

That will probably work fine. The point is not to alternate drawn and undrawn or drawn and starter strips etc.

Michael


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