# beginner needs help



## keswickb (Jun 8, 2012)

Check this outhttp://wolfcreekbees.com/home.htm they have small cell and treatment free I think.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

very cool keswickb. i have fly fished on the duck river. it's within driving distance of me ( and my friend  ). maybe he could get some from them. 

but if not, anyone with suggestions as to how hive non-regressed bees?


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## Andrew Dewey (Aug 23, 2005)

Last spring I searched for treatment free bees available commercially and there are more than what you'd think available. I ended up order from B Weaver and UPS delivered the packages. They were not inexpensive and finding out if they will thrive in my environment will take a few years.

Treatment free and small cell - the search will be harder, but my thinking based on anecdotal evidence from BeeSource and other sources is that bees meeting your friend's requirements are available if you look hard enough.

I am hoping that TF bees will thrive in climates substantially different from their home climate. As someone who is generally opposed to high colony mortality in the bee yard I will embrace bees that are almost TF - Kim Flottum observed recently that Russian Bees are not as robust at coexisting with mites as we had hoped, but they are still better at it than ordinary bees, and should need less beekeeper supplied help to survive and thrive in most climates.

I wish your friend well with his search - please keep us posted on how things work out.

Oh yes, what equipment will he need? Depends upon climate of course - here in Maine the usual is two deeps for the brood chamber and shallows for honey supers. So for my area the list of needed equipment for year 1 would include, solid bottom board, three deep boxes, one honey super, frames and foundation to fill two of the deep boxes and the honey super, an inner cover (with notch), telescoping cover, smoker, hive tools (plural), veil and/or jacket, an entrance reducer and a friction feeder. Gloves are a matter of preference - So long as your friend can be confident working bees without them - I'd skip them. Me, I keep them available and use them more often than not. For wintering I use roofing paper, 2" fiberglass insulation cut to fit the inner cover and a strap to run around the hive to keep everything together. Stones/cement blocks can work but I've had them slide off in the winter and then had the outer and inner covers blow off.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

excellent post andrew, many thanks.

how are your weaver bees doing at this point?

we are going to check out wolfcreek to see what they have available, and at what price.

do you have any specific recommendations for the type of foundation, given that he wants small cell bees?

what are your thoughts about going foundationless with narrow frames?


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## BeeCurious (Aug 7, 2007)

If your friend wants to go full bore, flat out, drink the Cool-Aid, small cell... I would recommend the following :

Use Mann Lake's PF-120's for everything. Trimming them down to 1.25" is an option. There's less bridge comb with wooden frames so if there is some extra money to spend (some would say waste) the plastic pf foundation can be mounted in wooden frames. 

My two strongest hives last spring had narrow frames. 

I started with small cell nucs. If a sc nuc is available, that's a good option. Otherwise, many have reported that their package bees have drawn the small cell foundation correctly the first time. Unlike wax, the pf frames can be scraped off and returned to the hive to be drawn out again. I scraped off some old "dried up" disused pf-120's and put them back in this year. I was surprised how quickly new wax was drawn out. 

The U.S. made Honey Super Cell frames are not as nice as the ones that were made in China. I warmed and dipped my hsc through a layer of wax melted on top of a large pot of water. My wax coated hsc has been readily accepted. The problem is that it is not cheap and it demands a bit of work to prepare them... But, after a couple of brood cycles after forcing bees onto the HSC there's no returning to cycle new or scraped frames into the hive.

I started out with all eight frame medium equipment as well...

I'm not interested in foundationless.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

thanks bc. i am 'curious'  , have you experienced non-regressed bees readily accepting your waxed hsc?,

or has more of your experience with hsc been giving it to already regressed bees?

i think you mentioned previously only doing that once, sorry if i am repeating myself.


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## BeeCurious (Aug 7, 2007)

I forced one package, otherwise boxes of HSC were placed over bees that I wasn't sure of being sc. I have about 40 frames of HSC in a number of hives and nucs. I can start new colonies with those frames, knowing, without any doubt, that the bees are "small cell". 

There are a few choices :

1. You buy sc bees. 
2. You put the package of bees on "pf" frames and possibly cycle some frames 
3. Do the intermediate foundation thing with I believe, 5.1mm wax
4. Force the bees onto hsc

#3 would be my last choice. I have limited time, and even more limited patience.

I would suggest that your friend buy/build some five frame nuc equipment if possible. It will be nice to have when queen cells come along.


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## Andrew Dewey (Aug 23, 2005)

squarepeg said:


> how are your weaver bees doing at this point?
> 
> do you have any specific recommendations for the type of foundation, given that he wants small cell bees?
> 
> what are your thoughts about going foundationless with narrow frames?


The B Weaver bees are doing ok but not great. They required substantially more feed than my other bees. Two of eight colonies failed for non disease/parasite issues. I should have caught the drone layer/laying worker problem early enough to save the colony, but I didn't. At times their temperament is "testy" and at times they are completely mellow. They are going in to their first winter. {Colonies were established in new equipment, new Permadent Plastic foundation in wooden frames (with my own wax painted on the foundation} Entrances were left reduced all summer.)

I have no experience with SC foundation nor foundationless frames and hesitate to offer any recommendations. For myself I remain unconvinced that SC benefits the bees and believe that the success reported by many SC beekeepers is due to other management practices (deliberate or not).


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## dixiebooks (Jun 21, 2010)

SC nucs would be the best option, of course, but they are not an option for your friend unless he can find them within the state of AL. Unless he just smuggles them in. don the fat beeman (www.dixiebeesupply.com) does SC, according to his website. -js


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## KQ6AR (May 13, 2008)

All we use are the mann lake pf frames. The packages, & swarms we put on them draw them out just fine.


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## cg3 (Jan 16, 2011)

I've put 6 packages directly on undrawn pf frames. All have done well enough to draw out 4 medium boxes and produce surplus honey the first year.


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## beeman2009 (Aug 23, 2012)

Squarepeg, These guys have told you right. Wolf Creek & DixiebeeSupply are both SC & chemical free. I know them both, especially Wolf Creek. They are very good folks to deal with. I will be buying from them this spring.


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## sfisher (Sep 22, 2009)

I don't think the fat beeman is treatment free.


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## Rusty Hills Farm (Mar 24, 2010)

edited since I just noticed everyone else already mentioned this. Sorry about that!


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

squarepeg said:


> but there are no treatment free small cell bees for sale anywhere, not even packages.


That's not true.




squarepeg said:


> he's not computer savy.


That's why. If you want information, you've got to go where it is. The vast majority of information on treatment-free beekeeping is available online free. A much smaller portion of it is available in book form. Let him use your computer.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

many thanks sol.

he  has since learned of sources within driving distance.


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## Bubbles (Jul 14, 2012)

Has your friend considered using top bar hives? There are two basic kinds. Horizontal and vertical. I went with the latter - a. Warre hive. And I did get my bees from Wolf creek apiaries. So far, they are doing well in spite of the cold Midwestern weather.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

thanks bubbles.

i think the wolf creek bees are advertised as '4.9' bees.

have you measured any of your natural comb to see what they are drawing now?


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## Bubbles (Jul 14, 2012)

This first picture is the super. I think it's where most of the honey are stored.


I never opened my hive. I just peeked through the window. So I never measured the cell sizes. Maybe I can measure the width of the cells through the window. I'll try that this Spring.











This was the original top hive box.

Most of the combs are naturally drawn by the bees except for 2 top bars c/ halved foundations in the super to get the bees to build more combs from the topbar down.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

fascinating.

my first look at a hive like this.

does every comb start on a bar of its own?

looks like it would be very difficult to remove anything from a hive like that.


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## Bubbles (Jul 14, 2012)

With Warre hives, you harvest the box, not just a comb or two. Unless of course you decided to place frames or half frames without foundations instead of just top bars. I placed 8 topbars on each box but as you can see, the original box only has 7 combs while the super has 5.

Here's a link that shows a beek demonstrating how to inspect his hives. He used half-frames.
http://milkwood.net/2011/05/04/urban-beekeeping-checking-a-warre-hive/


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## KQ6AR (May 13, 2008)

I think you'll find you're bees draw different size comb for different purposes. The ones in the middle of the brood nest might be 4.9 for worker brood, while the ones on the window are probably larger for honey, & drone brood.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

i agree with dan. you should have cells of varying sizes mostly depending where they are in the hive.

the reason for my question was because you bought bees that were raised on 4.9 mm cell.

bubbles, if you ever have a chance to measure cells in the core of a broodnest area, it would be interesting to see if they stayed 'regressed' or became 'un-regressed'.

the easiet way is to take a milimeter ruler and measure across 10 cells, and divide by 10.

thanks again for the photos, that is really neat!


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## Kristen2678 (Mar 21, 2012)

I got a package from Wolf Creek this past year. I dumped them out onto foundationless. They drew lots of incomplete comb but what they drew was pretty straight. They packed the brood nest with honey and swarmed (I now know better). The new queen failed to return mated (lots of dragonflies here) so I no longer have their stock - but wish I did! Nice bees. Easy for a beginner to work. I have a partially drawn comb here that I've measured a few rows of. Looks like they naturally drew 5.08 in the middle of the broodnest.


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## Bubbles (Jul 14, 2012)

To Dan: you are right on bees building different cell sizes depending on what the bees want to put in them.
To Squarepeg: I'll try to remember to measure the cells come Spring.
To Kristen: one old timer beek said she noticed that the cells toward the top of the combs were bigger compared to the ones toward the bottom. Did you notice a similar trend with your bees' combs?


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

interesting stuff, thanks to all for the replies.


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## xcugat (Mar 4, 2008)

Just out of curiosity as I saw one in this thread--does anyone have a verifiable warre hive that survived 3+ years? (I only know one person I my area and he hasnt had much luck)


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## Bubbles (Jul 14, 2012)

To xcugat: I sort of asked that question in biobees.com Here's the response.
http://www.biobees.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9973


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## xcugat (Mar 4, 2008)

Thanks Bubbles I would like to read it but your link goes to the main site--is there another link?


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## Bubbles (Jul 14, 2012)

Here is a partial copy of the link on the question: Oldest active Warre hives

zaunreiter
Moderator Bee
Joined: 26 Nov 2007
Posts: 1973
Location: Germany, NorthWest
Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2011 7:38 pm 
Keeping bees in Warré hives for seven years now. There are some more out there, especially in France, who use the Warré hive for an even longer time. 

Bernhard
____________________________________
trentfysty
Guard Bee
Joined: 17 May 2010
Posts: 64
Location: USA, Colorado, Englewood
Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2011 3:25 pm 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

3 years here! 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you haven't already done so I would get David Heaf's book about Warre Hive Keeping. He has been doing it for a long time and has been very detailed in his documentation of what has worked and what hasn't. It's a great resource and is a pretty quick read.

Trentfysty


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## xcugat (Mar 4, 2008)

He says keeping bees in Warre seven years...but is it the same queen/the same swarm of bees or is he replacing them each year?


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## Bubbles (Jul 14, 2012)

To Mambo king,

You'll have to ask him your question. Go to www.biobees.com/forum and register (it's free). His full name is Bernhard Zaunreiter.

I am guessing, he raises the descendants of the original swarm but may have replaced queens every 2-3 years.


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