# Long deep dreams



## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

I have been lurking here for a while and dipping my toe into a few conversations and its time to take some positive steps. So, a little bit of introduction. 

Why do I want to get into bees? I have for a long time had a background interest in beekeeping without the ability to indulge but now opportunities have opened up. A couple of years ago I made some enquiries with a commercial beekeeper and the response was, well, I could set you up for about $1000. The immediate response was scratch that idea, I'm not that keen. But it kept niggling away. Being who I am, I read a lot, collected a long list of bookmarks and lurked here for a few months before I joined. 

What I am doing will not suit everybody so, a few of my ground rules. I am in this for interest, entertainment, learning and maybe a bit of honey. I am at that stage where maintaining engagement and activity, mental and physical, is important. I have no experience with bees but I know research, genetics and large scale breeding programs (not in bees), can learn by reading and am reasonably practical. 

This will not be a commercial operation, if I had visions of becoming commercial I would go Langstroth, no questions, the standardisation would win. There are a lot of comments in these pages from Langstroth people along the lines of going to mediums, 8 frame etc. to make lifting easier. I am already past that, which basically mandates some sort of long hive with frame based manipulation. Of course, like most newbees I am going to work on my own hive design, not because I have some earth shattering insight but because the design and build is part of the enjoyment and standardisation has low value to me.

Anything is up for discussion, I have no delusions that I am going to come up with anything revolutionary and, the more I read here, the more I think that I will be lucky to come up with anything original. No problem, its the journey that counts. I am going to talk about my decision making and experiences, I hope they will be at least interesting and perhaps the process, if not the specifics, may be of interest to others thinking about beekeeping in similar circumstances. In an ideal world there may be some serious discussion of designs and techniques. I am hoping not to get too far into beekeeping 101.

That's it for now. Next will be some ruminations on design and dimensions.

Sel.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Have you looked inside a working beehive?

If not, I would STRONGLY recommend spending some time with a knowledgeable beekeeper so at least you have an idea of how bees work before you design and build the hive.

Get him to show you the workings of the broodnest, why the bees have it where it is, the thermal dynamics of it, where they like to store honey and why, the reasons for certain entrance placement, all that stuff.

You are unlikely to get the required degree of understanding just from books, or the net.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

sparkyApis said:


> ..............I could set you up for about $1000. The immediate response was scratch that idea, I'm not that keen. ........
> That's it for now. Next will be some ruminations on design and dimensions.
> 
> Sel.


Indeed, look into acquiring "free bees" (e.g. swarm catching) and building your own (whatever existing design you choose or even invent your own).
Pretty much what I have been doing.
This approach will free you in many ways.
Beekeeping as a hobby can be very cheap hobby on your side moneywise if you chose this way (no $1000 setups are required).


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## Newbeek2021 (May 13, 2021)

"No thousand dollar setups required" Have you seen the price of lumber...?
You have to take out a 2nd mortgage for like 6 2x4's & a piece of plywood lol


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Newbeek2021 said:


> "No thousand dollar setups required" Have you seen the price of lumber...?
> You have to take out a 2nd mortgage for like 6 2x4's & a piece of plywood lol


I have so much free lumber pulled from the dumps, I can no longer park in my garage.
Nothing prevents you from just picking up free lumber (of course, you may need to pull few nails).

Of course, if people want everything spunky new and shiny - then pay and don't complain.
I can build you a pretty looking long hive and even paint it and deliver too - for $$$. 

So - the free lumber is always there and the bees don't care.

To be sure, I checked CL for free lumber as we speak, sure there is plenty for those willing to work with it (not that I need any anymore):


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## Newbeek2021 (May 13, 2021)

Touche sir!


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

Thank you everyone for their interest. I want to take up a couple of points, not to be argumentative but maybe to avoid being dismissed as someone going into this dumb, blind and ignorant. 


Oldtimer said:


> Have you looked inside a working beehive?


Short answer, yes. I have friends who are large scale commercial beekeepers and I am developing relationships with local beekeepers. I have no doubt that it would be simpler to obtain second hand Langstroth gear from them and do what they tell me but what would be the fun in that? That said, please feel welcome to comment and question anything I say, your comments are always knowledgeable and reasonable. If I start to react defensively I hope someone will administer me a figurative smack in the ear. 

I am encouraged by the many comments here that the bees survive in spite of what beekeepers do to them and I intend to stay somewhere within accepted practice even if not within commercial practice.


GregV said:


> Indeed, look into acquiring "free bees" (e.g. swarm catching) and building your own (whatever existing design you choose or even invent your own).
> Pretty much what I have been doing.


That's essentially what I am intending to do. Without trying to put any responsibility on to you for what I am doing, I have read a great deal of your stuff on here and much of it resonates with me.

I am using scrap timber recycled from some renovations around my house and have already scoped out some wild hives which may be good sources of swarms. If all else fails there will be a major influx of hives to the district when canola pollination season comes around but I would prefer a swarm from a hive which has survived at least one season locally. I just need to be ready when the season comes around.

Sel.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

sparkyApis said:


> Short answer, yes.


That's what i wanted hear. There has been posts similar to yours and the guy has never even seen a real beehive, and of course the project ends in tears.
There was no malice in my post, just sharing what I thought to be important info before you start your project.



sparkyApis said:


> I have no doubt that it would be simpler to obtain second hand Langstroth gear from them and do what they tell me but what would be the fun in that?


Oh that can be pleny of fun. 

However if you want to chart your own course, I will follow with interest.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

sparkyApis said:


> I have no doubt that it would be simpler to obtain second hand Langstroth gear


The second hand gear would be good for the swarm trapping gizmos - so there is value in that.
After you get the bees you are free to experiment in any way you want.


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## Gray Goose (Sep 4, 2018)

Sparky,
I somewhat started the "normal" way with 10 frame Lang.
then with age added the 8 frame, then with time added the 5 frame, then from curiosity added the 44 frame double deep long lang.

getting some second hand gear and jumping in would be a good idea, all of the different sizes keep a little different, so like driving a tractor, you can learn to disk, then plow, then chop corn, etc, each having some of the same features but also being somewhat unique.

I can also offer if you plan to market or intro a "hive" design of your own, starting from scratch is not necessary , and for me for example, if a lang frame did not "fit" into it I would not even try it, due to the current investment I have.

I have went from a 5 frame NUC to the 8 or 10 frame box. I have also made 6 -5 frame NUCs out of the long lang when it had swarm cells. Easily moving from baby to production to queen breeding for me is an essential feature. Not to mention the price and availability of frames and foundation and extractors are somewhat driven by the Math of what is in the field.

dance your own dance, but maybe look at where the musicians are today as well.

BTW I go from Log to hive with a middle sized wood shop, also a nice thing to have,, then making and trying an idea is faster.

Good luck

GG


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

I continue to be impressed with the generosity with time and advice of people in these pages. I hope there is a little entertainment in my ramblings and not too much frustration when I wander off down some sidetrack that you have all seen before.

Just to reiterate, there is nothing commercial in this and I have no delusions that I am likely to make any breakthrough in hive design.

I suspect like a lot of people, Leo Sharashkin's site was one of my early entries into this arena of alternative hives and my reading went through Lazutin, Dadant, Brother Adam, Dave Cushman, Michael Bush, Randy Oliver and countless pages in this forum. Dave Cushman's site is a treasure trove of alternative hive designs and dimensions (and many other things). I admit find a comment he made about British hive builders woodworking to tolerances of a tenth of a millimetre be hilarious. I am an average sort of wood butcher and I'm building beehives, not furniture, if I get to the nearest millimetre I am having a good day. I don't have a table saw and dado blades, I have a decent mitre saw, an Aldi thicknesser and a trusty Triton workbench. 

In all the variety of hive and frame designs there is much talk about various dimensions and the differences between many of them are not large. At the risk of committing heresy, I don't believe that any of it means much to the bees. Bee space and frame spacing affect bee behaviour but mainly to make it more convenient for the beekeeper and the rest really does not matter much. Most of these designs have probably come from someone doing basically what I am doing, building something that suits them and is not too outlandish to the bees. A few have become more widely known because individuals had influence in their district and a couple have taken off because of a combination of commercial support and Government decree. The accuracy of dimensions only becomes important in the service of standardisation, to simplify a beekeepers parts inventory and to facilitate exchange. Neither of those are great drivers for me and maybe not for many hobbyists. 

Where were we? The first decision made (#1), it is going to be a horizontal hive with frame based manipulation.

Next decision, what frame length (top bar length)? I sort of have a free hand because I have no store of legacy equipment but this is set against lots of advice that compatability with Langstroth is the way to go and everyone I may have to deal with will be on Langstroth equipment. If I need to buy bees, they will come on Langstroth frames, if I need to dispose of bees, they will go into Langstroth hives and so on. I suspect that there are also a few out there thinking that they have seen all this before and , after I get over my youthful (I wish) exuberance I will see that light and end up in Langstroth gear. They may well be right but I will have enjoyed the journey.

Lazutin and others talk about the size of natural tree hollows and many use that as input to frame design leading to narrow deep frames. Lazutin makes the point that the trees and therefore the tree hollows we see today may be considerably smaller than those seen in the bees evolutionary history. He adopted the Dadant or Langstroth frame width as consistent with that theory (and because it was available).

So, second decision, frame length will be standard Langstroth (Australian) bottom bar length (as per Cushman) of 448 mm. That is the outside of the frame. The inner width will have some variance because of tolerances and material variability but who cares, its not really important because of:

The third decision. The frames will be foundationless.

Time to make some sawdust.


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

Re: accuracy - it's important in certain areas (as bees themselves are only a few mm in size), but completely irrelevant in others. The Horizontal or Long Hive is particularly forgiving in this respect - being a one-piece box it can be slightly out of square, even with a slight twist, and no-one cares. But not so with multi-box stacks where multiple touching surfaces are involved.

The only critical measurement is the space between the frame top-bar and the Crown Board (Inner Cover) - that is, if you choose to use a hard cover. Using a soft cover (which many do) eliminates that issue completely. The distance between the frame side-bar and the hive wall is less critical - I find that anywhere between 5 and 12-ish mm is acceptable. I have never once seen any of my side-bars 'glued' to the hive wall. Bottom space can be anywhere between (say) 7mm and 30-40mm depending upon frame depth. With frames 12" or deeper, in practice even 2 or 3 inches doesn't present a problem.

So that just leaves the inter-comb space. Langstroth was of the opinion that comb spacing ought to be adjustable "at will" by the beekeeper (see his 2nd Patent, 1863), and I agree with him. I use small spacing screws set at 32mm to achieve 100% worker comb, then open them out to 34-35mm when they're fully drawn. I also ensure that around every 1 in 10 is drawn-out drone comb.

Do give some thought to frame depth, as generally speaking a shallow 'landscape-format' frame encourages bees to store honey *above* the brood nest (which is why vertical Langstroth stacks are so efficient, honey-wise). Conversely, a deep 'portrait-format' frame encourages bees to store honey *at the sides* - indeed, beehives used to be classified as either 'side-storage' or 'top-storage' hives rather than vertical or horizontal, as they are today.

BTW, I'd also suggest that you knock-up 3 or 4 bait-hives/swarm-traps over the winter, so that they are ready for deployment early next year. Lemon Grass Oil is good as a swarm attractant, but imo nothing beats some really dirty old comb stinking of propolis. Maybe a local beekeeper could gift you some ? Or even some slum-gum ? Neither have any value, except for swarm attraction.
;best,
LJ


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Not sure what others think of this, but I have always imagined that the ideal sized hive from the bees perspective, would be a langstroth box but wide enough to take 12 frames, and the frames about 50% deeper. Just one would function for the brood nest, with the same size used for the honey supers also.

Issue being, it would not work for the beekeeper the weights involved would just be too much for one person.

So the standard langstroth size is a fair compromise between bees needs and beekeepers needs, the bees do fine in it.

Re the idea that bees are adapted to smaller hives than a 4 or 5 box langstroth, it is true most wild hives are quite a bit smaller than that. But the other side of the coin is that wild hives do not produce a honey harvest for a beekeeper every year. Bigger hives make bigger honey crops.


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## bushpilot (May 14, 2017)

It sounds like you know what you are getting into (meaning in part that you know there is a lot you don't know), know how to gather information, and have no delusions of grandeur. 

It is a fine start for a hobby! Enjoy yourself, learn much, and share the results, we'll be standing by!


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Oldtimer said:


> Bigger hives make bigger honey crops.


Not necessarily.
With smaller hives you simply take off smaller increments and do it more often (is it a benefit OR a hassle - it depends on your case). The end of the season result can be just the same.

Just one small hive benefit - while the big hive guys are still waiting for their colonies to build up for some expected "main flow" - well the small hive guys are already out there selling off their spring honey (at the double-triple price).
And this is only the start (all the while you have reduced risk of your precious back injury).

It does not matter how much honey you make - what it matter how much money the honey brings.  This is if you care of the sales (again, that depends).

This guy is a prime example (I got many more):


https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4bLfaD4R4AzoTPHCFNh0Lg


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Anyway - here is one hassle and pain with the long hives (why I am working to develop my own CVH solution)...

With large frame/long hive solutions you will have issues of isolating honey until the very end of the season. You will also have issues isolating any targeted mono-floral honeys.

All along the season most frames will contain both brood-nest and honey - all on the same frame.
Only later in the season, there will be pure honey frames at the ends of the hive - this may or may not be your case, but the real possibility is there. So I said it.

Issue with the long hives is that they are mostly well suited for the late season honey harvest (but not the early harvests).
This is how it historically has been, in fact, and works really well for the peasant bee management style.
In my location, for example, it means inability to harvest early spring/black locust honey if running long hives.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Oldtimer said:


> Bigger hives make bigger honey crops.





GregV said:


> Not necessarily.
> With smaller hives you simply take off smaller increments and do it more often (is it a benefit OR a hassle - it depends on your case). The end of the season result can be just the same.


Try telling that to any commercial beekeeper LOL 

I would agree that if running nucs through a season you will have to incrementally take honey out of them, but it will only be a few frames it won't equal what a full hive would give you.


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

I find all this information and commentary fascinating as well as useful, it makes things more understandable. 


little_john said:


> The only critical measurement is the space between the frame top-bar and the Crown Board (Inner Cover)


LJ, this is one I am not aware of, I have seen pictures of burr comb under Crown Boards and the like but I can't recall discussion of specific spacing or I have not twigged to the significance. In my case I am starting out with touching top bars and bottom bee space so it may not be such and issue but I'm still interested.

I am working on an 8mm lateral beespace and the bottom space will be on the generous side but I don't have a hard number for that yet, depends to some extent on hive construction.

My bait-hives are next cab off the rank. I thought it easier to build the frames to a consistent size then make a box to fit.


GregV said:


> (why I am working to develop my own CVH solution)...


Keep publishing that stuff won't you, I am reading. I'm not wedded to the long deep hive as the only solution, just the best one for me to start with. I actually think that a long hive will be easier to learn from than a Langstroth. I could solve the lifting problem but that would undoubtedly require equipment and setup that would make it a pain to unstack the thing to look at what is going on. I am much more likely to open the top and slide some frames aside to check the inner workings and let the bees educate me.


little_john said:


> Do give some thought to frame depth, as generally speaking a shallow 'landscape-format' frame encourages bees to store honey *above* the brood nest (which is why vertical Langstroth stacks are so efficient, honey-wise). Conversely, a deep 'portrait-format' frame encourages bees to store honey *at the sides* - indeed, beehives used to be classified as either 'side-storage' or 'top-storage' hives rather than vertical or horizontal, as they are today.


Frame depth has certainly taken up a fair bit of thinking, it seems that every remotely achievable frame depth has been tried. I get the impression that the deeper frames (in locally developed hives) are more popular in areas with harsher winters. I am certainly not in harsh winter territory and I cannot imagine trying to handle a three foot deep frame full of bees and honey so I give all those a miss. British Nationals are 305 deep, CP Dadant was happy to overwinter in a single 300 deep, Langstroth hives commonly have two deeps or three mediums for the brood. My conclusion from that is that a single Langstroth deep is not deep enough. Lazutin made an attempt to calculate a required depth from first principles. Using 250mm as the diamater of the cluster the observation that the cluster moves upward at 1mm per day through winter as it consumes stores he came up with 430mm required depth and made his frames a bit deeper than that because it suited his materials and because he was building his own.

Given that winters here are a completely different kettle of fish to those in central Russia the transfer of this calculation to temperate Australia is highly suspect but if I drop two months off the length of winter from Lazutin's 180 days I come up with a depth of 370mm. It just so happens that 367mm plus and minus allowances for top and bottom bars will fit into a Langstroth box and a half which gives me a relatively pain free way to migrate to standard gear if I need to.

The resulting frame is a big sucker. I am happy with the depth but still have reservations about the width. It is almost entirely driven by the compatibility argument, without that I would have a narrower frame. I have already put some thought into it and have a workable solution for making the equipment narrower if I need to go that way. It will be a pain and there will be unhappy bees but I will not have to throw away all my gear.

Time for more sawdust and perhaps some glue. Sparky


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Oldtimer said:


> Try telling that to any commercial beekeeper LOL
> 
> I would agree that if running nucs through a season you will have to incrementally take honey out of them, but it will only be a few frames it won't equal what a full hive would give you.


I am not going to argue with an old timer commercial beekeeper.
I don't know any better - myself.

However (yet again) the old conventional wisdom has been overturned by other commercial beekeepers.
That an example above - a small scale/full-time commercial beek.
(to be sure - his entire family lives off his bees - that's plenty commercial - if they don't sell honey and make enough money, they don't eat).

But how could I forget my another favorite - commercial migratory beek - *the migratory six-framer!*
Drying up his supers after extracting a batch of 2021 rape honey:


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

sparkyApis said:


> In my case I am starting out with touching top bars


I have been discouraging people from this approach.
Though your climate is mild enough to maybe disregard.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

> (why I am working to develop my own CVH solution)...





sparkyApis said:


> Keep publishing that stuff won't you, I am reading. I'm not wedded to the long deep hive as the only solution, just the best one for me to start with. I actually think that a long hive will be easier to learn from than a Langstroth. I could solve the lifting problem but that would undoubtedly require equipment and setup that would make it a pain to unstack the thing to look at what is going on. I am much more likely to open the top and slide some frames aside to check the inner workings and let the bees educate me.


The long hives are great to get started and recommended if you have no personal knowledge base yet.
Let me just suggest that I am looking for new things to do with the CVH (but also being able to move equipment alone is a highly desired feature). For sure keeps one occupied.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Well since it's in Russian and I cannot understand a thing he says, I guess you have outfoxed me. 😄 

Next time I want to prove you wrong Greg I'll post one in Maori


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Oldtimer said:


> Well since it's in Russian and I cannot understand a thing he says, I guess you have outfoxed me. 😄
> 
> Next time I want to prove you wrong Greg I'll post one in Maori


ЛОЛ!
You can always turn on the subs and auto-translate.

Here is the original topic about the mobile 6-framer commercial beek - runs on a full-size commercial diesel semi.
He is a real deal, OT - nothing but 6-frame boxes.








6-framer - larger-scale, commercial grade, mobile operator


Nothing but 6-frame boxes/medum-size frame (shallow Dadants, technically). (I guess, he still uses some deeps in the very bottom box - in that case they winter in a single Dadant 6-frame box + an empty super below optionally). Another version of pure by-the-box approach. No frame-by-frame...




www.beesource.com


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

sparkyApis said:


> LJ, this is one I am not aware of, I have seen pictures of burr comb under Crown Boards and the like but I can't recall discussion of specific spacing or I have not twigged to the significance. In my case I am starting out with touching top bars and bottom bee space so it may not be such and issue but I'm still interested.


Normally this space is discussed in the context of a frame top-bar and the bottom-bar of the frame above it - in a vertical stack of boxes. But here's it's origin:









The above screen-grab is from Langstroth's 1863 Patent in which he describes this space as a shallow air chamber into which the bees pass, before proceeding upwards into the surplus honey receptacles. He suggests this space be half an inch, which of course is 12.7mm. These days we would consider this excessive, and 9mm (i.e. one 3/8" bee-space) is what is now normally recommended. More dope on the bee-space:


Top or Bottom Bee Space




Bee Space



FWIW, although of little relevance to those outside the UK, Standard National Deep Frames here are 215mm. The 14x12 (305mm) - although according to Patterson has been around a long time - is generally viewed as being a much later development far more suitable for modern-day prolific bees. I much prefer them to the standard Deep frames.


National 14 x 12 box



Patterson is one of those guys who want to re-establish AMM in the UK, so he's against anything which is even remotely related to other, more desirable sub-species - he's also a bit nuts about classification. We have 3 sizes of boxes: SN's (Shallow National, 150mm); DN's (Deep National, 225mm); and 14x12 (or 305mm) - the latter is simply called "14x12" by most people although I guess it could be called 'Extra-Deep'.
He's barmy to say that the 225mm boxes should not be called 'Deeps', when the frames those boxes house are classified as 'DN' - which is an abbreviation for Deep National - LOL !

Touching top-bars ? I can't think of EVEN ONE positive attribute of that frame design - if I could, then I'd be using them myself.



> Frame depth has certainly taken up a fair bit of thinking, [...] It just so happens that 367mm plus and minus allowances for top and bottom bars will fit into a Langstroth box and a half which gives me a relatively pain free way to migrate to standard gear if I need to.
> 
> The resulting frame is a big sucker. *I am happy with the depth but still have reservations about the width. It is almost entirely driven by the compatibility argument, without that I would have a narrower frame.* I have already put some thought into it and have a workable solution for making the equipment narrower if I need to go that way. It will be a pain and there will be unhappy bees but I will not have to throw away all my gear.


I understand the compatibility argument - but how important is it, really ? From time to time it may have relevance, sure - but ought it to be dictating to the hobbyist ? My own approach is to maintain a number of British National Boxes, which enables me to produce nucs on our standard frames - but - I'm having much more fun, and getting better results with hives based on 12"/300mm cavities. The only reason I've opted for our 14x12 frame in my latest Gallup-Adair Long Hive project is that they chose a frame 13 3/4" x 11 1/4" back in 1875, so the 14x12 is closer to that than the 11 1/4" x 11 1/4" Gallup frame which would be the other option. That, and if (Big IF) this should indeed turn out to be a non-swarming beehive (the holy grail of beekeeping), the 14x12 as an existing standard is more assured of acceptance than the Gallup frame.

Good luck with your decision-making, Sel - it's probably the hardest part of the inventive process.
'best,
LJ


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## Kevinf (Oct 2, 2019)

GregV said:


> Anyway - here is one hassle and pain with the long hives (why I am working to develop my own CVH solution)...
> 
> With large frame/long hive solutions you will have issues of isolating honey until the very end of the season. You will also have issues isolating any targeted mono-floral honeys.
> 
> ...


Acknowledging that my sample size as a second year top bar beekeeper is very limited, I couldn't agree more with your statement about most frames containing brood and honey early in the season in this configuration. In the northwest, we are in the midst of our last and heaviest flow of the year, but all 28 bars in my top bar hives have a mixture of brood and honey. I can't really do a late season harvest here when they begin to consolidate the broodnest because it would likely contain a mixture of nectar and syrup as we will have to feed generally by August 1. So I either sacrifice some brood now and harvest a few bars or there is really no chance for any honey.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Kevinf said:


> So I either sacrifice some brood now and harvest a few bars or there is really no chance for any honey.


Exactly.
And you are not alone - in sacrificing some brood so to harvest the honey from a long hive.
In my location and with my hives I will have solid honey frames at the season end, thus, I get away with it.
But inability to harvest varietal honey of my choice and my time frame is bothersome - bug/feature of a long hive.

Kevin, let me guess and make a suggestion - if don't already, make sure your long hives have the entry at the very end (the warm way) - this is one more/less predictable way to have bees consolidate their honey at the far end from the entrance (then you can maybe have pure honey combs to harvest).

Another suggestion - have a follower board installed to demarcate the brood area from the storage area. Usually (but no guaranty!) the queen will not go around the follower board and gradually, the storage area will have no brood in it.


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## Kevinf (Oct 2, 2019)

GregV said:


> Exactly.
> And you are not alone - in sacrificing some brood so to harvest the honey from a long hive.
> In my location and with my hives I will have solid honey frames at the season end, thus, I get away with it.
> But inability to harvest varietal honey of my choice and my time frame is bothersome - bug/feature of a long hive.
> ...


Thanks, GregV. When I built my top bars I tried to imagine every contingency so each are built with the possibility of 6 potential entrances. One on both ends and also two each on the side of both ends if that makes any sense. When you say "the very end" you are referring to having a single opening on the end wall, correct? Right now, I have them use two front entrances on the side walls. 

After this year, I thought about getting a plastic QE and just cutting it to fit the hive space to do what you suggest. If I use the follower board with holes open and at the end of the brood nest, will the bees carry the nectar through the follow board holes to store the nectar on frames behind it? Intuitively I would have thought the follower board would have stopped them too. Interesting idea.

Sorry for all the questions.

Kevin


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Kevinf said:


> Thanks, GregV. When I built my top bars I tried to imagine every contingency so each are built with the possibility of 6 potential entrances. One on both ends and also two each on the side of both ends if that makes any sense. When you say "the very end" you are referring to having a single opening on the end wall, correct? Right now, I have them use two front entrances on the side walls.
> 
> After this year, I thought about getting a plastic QE and just cutting it to fit the hive space to do what you suggest. If I use the follower board with holes open and at the end of the brood nest, will the bees carry the nectar through the follow board holes to store the nectar on frames behind it? Intuitively I would have thought the follower board would have stopped them too. Interesting idea.
> 
> ...


This is what you want (pic).

Indeed, you want the entry set as depicted - this somewhat restricts the ventilation across the entire hive AND the bees will move the brood nest closer to the entrance - what you want so to consolidate the honey on the back.

Asymmetric side entrance is also OK (Les Crowder style/Layens style/my own style) and resembles the same.

Centrally located side entry is the worst possible design for the TBH hives (IF you are on a deep hive, you can get away with it).

Follower board is NOT division board.
The former is NOT meant to stop bees (but rather suggest to them the boundary of their brood nest without stopping them).
The latter IS meant to stop the bees cold.

If you cut to size a standard QE, then it should just work similar to vertical hives.
I have not tried it but why shouldn't it work?

So yes - the bees will go around/under/through the follower board (or QE) and will use the volume for storage. But since this is the worst ventilated volume, the queen hardly ever goes there (though did happen to me last year - because the brood area become honey bound while the queen was mating, and the queen went around looking for ANY space available AND went around the follower board into the storage area and so on......).


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## Kevinf (Oct 2, 2019)

GregV said:


> This is what you want (pic).
> 
> Indeed, you want the entry set as depicted - this somewhat restricts the ventilation across the entire hive AND the bees will move the brood nest closer to the entrance - what you want so to consolidate the honey on the back.
> 
> ...


This is all very interesting and giving me some things to try - thanks! I have three cork sized holes drilled in the current follower board but I would easily drill a couple more for added access to the rear. Never would have considered this - my mind had the follower board as a barricade. I have a split that I can easily begin to try this experiment but need to wait a couple weeks as the queen is likely on mating flights right now. Thanks, again!

Kevin


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

LJ, I understand now what you are meaning with crown board gap, basically top bee space. For a single level hive and foundationless frames, not so much of an issue perhaps?


little_john said:


> I understand the compatibility argument - but how important is it, really ?


That is a question for which I do not have a solid answer and that is probably why I still have reservations about the decision. It has a bit of a well worn track in my head right now. It seems to me that a narrower frame should be perfectly acceptable, and there are plenty of examples of those, on the other hand there are many experienced people here who strongly support standardisation or at least maintaining compatibility. I am conscious of my lack of experience and feel that it is perhaps a little arrogant to cast conventional wisdom aside entirely and leave myself no path back into the "mainstream". Or maybe I'm just chicken.

The biggest practical issue I can see right now is how to bootstrap the operation. I plan bait hives but, if these are not successful, what is my alternative method of getting a colony going in a hive which is completely without resources? Are there reasonable alternatives which do not involve transfer of frames of resources?


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

sparkyApis said:


> what is my alternative method of getting a colony going in a hive which is completely without resources? Are there reasonable alternatives which do not involve transfer of frames of resources?


So when I decided to play this game I told to myself (and wife) - I am not spending any money to acquire bees.
That made my decisions very simple.
Then one day (we just came from from a vacations from the Appalachia) we went to a public park where I care for some apple trees. Right there from an apple tree branch was hanging a tiny perfect swarm.
This one -








I am not a religious person, but it felt as if God's hand at the moment.

Then I climbed down a concrete well and got me more bees (still hate I could not keep alive these bees from the well, oh well).










And so it went on and on and on....


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

Kevinf said:


> If I use the follower board with holes open and at the end of the brood nest, will the bees carry the nectar through the follow board holes to store the nectar on frames behind it? Intuitively I would have thought the follower board would have stopped them too. Interesting idea.


'morning Kevin.

Much depends on where those holes are. FWIW - I call these boards 'Division Boards', rather than 'Follower Boards', as I hate the term 'Follower'. Without a 'Leader Board', you can't possibly have a 'Follower Board' ...  LOL But yes, we're now talking semantics.

By 'Division' I mean the hive area is effectively 'divided' or formed into different sections (Brood area & Stores area) - but NOT Separated in an Absolute (two colonies in one box) sense. More semantics ...

Ok - so how do such boards (regardless of what you call them) actually work ? They are thought to work by presenting the Queen with a large expanse of woodwork - more importantly, with a large expanse of 'none-comb'. So that when she searches for new cells to lay in, all she finds is nothing - not even wax comb - and so she'll give up and retreat from whence she came, for at least she'll be aware that there* is* wax comb back there, with some empty cells perhaps if she continues to search for them.

If you look at: BRITISH NATIONAL-DADANT (second photo down), you'll see a plywood excluder I made for a vertical beehive, and it worked extremely well. It's important that there are no holes in the central area, as that is where the Queen begins her search for empty cells. I got the idea from: Queen Excluder Types Used In Bee Hives (second picture from the bottom).

By sheer coincidence, for several years before that I'd been using the same technique with horizontal hives, by using a hanging Follower/Division Board with around 2" cut off it's bottom. My initial intention had been to create a board which would act as a 'Thermal Curtain' to effectively reduce the hive cavity size - but with parallel-sided hives I found that in practice it was almost impossible to make such boards bee-tight, and some bees would inevitably squeeze through the gaps and get stuck on the other side, where they would eventually die. As my principle thermal concern was focused on the upper area, I decided to cut off 2" or so from the board's bottom to create an 'escape route' for those bees - and so effectively made a Queen Excluder without realising it. LOL.

All my boards are now of this form. and I find them extremely useful - any frame which needs to be cleared of stores or residual brood, for example, can simply be placed on the 'wrong' side of the board, where the bees will help themselves, and when empty those frames can either be removed or left there for storage.

Personally, I've never had a Queen cross such a barrier, but Greg has, and so it would appear that they need to be used with some discretion. I would never rely on this method of Queen Exclusion for example, for keeping two or more queens apart within the same hive. But for preventing a Queen from entering a stores area however, I find they work extremely well, and even if a Queen _were_ to circumnavigate such a barrier, that would hardly constitute a disaster. 
'best
LJ


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## Gray Goose (Sep 4, 2018)

GregV said:


> Not necessarily.
> With smaller hives you simply take off smaller increments and do it more often (is it a benefit OR a hassle - it depends on your case). The end of the season result can be just the same.
> 
> Just one small hive benefit - while the big hive guys are still waiting for their colonies to build up for some expected "main flow" - well the small hive guys are already out there selling off their spring honey (at the double-triple price).
> ...


Hi Greg,

I would take the other side of your position and agree with Oldtimer, odd but it does happen 

having had 100's of hives over many years, I can offer my observation that the bigger the work forces the bigger the harvest.
some bees need to heat and cool and haul water etc, at the end of the day the "extras" are foragers.
more extra and you have more foraging. 

Try have a couple hives with 30 frames of bees and brood by the end of dandelion bloom, keep them from swarming and report back the honey for the year. You will run out of jars. One year I had close to 400 pounds each from 6- 2 queen hives. 2 tipped over and I received more stings that year then the previous 5 put together. Was the end of it for me. Big works, but trends to unruly and hard to manage.

I did a lot with 2 queen hives in the 80's I can offer from observation that 2 -10 frame hives put together will have more honey surplus than if they were separate. I briefly worked on 3 and 4 queen hive designs, all were very difficult to do inspections on, as the honey stack needed removal to do a complete check, and they swarmed as 1 unit. think 20 pound swarms. they also become "predator's"

size matters if one is "producing honey"

Mostly now I am playing at Queen rearing and the honey is a bit of a PITA lift ,extract , keep comb safe over winter, etc.

Sparky the other size you need to keep accurate, is the the comb spacing center to center. too much and you get drone comb too little and they cannot make it right. the rest is of course for the keeper. If they used hollow trees for 100,000's of years obviously the cavity can be of differing shapes.

somewhat depends on what your goals are, if you want to sell NUCs then the lang frame Will be in your world. If honey production, then some method of extraction is needed, etc. begin with the end in mind.

GG


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

little_john said:


> Personally, I've never had a Queen cross such a barrier, but Greg has, and so it would appear that they need to be used with some discretion.


To clarify, my queen crossed this particular board design (see the holes).
If I want to stop the queen, I simply plug the hole(s) using paper or wax - but I don't remember now the exact circumstances (I want to think I did plug the holes).


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## Gray Goose (Sep 4, 2018)

LJ
All my boards are now of this form. and I find them extremely useful - any frame which needs to be cleared of stores or residual brood, for example, can simply be placed on the 'wrong' side of the board, where the bees will help themselves, and when empty those frames can either be removed or left there for storage.

your comment I have seen as well
In my case I had a strip fastened to the long hive to hang the frames on. my math skills apparently were off on the design day and with both sides router out the frame fell thru, so I routered one side and put a 1/2 inch strip on the other, this "mistake" ended up working very well. if they ran out of space they would start a comb in the open area, rather than swarm. if I had partial frames or wet frames they would be cleaned up nicely in the open space. bees patrolled it and propolized it ahead of the frame adds. also in winter was a side open air space as the pics show of the centered hive frames with a plastic over like in the Ukraine videos Greg has shared.

Bee passible and air passable "divider boards" have some usable features, I discovered quite by accident.
So A soft divider rather than a hard divider can also be utilized.

GG


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Gray Goose said:


> Hi Greg,
> 
> I would take the other side of your position and agree with Oldtimer, odd but it does happen


And you have full rights! 

Let me just say that a small hive (lets take a 6-framer) will have a fighting chance against a 12-framers. Especially in terms of money produced per unit because smaller hives support better small early harvests from what I studied so far.

In many locations (mine included) early honeys will command significantly higher prices.
The same for mono-source honeys if one can separate and market those.
Bulk mixed late honey is always the cheapest and also every one has it - the cheapest honey of the season with the only label possible - "wildflower honey".

Now - the 6-framer WILL loose to a 12-framer, face to face, in terms of raw volume.
8-framer will come closer.
10-framer even closer still.
Though this will depend on a particular operator and a particular setting - so not necessarily.

Thinking back, I recall how hard for us (i. e. my Dad) was to squeeze harvest from our 12-frame square Dadants. But really, there was nothing wrong with what he was doing - that was our reality, but he did not know any better and there was no Google or Youtube at the time.
The place was much better suited for the smaller hives - 6-frame/8-frame format (which he had no idea about at the time - he was a victim of the conventions and the bees were to be kept in 12-frame hives and only).

Now, this is not a pure speculation.
Here, I am pulling up an actual experimental finding - commercial beek people indeed did an experiment comparing 6-framer to 12-framer side by side for the honey production.

So the findings were:

200kg for the season for a 12-framer
150kg for the season for a 6-framer!!!!!!!! (not 100kg as one would expect by pure math).

And so logically two 6-framers, while roughly equal to a 12-framer, handily beat the 12-framer - 300kg vs. 200 kg per a season. The beeks who did the experiment were seriously thinking of their next steps as working the 12-framers presents serious challenges, starting with bad ergonomics....

(i know, i know - there is fixed overhead per each unit no matter the number of the frames (to just say 6+6=12) - but considering your back is *priceless*, the 6-framer wins hands down IMO).
No amount of honey will ever pay for a damaged back.

Here is the actual material (use translation);
in fact, one can just read the comments - they contain all the info needed


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## Kevinf (Oct 2, 2019)

little_john said:


> 'morning Kevin.
> 
> Much depends on where those holes are. FWIW - I call these boards 'Division Boards', rather than 'Follower Boards', as I hate the term 'Follower'. Without a 'Leader Board', you can't possibly have a 'Follower Board' ...  LOL But yes, we're now talking semantics.
> 
> ...


Hi LJ, here are my typical "follower" boards without the corks in the holes. My woodworking skills are not so great so I won't claim that the bottom and sides of the board are flush with the hive cavity but they are somewhat close. When feeding, I place the feeders on the opposite side of the board and bees access primarily through the three open holes. Based on your and GergV comments, if I do decide to drill any more holes I certainly won't do it any higher on the board.

Thanks,
Kevin


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Gray Goose said:


> odd but it does happen


LOL 😄


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## Gray Goose (Sep 4, 2018)

Oldtimer said:


> LOL 😄


I figured you may get a chuckle out of that.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

GG and OT are agreeing .... okey dokey. 
There is hope.


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

GregV said:


> And so it went on and on and on....


It is great that you are able to get by through, as I understand it, harvesting a swarm into a container and transferring it into whichever type of hive you want to grow it in so you don't have (or minimise) the problem of transferring between formats. I think that if I waited to find a hanging swarm I could be waiting a long while, of course last year I had just such a thing on a shrub 50m outside my window, but that is a rare occurrence. I have cardboard box, smoker, queen clip and bee suit on hand just in case, but I expect that I will depend on swarm traps.

My reading of Seeley and others suggests that a five frame 30cm wide 37cm deep swarm trap at 18 litres may be too small, even 46cm by 37cm (approx) five frame is only around 30 litres. I suppose there is nothing magic about five frame swarm traps but a box with one narrow dimension seems easier to hang off a tree. On the other hand some use flower pots so I am, not for the first time, confused. What do people think about the importance of trap size?

An associated question, if I have a swarm that has been in a trap for say 3 days, what are my chances of success if I transfer queen and bees to a new box with bare frames and provide some feed. This would be one way around an incompatability between the trap frames and the hive frames.

I accept that some do not favour touching top bars, there has been some discussion of that in these forums and I may have to revisit the question after I have seen what sort of mess I get into down the track. I'm not sure I want to get into the whole ventilation argument here, suffice to say that if additional airflow is required I have some ideas as to how that could be managed. Provision for feeding is another work in progress.

In the discussions of frame spacing I have seen the idea that different spacings for brood comb and honey comb may be advisable so some ability to vary frame spacing easily is of interest. As it is, my top bars are 29mm wide and the idea is to use a spacer strip between each frame, cut to the same depth and length as the top bar so it drops into place, with thickness as required to set the spacing. This is simple and allows the spacing to be easily changed but one of the prices of this simplicity is the touching top bars. My initial spacer thickness is 5mm so I have a 34mm frame spacing. In a rare example of precision from my wood butchery I lined up 10 top bars and 10 spacers and the stack measured 340mm overall, wonders will never cease!

Now I have to go and have another serious think about frame length and compatibility.

Sel.


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

sparkyApis said:


> even 46cm by 37cm (approx) five frame is only around 30 litres


Just to clarify, this is roughly my proposed frame size, not some random set of numbers I plucked out of the air.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

sparkyApis said:


> What do people think about the importance of trap size?


Like I have been saying - forget dedicated traps.
Make yourself multi-purpose compact hives - use them for traps, use them for nucs/splits, use them for transport boxes, use them for storage, use them as work tables, etc.
My size is 6-7 frame multi-purpose hive (around 40-50 litres).
These should be compatible to the base frame size of your operation.
I got a fleet of them (even bigger now).


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

sparkyApis said:


> Just to clarify, this is roughly my proposed frame size, not some random set of numbers I plucked out of the air.


This idea of 5-frame box is a mistake in my view.
It should be 6-8 frame multi-purpose box - which then has much wider functionality WHILE still being small and portable enough (and yet this "too-small trap" issue is no longer your problem).
People are oblivious of a trivial device called follower board (which can make your 6-framer into 2-framer when needed - internally).


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

sparkyApis said:


> An associated question, if I have a swarm that has been in a trap for say 3 days, what are my chances of success if I transfer queen and bees to a new box with bare frames and provide some feed. This would be one way around an incompatability between the trap frames and the hive frames.


You don't transfer anything anywhere.
People who don't have better things to do transfers and cut-outs (which sometimes includes me also).

You simply take down the multi-purpose box serving as a trap and place it where you want it and you are done (until they grow out of the box - then you upgrade).
Better yet you don't even do this - you simply leave the trap box exactly where it is - because this is where you wanted it.

If your swarm moves in - they will take care of virtually anything (building combs, etc).
If you find them in "say 3 days", you will be suprised how much progress they will have made already.


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

GregV said:


> My size is 6-7 frame multi-purpose hive (around 40-50 litres).


Well, I think I owe a few people on here an apology and thanks for being amazingly forbearing in answering questions which you have already dealt with before. I started tracking back through GregV's CVH thread and made it back to his "GregV's alternative way..." epic. My early days on this forum were a little like drinking from a firehose (still are really) but I remember starting on that thread, becoming frustrated with some of the commentary on breeding, selection and ethics and giving up at about page five. Today, while it has been raining outside, I have spent much of the afternoon reading further into this and I find, around page 15, discussion of some of the very issues I have been puzzled about with a lot of good stuff from LJ, GG, OT and others added in.

So, thank you all. I go now to work through the other 45 pages and wherever that takes me and hopefully to have some more intelligent questions and plans in a little while. I really don't want this thread to become another Beekeeping 101.

GregV, just so I can ruminate on possibilities could I ask you for the dimensions of your CVH box. As I understand it is 300mm square internally but I am unclear on the depth overall or below the frame rest. Is it a Lang medium depthwise?

Sel.


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

sparkyApis said:


> My reading of Seeley and others suggests that a five frame 30cm wide 37cm deep swarm trap at 18 litres may be too small, even 46cm by 37cm (approx) five frame is only around 30 litres. I suppose there is nothing magic about five frame swarm traps but a box with one narrow dimension seems easier to hang off a tree. On the other hand some use flower pots so I am, not for the first time, confused. What do people think about the importance of trap size?


Confused ? I'm not surprised - just as many other people are. Why ? - I'll explain ...

Tom Seeley is a very nice guy - one of the best - but Tom Seeley is also a scientist. But isn't that a good thing ? Well, not necessarily.

Firstly, scientific enquiry requires that an initial research question be asked - but the problem with a question is that it 'frames' any answer to it - so that you will only ever get the answer to that specific question ... and not* the truth *(if indeed, such a thing exists).

Secondly, the manner in which scientific research is reported is highly disciplined. Again, a researcher is *not* allowed to tell the truth (which is usually that he/she needs to publish *something* in order to establish their credibility within the scientific community.) Publishing science has become BIG business, and can dictate careers and therefore a scientist's income.

Seeley asked a question in the form: "*which of these two bait boxes* will a swarm prefer ?" That is NOT the same question as "*what size bait box* will a swarm prefer ?", and it certainly isn't the same as "*what sort of cavity* will a swarm prefer ?".

The relevance of the above may become clearer if I tell you what actually happened during the experiment, rather than what was reported as having happened. The first swarm to emerge didn't choose either of the swarm boxes, but set-up home in the only chimney in the only cottage on an otherwise deserted island - and it was only after access to that chimney was denied to future swarms (by means of a wire mesh) that the experiment could continue.

Seeley wrote about this event in his book 'Honeybee Democracy' but didn't include it in his research paper, as it didn't play any part in answering the question being asked.
Nevertheless - people still quote Seeley's results as published in his paper - results which are truthful, but only in regard of the specific question being addressed - and has nothing whatsoever to do with the type and size of cavities which swarms *actually* prefer in real life. Hence your (and many other's) confusion. 

I've had success myself with various sizes of swarm box - what they all had in common was their 'bee smell' from a year or more of use. (Were Seeley's boxes 'pre-used' - I can't remember)


Touching top-bars. One of the problems you will encounter is that of bees' propolising the cracks between the bars, which will then need to be 'cracked apart' every time you inspect a frame. You will then need to scrape away that propolis (each time) in order to prevent propolis build-up, and thus 'increased spacing creep'.

The means of adjustment I've settled on is to use small screws - just as guys did before the days of foundation and Hoffman side-bars (side-bars which also suffer from propolis build-up).










The above is from Cheshire, 1879. Also a Division/Follower Board can be seen between frames 6 & 7 - there's very little indeed which is new in beekeeping ... 
'best,
LJ


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

sparkyApis said:


> GregV, just so I can ruminate on possibilities could I ask you for the dimensions of your CVH box. As I understand it is 300mm square internally but I am unclear on the depth overall or below the frame rest. Is it a Lang medium depthwise?
> 
> Sel.


So, Sel, from the very start I decided that all my beekeeping construction will rotate around this frame (pictured).










So you know - the width of this contraption (a double medium Lang frame as you can see) is 12.5" (or nominal 300 mm metric - I don't care of few mms +/-).

Why is this important?
Well, Leo Sharaskin's Layen's frame has virtually identical width.
But yet he goes into great conversion pains when Lang frames are to be converted into his Layens hives.
Why do it?
Either by not seeing the obvious and not modifying your Layens frame to be just 1-2 inches deeper and avoid all the conversion gymnastics altogether.
OR insisting on your "so very special Layens frame" because it has some magical properties and allows to keep the bees in the natural way and so on and so on.... And thus the people must buy my special frame or else....  (I sure hope not).

I will say though that the Layens frame does fit the 300mm ergonomy (why 300mm is a different subject). The issue is easily resolved by a mod as I propose.

See horizontalhive.com for details if care.

So now, by simply doubling up the Lang frames and turning them into the "portrait" position, you have:

a *prototype *frame that is compatible to the ubiquitous Langs - great for cross-platform moves and direct equipment reuse in a pinch;
the frame that meets the nominal ~300mm ergonomy;
the frame that is deep enough and allows for suitable wintering in cold conditions and good ventilation in hot conditions
the frame that can have 1/2 and 1/3 size compatible derivatives (again see pic - green and red lines denote the smaller derivaties) which then allow for vertical variants (see CVH) that are compatible to the long hives WHILE providing 1) much better mobility for a single operator and 2) the vertical hive features unavailable to the long hives - dynamic volume, etc
Back to:


> As I understand it is 300mm square internally but I am unclear on the depth overall or below the frame rest. Is it a Lang medium depthwise?


See picture - these are compatible hives.
The CVH will need three boxes to directly take a frame from the long hive.
The long hive will take any frame from the CVH regardless.
Either hive is constructed with the base prototype frame dimensions in mind - 12.5".
The CVH is a ~300mm square that takes 9 frames (with some wiggle room designed in).


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

This CVH hive has 9 full size frame as we speak - 3 boxes plus an empty box used for air buffer/insulation. You can see temp bracing needed to hold the boxes together - I don't want them to accidentally separate whilst in a large frame mode.
I plan to refactor the bees onto 1/3 size frames and start the by-the-box management testing - just whenever I get to cut 100 small frame batch.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

little_john said:


> I've had success myself with various sizes of swarm box - what they all had in common was their 'bee smell' from a year or more of use. (Were Seeley's boxes 'pre-used' - I can't remember)


Somehow he omits this point (by design or oversight).
I myself don't see how bees will move at all into an unused box - they just never did for me. Not once.


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

little_john said:


> Seeley asked a question in the form: "*which of these two bait boxes* will a swarm prefer ?" That is NOT the same question as "*what size bait box* will a swarm prefer ?", and it certainly isn't the same as "*what sort of cavity* will a swarm prefer ?".


Having spent my life as a scientist I have to tell you that we are all nice guys  . You are spot on when you say that he asked simple questions. Simple questions have to be asked, otherwise the resources required get out of hand. I just went back to Honeybee Democracy and it appears that Seeley used three sizes 10, 40 and 100 litres based on the findings from measurements of natural cavities over several seasons of killing colonies and destroying nesting cavities. Forty being the average and the other sizes representing the two tails of the distribution. He talks about constructing all these boxes in one winter season and so they would have been new although may have been used for more than one experiment run. The descriptions are a little vague and I have not bothered to dig up the papers. It is also all based on 124 swarms from 252 boxes.

It is perhaps fair to say that 40 litres is one of those numbers that, through frequent repetition, has received more authority than it deserves. In the meantime I should go and cadge some smelly old comb to put into my lovely new gear.

Sel. Edited to fix a couple of confusing typos.


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

GregV said:


> Either hive is constructed with the base prototype frame dimensions in mind - 12.5".
> The CVH is a ~300mm square


You have no idea how much angst that little tilde has caused me.  I lack a great depth of background knowledge so sometimes I have to put in some thought to fill in bits that should be obvious. Your concept of sistering up medium frames to form a deep seemed straightforward once I had seen it but that clearly does not fit into 300mm. Instead of just accepting that the 300 was a real ballpark figure I have been trying to work out what concept I have misunderstood. I've discovered lots of other useful stuff on the way so all is good. A bit of angst is a small price to pay.

At the risk of showing that I am really still confused, my conclusion is that your 300 boxes are something like 317 (12.5") plus say 25 (2x0.5") beespace = 342mm or thereabouts. I still crave a real number for the box height, I can work out an approximation but that word is making me nervous just now.

Thank you again. I now have a clearer path in my mind.
Sel.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

sparkyApis said:


> your 300 boxes are something like 317 (12.5") plus say 25 (2x0.5") beespace = 342mm or thereabouts.


Yes. Close enough.
You always start with the frame.
Frame is the origin of everything in the hive.
Everything else is derived.

I prefer working in inches as it fits nicely with standard lumber in the US.
My own standard bee space is 1/2".


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

sparkyApis said:


> *I still crave a real number for the box height*, I can work out an approximation but that word is making me nervous just now.


The beauty of the long box - you can be sloppy and can experiment forever.
So I added 1-3 inches of depths to the frame depths - done.
I don't really have a standard depth, but ~2 inch of under space is a good default.
Frame depths + 2 inches will do.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

> ~300mm





sparkyApis said:


> You have no idea how much angst that little tilde has caused me


Truly does not matter to the bees if you build your equipment at 315mm or 285mm or anything in between or close enough.
These are all ~300mm equipment variants (which are a plenty - both heritage and modern).
People get bogged down in the millimeters and loose the general vision. 

To compare, conventional ~435mm equipment is markedly different to both bees and humans in many characteristics.

So if ~300mm approach is chosen, the next step is to refine what exactly will it be.
I chose 317mm (12.5") for the reasons I already explained.
Once the big choice is made, it is time get practical about it.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

sparkyApis said:


> it appears that Seeley used three sizes 10, 40 and 100 litres based on the findings from measurements of natural cavities over several seasons of killing colonies and destroying nesting cavities.


Time to get practical and realize - Seeley did catch many feral swarms that indeed originated from the tree cavities.

What does this mean?
It means that proportionally he caught more small swarms vs. an average swarm chaser will catch (meaning his numbers are skewed somewhat downward).

This is because an average swarm chaser somewhere in Midwest USA catches escaped cultured swarms from hives that tend to be larger (not smaller feral swarms in some remote backwoods).
And so now your 40 liter traps tends to feel a bit smallish already.

Better practical trap is a multi-purpose box in 50-60 liter range.


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## AR1 (Feb 5, 2017)

GregV said:


> Like I have been saying - forget dedicated traps.
> Make yourself multi-purpose compact hives - use them for traps, use them for nucs/splits, use them for transport boxes, use them for storage, use them as work tables, etc.
> My size is 6-7 frame multi-purpose hive (around 40-50 litres).
> These should be compatible to the base frame size of your operation.
> I got a fleet of them (even bigger now).


Agree. I no longer have 'traps'. Except for a few odd-sized boxes I built early on that still get stuck out in the woods occasionally. All of my 'traps' are designed to fit standard Langstroth deep frames. Either 5, 6, or 10 frames. All my traps can be set down and used as is as permanent homes, or easily have the frames removed into standard 5 or ten frame equipment. So far I have caught a few swarms in 6 and ten frame traps. None into 5 frame equipment yet. My main problem is lack of swarms!

I love the 5-frame nucs. So useful for making splits, separating out queens into temporary homes, transporting, picking up and carrying without back strain.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

AR1 said:


> So far I have caught a few swarms in 6 and ten frame traps. None into 5 frame equipment yet.


This basically confirms the same - 5-frame equipment is too small to be good multi-purpose design.

6-frame equipment (while only marginally bigger/heavier than 5-frame) crosses that ergonomical bee-view point where they naturally find it attractive.
So 6-frame it is, because it does everything that the 5-frame does BUT also catches the swarms better.
Need smaller volume - insert a follower board.

Someone somewhere took standard 10-frame Root box and cut it down into halves and the 5-frame box was born.
But they never asked the bees about it. 

PS: everything stated here is about ~435mm frame designs.


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

sparkyApis said:


> *Having spent my life as a scientist* I have to tell you that we are all nice guys  . You are spot on when you say that he asked simple questions. Simple questions have to be asked, otherwise the resources required get out of hand. I just went back to Honeybee Democracy and it appears that Seeley used three sizes 10, 40 and 100 litres based on the findings from measurements of natural cavities over several seasons of killing colonies and destroying nesting cavities. * Forty being the average* and the other sizes representing the two tails of the distribution.


More pieces of an interesting jigsaw ... a picture is beginning to emerge. 

What conclusions can be drawn from Seeley's 1976 observational study 'The Nest of the Honey Bee' paper ? Well to begin with, without data pertaining to cavities which the bees did NOT occupy, one cannot conclude that any choices based on size were ever actually made.

Tree cavities are so rare, witness Seeley's small sample size below (AND it's large spread) and thus present as such valuable real estate that bees will occupy more-or-less whatever they can find.








Seeley makes the point that numerous man-made cavities were not included in the data - now that may be fair enough - but he also excludes caves and nests beneath tree branches. But these are also 'Natural Honey-Bee Nests', and so to exclude these means skewing the data towards an apparent preference for tree cavities, with - as can be seen from the above diagram - whatever size of cavity happens to be available. Indeed, the cavity sizes observed probably says far more about the trees themselves rather than about their residents.

Tree cavities are caused by rotting of the heart-wood, which is invariably caused by traumatic damage to the bark, So - we're looking at deer damage and forest fires for cavities which occur lower down, and for cavities higher up we're looking at branches having been snapped off by falling neighbouring trees, which then frequently become effective 'rain-catchers'.

Such traumatic events are always random, and so although cavities formed by such events are indeed 'natural' in the sense of 'existing in or derived from Nature; not made or caused by humankind', they are far from being 'natural' in the sense of 'in accordance with the essential nature of trees' - i.e. not ALL trees possess such cavities. In this latter sense, the presence of tree cavities is indeed highly unnatural.

Why is this important ? Because numerous people have proposed that the honeybee has 'evolved' to live in tree cavities. Now anyone conversant with the process of evolutionary adaptation knows that in order to evolve towards a 'target' (a target which of course only ever reveals itself as such with hindsight), that target must be fixed and unchanging, or varying so slowly (i.e. over geological time) that it appears to be fixed and unchanging. If a target occurs randomly, or is otherwise highly variable, an organism simply cannot evolve towards it.

In reality, tree cavities are highly variable in their structure, ranging from hollow trees within which a human being can comfortably conceal themselves, to modest crevices just a few inches deep within a tree-trunk. Seeley's diagram of the internals of a tree cavity was only ever intended to be *representative* of the tree cavities he found, and not the blue-print for hive construction it has become in the minds of many.

I think the point I am labouring here is that single-variable experiments and the conclusions drawn from them may well have validity within the fields of Physics and Chemistry, but the world of Biology contains far too many variables for such a simplistic approach - especially when dealing with intelligent organisms. Observational studies in particular can be persuasive (but misleading) for the unwary.
'best
LJ

_*"It is perhaps fair to say that 40 litres is one of those numbers that, through frequent repetition, has received more authority than it deserves.*_*" *
Bugger - missed that very fair and concise comment until I'd already scribed the above. Oh well, I'll let the above verbiage stand ...


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## AR1 (Feb 5, 2017)

GregV said:


> This basically confirms the same - 5-frame equipment is too small to be good multi-purpose design.
> 
> PS: everything stated here is about ~435mm frame designs.


'Confirm' is a bit strong a term to use given the small numbers. But I will say that all of my home hives and traps are being scouted right now, and the bees are actively dragging crap out of the 6-frame trap, as if cleaning it up for use...


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

AR1 said:


> 'Confirm' is a bit strong a term to use given the small numbers. But I will say that all of my home hives and traps are being scouted right now, and the bees are actively dragging crap out of the 6-frame trap, as if cleaning it up for use...


I don't really have numbers to post regarding this (of my own), and Seeley name has been kicked around too much for the lack of any better data.

But odfrank will probably vouch for the same "confirmation" and will even post some pictures with swarms not fitting into small nuc boxes, and taking off afterwards.
If anyone, he'd have the most experience over anyone.
He posted enough on this exact subject. 

Fingers crossed for you, AR.
Hopefully your scouts will deliver through and the bee owner is sound asleep. LOL


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Well, why...

Both odfrank AND T. Seeley indeed suggest 8-frame deep as a swarm trap (if going the standard frame).
If anyone odfrank knows his stuff.

Read on:








Swarm trap size


Ok I have spent a lot of time researching swarm trap sizes. It appears the only university research was limited to a study by Cornell (Sealey and Marsh). They test 3 sizes 10, 40 and 100 liters and decided 40 was best. I don't really find that to be helpful beyond 'don't make your Bait hive...




www.beesource.com





That's plenty testimonial confirmation.
5-framer is not the best in trapping business, size-wise.


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

Thankyou all, especially to GregV and LJ, again. GregV, I have some more queries / thoughts eg my box height query relating your CVH proposal but they are not critical to what I am doing here and now and I will take them over to that thread later. LJ, my field was in the biological sciences, specifically agriculture and crop breeding and the trick is to make simplifications which do not change the system so much as to obscure reality.

Back to this project. A few days ago I was toddling along quite happily then along came LJ (at #24) to let off an explosion in the middle of it with a simple little "why" question. It shouldn't have had much effect really but it was obviously a question whose time had come, so thanks LJ.

I had made, on the basis of a lot of direct and indirect advice, this decision about frame length which I was not comfortable with and LJ's question made me go right back and reevaluate my thinking. After a day of reading pages from this forum (a lot of pages), following up side trails, asking questions and generally cogitating I decided that the only compatibility I may need is to be able to be able to transfer resources from outside into the system. I have figured out a way to do that, sort of a drop in cassette to hold the Lang frames and provide the ability to manage the bees off them into the rest of the hive, so the need to make the whole setup with wide frames no longer has priority. Much happier with that, the thought of those big frames full of bees staring me in the face was a little intimidating.

What I've decided on is frames about 315mm wide (plus spaces and ears) and around 400mm deep in total. This is the same depth that I originally started with. There is some objective basis to that depth measurement and although I do not have legacy gear to accommodate I do have a stack of sidebars already cut, so it stays. This frame size meets my objectives, looks much more friendly and should, at worst, not be repulsive to bees. There is nothing magic about the 315 but I think GregV's idea of a combination of long hives and small vertical hives has a lot of attraction so I want to at least leave the way open to something like that. I suppose it does, with a bit of gymnastics to accommodate the extra depth, also leave the way open for some sistered up Lang frames. There's that compatibility genie again.

So, after that prolonged bout of navel gazing it is past time to get back to making sawdust. First job is to rework my frame jig then trim a few top and bottom bars and make up one or two frames to check out the idea in 3D. I'm gluing the frames together which takes a while so box building will begin pretty soon in the gaps while frames set up. Enthusiasm has returned!


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

GregV said:


> Both odfrank AND T. Seeley indeed suggest 8-frame deep as a swarm trap (if going the standard frame).
> If anyone odfrank knows his stuff.


See, I should have known there would be a thread on this very topic. Oh well, more reading.


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## Gray Goose (Sep 4, 2018)

AR1 said:


> Agree. I no longer have 'traps'. Except for a few odd-sized boxes I built early on that still get stuck out in the woods occasionally. All of my 'traps' are designed to fit standard Langstroth deep frames. Either 5, 6, or 10 frames. All my traps can be set down and used as is as permanent homes, or easily have the frames removed into standard 5 or ten frame equipment. So far I have caught a few swarms in 6 and ten frame traps. None into 5 frame equipment yet. My main problem is lack of swarms!
> 
> I love the 5-frame nucs. So useful for making splits, separating out queens into temporary homes, transporting, picking up and carrying without back strain.


As well to your comment , All my traps have had bees in them as long as I can up to a season.
Hive a package, dump in a swarm, put a split in. So no trap is "new" 

Also On the Seeley thingy, I recall on the island he used "created" swarms not real ones, so IMO started with a constant, rather the real thing which is a different size every time. 

this year I used a old deep with 6 combs and 4 FL frames, over an empty Well protolyzed medium. have cought 4 so far,, 3 is my average. still time for one more, I have the queens to replace as well, a new thing I am trying this year. I have queens and use the swarm bees to make a new replacement hives. I can better test my linage and the last 2 years 5 of 6 did not make the winter so not really much of a sacrifice, IMO

GG


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

There has been progress. Have cut components, recut some for change in frame length and begun assembly.
The frames are built solely from recycled and scrap timber. I don't have the gear to do fancy rebated frame joints, instead I am making the joints by slotting the components and using plywood pieces as reinforcement. Those in the top bar double as comb starters, those in the bottom bar project outside the frame for about 6mm to reduce bee rolling when withdrawing frames. There are two vertical bamboo skewers for comb support. Vertical or horizontal comb support seems to be one of those questions. My thinking is that vertical skewers will provide better support because bees can incorporate them into the early stages of comb building, there can be a lot of unsupported comb between the top bar and the first horizontal support. They should also provide more of a guide to encourage the bees to keep building straight down. Vertical may be less convenient when attempting to attach pieces of recovered comb and the like but how often am I going to want to do that.

Bee frames in the feral state.









These are all the bits for one of my frames. The three narrow strips are corner reinforcements and starter strips. There are three pieces to make a gap for the vertical support skewers. The square pieces provide bottom corner support and extend to help reduce bee rolling by the sidebars.









Slotting the ends on the trusty Triton. (Not sure how widespread this name is. It is an el cheapo attempt at a table saw utilising an ordinary portable electric saw. This one is about 30 years old and has been surprisingly useful.)







Frame set up in the jig. I don't have staple guns or a brad nailer so assembly is glued. Simple, slow, only three or four a day but works for me, I build other components while glue is setting.








And the finished product.









My first attempt at images on the forum, I will work on a more suitable size now I have seen what things look like.


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

Now that the frame dimensions are set and construction is well under way the next cab off the rank are a couple of bait / general purpose boxes. I am starting with a single long hive which, in the initial stages at least, could house two colonies should that become necessary , as others have also pointed out I will also have need of small hive boxes for other tasks and it makes sense to have bait hives perform double duty. In my original Lang length frame I had planned for a five frame bait box. This gave an internal volume of 32 litres, it seems five frame nucs and the like are widely used so that seemed reasonable plan. Since I have moved to a narrower frame, a five frame box would be only about 22 litres which is way short of the commonly mentioned, although perhaps over emphasised, 40 litres. Many of the experienced swarm catchers use 8 and 10 frame Lang deeps with internal volumes of around 30 and 38 litres respectively. Clearly a five frame was no longer going to cut it. 

The bait / GP boxes have become 8 frame units. These have an internal volume of 35 litres, close enough to the magic number and midway between the 8 and 10 frame Langs used by the experts. As general purpose boxes these should have enough capacity for anything I would want to do. The frame area is about equal to a 10 frame Lang deep.

I had started on bait boxes for the original frame size on the theory that sooner or later I am going to need bees so I should have some means to acquire them. Something else to be reworked.

The boxes first had to be sliced open with the trusty multitool. These things are really good for recovering from mistakes.








Then gussets inserted and the whole thing glued back together.








The finished product, still to be painted.








The lid and catches are a little over engineered and version two will have quite a few detail changes. I am being a little cautious because I will have these things in the car with me, hopefully with bees inside, so I want to be confident that the lid is not going to pop off the first time I hit a pothole. Likewise, the entrance will have a disc cover for security. On the side of the box is a french cleat. My initial plan is to attach the matching half of the cleat to a tree to hold the box level horizontally, I can set that up and get it accurate without having to support the weight of the whole box. I can then hang the box on the cleat and use a wedge from the bottom to get the vertical plumb and then secure the whole thing with a ratchet strap. 

The same convenience is there when recovering the box. I can release the strap, take out the wedge and get myself positioned with both hands available to lift the box off the cleat and carry it to my vehicle, no trying to juggle box and strap and so on all at the same time. Not forgetting to close the entrance as first item of business. 

Sel.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

sparkyApis said:


> so I want to be confident that the lid is not going to pop off the first time I hit a pothole. Likewise, the entrance will have a disc cover for security.


Latches come unlatched.
Disks magically turn.
I would not want to depend on either when I drop a trap with live bees inside - which eventually happens.

What you will do when transporting live bees (preferably outside, not inside your car) - you will want to liberally apply sticky tape and/or straps and similar things - to the box with the bees - so that under no circumstances the box comes open and the bees spill out.

Have to have at least double-safety when moving around the bees.


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

GregV said:


> Latches come unlatched.
> Disks magically turn.
> I would not want to depend on either when I drop a trap with live bees inside - which eventually happens.


Could not agree more. Once I get the box where I can work on it it will get tape on the disc and a strap around the box. The lid is such that it has to be lifted off, it can't just jiggle sideways to expose a bee size gap. They will be inside my vehicle, I have a SUV type, although one old enough to be a proper off road capable 4WD, which has inside or outside and not a lot of intermediate options. I do have the advantage that I will be on infrequently used country roads most of the time so will be able to abandon ship promptly if the passengers revolt. If I drop a box full of bees it will be time for, as someone here put it, high speed horizontal panic.

Not being cavalier about it, I appreciate your warning, just making a reasonable risk assessment bearing in mind that one of the feral hives I would like to get a swarm from is in desert country along a track which has some deep sand. I can't get a conventional vehicle in there and I won't tow a trailer in those conditions.

Sel


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

sparkyApis said:


> I can't get a conventional vehicle in there and I won't tow a trailer in those conditions.


One of these carries works great for small beeks like us:


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

Some nice workmanship there - I particularly like the use of 'biscuits' when joining frame corners.  I once used the same technique when making wooden surrounds for some cut-down queen excluders - the pukka jobs used tongue and groove (or is that mortice & tenon ?). I never did grasp woodworking terminology ... 
Anyway, I reckoned two 'slots and a biscuit' was a much easier solution - and it was.

Ok - Bait Hives - Australia - talk of 'the desert' ... Hmmm. Have you given any thought to ventilating those bait boxes ? Transporting them in the cool of night would certainly help, but I'd seriously recommend providing ventilation.

Perhaps one way would be to have large mesh panels in both the top and bottom of the bait box, with those panels being normally covered with something solid. So that - before transporting the box inside a vehicle - those solid covers would be removed, and a good misting of water given to the colony through the mesh. That should see them ok for a short road trip. On a long road trip, I'd be inclined to stop every half-hour or so and repeat the misting.

I'm not saying this is* essential*, but I once carried two nucs inside a vehicle at night - and that's here in Britain - one nuc-box had a solid floor, the other vented, and the difference when those boxes were opened was spectacular.
One lot spilled out en masse, and were clearly very distressed and angry. With the other lot, nothing much happened - two or three bees poked their heads out of the entrance to see what was going on, but nothing more than that. For the vented nuc, being transported hadn't been an issue.
'best,
LJ


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

little_john said:


> Have you given any thought to ventilating those bait boxes ? Transporting them in the cool of night would certainly help, but I'd seriously recommend providing ventilation.


I have seen designs with screened "windows".
The window on the back side of the bait box is screened with metal mesh/grill.
Window size is ~3"x3" or ~4"x4" or there about (just big enough for good ventilation while transporting).

Ideally you cut out this window in the bate hive back wall and plug the removed piece back in
The window is shut during the normal operation not to let the light or air through.

The ventilation window is only needed for the transportation to keep bees comfortable and alive.
You'd remove the plug so the bees can breath through the mesh.

Why not permanently ventilated bottom?
Because you want your bate hive to be dark inside for the swarms to move in.

I suppose you can build a complicated ventilated bottom with a removable piece into your multi-purpose hives too. But I like the ventilation "window" approach and keep the box simpler overall.

Here is an example (starts at 17:00) - click the "Watch on Youtube" link


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

sparkyApis said:


> There are two vertical bamboo skewers for comb support. Vertical or horizontal comb support seems to be one of those questions. My thinking is that vertical skewers will provide better support because bees can incorporate them into the early stages of comb building, there can be a lot of unsupported comb between the top bar and the first horizontal support. They should also provide more of a guide to encourage the bees to keep building straight down. Vertical may be less convenient when attempting to attach pieces of recovered comb and the like but how often am I going to want to do that.


So, Sel,
Now that you are planning to get into the swarm chasing, you will get to deal with reusing the existing combs more often than you may think at the moment. Often enough you will have perfectly fine combs with honey and bee bread (though unattached) acquired from your swarm chasing projects AND bees that could actually take advantage of the valuable resources. The technical challenge often is how to put these together.

While I have been doing this yesterday (link below) I kept thinking of this frame design ideas that you have (I know, I know, what is wrong with me? LOL).
I practically run it both ways - the vertical supports (I got wires very initially) are OK for the bees building from scratch; but the horizontal supports are far superior for the reuse of the existing combs (which happens a lot with me). After much experimentation I only do the horizontal supports now and even replaced some of the vertical wires with horizontal supports - the "three pane" design. Three horizontal panes are small enough so to not worry of the unsupported combs. I did not like the the two pane design after trying it - the unsupported comb are more likely to be a problem then.

One potential issue with the "three pane" horizontal support design is that the lowest pane sometimes does not get built-in. This is either because the bees have too much space and the prefer staying high because then can OR the colony is too weak and then they prefer staying high. Staying high as close to the ceiling as possible makes sense, of course - better micro-climate control for a given enclosure.
So it is important with the long hives to properly use those dummy frames for the right sizing the bee nest. 

OK, enough for the Monday morning rant... 









CVH (Compact Vertical Hive) by GregV


How it compares to conventional Lang medium frame:




www.beesource.com


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

And an informative rant as usual, I appreciate them. Support direction is one of those endlessly debatable things isn't it, at the moment I am sticking with the not very often idea, I don't have Varroa or harsh winters to contend with so I expect that my colony mortality may be lower than you are routinely dealing with and I am still intending to have a very low number of colonies so my required frequency of trapping may be low. What concerns me is that I can already hear the little voice hinting at all the other interesting things I could try if I had just a few more colonies. I'm trying to ignore him.

The practical consideration was that, with my original wide frame, I couldn't find a skewer long enough to span crosswise so I had all the parts with drilled top and bottom bars. As always, open to revision.

Last post LJ and yourself pointed out the need for more ventilation in my bait boxes. I have been thinking about this a bit and I am left wondering at the extent required. If the bees have moved in and been there for a few days they are presumably reasonably comfortable and yet that video shows taking a nice snug double decker hive and opening a four inch square hole for transportation. I guess I'm not clear why such a step change is required, is it increased activity because of the disturbance, moving to a warm car. As usual my inexperience is showing.

In the meantime I have devised a satisfyingly Heath Robinson approach to ventilation in my much abused prototype swarm trap. I've drilled three half inch holes in the upper rear of the hive (short wall) and fashioned a plywood plate held on with turnbuttons which provides for closed, baffled and open vents. The holes will have mash on the inside of the box.

Open vents, the plate is not really doing anything here, the holes in it match up with those in the box, provides a place to store it .








Baffled vents, trenches in the back of the plate connect the holes in the box with the outside. Provides some ventilation but limits light.








Finally, flip it over and the vents are closed off. You can see the dodgy freehand routing where I cut the trenches.








Sel.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

sparkyApis said:


> I guess I'm not clear why such a step change is required, is it increased activity because of the disturbance, moving to a warm car. As usual my inexperience is showing.


Disturbance is a minor issue.
You can kill the bees while moving them without adequate ventilation, actually.

For my moves (all within 10 miles) it is less of an issue UNLESS something unplanned happens - a policewomen stopped me last year for minor speeding and that took a while to play out (all the while my bees were sitting behind my minivan).

So it took a good hour for a very large swarm in 40 liter box with only screened entrance as a ventilation point - not too bad, considering it was at night and cool. They did fine.

What is the issue since they lived in this same trap for more than week already?
Well, the disturbance raises the bee colony temperature and that needs good cooling, or else.

Under different circumstances, what I was doing could be lethal for the bees.


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

Re: vertical or horizontal skewers ... ?

My own decision to choose vertical* or* horizontal bamboo skewers has been based solely on skewer length availability. My first source was the supermarket, which had 3mm dia skewers of around 9-10" length. For my 14" x 8.5" frames choosing vertical was a no-brainer, and the results were near enough perfect. Here's an example:



















I then wanted to replace fishing line with skewers on my 14"x12" frames, but the only skewers I could source at that time were 16" long, and came with a diameter of 5mm - so I fitted a dozen or so with those. Some frames were drawn-out perfectly, but others were similar to this example (pulled from the 'strip-down - not worth using' pile):










But why ? Diameter, maybe. Colony strength, maybe. I really don't know. Perhaps painting the skewers with molten wax would help ? I'll give that a try next and see ...

Since that time I've located a source of 12" x 3mm skewers, and so have bought a good stock (500+) of those which I've fitted vertically to 14x12 frames, and horizontally to my developing range of Gallup-sized (11 1/4" width) frames, without a single issue thus far.

FWIW - over several years I've noticed that bees will often draw down 9-10" during the first season, and extend that length the following year. But - whether that is 'normal' behaviour or not, really couldn't say.
'best
LJ


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

little_john said:


> .........3mm dia skewers ......
> .........diameter of 5mm .....
> But why ? Diameter, maybe. Colony strength, maybe. I really don't know. Perhaps painting the skewers with molten wax would help ? I'll give that a try next and see .


LJ, this video here (about construction of queen isolators) specifies exactly that - wood ware *thicker *than 3mm will cause the bees working *around *it as if a foreign object.

3mm thickness and under - the bees will incorporate the wood *into *the comb as an integral part of it.
So, the *3mm *(~1/8 inch) thickness indeed has a meaning - which concurs with your findings, LJ

This is a well known beekeeper in Southern Russia who manages his bees without chemicals - only bio-technical methods (including the queen confinement, drone brood harvesting, etc).
He very specifically makes a comment about 3mm thickness in the context of the queen isolator construction.

PS: I don't know if the word "isolator" is technically correct, but this is the term routinely used for these oversized queen cages.


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

*Ventilation* I have a screened entrance, low down, and screened ventilation holes towards the top. I'll then need to be careful of transport time and conditions and do what I can to minimise disturbance. If that does not prove to be adequate then the next step will be to build in a separately secured "transport shim" with mesh insert to go under the top lid when the box is being used as a bait hive, enabling me to remove the solid lid when in transit and still have something reasonably snug when used as a GP hive. 

*Skewers *My skewers are 4mm diameter, that being what I could get, so we shall see. GregV, I had a look at the video but the autotranslate captions are a bit of a challenge although often entertaining. eg. the bees "using their mandibles to chew on the squirrel". 

LJ, in your last image, is that how that comb came out of the hive? To me it looks as though they just don't like the woodwork full stop. The attachment to the top bar is incomplete and the comb approaches the side bars and again does not complete the attachment even though it looks as though it should have.

By this evening I will have 30 frames complete which is enough for a couple of bait hives and to establish the main hive with use of follower and division boards. I think I'll stop there until I see what the bees think of all this. Moving on to the main box, lots of fun to be had with that.

Sel.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

sparkyApis said:


> GregV, I had a look at the video but the autotranslate captions are a bit of a challenge although often entertaining. eg. the bees "using their mandibles to chew on the squirrel".


You just gonna have to trust me then. Hehehe...


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

sparkyApis said:


> LJ, in your last image,* is that how that comb came out of the hive?* To me it looks as though they just don't like the woodwork full stop. The attachment to the top bar is incomplete and the comb approaches the side bars and again does not complete the attachment even though it looks as though it should have.


Hi Sel,
Heavens, no - that would REALLY worry me ... 

Starting from last Sept/Oct, I've had my full stock of drawn frames stored high up in the apex of a commercial greenhouse, but from April onwards, only sub-standard drawn frames (like that one) have been stored in this way - because I fully expected there to be some resulting damage to them.
The whole point of this trial was to test whether the high level of natural illumination inside a greenhouse would be sufficient to deter wax-moth activity - and it does. But there's a price to be paid if drawn frames are stored like that during the working season and thus exposed to the 'full force of the sun' here in Britain. (we should be so lucky ...)

New wax will simply melt. New-ish wax 'dries-out' and becomes as brittle as a crisp, with daily thermal expansion/contraction cycles causing shrinkage and extensive cracking, especially where the wax comb is attached to the woodwork. Old, black combs are less prone to such damage, presumably due to the reinforcement provided by cocoons, and perhaps also as a result of the increased amount of propolis within their structure.

So in future, I'll be storing drawn combs in this way over Winter, but pulling them out in early Spring.
'best
LJ


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

Still building. The carcass of my main hive is assembled and I am thinking about lids and bases. I am just about to head off for a two hour drive to an appointment with an oral surgeon and I am making this post to avoid thinking about what awaits. 😕 . It is really no big deal, I just have an unreasoning fear of dentistry in general.

The box looks good so far, I am using disc entrances and am building in a choice of positions. I will also be able to build in bottom entrances in the base if required. 








A trial fit of an entrance disc. You can see that I have drilled four 13mm holes and one 10mm through the ply box rather than continue the 40mm hole all the way through. These should provide enough entrance area and may be more defensible for a small colony. The disc also allows the entrance area to be easily reduced if needed and can function as a queen includer for swarm introduction.








This one is for GregV, a test fit of recovered pallet planks to add thickness and insulation to the ply box. I will probably build the next one out of planks alone but I find ply panels easier to work with while I work out some details.








Time to hit the road. More later.
Sel.


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## Gray Goose (Sep 4, 2018)

sparky
put the planks on the outside of the framing and add in 1.5 inch foam, be a better R value. 




__





what is the r value of insulation - Google Search






www.google.com





the discs are "swell" but my long hive gets quite big and I need more opening, I have a 1/2 x 14 inch slit I can open a little at a time. Be interesting to see if the round hole works for the bigger size colony's.

Nice work.

GG


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

GG, I have wondered about the insulation factor and the structure you see was to provide the ability to do just as you say with insulation in the cavity and another sheet of ply on the surface but I wonder if that is overkill. The setup with planks ends up thicker than the walls of the average Lang box around here so I take that as an indication that it may be sufficient but I am open to alternatives. One (of many) things I have not been able to get clear in my head is the risk, if any, of having too much insulation. I keep getting lost in the trade offs with ventilation and the like. I have never seen a day here with max temperature below 0C and I am more concerned with heat transfer into the hive on days of 47C with -10C dewpoint (that's about 116F and very dry). Sure, the bees can use evaporative cooling but the water loss in those conditions can be enormous. 

I would have to agree that that entrance looks small. I basically adopted it from "Horizontal hive" but I have seen images of others with a slit almost full length then there are those which appear to have four or five half inch holes so, once again, there are pointers in all directions. The discs make it easy to regulate the size of opening in the case of a weak colony and, with use of divider boards, to house more than one colony in the box. As I understand it from LJ, GregV and others I should be able, with the use of follower boards, to have more than one entrance open if required. Next question I suppose is when do I know that access is becoming limiting? 

As with much of this construction there will be alternatives and you have prompted me to add the option of a lower entrance slit should it be necessary, at this stage of construction it is simple to do. I'm looking forward to having a little experience with this setup, the second box will be much simplified I suspect.

As always, thanks for your comments and suggestions. I do appreciate them.

Sel.


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## Gray Goose (Sep 4, 2018)

absolutely no risk of "too much insulation"
bees do not cool the hive thru the walls , but with air flow.
I have made a couple long Lang with 2x4 walls and 3.4 inch pink insulation.
they brood up the soonest and in "Heat" the insulation works like in your house to keep the heat out as well the cold out. beard the least also.

IMO the inside hive temp is more stable, making a better hive. seen some studies on temp cycles where the nest expands (too hot) and contracts (too cold) and this constant change has the negative effect, where the temp is quite stable they do better.

do what you feel will be the easiest and work the best.
IMO 3/4 hive wall is a bit thin. the 4.75 inch walls of my long hive work well, no cooked bees inside yet 

GG


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

Gray Goose said:


> the 4.75 inch walls of my long hive work well


Sorry GG I missed this tidbit. Four and three quarter inches, that is a serious hive wall!

I have been building away quietly. My hive walls ended up with 12mm ply inner, 25mm reclaimed pallet boards outside with 10mm foam sandwiched between. I plan to put the hive in summer shade so I hope not to cook too many. The result has quite an attractive appearance for all second hand materials although the lighting in this photograph is more than flattering. I routed the edges of the planks to give a fairly rough shiplap join, the second image is an end on view of a test piece. This should help shed water and that is sort of necessary because I imagine that if the insulation gets wet, not only will it not work as well, but the ply underneath will not last long.















I had a rethink on touching top bars. After getting a few frames made and stacking them in the box I seemed to me that grasping and moving frames could be more difficult than it need be, if nothing else the spacers had an annoying tendency to fall down between the frames and I really don't need things like that to stir up the bees. Add that to the advice from people here and a change was called for. I set up the router and thinned down the middle part of the top bars then used the slats I was going to use as spacers to thicken up the side bars to provide spacing. These slat pieces are attached, one each end, to opposite sides of the frame so that they are not "handed". The result seems OK to me. Hope the bees like it.














The next frames I make will probably have a narrower, parallel sided top bar and wider side pieces similar to GregV's design in his CV thread (and others). Given that these are to be foundationless frames I cannot see the need for a Hoffman type side bar as the bees, if they need a travel route, can leave holes in the comb wherever they wish to go, they are not restricted to travelling around the ends of the combs.

My building is a bit ahead of my reporting so more when I get some images processed. 

Sel.


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

Time to close up the bottom. Having read a lot on solid bottom boards, screened bottom boards, IPM boards and many variations of all those it seems to me that there are no clear winners, that it is very much down to situation and beekeeper preference and that the bees, within very wide margins, don't care much. Not having much of the beekeeper experience component to draw on I had a think about what I may want to be able to do. First up, I wanted to be able to see what is going on in the bottom of the colony and that having to remove several frames and then stick my head down in a cloud of irritated bees was not the easiest way to achieve that. So, a hinged bottom board. Second, being able to monitor what was falling out of the bottom of the hive without disturbing everybody was useful. So, a screen and slideout tray. This has the secondary use of providing a mechanism for manipulating ventilation by partly or completely removing the tray(s). 

I have had some experience with cleaning woven wire mesh screens clogged with slightly sticky damp material and I don't fancy setting myself up for that so went looking for alternatives. I settled on a commercial product, the Bluebees board. Just to be clear, I have no relationship with this product and bought mine through a commercial supplier. It has slots rather than squares with a smooth rounded upper surface which should help to shed detritus and the lower surface is shaped to make it more difficult for pests to lurk in the space underneath and nip up into the hive for a feed when they feel like it. We will see what happens in practice.

Because this is sized for Langstroth boxes I have used two sheets which do not cover the whole base but there is enough coverage for my purposes. The remaining area is covered with ply sections which slide out the ends and can be monitored and cleaned if necessary. They also provide the ability to easily add a bottom entrance or even to add sub boxes if I should choose to investigate that option.

So what we have looks like this, opening frame with screen, slide outs under and end slides:




















And when all closed up:








I could not get a clear idea of this in my head before I started and the details kept changing so the execution is terrible, overly complex and far too many pieces but I am actually reasonably happy with the setup. I seriously considered ripping the whole thing out and rebuilding it but really, that would only affect the aesthetics so it stays until I see what works in practice.


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

Next, the top. The top is a hinged lid with space for a feeder and with ventilation. The roof is a skillion with a small slope, a 12mm ply top to provide the containment and then corrugated sheet over that on spacers to shed water, provide an air gap and shelter the sides of the box. Corrugated iron would work as well, maybe better as it would reflect more heat, but I had the plastic on hand from the same demolition which provided much of the timber.

Sorry for the background flare in these but this is the box with frames in place. You ca see how the corrugated sheet overhangs the edges and the airgap between it and the top cover. The greenish block of wood projecting down on the right hand edge of the top is to provide a stop to limit travel when the lid is open.















I made up some conical bee escapes and fitted these to 40mm holes in the top frame to provide ventilation and a way out for the odd bee that gets trapped in the top space. I made these from 2mm stainless mesh from a strip about 150 wide sold here for ember proofing gaps in buildings as bushfire protection. This has finished woven edges which provide a nice smooth finish to the narrow aperture which is around 7.5mm. I rolled them up and stitched them together with lockwire. If there are any AME's out there don't look too closely at the lockwiring, I couldn't get it twitched up properly without deforming the mesh. I wouldn't want to be making many of these, they took time and the blood loss from scratches inflicted by the razor sharp cut ends would begin to tell after a while, I have a couple of fingers which look like they have been three rounds with the local tomcat.















As always, any comments welcome.
Sel.


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

Well, look at that! Out of the shed today, on its stand, all levelled up, looking good. That has been a little more of an epic than I expected but much entertainment was had. A few hours in the shed gazing at something, waiting for the solution to a problem to pull itself together and rise to the top, is never wasted. I spent a time wandering around looking for a spot to locate this bee extravaganza and chose one about 60m away from the house and on the opposite side to our outdoor living area. That way we shouldn't get too many girls zooming past at nose level and there are already bees in the garden, so that won't change much. It is in a copse of trees so will get some shade in summer but the winter sun still penetrates. The trees suck up so much of the moisture that the grass can't grow underneath and the potential problem of mowing around the hive will occur rarely.

Now all we need are bees. That's when the learning curve will go ballistic. 









Sel.
(Edited to fix the image)


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

In the continued absence of bees there are a couple of parts to the hive that I have not mentioned yet.

First is the inner cover. What I have at this stage is made from a semi rigid plastic sheet which has a dimpled texture. This material came as separation sheets between the layers of a pallet load of concrete pavers and is quite tough but cuts readily with shears. The texture is enough to provide some air circulation over the frames but not enough for bee space. Looks like this in use. I have it in several sections to facilitate partial access to the frames.









I have used same material to make follower and division boards by stapling it to a simple frame. In the case of the follower board there is a 50mm (2") or so gap under the frame but the sides are the full hive width. Like so:













The divider is similar but, of course, fits all round.

On the question of bees, swarms are not really expected here for another four to six weeks so I'm not fussed.

Sel.


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

Once I attract a swarm I will most likely need to be able to feed it while it establishes. Lots of options here. 

What I have ended up with is a top feeder which sits on the edges of the box and has a couple of battens across the ends to fill in the gaps between top bars and feeder edge to keep the bees confined. The one I have is a commercial 10 frame Heddon-Root format (Thanks LJ  ) trimmed to fit the narrower width. This will be placed on the hive with the sections of inner cover arranged to give access from the brood nest area. Used this way the feeder has a bee space above the top bars and the bees, at least theoretically, cannot escape from the feeding areas into the open topcover space. 

A shallow box with a plastic bag would probably be just as good or a home made version of the one I have with tray and mesh instead of the fancy plastic mouldings. More things to experiment with. Whoopee!









The feeder I bought is here.

Sel.


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

Speaking of attracting swarms, I have three options in play. First is my home hive which is configured with follower boards and a division board to have an eight frame "main" section, aligned on the open entrance, and another 6 frames outside this, separated from the main part by follower boards and then a division board cutting the hive roughly in half.

I know there is a feral hive around 500 m from home and there are plenty of bees in my garden so they are around. Last year was not a particularly good season here which may affect their swarming behaviour, but looking much better this season. 

I have two bait hives out at friends places a few kilometers away. One in a small patch of trees which has a well established hive in a hollow limb and another in an area with good bee forage. The bait hives are hung in trees on a french cleat system at a height which I can reach from the ground. If I'm getting too old to lift big boxes I am surely too old to be climbing on ladders carrying a hive full of bees.


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## Litsinger (Jun 14, 2018)

Sel:

Thank you for making me aware of your chronicle- I enjoyed reading through your progress to-date this afternoon. I don't often frequent the TBH subforum, but it is not for any reason other than not having gotten into the habit of doing so. Maybe with your encouragement, I'll make a point to stop in here more often.

I both admire and don't envy your efforts to create a personalized hive- I was perfectly content to go with the Langstroth hive without too much forethought, with all its inherent advantages and limitations.

That said, I have a friend who gifted me his homemade Warre hives when he got out of beekeeping, and I have learned a lot about bee biology and management by reading Abbé Warré's writings and working with colonies housed in them.

And I can say definitively, that at least in my locale swarms much prefer a similarly equipped unoccupied Warre setup versus a Langstroth of similar equivalent volume.

Your hive set-up appeals to me- as a self-admitted 'gear junkie', I love all the features and benefits you have built into it. 

It sounds to me as though you are off to a good start and you are making decisions based on your own management goals and the research of many of the luminaries in our field- I will look forward to your progress.

I suppose given you are in the Southern Hemisphere you are just now entering into the spring build-up?


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

Welcome. Yes, it is just starting to warm up here. The local beeks tell me that we we will start to see swarming in the next week or three so fingers crossed, there are already plenty of bees working the flowers in my garden. I am really keen to see how some of this works in practice.
Sel.


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

The big graduation has occurred. I am now officially a Beehaver. A friend sent me a picture on Sunday evening of a swarm at his place. It was a good size and appeared to be hanging low on a bush so Monday morning early get all the unused gear together and off to see, wondering if they may have found the bait hive I had set up at his place. When I got there I found he had taken my hive off its tree and carefully placed it on the ground under the swarm so not much chance they were going to go in there. He meant well and it was a lovely swarm


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

Posted that before I had finished so, to continue: As I said, nice swarm, just about in reach.








I took the top off my bait hive and set it up under the swarm then just a little pull to bring the branch in reach so I could shake it into the box and of course, snap. Bees, branch and all landed on the box, bees on the ground, bees on me bees everywhere. Nothing for it but to continue, grab the branch, shake the bees off into the mess and walk away. Needless to say the bees were a little stroppy and followed me for 30 or 40 metres, just buzzing around my veil. They kept this up all the time I was there and I was thinking they may not be a very pleasant line. It must have been the good Lord's day to look out for idiots because it seems as though the queen survived all this as it did not take long for an organised march up the side of my box to set in. You can see bees still on the ground and all up the stand and box. I don't have a time lapse but, although there was a bit of brownian motion, progress of the bulk of bees was remarkably steady. In about two hours most were in the box and I closed the lid, opened the entrance and vents and left them to it for the afternoon. 














I now have faith in bee suits and blue nitrile gloves. Regardless of all the buzzing around I did not get stung and I only found one stinger in the suit. Maybe they are nice bees after all. I did notice that their tolerance distance became shorter and shorter as they settled down from being dumped unceremoniously and that I would get a few clear bumps on the veil before the pitch changed and they got angry. It's amazing how hard it is to not wave at an insect buzzing in front of your face.

I went back near sunset and watched the bees being busy and slowly disappearing into the box until there was only one left on the outside. I watched for about ten minutes and there was still one, not the same one mind you, sometimes two, sometimes three but always at least one. The entertainment value wore off about then and I closed up the entrance, loaded the hive and left the unlucky bee behind. At home I set the box on a stand next to their permanent home and left the entrance closed until tomorrow. It is a cool night and there is a quiet hum from the box.

Tomorrow we get to try the transfer.


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

Really good news to hear that you finally have some bees. Welcome to my world. 

Branch breaks off ... *"that wasn't supposed to happen !"* - Likewise, welcome to my world !  LOL

The real thing starts now. For you it's been a long time coming - hope you will now have some fun. * Do* keep us posted.
LJ


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## Litsinger (Jun 14, 2018)

Welcome to the club, Sel. Like LJ pointed-out, now the real work, fun (and sometimes consternation) begins.

I too will look forward to reading your updates. Congratulations!


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

When I went out this morning soon after sunrise the vent holes in my entrance disk were a forest of waving antennae, somebody wanted out, and when I opened the entrance there was a burst of bees which prompted me into a little horizontal avoidance but they soon settled back down around the entrance. As the day warmed up foragers came out, buzzed about a bit then did a climbing spiral around the hive and headed off. I could stand within a couple of metres of the hive and they showed no interest in me so I am much less worried about their temperament. 









Early afternoon, it being a beautiful calm day with what foragers there were having no excuse to be lounging around the hive I decided the time had come, assemble the gear, light the smoker, don the suit and off we go. A couple of puffs in the entrance then slowly raise the lid with a couple under there as well. It really does work you know.  As does keeping an eye on them and adding a puff when they start to line up and "stare". I removed the frames from my box starting at one end and placed them in the hive in order. There were bees festooned off the bars, side bars, skewers and clusters hanging in the space. These are new foundationless frames so, although the box had plenty of volume, there was a lack of surface area, foundation or drawn frame would have given them surface but beggars can't be choosers. The result was that there were a lot of bees in the air, somewhat intimidating but they seemed to be just milling about, have faith and press on. Once they make some space for themselves by drawing comb there will be too many frames and I will move some of the empty ones to the other side of the follower board to reduce the brood volume.

There was one frame with an area of comb the size of a saucer. Interestingly it had been drawn on one of the skewers about a third of the way down and not attached to the top bar or guide strip. Not what I expected and it had been drawn at about a 30 degree angle to the top bar. It was quite soft so I just bent the wings around until they were parallel to the frame and put it in the hive. By the time I had all the frames transferred there were a lot of bees still in the box so I went for the crude method, upended it over the hive and gave a good shake. Pile of bees on the top of the frames and more bees in the air. Thinking a little smoke may encourage them down between the frames I reached for the smoker which, of course, had gone out. Oh dear. Maybe the bee brush may help to move clumps from the side of the hive up to the top. Hmm, not sure about that. Quite probably the operator, but my impression so far is that the bee brush is a good way to irritate bees. With a bit of faffing around I got most of the bees off the top of the frames, set up the feeder and closed the lid.

There were still a lot of bees in the box so I set it up on its side near the new entrance and it did not take long to establish a steady migration into the hive. In an hour or so, job done.








I gave them about three litres of 1:1 syrup in the feeder and left them to it. The few bees left in the lid of course went for the syrup and drowned rather than exiting via the escape cones but that was about the extent of the damage. I have no idea if the queen survived all this, everybody marched promptly into the hive and last evening it had a quiet hum so I'm taking that as a good sign. If I have killed her then they will be hopelessly queenless and I'm not sure I can source another queen in time to be useful. I have checked the feeder a couple of times and feel comfortable doing that without the suit, the bees flying seemed not to notice, I only had one change pitch and he lost interest when I moved away but I suspect I will probably get a reminder soon. If I was smart I would probably buy a hat and veil right now for those casual inspections because I can see that I am going to leave the beesuit off one too many times.

I was intending to leave them alone for around two weeks but, given the crooked comb I think I should have a look in a couple of days to see how all that is going. The idea being that, if they get started straight, they will probably keep on. If they go off at an angle again I may look at rotating the hive, maybe there is something to those leylines after all.

I have no idea what sort of bees they are, the swarm was about a hundred metres from a feral colony so I am hoping it was from them. That colony is known to have been occupied for the last twenty years so, if local adaption means anything, they should have it. I have little idea of the races so maybe this image will mean something to others.








Just to bring the story completely up to date, I checked this morning and they have used about 1.5 litres of syrup, still seem calm enough and just doing bee things.

My thanks to all the people here for your information, advice and encouragement. You have really added to my enjoyment of this journey. Oh, and there is still one other bait box out there so you never know!


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## Litsinger (Jun 14, 2018)

sparkyApis said:


> A couple of puffs in the entrance then slowly raise the lid with a couple under there as well. It really does work you know.


Good update, Sel. Your comment above reminded me of a comment by the late great George Imirie:

_'A SMART man uses this to his advantage when working bees. You approach the colony that you want to inspect, and blow several whiffs of smoke directly into every entrance that the bees may have into the hive. NOW, YOU DO SOMETHING EXTREMELY DIFFICULT FOR MOST BEEKEEPERS - YOU GO AWAY, HAVE A COKE, WATCH THE BIRDS, OR LOOK FOR 4 LEAF CLOVERS FOR AT LEAST 60 SECONDS, BUT 2 MINUTES IS BETTER. When you return to the hive, you carefully blow a tiny whiff of smoke in the entrance, remove the inner cover, allow a whiff of smoke to drift across the bees on top of the frames and began frame removal for inspection. TOO MUCH SMOKE FORCES BEES TO FLY INTO THE AIR, AND THEY ARE MAD, SO THEY MIGHT STING YOU.'_



sparkyApis said:


> ... my impression so far is that the bee brush is a good way to irritate bees.


Not one to be obtuse, he also said:

_'The use of a bee brush makes bees MAD and excites them to sting. The bee brush falls in that category of "things of the past" like auto tire innertubes, typewriters, wood cooking stoves, fountain pen ink, and a drugstore soda fountain.'_

Just having a little fun- sounds like you are off to a great start.


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

Litsinger said:


> a comment by the late great George Imirie:


Thanks Russ. The problem with associating with you is that I always come away with something more to read. I thought I was a fair reader but I'm not in your class, you must be voracious. To be absolutely clear, being given all these clues is a good problem to have.
Sel.


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## Litsinger (Jun 14, 2018)

sparkyApis said:


> ... something more to read.


His 'Pink Pages' are great winter reading. They are part genius beekeeping manual, biographical sketch and dime store novel all rolled into one, complete with lots of comments in ALL CAPS:



http://pinkpages.chrisbacherconsulting.com/



While it seems uncertain who coined the term, 'BEEHAVER', there is no doubt that George animated it and gave it a distinct personality!


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

With all of three days experience as a beehaver I would first acknowledge all the things I have learnt from the good folk here, some have taken the trouble to reply to my questions, others I have just absorbed knowledge from. Thank you one and all. I have read and watched a lot over the last few months but, having finally got amongst the bees there are two videos from Randy Oliver which I found particularly useful and which, for me, crystallised a number of often mentioned concepts in basic bee handling. I find bits of them popping into my head when I need them. The presentation is quite concise and probably not the best first introduction but they suited the way my mind works and where I am at present. Others may find them useful. I found them on a playlist in the BIBBA YT channel but you can find other versions on YT. Interestingly, I can't see any links to them on "Scientific Beekeeping".
As an aside, in these presentations Randy has a persistent cough which I found distracting. I have since read that this is not in his control so, be prepared to do what I should have done in the first place, just ignore it concentrate on the messages.

First "Reading the Combs" 




Among other things, I found the explanation of colony age distribution and its changes over time brought a lot of things into focus, I had the information but failed to put it into a coherent picture.

Then "Tips on Working Bees"




Again, no great revelations, just a string of one persons pearls of wisdom gained from long experience.

Sel.


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

First inspection - day 3 after hiving. I know I should have left them longer but I thought it important to check on the comb alignment after the off axis comb they built when in the bait box. I couldn't be happier. They have attached the crooked comb to the top bar strip and there are four other frames with significant development. The frames are divided into thirds by skewers and they seem to be building down a section at a time with the others lagging. I only pulled the frames far enough to check the comb development and didn't stop to take measurements but I think the total would be somewhere between one and two Lang deeps. There is nectar (or syrup) in the combs. Mind you, they have scoffed five plus litres of 1:1 in three days to accomplish this and are now working on six and seven. Still no sight of the queen. There are still bees hanging off the woodwork everywhere. I pulled the bottom board and found just a little general debris and a fair sprinkling of wax flakes below the screen and did not look above that. Sorry, I don't have enough hands to take photos whilst I work, need more practice before I try that.

From my miniscule experience base these bees seem very gentle. They have put up with my inexpert handling with the occasional explosion of a minor cloud of bees and I think I had one lining up to have a go at my blue glove today but he was easily moved on. Maybe this will change when the forager population increases but I hope not. Am I right in thinking that them not being defensive is another sign that I may still have a queen?

My plan now is to leave them for a week and by then I should be able to see if her ladyship is on station. 

As always, any comments, thoughts, unsolicited advice or whatever are welcome.

Sel.


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## ursa_minor (Feb 13, 2020)

I enjoy reading about your experiences, a few made me smile and nod in agreement as I have been in your shoes this summer while trying to capture my first tree swarm. When that branch breaks they sure do get testy. My husband, who I roped in to help, swears I almost got him killed in the process LOL. But he stood his ground and didn't move a muscle, holding the box still so I could get most of the bees in. 

When you first spot your queen it is a wonderful feeling.


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

Hi Small bear. Us husbands are like that you know, treasures beyond price. 

Good to hear that you are getting some enjoyment out of my meanderings. My object as a newbie is to enjoy the journey and part of my reason for writing this is to try to share some of that. The other part of course is to get to interact with some smart and knowledgeable people. 

Time to go and make some more syrup, the feeder is empty. I installed it on Tuesday afternoon so 4kg sugar in 69 hours, hungry little blighters.

Sel.
Edit to fix the arithmetic.


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

This part of the first hive process is a bit like being in the waiting room of the delivery ward. Has she, hasn't she?

By yesterday, it seems like many first timers, I had just about convinced myself that the hive was queenless. It seemed noisy, like a lot of bees in there fanning and it has been that way since the start. I don't know what a "queenless roar" sounds like and this is not loud but there was a lot of activity in there. I optimistically called it humming a few days ago and I had been thinking that some of it may be due to not having enough comb surface for everyone but the suspicion that it was too loud has been growing. I read on these pages a bit and looked at Michael Palmers videos on hive behavior and wasn't filled with confidence. Bees fanning, bees running around aimlessly on the front of the hive and so on.

Today, the fourth day, the hive is a different beast. It is just about silent, just what could really be described as a low humming, the activity around the entrance is much less frantic and I am seeing some pollen being brought in. So now I'm back to being optimistic. What a roller coaster over a few bugs!

What I'm definite about is that I'm confused. What am I seeing, normal behavior, a swarm with a virgin queen, a queen from somewhere else moved in, something completely different? Would anyone care to enlighten me?

I promised myself that I was going to leave them alone until next Thursday and so far have managed to leave the bee suit and smoker in the cupboard.

Sel.


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## Litsinger (Jun 14, 2018)

sparkyApis said:


> What a roller coaster over a few bugs!


Sel.:

As I've progressed in colony count and bee years, I've found I'm still on the same roller coaster, but am less concerned (and alternately excited) about individual colonies but the apiary population as a whole.

That said, I've also noted that there is almost always something to be concerned about, and most of the time the bees have it well in-hand. 

This is not to suggest we not intervene when appropriate, but simply to underscore how resilient and resourceful honey bees are.

Keep up the good work!


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

I'm in the wonderful position where one hive and my apiary are synonymous, big scale here.  I'm trying to document my experiences and it is certainly an entertaining roller coaster. Lest anyone should be concerned about my stress levels, it is all still entertaining, not serious stuff.

This morning the hive remains quiet and still sucking down sugar, now onto their seventh kilogram in five and a bit days.

I'm still clueless as to the rapid change in hive temperament, could it indicate anything other than the normal settling down of a swarm moved into a new hive? Maybe its just that they finally built enough comb to give everybody a place to stand. Any thoughts from the swarm catchers out there?

I can certainly see why the consensus is that a single hive is a risky proposition. I'm still in an all or nothing situation, did she survive or didn't she? Do I have an apiary or don't I? As soon as it looks feasible I will be looking at a split into one of my bait boxes and I can see another bout of construction on the horizon.

Sel.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

sparkyApis said:


> This morning the hive remains quiet and still sucking down sugar, now onto their seventh kilogram in five and a bit days.


At this time I begin to wonder - why are still feeding them?
Is there no flow in the nature?
It is a swarm and will forage like crazy - as long as any flow exists.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

sparkyApis said:


> What I'm definite about is that I'm confused.


It is a good time to just stay back and simply let them be.
They are quiet and busy.

NOW - IF you want to apply some anti-mite treatment, it is a perfect time to do it, BEFORE they cap any brood.
It became my standard practice in the 2021 summer in hope of improving my survival rates.
I did the OAD.
If you don't want any, that is your choice; but the window will close quickly, if not already.


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

GregV said:


> At this time I begin to wonder - why are still feeding them?


I am wondering a bit too. My decision was driven by basically two things. One, they are on brand new, foundationless gear so I want to encourage building and two, overfeeding does not seem too much of a worry so why not? My plan is to leave them for a few more days and then have a look and go from there. They are certainly out and foraging, thin bees out, fat bees or pollen bees in. 

Your advice on OAD is good but I have the great good fortune to not have mites to contend with (yet). A. cerana has made it into Northern Queensland (over 2000km North of me) which probably increases the chance of a mite importation but, so far, quarantine has held. I find it hard to believe, but there is still the occasional idiot beekeeper who tries to import live material on the sly.

Sel.


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

sparkyApis said:


> I'm still clueless as to the rapid change in hive temperament, could it indicate anything other than the normal settling down of a swarm moved into a new hive? Maybe its just that they finally built enough comb to give everybody a place to stand. Any thoughts from the swarm catchers out there?


Hi Sel
I have caught a few swarms in my time, but wouldn't consider myself an expert at doing this. The technique I like to use whenever possible is to place a swarm box at a height of around twelve inches or so, place a tarpaulin on the ground in front of it, and then create a ramp from the middle of the tarp up to the box entrance with a sheet of plywood. If the branch holding the swarm is then cut, and the bees dumped onto the tarp, eventually (it may take five minutes or so to get started) the bees will form a procession up the ramp and march themselves into the box. Job done. 

The reason I like doing this is: a) it entertains children and hopefully reduces their fears of honeybees, and b) the bees will have undergone at least some decision-making (or the illusion of it) during the process, and so are almost guaranteed to stay in that box from then onwards.

Now although this can only ever be conjecture, I'd say that the changes in noise coming from your swarm is related to decision-making. They chose to cluster on that branch, but didn't choose either the swarm box, or the hive in which they are now located. In both transfers there would have been indecision and a sense of insecurity - but when decisions were finally made and comb started to be drawn, a sense of stability will have radiated through the colony and indecision (and the noise which accompanies it (?) ) would have given way to the purposeful activity of building comb. Which is simply an expanded version of what you've already suggested.



> I can certainly see why the consensus is that a single hive is a risky proposition. I'm still in an all or nothing situation, did she survive or didn't she? Do I have an apiary or don't I? As soon as it looks feasible I will be looking at a split into one of my bait boxes and I can see another bout of construction on the horizon.


You learn quickly  Yes, two and a half hives are a recommended minimum in my world. The 'half' being a nucleus colony the function of which is simply to hold a mated queen during the winter period, on much the same principle as to why a spare wheel is routinely carried by vehicles. If not needed, that nucleus colony can then either be enlarged into another working colony come the Spring, or sold as an 'overwintered-nuc', at a premium. 
'best,
LJ

PS - do bear in mind that a swarm consists of several thousand bees, so the odds of your queen surviving that install is several thousands-to-one in your favour.

PS(2) - I agree with Greg about easing up on the syrup. You've given them a great start towards building a new nest, but do bear in mind that under natural circumstances they wouldn't have had such an advantage, yet would still manage to build new comb and rear brood in a brand new cavity.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

sparkyApis said:


> Your advice on OAD is good but I have the great good fortune to not have mites to contend with (yet).


I forgot you are in Australia. 
Almost wonder if you could do a mite wash one day and verify you have no mites. 
Would be a fun double-check.


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

Righto, thank you one and all. Last syrup on today then they should have everything nice and tidy by about Thursday when I get into them.

Greg, We have restrictive quarantine procedures on the import of just about everything which may carry disease and the program of pest management and monitoring in agricultural crops is significant. Commercial, that is greater than 30 hives, operators are required to document disease surveys, including mite counts at least annually and I am encouraged to. I can see a detergent wash in my future but not for a while.

There was a big effort to eradicate the A. cerana introduction up around Cairns which failed but those colonies are being heavily monitored. Colonies were found around Townsville but it is believed that the eradication effort was successful there. I have yet to see much data on the natural rate of spread from the Cairns area.

Oh, and I am no longer a virgin, I have been stung. No big effects.

Sel.
Edit: grammar


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

How do you like that, my single colony days did not last long. The same feral hive that provided my first bees swarmed again, only 8 days after the first one. The landholder has some guys building a shed for him, the swarm set up in a nearby shrub and was making the builders nervous so he asked me to come and get them. What it is to be famous. .

LJ, I tried your groundsheet and ramp setup and it worked a treat with, of course, some wrinkles. Set everything up under the swarm which was at easily reachable height and gave the branch a good shake. Bees everywhere but not all lost in the grass. Those which landed on the box moved in and a bit of a parade started but, in a few minutes, there was a cluster forming back on the branch. I shook that off and a second one that formed almost immediately and that seemed to stop that act. I guess the queen stayed on the branch initially, it was leafy and hard to get a good clear shake. 

The parade started up again but soon split into those in the box and a large cluster under the ramp. I shook that one off onto the sheet and looked for the queen but couldn't find her so I found a smaller piece of board for the ramp, thinking to provide a little less inviting shelter, and the same thing happened, a weak parade for a while and a cluster under the ramp. Working on the theory that I'm smarter than the average bee, this time I carefully turned the ramp over and shook its cluster into the top of the box then put it back into position. That did the trick, the parade started up in earnest and everybody was in the box in about 40 minutes. 

The parent colony must have had a queen nearly ready to go when the first swarm departed. Its tree has been heavily cut back to make way for the construction without damaging the bee cavity so that may have encouraged them to swarm early. There are still foragers active in the parent hive, it does not look as though they have absconded en mass.

This is a much smaller swarm than the first one but they are already very quiet in the box which supports LJ's conjecture. As for me, much less stressful than my first effort, the reduction in the number of unknowns is a wonderful thing.

Now to transfer them to the other end of my long hive. It will be interesting to see how that goes with two colonies, which were so recently split off from the same parent, back in close proximity.

Sel.


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## Litsinger (Jun 14, 2018)

sparkyApis said:


> How do you like that, my single colony days did not last long. The same feral hive that provided my first bees swarmed again, only 8 days after the first one.


Now you're in business!

I'd say that this is a textbook secondary swarm and suggests that the founder colony is strong and well-provisioned. You might get prepared for another swarm or two out of the tree colony before it is all said and done. Do you have any more equipment at the ready?


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

@Litsinger not a lot. The next one will have to stay in the bait box. That is about equivalent to a 10 frame deep Lang so I guess that would keep them occupied for a while. I have embarked on a bout of shed reorganisation and tidying so I guess it will be back to building as soon as that task is done.

As I had the hive open to set up for the new girls I thought I may as well have a look at the first colony. They have been busy, there are near six frames of comb, lovely soft and white There is some comb built off an an angle but not too bad. I tore a few of the worst offenders off and straightened a few. A few days ago I made the comment that overfeeding should not be too much of a problem. Wrong! The structure is OK but the whole lot is just about dripping with syrup, nothing capped. No more feed for that lot until they tidy themselves up. 

Still no sight of a queen and I could not identify anything that looked like brood. According to Michael Bush bee maths I would think that I should be able to see something by now. 

The new swarm went into the other end of the box without much trouble. I transferred the frames and attached bees and after about ten minutes the round entrance looked like a plughole with bees pouring in from all directions. The first lot were never that enthusiastic. I've set them up with some feed but will be much more sparing and only for a couple of days. I think more frequent inspections may be in order as well. People have given me good advice to leave them as there is a risk involved with the handling but there are too many things I need to learn. If I had chopped the feed off the first lot a few days ago they would have been better off so thanks @GregV for the warning, they would have been a real mess if I had left them till Thursday. With this group there is none of the noise of the first group and none of the frantic activity at the entrance

If I don't see any brood in the first swarm in another few days is it reasonable to conclude that they are in fact queenless? Even if there was a virgin, she should be laying by the end of the week. If her ladyship has gone missing, what are the chances that they will just move next door I wonder? Failing that I suppose my next move will be to pull the division board, leave a follower board in place and wait. To my eye there are still plenty of bees around to maintain the comb.

Sel.


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## ursa_minor (Feb 13, 2020)

One of the swarms I caught went laying worker. I was not sure the queen was in the box and so I left them alone, apparently too long. I had multiple eggs in cells and the only capped brood was drone. I am no expert but I think they might go LW rather than choose to move in with another colony.



sparkyApis said:


> People have given me good advice to leave them as there is a risk involved with the handling but there are too many things I need to learn.


Trust me, after your first year you will be overrun with things you had to learn, many of them the hard way. Thrown in the deep end, so to speak . Bees have a way of teaching you the lessons you need and making you feel foolish and inept, all at the same time.


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

ursa_minor said:


> I left them alone, apparently too long.


That's the thing isn't it? How long is too long? That is a number that I don't remember coming across and I am sure it is not a single number in any case. By next Monday they will be two weeks since I boxed them, too long?

Just as an aside, I wonder how long it will be before the "How to gracefully exit the hobby" topic stops coming up in my Recommended Reading at the bottom of this page. Is it trying to tell me something? 

Sel.


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

sparkyApis said:


> If I don't see any brood in the first swarm in another few days is it reasonable to conclude that they are in fact queenless?


No. You wrote:
_A few days ago I made the comment that overfeeding should not be too much of a problem. Wrong! The structure is OK but *the whole lot is just about dripping with syrup,* nothing capped. No more feed for that lot until they tidy themselves up. _

From what you have written, it sounds as if the colony has become 'honey-bound' (or in your case, 'syrup-bound'). 
That is, the queen has had nowhere to lay, because the bees couldn't believe their good luck and have been packing away the syrup while that fortunate situation lasted. Now you've stopped feeding, I'd be inclined to 'reset the clock' - that is: in terms of expectation (i.e. "when should I expect to see eggs/larvae), I'd suggest considering today as being Day One (again).
Don't worry about this, for as soon as more comb is drawn which then becomes available for pollen storage and egg-laying, normal colony development should be restored.



> Even if there was a virgin, she should be laying by the end of the week.


That's certainly possible, but don't bank on it. I've known mated virgins take anything up to a month to get started. Others are 'up and running' within a few days. That's just the way it is. Once your first Queen starts laying, you'll then have some brood comb available to use as a 'test comb' to help determine whether the virgin in your 2nd colony has been successfully mated or not. (unless you're really unlucky and she becomes a drone-layer - which you'll be able to spot in other ways)

It's very important not to jump to conclusions - often situations can be made a lot worse by knee-jerk reactions. Ask me how I know this ! 
LJ


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## Gray Goose (Sep 4, 2018)

sparkyApis said:


> How do you like that, my single colony days did not last long. The same feral hive that provided my first bees swarmed again, only 8 days after the first one. The landholder has some guys building a shed for him, the swarm set up in a nearby shrub and was making the builders nervous so he asked me to come and get them. What it is to be famous. .
> 
> LJ, I tried your groundsheet and ramp setup and it worked a treat with, of course, some wrinkles. Set everything up under the swarm which was at easily reachable height and gave the branch a good shake. Bees everywhere but not all lost in the grass. Those which landed on the box moved in and a bit of a parade started but, in a few minutes, there was a cluster forming back on the branch. I shook that off and a second one that formed almost immediately and that seemed to stop that act. I guess the queen stayed on the branch initially, it was leafy and hard to get a good clear shake.
> 
> ...


Sel
glad to see you progressing down the trial.
10F is enough for a small swarm for a month or so.
keep in mind it will be 21 days for the first bee to hatch and then need comb for the eggs, so close to a month for any gain. I would put the trap there and if called go get the 3rd swarm.
Agree with Russ, the first swarm is the primary and the second you hived, and there could be a 3rd. 

Not sure I would place a virgin in the same box as the old queen, be sure your dividers are in good working order.

Again congrats, now you have some bees to play with. from theory to reality.

GG


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

LJ, yes, there is no doubt they are syrup bound, with the slightest disturbance it is literally dripping off the combs and they are even trying to put it into the shallow cells at the margins. There are still bees all over the wooden surfaces, there is nothing capped for them to stand on. I reread some of the posts on feeding swarms and there are definitely two schools of thought but in the "yes, feed" school there seems little information on how much to feed. I am still in the "feed" school because it seems likely that it encourages comb formation which is important in my brand new foundationless setup. How much to feed? My experience is that it is definitely possible to feed too much and, for the second swarm, I have given them one feed (about 2 l) to encourage them to get started and then I am going to let them be.

Thanks also for your comments on the plus or minus queen situation. I'm just going to leave them to sort themselves out apart from monitoring their comb construction. Some of it was a bit scrappy but I expect that they are just demonstrating the table manners of gluttons and may improve when the pressure of feeding too much goes away. I am concerned about the colony going laying worker but I do not have anything on which to base an assessment of the risks or knowledge of how long they will keep going like this if they are queenless. I suppose if worst comes to worst they are creating comb and resources.

GG, thanks for the encouragement. I am not terribly happy myself with having the two colonies in the same box and maybe I made the wrong decision taking them out of the bait box but done now. During the week in which only one end of the hive was occupied I did not see a single bee in the other half so the divider seems OK. A rampaging queen may be a sterner test though.

The only observation of note from hive watching yesterday was that there are quite a few drones in the second swarm, the first had hardly any. Hive watching is strangely enjoyable.

Sel.


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## Litsinger (Jun 14, 2018)

sparkyApis said:


> Hive watching is strangely enjoyable.


Agreed. Maybe only surpassed by a sampling honey straight from the comb in the midst of a long, hot day in the beeyard.


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

I must have been a trial when I was a little tacker at the "why?" stage  . Anyway, I was having a small contemplation of the bees this morning when this popped into my head.


little_john said:


> I've known mated virgins take anything up to a month to get started.


My bee maths says that, if the queen takes 28 days to get her act together then, for a swarm, the youngest bee is about 48 days old when she starts and she will be in a race to get her first brood cared for by the few geriatric survivors. Are there other things which intervene here? At a minimum, I suppose this means that I have to be monitoring the need to feed after brood begins to emerge.

Sel.


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## Gray Goose (Sep 4, 2018)

sparkyApis said:


> I must have been a trial when I was a little tacker at the "why?" stage  . Anyway, I was having a small contemplation of the bees this morning when this popped into my head.
> 
> My bee maths says that, if the queen takes 28 days to get her act together then, for a swarm, the youngest bee is about 48 days old when she starts and she will be in a race to get her first brood cared for by the few geriatric survivors. Are there other things which intervene here? At a minimum, I suppose this means that I have to be monitoring the need to feed after brood begins to emerge.
> 
> Sel.


right the "trouble time" for a swarm is 28 days out, they now have max brood to cover, comb build and and some/many bees dyeing of old age, few to none hatching yet. so the feed will help with reduced miles of flying for forage, and plentiful sugar available to build comb. You need the comb for brood, no brood, no growth. I would think 2 brood cycles 50ish days for starting on no comb, 42 starting with comb, timeframe the feed could be stopped, or slowed significantly. also a 2 inch block of foam to keep the brood from chilling for 50 days is also a good ides if your locale has cool nights.

GG


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

Things appear to be chugging along nicely, which probably means that there is a disaster in the making and I just haven't noticed yet . 

Both colonies are active and bringing in pollen. I removed the feeder from the second swarm when they had disposed of 2l of getting started feed. I did not disturb them but looking down the gaps I can see comb and, what is more, straight comb. 

As those who know predicted, the feral hive did swarm again, on Wednesday, which is three known in under three weeks. That one got away but I am not too fussed. I will put my bait box back out there and leave it to see if anyone moves in. At least it smells of bees now. 

One observation from the first swarm, the box had a ziploc bag containing a cotton bud and lemon grass oil lying on the bottom. When I unloaded the swarm I found the bag covered in what looked like stings. It seems the bees took a real dislike to it but why is a mystery to me.

Sel.


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

Inspection this morning. The older swarm still has some comb problems but better than it was. I took to the errant sections with a breadknife, after a really good look for bees in the way, and pushed some crooked comb straight. We will see how that goes, but I suspect these combs may haunt me for a while until I can cycle them out. The newer builds in this colony are straight and centered on the bars. The colony has capped some stores and has what I read as capped brood although the pattern is all over the place towards the comb margins, I suppose from being syrup bound as LJ suggested earlier. All in all they seem to be doing an excellent job of surviving my ham fisted attempts to look after them.

They have about eight frames, five of which are over 2/3rds drawn. There are another four frames available behind a follower board.

The new hive, which is just five days old is looking much nicer. The comb development is neater and straighter, all aligned in the frames. It has uncapped stores and I am fairly certain that I saw eggs / young larvae. Comb development is slower but it is a smaller swarm and is not being overfed so that is as expected.

In general I am finding the combs attached to the plywood starter strips I put in the top bars, although there are a few areas where it is attached beside the strip. They do not seem terribly keen on the bamboo skewers, they tend to build down each section for quite some distance before they get the edges attached to the extent that there is usually a narrow gap an inch or two long parallel to the skewer before they finally make that last cell or two to encapsulate it. 

I still have not seen either queen. Both colonies are bringing in pollen and continue to be gentle. All seems right in bee world although I notice that the thread on "How to Gracefully Exit the Hobby" is now top on my recommended reading list. 

Sel.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

sparkyApis said:


> although I notice that the thread on "How to Gracefully Exit the Hobby" is now top on my recommended reading list.


Them, the user-tracking algorithms know what they are doing. LOL


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

I had another question answered today. I have wondered how long it took a bee to sting you once it had made up its mind, does it have to get itself aligned and organised, compose its final haiku, or whatever. Yesterday I found out. It is not long. 

I was sitting on my usual bee contemplation stool when one came out of the hive, went immediately to fine pitch, made a straight run and whacked into my head where it promptly stung me before I could move it on. It did not quite do the cartoon bee thing and arrive stinger first but there was no hesitation. File that in my collection of more or less useless bee facts.

Sel.


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## Litsinger (Jun 14, 2018)

sparkyApis said:


> ... made a straight run and whacked into my head where it promptly stung me before I could move it on.


And at least in my experience, this can sometimes happen for no good apparent reason. Hopefully you don't have any important meetings or TV interviews over the next two days... those stings near the lips or directly above the eye brow can really cause significant swelling.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

sparkyApis said:


> I was sitting on my usual bee contemplation stool when one came out of the hive, went immediately to fine pitch, made a straight run and whacked into my head where it promptly stung me before I could move it on. It did not quite do the cartoon bee thing and arrive stinger first but there was no hesitation. File that in my collection of more or less useless bee facts.
> 
> Sel.


Well, this was not called for.
Not exactly the back-yard friendly bees then. 
My back-yard colonies take a lot of abuse from me and still don't retaliate.
Even my most defensive hive don't do this when not called for and not pestered with.


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

GregV said:


> Well, this was not called for.


That's what I said, with a few more adjectives. I have spent several hours sitting on that stool, often sticking my nose within a couple of feet of the entrance to look for pollen and the like, and felt quite relaxed. This one was just grumpy I think, it came out of the hive like a heat seeking missile in terminal guidance, unusual really. Normal service is resumed today.



Litsinger said:


> Hopefully you don't have any important meetings or TV interviews over the next two days...


Well, that one caused a little chuckle. I gave up important meetings a while ago, they interfere with the whole growing old gracefully thing. As for putting me on TV, well I suppose it is near halloween! It got me above the ear and no real reaction even though the sting didn't come out until I got inside to a mirror. Thanks for the kind thoughts all the same.

Sel.


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

Hi Sel,


> sparkyApis
> Discussion Starter · #127 ·* 1 d ago
> Inspection this morning. *
> 
> ...


Therein I suspect is the cause ... *You* know that the interference ended yesterday - but the bees don't know that. Maybe your presence suggests to them that today is going to be a repeat of yesterday ?

Bees vary tremendously in their defensiveness - I have some colonies with which you can simply whip the top off their hives and start pulling frames straight away - no smoke, no need even for a veil (although I always wear one) . Certainly no need for a bee-suit. They really couldn't care less.

Then there are others which need a puff of smoke, otherwise they can get a little stroppy whilst their hive is open, but soon settle down afterwards. Moving along - then there are those with which it's not really a good idea to stand too close to their hives for (say) two or three days after an inspection.

And finally, I used to have colonies which resented human presence anywhere and at any time, and would follow Yours Truly 100-150 feet from their hives intent on retribution. Needless to say, they didn't get to stay around for very long.

I know it must sound a little fanciful, but after a while you get to know each colony's little ways - that's not to say this can be totally relied upon, as all colonies can have a bad day - but it helps. 
'best,
LJ


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

When I inspected two days ago there was a bit of an information overload. I had to keep reminding myself of the things I was looking for else I ended up gazing at all the activity without really extracting the information on stores, brood at any stage and so on that I was there to get.

One thing of note was a significant number of bees head first in cells, tending to be concentrated in a band towards the lower edge of uncapped syrup. These bees were very much alive and guaranteed not to be starving. On reflection, I wonder if I was seeing them moving stores around, attempting to establish some order in their world and emptying cells to give the queen a more normal place to lay. The brood I did see was in tight patches, just not near the centre on combs. It will be interesting to see where it is in a few days time.

I need to get some pictures of all this but I have yet to figure out how to do that without turning my camera or phone into a sticky mess. Anyone care to share any ideas on how to manage?

Sel.


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

This place is being overrun! This afternoon I looked at my bees and one of my bait hives, the one I use as a bee watching stool, sitting on the ground with the entrance maybe 60mm above ground level in the sticks and leaves, and lo and behold there were a dozen or so bees popping in and out. Are these scouts? They certainly were not from my existing colonies, much more yellow on them. I knew that the box was just about empty with maybe a couple of frames placed haphazardly inside. What to do? If I moved it I might disrupt their examination but I really could not face sorting out the mess if a swarm moved in to what was there so I picked the box up, put it on a stand, opened the top and added enough frames to furnish it properly. There were a few bees flying about inside and nobody got upset. An hour later the swarm arrived and promptly moved in! 

Good golly goshkins, this bee having just happens while you watch . That's three captures in three weeks or thereabouts. I think I am going to go and close the entrance on my last bait hive then go and start building. Three colonies, do I have an apiary yet?














Sel.


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## Litsinger (Jun 14, 2018)

sparkyApis said:


> Three colonies, do I have an apiary yet?


It's official- you are a BEEHAVER now. Watching swarms move in never grows stale...


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

Hive inspection yesterday. First hive, Griff1, has capped brood and capped stores. They have moved stores around so that the queen is laying more towards the lower centre of frames so all that seems OK. Still some cross combing from the initial crooked builds but I think I am gradually working it out. When they get more established I will consider cutting out the worst bits and give them a chance to rebuild with less rush and more guidance.

Griff2 is building along nicely but no capped brood visible. No queens seen either, that is beginning to annoy me because I should be able to pick them out. Ah well.

The new swarm, OD1, is still there. See, I'm naming them now, seems just a little tragic.  I took the lid off it for a quick look which turned out to be a good idea. When I did a rush job of throwing some frames in there I left a frame gap so, guess where they built their first comb? In the gap and attached to the lid, drat! I scraped that off the roof and placed it into a frame, pressing it onto my starter strip at the top and down one of the vertical skewers. It seemed reasonably secure and I guess the girls will have it properly attached soon.

The only down side for the day was that this lot got seriously stroppy. I went back after taking my gear off to pick up a bit of equipment from near the hive and rapidly had several bees in attack mode. It took a brisk walk around shrubs and the like to get rid of them, they persisted for 60 or 70 metres from the hive. Its a new swarm, just moved in and then had their world severely disrupted so I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt for now, but they are on notice. I may have been spoilt by the gentle nature of the first two swarms but I'm not going to put up with being chased around, especially this close to the house, that would interfere with my bee watching.

Sel.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

sparkyApis said:


> The only down side for the day was that this lot got seriously stroppy. I went back after taking my gear off to pick up a bit of equipment from near the hive and rapidly had several bees in attack mode. It took a brisk walk around shrubs and the like to get rid of them, they persisted for 60 or 70 metres from the hive. Its a new swarm, just moved in and then had their world severely disrupted so I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt for now, but they are on notice. I may have been spoilt by the gentle nature of the first two swarms but I'm not going to put up with being chased around, especially this close to the house, that would interfere with my bee watching.


This is one of those cases where you want an alternate, remote location.
This way you can take overly defensive bees there, away from people, animals, and yourself.
While being too defensive, they still might have strong sides (e.g. strong honey gathering, pest resistance, minimal management, etc).
No need to start whacking the bees that may appear too aggressive to you.
Move them away and observe and learn how to manage them.

Also, the long hives are good at managing the defensive bees - this is where the long hives shine.
Pretty much one of the major points of having a long hive - managing defensive bees.
Learn about that.

The most defensive bees of the 2021 summer for me live in this hive.
Good bees. Good crop of honey. 
The aggression is mostly represented as intimidation - not direct and massive stinging.
They just tend to have some bad days and you don't want to bother them willy-nilly on your own terms - must pay attention to their mood.
They also respond to smoke OK.
I also hope they have some level of mite resistance.


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

I have been a little preoccupied lately trying to do what little bit I can to stop the social destruction of my country, without much success I might add, while keeping up with life in general. I have been thinking about the possibly aggressive hive comments but I won't respond to those until I have some more time. It is a hypothetical discussion anyway because they settled down again in a day or so as I (and you) suspected they may.

I went through the whole lot again today and things are looking OK to my eyes. There is still a bit of cross combing which I keep trying to tidy up and it is now only persistent in a couple of places. I have taken to just ripping these apart when I remove frames, trying to tidy up a best I can to the extent of removing sections of overlapping comb. I think I am making progress, or the bees are learning, or something. The first and the third swarms have lots of stores and brood and seem to be powering on nicely.

The second swarm, Griff2, hived 40 days ago is a bit of a worry. They are building beautifully neat comb and have capped stores, uncapped nectar, pollen and so on. It is concerning me that there is no brood anywhere. A little while ago:


little_john said:


> Once your first Queen starts laying, you'll then have some brood comb available to use as a 'test comb' to help determine whether the virgin in your 2nd colony has been successfully mated or not.


LJ, do you mean that in the sense of transferring a brood comb and looking to see if they try to raise a queen from it? I am beginning to think that it may be time to try something like that. It is entirely possible that they lost a virgin queen on her mating flight. The first or second day after they were hived the day started out with a pleasant south easterly breeze which late morning became a strong hot northerly which kept up for most of the day. I did note that, for the entire afternoon and some of the next day there were always several bees nasonoving at the entrance. Possibly trying to guide her home. There is always the possibility that the divider has failed and there has been a little regicide. If she is just a slow starter she is at risk of running out of attendants if she leaves it much longer.

The Griff1 colony has eight large frames well covered and one more underway there is then a follower board with three empty frames. There are a few bees in this compartment but absolutely nothing built so they seem reluctant to go under the follower. For my part, I'm reluctant to remove it because I want to keep the size of the brood nest under control.

I really need to start building again, the third swarm (OD1) which is still in a swarm box will need a home soon and I would like to split Griff1 and Griff2 into their own boxes as well.

Sel.


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## Gray Goose (Sep 4, 2018)

yes 40 days in a hive with no brood is a concern, I would put eggs from on a frame from a hive you like in there and center it to see if they make a queen.

GG


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

sparkyApis said:


> LJ, do you mean that in the sense of transferring a brood comb and looking to see if they try to raise a queen from it? I am beginning to think that it may be time to try something like that.


Hi Sel

Yes indeed - spot on. 

Sorry I haven't replied before now - I got back from a spell in hospital an hour ago, and have just begun catching-up ...

A test frame is nothing more than a brood frame with eggs and young larvae - if the bees start drawing-out a queen cell, that confirms that they were queenless (and have begun to rectify the problem).

But - if they *don't *begin drawing-out a queen cell - the result is far less clear, and could be one of several things: a Q/Cell hidden out of sight somewhere (not applicable in your case); a mated queen which hasn't yet begun to lay (it happens ...); a virgin queen still to be mated (which will become a drone layer if she remains unmated); or, the ovaries of one or more workers have developed due to the delay and have become - or are just about to become - Laying Workers (a state which is problematic, and best avoided whenever possible).

*So yes - a test frame asap is a very good idea.*
best,
LJ


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## Litsinger (Jun 14, 2018)

little_john said:


> I got back from a spell in hospital an hour ago, and have just begun catching-up...


LJ:

I sincerely hope all is well.


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

Oh thanks - that's very kind. Not life-threatening at all - just a persistent intermittent nose-bleed - it's more socially embarrassing than anything else, as supermarkets tend not to like people dripping blood over their produce ...

Driving has become a problem as it takes two hands to stop the bleed - which I can now do fairly easily - but it means stopping and pulling over in traffic, and not all motorists are that tolerant of being inconvenienced. 

Still - seeing some of the poor sods in the same hospital ward has put my trivial (but rather annoying) condition into perspective. There but for the grace of God etc.

Again - thanks for the kind words - appreciated. 
LJ


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## Litsinger (Jun 14, 2018)

little_john said:


> Still - seeing some of the poor sods in the same hospital ward has put my trivial (but rather annoying) condition into perspective. There but for the grace of God etc.


Well-said, LJ. Had a little trip to the ER myself earlier this year and came away with much the same conclusion. 

I am glad to hear it is nothing serious, and hopefully your medical pros will be able to find some approaches to help minimize the troubles you have been experiencing.


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

little_john said:


> Sorry I haven't replied before now - I got back from a spell in hospital an hour ago, and have just begun catching-up ...
> 
> A test frame is nothing more than a brood frame with eggs and young larvae -


Thanks LJ. I hope your hooter sorts itself out soon.
Sel.


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

Today was the day for wholesale changes and my apiary is in complete uproar but I have confidence that the girls will sort themselves out. I have built a new hive, similar inner dimensions to the first but much simplified, I estimate the piece count is about half the first one. I'll post later about the changes I have made to hive and frames. Some of it is experience from building the first, some is things learnt.

Like the first, it is a bottom bee space hive with a hinged roof which has clearance above the crown cover for ventilation, feeder and the like. This area has cone escapes for bees that end up trapped in there after I have had the hive open.

So, what have I done? I still had one swarm OD1 in its bait box and in need of more room. So the first task was to relocate this by about 5 metres to where I wanted the new hive to live. I wasn'r going to take this five miles up the road then bring it back so I tried something I had read in Michael Bush's pages. I moved the hive early in the morning and placed some leafy branches in front of the entrance, the idea being that bees come out the entrance and encounter something different which causes them to actually notice where they are and orient themselves rather than just fanging blindly off and coming back to where home used to be. I put another box back in the original position and at one point there were maybe two hundred bees clustered on it but that number decreased over the day. Towards evening I took that box over to the new location and took the lid off just in case it was full of lost bees but the inside was empty. The next day there were maybe twenty irate bees buzzing about in the old location but that was it, so we will call that a success.

The entrance is partly obscured by leaves in the lower right of the box, the box on a concrete block in the left background is the original location. Yesterday I set my new hive up on blocks next to the relocated bait box.














With all in readiness, today I transferred the frames and bees from the bait box into the new hive along with some empty frames, follower boards and a division board. The setup is, from one end, (2E)F(8B)F(5E)D (E empty frame, F follower, B frames of mixed brood and stores, D division). Over time I will try to sort this out into a brood nest and stores separated by the followers. There are a fair number of bees in the air, a few favoring the original site, but there are bees fanning at the entrance and the strays from the bait box are moving in so I'm happy with that. 







There are eggs, larvae, capped brood, pollen and open and capped honey, this lot have been busy. There must be a queen in there but she remains invisible. I'm going to develop a complex about that soon.

I also had a major go at the other big hive but I'll leave that to a later post.


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## Gray Goose (Sep 4, 2018)

little_john said:


> Oh thanks - that's very kind. Not life-threatening at all - just a persistent intermittent nose-bleed - it's more socially embarrassing than anything else, as supermarkets tend not to like people dripping blood over their produce ...
> 
> Driving has become a problem as it takes two hands to stop the bleed - which I can now do fairly easily - but it means stopping and pulling over in traffic, and not all motorists are that tolerant of being inconvenienced.
> 
> ...


LJ
my brother had that and the doctor "burned" the inside of his nose.
the scar tissue I guess was stronger than the skin.
this was many years ago but it fixed his problem.

good luck finding a solution.

GG


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## Litsinger (Jun 14, 2018)

sparkyApis said:


> Some of it is experience from building the first, some is things learnt.


Sounds like you are off to a roaring start, Sel.

Your reflections on the experience you gained from the first hive build reminded me of a quote from former Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Vern Law:
_
'Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards.'_


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

The other part of yesterdays colony manipulations were to resolve the Griff2 colony situation. This has now been some 50 days and a careful inspection did not discover any eggs or larvae. This was good news and bad news, bad news, they are queenless, good news, there is no laying worker. As expected, the number of bees in the colony is declining. Their activity at the entrance has been falling off in the last days and the number of bees on the combs was noticeably less. I've clearly left this too long and it seems to me that there will not be enough bees surviving to make the addition of a frame of brood worthwhile so I decided to combine it with the strong colony in the other end of this box. 

By my understanding of bee math, these bees must all be 50 plus days old and on their last legs so I did not see much point in subtlety. I removed the follower board limiting the combs from the failed colony and the division board in the middle of the hive, left a couple of empty frames next to the follower bordering the successful colony and moved the combs up, starting with the smallest and progressing to the largest drawn combs, then replaced the division board. Job done, at least my part in it. I did not disturb the original colony because I did not want to risk having that queen exposed when strange bees were introduced.

The failed swarm had never had a laying queen, the two swarms were from the same hive just a week apart and they had been in close proximity ever since so I wondered what the outcome would be. There was definitely some excitement for a while and this morning there were maybe two or three hundred bees on the ground under the hive entrance but nowhere near as many as I introduced so I suspect they may have reached some understanding. The surviving colony has scored a whole lot of stores for free so they should be happy.

The failed colony had built out and nearly filled four full deep frames of comb and another three partial. Some of it is still to be capped but there is a lot of honey there. The combs are a thing of beauty, straight, even, no cross comb, I'm hoping their cousins pick up the hint on how to do it properly because they are definitely in the comb building remedial class.

I still have not figured out how to take photos with sticky fingers otherwise I would be able to show what a beautiful job they have done.

As always, comments welcome, they do add to the learning experience.

Sel.


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## ursa_minor (Feb 13, 2020)

sparkyApis said:


> I still have not figured out how to take photos with sticky fingers otherwise I would be able to show what a beautiful job they have done.


i am hoping to figure out a bracket that will hold the combs standing properly rather than balance the comb with one hand and focus with the other. If I can do that maybe I will be able to clean my fingers first. I can attest to the pain of cleaning honey off a camera.


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

ursa_minor said:


> I can attest to the pain of cleaning honey off a camera.


Awful isn't it. I am toying with setting the camera up with a longish lens on autofocus on a tripod , set it to take a photo every few seconds and then just hold the things I want to capture in the appropriate place.


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## sparkyApis (Apr 9, 2021)

The girls are settling down to their new arrangements. The OD1 colony is being quietly industrious and seems completely relaxed. I had to do some mods to the roof covering on the hive which involved me working on the top cover with a drill and an impact driver. I kept a wary eye out but they just kept on doing bee things, what lovely ladies.

The Griff1 colony is a little stroppy still. The entrance is somewhat congested, I guess with guard bees checking on everybody, but the foragers are busy bringing in supplies. They are not nice to be near yet but I expect they will settle down. When feeling stressed they have this thing where one bee will go into attack mode with no warning, no bumps, no buzzing around, no support, just a solo straight in. This is happening four or five metres from the hive just now which is too far for my liking. They seem to have this spot just above and in front of my right ear that they take exception to and they usually hit initially in that region, I can't see anything terribly offensive about it but they seem to. Sometimes I get them out of my hair in time, sometimes not. They got me twice yesterday. Still learning.


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## Litsinger (Jun 14, 2018)

sparkyApis said:


> They got me twice yesterday. Still learning.


Sel: 
Invariably this happens to me when I get a little too comfortable and then I'm jarred back into the reality that I'm working with hoardes of stinging insects. Hopefully you don't swell up too badly.


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## ursa_minor (Feb 13, 2020)

sparkyApis said:


> I had to do some mods to the roof covering on the hive which involved me working on the top cover with a drill and an impact driver. I kept a wary eye out but they just kept on doing bee things, what lovely ladies.


My first year my husband and I took a swarm out of one of the walls in an outbuilding. He took a chainsaw to the boards and the bees didn't seem to care. They did have comb but I am not sure if the queen was laying, but they can ignore some pretty drastic noise around the hive, and then the next time they seem to dislike the fact that I am alive.


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