# Day by day blog: aka exterior inspections



## Yunzow

Hello, all,

thank you so much for hosting this forum. I really value everyone's contributions and wisdom! I am so glad this forum exists at all.

I am going to post my day by day blog, see replies below. Consider this the newbie's guide to DIY, written from a newbie's point of view.

Why bother? I realized I could learn a lot from observing the exterior of the hive. It certainly helped me get more comfortable with the bees and they with me. I think I might have been upset by the ants if I hadn't been looking every day. Also, I learned a lot just watching the bees, watching them bring in pollen, seeing the Nasonov fanning. The producers of "Hive Alive" assert that you might tell that returning bees have nectar if their bottoms are sagging from the weight so they come in with an angular posture. I also deduce that they aren't coming back empty handed, especially because the pace was so fast.

So here are my day by day observations....

Heart,
Thomas


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## Yunzow

*Day 1*

Day 1:
Saturday, March 18th, 2017

I picked up the 3 lb package near Baldwin GA, from Jarrett Apiaries. They were very nice and friendly and gave me excellent recommendations. 

I am a little superstitious, so I chose to drive my dad's pickup truck, because I thought the electromagnetism of the Chevrolet Volt might disturb them. It was a late start for me, I hoped to be up before 7 a.m. but alas, it was Saturday.

It was a little wooden box of bees, with screens on two sides. I didn't realize how heavy it was until I picked it up, because it looks deceptively light. Don't touch the screen with your fingers, I suspect you might get stung.

There were a couple of things I improvised, but what I did was largely follow the advice of experts in the field, though perhaps they are non-conformist, which suits my nature. For instance, I did what I would call a modified open release of the queen. I pushed in the cork (accidentally) on the non-candy end and smeared crystallized honey over the opening. Then I placed the cage on the bottom board. If I had it to do over, I would attach the queen cage to a bar, perhaps lengthwise parallel to the bar so the queen will come out on the middle of the bar. Remove the queen cage in a couple of hours if she is out.

I was very intimidated by the dumping out of the bees. Especially when there were so many left in the box and I was nervous to keep whacking the box. So instead I came back a couple of times. Some I dumped directly on the lid. They figured it out.

I placed a thin stick under the lid to reduce the entrance side. Here I made a clear mistake by putting the main entrance on the left side. I should have put it direct middle.

I smeared raw honey all over the bottom of the board. I know some would disagree with using raw honey due to risk of spreading certain diseases, but I was following an expert's advice in that one. I misplaced the can feeder for sure. I think I should have propped it up on something.

Oh, jumping back a bit, the cedar bars had got wet a little from a rain, so they expanded. I had to remove a bar and put a thin stick in its place so I could have the bars leave a gap in front.

Jumping forward a bit, I went to look at the hive at night. I saw ants and I saw a mass of bees on the right wall. Oh no!

Here is a video I posted to facebook from Day 1
[video]https://www.facebook.com/thomas.yun.507/videos/vb.787478384/10155166862358385/?type=2&theater[/video]


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## Yunzow

*Day 2*

Sunday, March 19th, 2017

On day two, I fretted about the situation with the bee mass on the right wall. I wanted to get the queen cage out and give them some more food. I filled my smoker with sage and pine. I have since concluded, I don't want to use a smoker with these bees in this hive, it seems to agitate them.

For the ants, I decided to try cinnamon. So far this is working well. The bees seem most vulnerable to the ants at night, when the ants are relentless, so I would advise other newbies, check your hive at night.

So I got the cage out not much problem. When I set the lid back down I inadvertently shifted the bars backwards, which if the clump was attached, it surely would have disrupted them. 

At that time the bees were agitated. A combination of the smoke and I had opened it up too much so many more bees were flying wildly around.

So I didn't know what to do and I still have yet to receive any advice other than how to avoid it, which is very wise advice indeed. So I decided I would at least try to put honey on the wedges, which I had not done, in a minimalist approach, again not an improvisation, but advice from an expert.

On the other hand, I want to mention over the first couple of days, I developed this idea of "bee meditation". Just hanging out in front of the hive, hive closed, watching the bees come and go, as they buzz all around my head. These are very intense little creatures! I keep chickens, too, and I do sometimes like to just hang out with them and watch them. It's a different thing with the bees. Of course, there is an instinctual fear. 

I think it is the energy that is completely different, just a very, very high vibration as the New Age folks might say. Yet very simple at the same time.

I could probably sit in front of the hive for hours, but this would definitely raise the ire of my fiancée.


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## Yunzow

*Day 3*

Monday, March 20th, 2017, the equinox

I resolved to try to put honey on the wedges.

When I pulled out the first bar, I saw that it was criss-crossed with amber threads of syrup and bees were hanging from it. Well yay! they figured it out. So I just closed up the hive and left it alone.

When I went back at night, I couldn't really see any bees hanging in the middle near the entrance.


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## Yunzow

*Day 4*

Tuesday, March 21st

On Day four, it was very hot all of the sudden. It went from 40 overnight low around 6 a.m. to in the high eighties by the afternoon. Weird stuff. The weather is going to drop off mighty in a couple of days.

I was worried that the entrance was going to be too small for them in this heat, but when I checked it about 5 p.m. there was no problem. It was certainly very active.

I think I might open the hive again tomorrow. I have a new strategy with the clump. I am going to lift one of the bars and inspect it. Partly for education, but also to manipulate the clump. Like move the middle one out in front. Or switch sides. If it is even attached at all!

PS. This was before Trishbookworm gave advice. In the late afternoon, I attempted to examine one of the bars in the middle of the cluster. I found it to be unattached by comb, but maybe it was part of a festoon along the wall.

The sticks I have been using to reduce the entrance consistently fall every time I lift the lid. I have to fashion a reducer that will stay in place. Perhaps out of cardboard....


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## trishbookworm

*Re: Day 4*

This is a great idea! I have a caution and a question... probably not in that order... First, this mass of bees you speak of - if it's inside the hive, then that is normal bee behavior. When they don't have comb, then they hang in a clump. Soon they will build comb inside that clump. If you look up "festoon", on youtube, you'll probably see lots of examples. I like to peek inside my hive at night too, through the entrance - I have a headlamp - just a quick peek though! They have come out towards the light. :0

My caution is about moving the bars near the cluster again. I have heard of bees absconding after too much stress/messing with them. If you can avoid disturbing the cluster for the next 10 days or so, then you will minimize that risk. Hopefully putting the honey on the bars has sweetened the deal - take care not to sour it!  If you want to feed them, you can just put a mason jar (or old pb jar or anything airtight - even ziplock bag) on blocks maybe 3/4 inch high, inside the hive. You'll need to use a small nail or pushpin to make holes and then just put the inverted jar (or even a baggie, hole side down) on the bars. You can just put that 10 bars from the entrance. Or even better, on the other side of the follower/divider board, away from the bees and the entrance, if the follower board has holes. 

If you use 1 part sugar to 1 part syrup, that mimics nectar, so it's good for the bees to build comb. I also use raspberry tea in the water - just to give the sugar syrup a smell. any herbal tea, or even just some oregano if you don't have herbal tea, will serve to give the sugar syrup a smell. So the bees will come looking for it! I just use hot water from the tap - I think 2 quarts with 4 lbs sugar, but that makes 4 or 5 quart jars. Adjust as needed!

Very exciting, good luck... try to have confidence the bees can fix most of our mistakes! We're still a good 3 weeks away from swarms and longer until packages arrive. 

Oh one more thing - I have seen the bees work hard to cool the hive. They use the smaller entrance and water to do air conditioning.  Like I said, have confidence in the bees... they know what they're doing!


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## Yunzow

*Re: Day 4*

Thank you so much for the reply, I am so glad to have a concept around the clump, which I will now call a festoon! And I will heed your advice about not moving the cluster bars right now.


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## Yunzow

*Day 5*

Day 5
Wednesday, March 22, 2017

Last night there was a big storm. The wind was whipping through the woods, so I was worried about the lid of the hive.

This morning everything was intact. Of course the rain had washed away all the cinnamon and there were ants clustered at the rear of the hive. I think they had found a small gap in the back to get in.

I'm going to switch gears with the ants, from discouraging them with the cinnamon barriers to killing them with a non-toxic spray. I usually mix a small amount of dishwashing detergent with water in a spray bottle. This kills most insects if you spray them directly. I figure this will allow me to kill the ants without putting the bees at risk. I've had decent success with this kind of spray with ants and hornets, but it does take a while to convince them that they are losing, usually repeatedly spraying them over the course of several days.

So I made a mix of water and dishwashing detergent. I sprayed some ants in the kitchen, it worked! I also made a new entrance reducer, because the other one was completely unstable. I cut a fifteen inch wide piece of cardboard, maybe square, and I stapled two short bars to it. This worked well for my purposes.

In the afternoon, after work, I observed the hive and drew the conclusion that I was not going to feed them anymore, because I believe they were getting plenty of nectar and the honey I was giving them was attracting pests. It had been cooler today, cloudy at times, but in the late afternoon it was warm and sunny. The pollen count was very high. I don't know yet if that is good for the bees. There were no visible ants on the hive.

At night, I sprayed the ants that had suddenly appeared in the darkness. Quite a few gathered in the back, looking like they found a way in.

I removed some back bars and looked inside. The festoon was growing in size. Now at its widest against the right wall, definitely spanning five bars or more, and also reaching like a pyramid towards the left wall. If it were a comb, it would be a massive comb. Of course, I don't know what I'm looking at. Please correct me if you know what is going on!

Inspecting a hive at night is quite silly, I do not recommend it unless you are very stubborn and need to suffer for yourself.:no:


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## Yunzow

*Day 6*

Day 6
Thursday
March 23, 2017

I haven't actually looked at the hive yet today, but I want to mention another thing I found last night, which was a dead bumblebee on the ground by the hive. I took it inside to look at it more closely, so fuzzy! No signs of any damage to it, but I assume the honey bees "took care of it." I also assume it is being attracted by the smells of bee food, which leads me to optimistically conclude my bee friends are drawing comb inside the hive.

I went to look at the hive in the afternoon. That festooning clump is quite large now, which I suppose is a good thing, bigger and better. But it still looks like a big blob spreading out over many bars.

I realized I had come to the wrong conclusion a few days ago when I decided against putting honey on the wedges.

So I removed a couple of wedges right at the back of the clump and applied honey to the wedges. Then I put honey on the first four wedges in front of the clump.

So we will see how this goes! I'm trying to stay optimistic.

I went back at night and saw many ants, there were none during the day. I sprayed them dead with my non-toxic detergent spray.

I almost got stung. One bee got under my shirt. But this was my fault, I started messing with the lid, which I have been fretting about all day. And I wasn't wearing any protection at all.


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## Yunzow

*Day 7*

Day 7 
Friday March 24th, 2017

Nothing much today. I took my friend Dave to go see the hive, from a distance because I didn't have a bee suit for him. Dave helped me build the hive. I had offered him honey, but he has sugar problems, so I told him I would make him a nice beeswax candle.


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## Yunzow

*Day 8*

Day 8
Saturday, March 25th, 2017

I got to examine the bees this morning, which was great, because I understand you will see different things throughout the day, and also they are less active in the hive, because most are out foraging.

I saw a big difference immediately at the entrance, almost every bee was returning laden with pollen. This confirmed my intuition that they were getting plenty of food and didn't need to be fed.

I looked in through the back of the hive. I could see that festoon, or clump, looked about the same. A thick pyramid jutting out from the right wall, spanning perhaps ten bars now.

I started examining bars next to the clump, where I had put honey. They ate all the honey off, but no festooning. Fail.

I started lifting bars on the periphery of the clump. Bees festooning, mostly. Finally three or four bars into the clump, there it was! I little bit of honey comb attached to the wedge even! I guess the only problem was that it was off center relative to the left and right in the hive, looking from the front.

I was really challenged to put that comb back in. I ended up decapitating one bee. The body kept moving around without the head.

Very exciting, looks like that clump is busy building combs on the wedges, from the right side of the hive.


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## Yunzow

*Day 9*

Day 9,
Sunday
March 26, 2017

I wasn't able to examine the hive until late. In the main entrance, in the middle top, I could see perhaps four or more bees crowded right there. A couple were fanning, but with their abdomens down, so I believe this was NOT the Nasonov pheromone, perhaps for ventilation? I dunno.

There weren't many ants, but there were some. Mostly little ones, but a couple of big ones. The big ones are harder to kill. I would have to saturate them completely.

I was excited all weekend, thinking about the new comb they were making. Talk about flower children, baby bees, that is what they are!!!


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## Yunzow

*Day 10*

Day 10
Monday, March 27th, 2017

Another day when I couldn't get to see the bees until late at night. The ants are looking scarce now, I think they got the message.

We got our garden beds ready. I plan to plant many sunflowers, because I know that bees like them.


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## Yunzow

*Day 11*

Day 11
Tuesday, March 28th, 2017

I was only able to visit the hive briefly today, due to being too busy.

I planted some sunflowers today, I know that bees like them.

My next "good day" for inspecting the hive is Friday morning because I have the day off. I need to do a really thorough inspection then (pull out all the bars and comb and inspect them all) because I haven't really done that yet, only inspected one comb bar because of lack of time but also some nervousness of getting the bars out and more importantly, back in there without killing too many bees.

The gist of it appears to be removing several bars just to make space to move the comb bars around.


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## Yunzow

*Day 12*

Day 12
Wednesday March 29th, 2017

Another night visit. Not much ant activity at all. I think they got the message.

On the other hand the bees are very crowded in the entrances. (There is one entrance center top front and two smaller side entrances.) I don't know what this is about.


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## Yunzow

*Day 13*

Day 13
Thursday March 30, 2017

There was a big commotion today. I85 collapsed, luckily no one got hurt. Then there was a powerful storm and many trees were felled. We lost power for the rest of the night and most of the next day.

I checked the bees, the lid was secure.


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## Yunzow

*Day 14 - how to bump bees*

Day 14
Friday March 31, 2017

I was looking forward to today because I had the day off so I would be able to examine the hive at the optimal time, which turned out to be around noon.

It was very windy, so I got on the downwind side of the hive.

First I removed the bars from the very back of ththe hive. This part of the hive is mostly empty, except a few dead bees on the bottom board. I could see that the combs were now stretching across to the left, and not attached to the right wall.

I started pulling out bars of comb to inspect. I am new at this, I couldn't see any eggs for sure.

I came to the point where there was some cross comb or perhaps it was burr comb. Basically, it looked like it was the remnant of th cluster on the right wall, attached to comb like a big bump. I took my hive tool and scraped away the bump and out came honey! Yay! 

The next comb was fairly attached to the comb next to it so that they moved together. In the meantime it seemed like th bees were more and more noticing me, or else I was getting intimidated.

So I started closing the hive up.

I want to talk about "bumping technique". This would appear to be a very crucial skill for beekeeping so as not to kill too many bees while closing the hive. Basically, bees are going to be in the way of the bar such that if you put it straight down you would crush them. To get them out of the way I would nudge them with th edge of the bar. Very gently. They got the hint and would descend back into th hive.

I started to open th hive from the front. The first bar they had sealed to the hive body with propolis. I wanted to make sure it was removable.

As for the remaining bars in what I assume is the brood area, I did end up pushing the bars back and forth along the length of the hive, because the bars had expanded somewhat so I had to put a different size spacer bar at the end. That they could move freely along that axis let me know at least there wasn't comb attachment to ththe wall.

Anyways, I was super excited to see the honey. To me I seems they started building comb in dome shape on the right wall, then they spread onto the bars.


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## trishbookworm

*Re: Day 14 - how to bump bees*

This is a neat day-b-day! I am so looking forward to active bee season up here in OH, we get "fly days" in fits and starts right now until late April. 

I find that I am slow to put the bars back together when the bees are going up and over the sides, but that a thin slat, maybe 1/16 inches thick, so it is flexible, helps me a lot. I get the bars 1 bee width apart, then I gently put the slat down. Then I can move the bars closer and then remove the slat and do a final close. It's not that I am so reluctant to kill a bee or two, it's that their little corpses leave a gap that leads to a ton of propolis! Which I then have to scrape off to get the combs together... a pain.

I have hived a couple of swarms, which start on plain bars, and I have been so amazed when they start their combs perfectly on the bar! I found it really hard to trust the festoon to be "tidy" when I saw them. However, I wait 10 days to move the bars with the cluster so I don't trigger absconding - I've had that happen before with a swarm when I went in too early. 

One thing I am trying this year is to keep an empty bar at the front of the hive, so I can start my hive inspections in the front by the brood nest and be sure I am not pulling apart something awful on accident. Each visit I will replace any comb there with a blank bar. Hope the girls get the message.  I tried a 1/2 inch bar in front last year, and the bees put half of one comb on that front spacer, and half on bar #1. So I could never take it out. ;( If they had just picked one side it would have been fine! Fortunately the rest of the combs from then on out were only a bit off. 

Take care with not feeding - it's recommended that we feed sugar syrup (1:1 sugar water) until they have 2 or 3 combs of stores built up. Likely they will have the pollen/stores on its own comb, often at the edge of the broodnest for insulation and easy access, and then the brood combs will have some stores near the top and brood the rest of the way. So I will be feeding my swarms until they are at that point, but not past that. Sometimes we get a rainy/cool stretch where they can't forage for a week, and a hive without those 2 or 3 combs of stores will starve. Beginnings are such delicate times!

Good luck and keep us posted! But take care not to poke and prod too much


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## Yunzow

*Re: Day 14 - how to bump bees*

Thanks for this tip Trish, I will definitely try it!



trishbookworm said:


> I find that I am slow to put the bars back together when the bees are going up and over the sides, but that a thin slat, maybe 1/16 inches thick, so it is flexible, helps me a lot. I get the bars 1 bee width apart, then I gently put the slat down. Then I can move the bars closer and then remove the slat and do a final close. It's not that I am so reluctant to kill a bee or two, it's that their little corpses leave a gap that leads to a ton of propolis! Which I then have to scrape off to get the combs together... a pain.


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## Yunzow

*Days 15 - 17: the move*

Days 15-17
Saturday - Monday, April 1 - 3, 2017


Haven't been near the hive for several days now because we were helping my mom move.

I decided to plant alfalfa in our backyard for the chickens and the bees. I did read somewhere they don't like to get pollen from alfalfa because the plant somehow pops them on the head when releasing pollen, but they figure out some what to get nectar without triggering the pollen "snap".

More later!


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## Yunzow

*Day 18 - Bodhi Bee*

Day 18
Tuesday, April 4, 2017

My first memories of honey bees was seeing my great-uncle tend his bees. He had such a peaceful smile on his face. 

Beekeeping means something different now compared to those many years ago. Now its about the future.

I would like to get my son Bodhi at least familiar with beekeeping, maybe learn some nature. I won't push it, though.

Today I gave him his bee suit. When I first got my bee suit, he was jealous. He's really into superheroes, he was playing Spider-man, so I said I was "Bee-man". He really wanted a bee suit so I bought him one.

It's a bit big on him, but he manages okay in it and he really likes it.

We went out to the hive. Our cat Tiggy followed us. At one point he even jumped on top of the hive. Silly cat.

It was later in the afternoon, so mostly bees returning to a full hive. Some of the bees had big pollen loads, bigger than I saw before. I warned Bodhi not to touch the bees. If one landed on him, don't swat it!

I really hope he gets into it!


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## Yunzow

*Day 19 and Day 20*

Day 19 and Day 20
Wednesday April 5, 2017
Thursday April 6, 2017

We had a tornado watch through most of Georgia and Wednesday was a very cloudy dark day. I visited the hive at night and there was much less activity at the entrances than I had seen before. I was able to get out there a little Thursday afternoon, a cool day. Similarly not much going on around the hive; usually there are many bees buzzing around, coming and going. Instead a few bees coming in every now and then. Any bee that exited took off like a shot.

I'm looking forward to Saturday. Going to open up the hive, it will 21 days since the install!


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## Yunzow

*Day 21 - moon and lake*

Day 21
Friday, April 7, 2017

It was a busy day at work and after work and then we had a long dinner, so I didn't see the hive until late at night almost midnight. The moon was bright and a stream was running from the lake. It was very serene. No activity at the entrance but I could see inside the first comb, which is set back several bars from the entrance, bees busy doing there thing.


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## Yunzow

*Day 22 - stressful!*


Day 22
Saturday, April 8, 2017

Today I opened up the hive and inspected all the bars. This was very very stressful. The hardest part was putting the hive back together, the bees were getting more and more agitated. Not so easy to get them to go back into the hive. I need to keep working on my technique, because whenever I closed one space it would open up another space and the bees would come pouring back out. Part of it I think is that the front of the hive, there is not a great stop if I push the bars forward. I had put a couple of angled screws in the front board, but if I push a bar against them, the bar tends to want to hop over the screws. Hard to fix now!

I could see that I squished a few definitely. Then there was a bunch gather right on top of the bars and I could get them to move away so I could put the lid down without squishing them. Brushing them caused them to buzz me.

Very stressful!

The combs start perhaps four or five bars back from the front and go to the letter "p", since I labeled the bars using the alphabet and then numbers 1 - 6. I could see the last couple of combs appeared to be just honey.

There were definitely capped cells in the brood area and I could also identify a small area of drone domes. There was some cross combing in a couple of the brood bars, a little bit of attachment to the right wall, but not strongly attached.

Whew, closing a hive is not fun!


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## Yunzow

*Day 23 - hive modification*

Day 23
Sunday, April 9, 2017

I had used the design for Kenyan Top Bar Hive that Michael Bush had posted to his website. You'll note that the entrance is a gap between the first bar and the front board.

The problem I've been having with this is that when I am putting the hive back together if I can't really push forward on the bars because there is nothing that would stop the first bar from closing that gap / entrance.

I had put a couple of slanted screws in the front board to serve as a stop, the one on the right was at the right angle / length, but the one on the left, the bar just pops over it.

So today, I ended up putting a screw vertical in the left board, this serves an effective stop.

I verified that I killed about twenty bees, when I put the lid back on yesterday. Some got squished immediately, others could get out from under. I had tried to brush them away but that just agitated them and they went right back to the same place on top of the bars. Sigh.


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## Yunzow

*Day 24*

Day 24
Monday April 10, 2017

I checked the hive in the late afternoon, looked like there was still about an hour of sun left. There were some returning bees with pollen, big loads, the others with nectar. There was also bees shooting out of the right side entrance. Could have been new foragers doing an orientation flight?


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## trishbookworm

*Re: Day 24*

Whenever I have squished a bee, I've seen the rest congregate around there too. The dead bee leaves an alarm smell, or something like that. using the smoker on it can help disperse the "crowd". Also try sugar syrup in a spray bottle - 1:1 sugar syrup - spray it lightly on the center of the comb (not the bars) to attract them to the comb not the bars. That was Lorenzo Langstroth's preferred method - he didn't like a smoker - way back in the 1850s or so!

Some days are like that, where closing is a pain. I have had a hard time getting fast with bee inspections too. But practice makes perfect! Check out Randy Oliver NY wellness on bee inspections - he has some good tips even though he runs langs for money. Still I learned a lot!

Also consider putting together a "comb dropped" kit and bring it to the hive. You can use bird netting and a clip or staple gun, with a hair clip to hold it in place while putting together what you need to for repairs. Check previous posts about technique - but it is a real pain to have to run back to the house for materials when the comb has dropped!


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## Yunzow

*Re: Day 24*

Thanks for all the tips Trish!


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## Yunzow

*Day 25 - Wyatt A Mangum*

Day 25
Tuesday, April 11, 2017

I visited the hive in the late afternoon after work. All I really can do is look at the outside because it is not an ideal time for me to open the hive for lots of reasons.

I saw a bumblebee buzzing around the hive. I assume she is not long for this world....

The bees have shifted entrances. They were using the center entrance as their main, now they are using a side entrance on the right. I think this might be because that is where the morning light hits first.

I went to the Gwinnett County Beekeeper meeting. Very pleased to see so many people and of all ages. However, I was the only person to raise a hand when the speaker asked who kept bees in a top bar hive. 

They have an excellent library. I have to say for a total newbie like myself, Wyatt A Mangum's book is the best. This gives much more detail about the basics of building a top bar hive, said details are very scant in other books I have about Top Bar hives. I've only skimmed it so far, so more later....


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## Yunzow

*Day 26 - carpenter bees, drones*

Day 26
Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Okay, you'll see elsewhere I posted I found a couple of carpenter bees boring holes into the bottom board of the hive. One had just about made it all the way through. I guess the guard bees would take care of them once they made it through, but I don't like the idea of them making a bunch of holes. So I duct taped all the bottom with blue duct tape. We'll see!

I saw some drone activity, which I hadn't seen in a while, so I figure these could be hatched from the domes I saw on Saturday.


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## Yunzow

*Day 27 - blue duct tape and lid mods*

Day 27
Thursday, April 14, 2017

So it looks like the blue duct tape worked. No more carpenter bees! In other threads, you will see mentioned that carpenter bees can chew their way through most physical barriers, so the tape itself isn't a real impediment to them. I was figuring the blue color and maybe the adhesive "smell" might throw them off.

I spent most of today obsessing about fixing up my hive lid, per Mangum's recommendations. My current lid is a piece of plywood about 17" by 48". I've been concerned the whole time that it didn't have enough overhang, and really no overhang for the front and back entrance. Also, I realized that providing a 2x4 spacer underneath the lid (Mangum says for airflow to reduce the heat) would also make it easier for me not to squish any bees when I am replacing the lid.

One thing I will do instead of painting the lid is staple white plastic cardboard to the top (Mangum recommends paint the plastic cardboard is my idea). I got two 18" by 24" pieces from Home Depot, so I will have a couple of inches in the middle not covered. Then I am going to have two cedar 2x4's attached to the bottom to provide the airflow / non-squish space.


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## Yunzow

*Day 28 - return of the carpenter bee!*

Day 28
Friday, April 14, 2017

She came back. She is avoiding all the duct tape on the bottom board, but started making a hole where the side board meets the bottom board, looks like trying to angle up into the side board. So I duct taped that angle junction on both sides. We'll see!

I modified the lid as per Mangum, with 2x4s underneath to provide airflow space. My own modification, instead of painting the top, I stapled white plastic cardboard to the lid, overhanging the lid by a few inches on the sides and ends.

Now this left a large gap where the first bar doesn't meet the front board (which follows the original design). I put a spare wide top bar over the gap so that the entrances were reduced as before lid modification.

The bees are very busy today. I notice that the drones are really loud and clumsy! One thing I noticed, it seemed like there were different size worker bees. I am going to speculate this is because the original package was from a Langstrom, with bigger cell size due to foundation, whereas the bees hatched in my top bar are smaller.


----------



## VanBow

*Re: Days 15 - 17: the move*

I just installed my bees today, thanks for sharing this! Really interesting to see as a new beekeeper myself. Glad I'm not the only one who is slightly intimidated by hive inspections - I had to go back into my hive today after install and they were furious - I felt awful.
Excited to read about and learn from your journey!


----------



## Yunzow

*Re: Days 15 - 17: the move*

Cool, thanks for the feedback, what kind of top bar do you have? Could you tell me your experiences about smoking or not? I started off with smoke, then stopped because it seemed to aggravate them (I was probably doing it wrong), but now I'm back in the mindset to try it again....



VanBow said:


> I just installed my bees today, thanks for sharing this! Really interesting to see as a new beekeeper myself. Glad I'm not the only one who is slightly intimidated by hive inspections - I had to go back into my hive today after install and they were furious - I felt awful.
> Excited to read about and learn from your journey!


----------



## Yunzow

*Day 29 - partial inspection*

Day 29
Saturday, April 15, 2017

Today I only did a partial inspection, for the purposes to see how many combs they had made and how far forward they were going.

I had labeled the bars a-z then 1-6, so I could see them beginning a comb at E and starting a comb at Q.

Last week I had switched O and P where P was a partial comb. So at the end they had definitely added an almost full comb and then a partial comb. 

I didn't have a good sense from last week where the beginning comb was. So today it seems like about 11 full combs and two partial combs. this means my total from last week was wrong, so it wasn't 12.5 last week, I would hazard a guess it was ten or nine.

The other thing I noted was that the bees completely covered every single comb. Now this was at 10 a.m., when most of the foragers had left. I think this hive is quite crowded now.


----------



## VanBow

*Re: Days 15 - 17: the move*



Yunzow said:


> Cool, thanks for the feedback, what kind of top bar do you have? Could you tell me your experiences about smoking or not? I started off with smoke, then stopped because it seemed to aggravate them (I was probably doing it wrong), but now I'm back in the mindset to try it again....


Thank you for asking this because it got me thinking, and I think I understand what happened yesterday!

So, when I went into the first hive (I needed to wire the queen to a top bar I had left her on the bottom board not realizing it was too cold for that), I didn't expect much resistance. I guess I assumed they still didn't feel like they had a queen or hive so wouldn't be bothered. THEY REALLY WERE. Which, maybe I should feel encouraged about, but it was incredibly stressful for both of us. I hadn't used a smoker on that one, not thinking I'd need to.
When they started being really aggressive, I wrapped up as quick as I could and decided I really needed to smoke the next hive. This is where I should've practiced because I don't know what fuel to use, etc. to make sure the smoker isn't hot but is doing its job. Under the circumstances (I was pretty flustered), I _think_ I did okay in that regard but I'm sure it could've been better. With the next hive I smoked the entrance, then when I lifted the roof, then when I would lift bars. I was trying not to oversmoke but it didn't seem to be doing ANYTHING and I couldn't figure out why.
HOWEVER, and a more experienced person can correct me if I'm wrong, I think I realized why it did nothing when you asked me this question. Smoking, as I understand it, works because they think there's a fire and respond by filling up with honey in case the entire hive needs to relocate. This makes them heavier, and slightly more sluggish/docile. But these gals didn't HAVE any honey because I just put them in. So instead of calming them it just heightened their aggravation. I'm sure they thought, "WOW TERRIBLE LUCK, a bear is ripping into our hive, attacking our queen, and ALSO THERE'S A FIRE."
Maybe in the early days I should be using a sugar syrup sprayer instead? So they're distracted trying to clean that off themselves? I didn't really want to get them all wet since the weather wasn't warm, and I've heard mixed opinions on that causing issues.
Sorry, long post, but that's my current frame of thinking. I do plan on smoking slightly, or at least having it on hand if needed, in future inspections, but I don't think it'll "work" till the hive is really established and has honey stored.


----------



## VanBow

*Re: Days 15 - 17: the move*

Oh, oops, forgot to answer your question about what type of hives I have. Kenyan, custom dimensions.







(My hive build journey can be found here.)


----------



## Yunzow

*Day 30 - death of a honeybee*

Day 30
Sunday, April 16, 2017

I arrived home after midnight, having been out of town most of yesterday. So naturally, the first thing I wanted to do was go look at the hive. 

No ants, no carpenter beers. A small group of bees lounging just outside the south entrance. Nothing too interesting.

Later when I was inside my house i realized a bee had stowed away on me. There was a bee banging into the overhead kitchen light.

I turned off that light and she went into the light fixture over the sink.

Easy enough to kill her, but why would I do that? I decided I would try to get her out of the house, possibly back into the hive.

So I sprayed her with pure water and knocked her down with a turkey feather down into a bowl.

Now here is where I should have left well enough alone. She kept climbing out of the bowl and I would knock her back down. I got it into my head that i was going to walk her back to hive. Hindsight, should just let her climb out of the bowl, put the bowl just outside the house.

Instead, I tried putting her on the turkey feather. Worked at first, but then I immediately dropped her on the ground. I wouldn't have thought it, but this seemed to mess her up pretty bad and she looked dead. Maybe it was the combination of too much water and falling and she was cold, or something.

Anyways I got her back to the hive eventually, but she looked pretty stiff.

Bees dying all the time every day naturally, I just hate it when I do something clumsy that kills one....


----------



## Yunzow

*Re: Days 15 - 17: the move*

Yeah I tried to use a smoker yesterday and failed miserably. A little puzzling to me because the first time I used a smoker I got it going okay. However that time I did use a whole bunch of sage mixed with pine and newspaper.

Guess I have to practice lighting it.

The being filled with honey thing you mentioned reminds me of what i did at the beginning. I dumped a bunch of raw honey on the bottom board before install and a few days later. When I opened the hive to remove the queen cage they pretty much ignored me, no smoke at all. 

I also did a relatively quick release of the queen. I would call it a modified quick release, smeared raw honey on the open end and then put the cage on the board. I would not do it exactly like that In hindsight, maybe attach the cage to a bar I some way.

I understand the raw honey thing is risky because foulbrood. I tend to learn the hard way 



VanBow said:


> Thank you for asking this because it got me thinking, and I think I understand what happened yesterday!
> 
> So, when I went into the first hive (I needed to wire the queen to a top bar I had left her on the bottom board not realizing it was too cold for that), I didn't expect much resistance. I guess I assumed they still didn't feel like they had a queen or hive so wouldn't be bothered. THEY REALLY WERE. Which, maybe I should feel encouraged about, but it was incredibly stressful for both of us. I hadn't used a smoker on that one, not thinking I'd need to.
> When they started being really aggressive, I wrapped up as quick as I could and decided I really needed to smoke the next hive. This is where I should've practiced because I don't know what fuel to use, etc. to make sure the smoker isn't hot but is doing its job. Under the circumstances (I was pretty flustered), I _think_ I did okay in that regard but I'm sure it could've been better. With the next hive I smoked the entrance, then when I lifted the roof, then when I would lift bars. I was trying not to oversmoke but it didn't seem to be doing ANYTHING and I couldn't figure out why.
> HOWEVER, and a more experienced person can correct me if I'm wrong, I think I realized why it did nothing when you asked me this question. Smoking, as I understand it, works because they think there's a fire and respond by filling up with honey in case the entire hive needs to relocate. This makes them heavier, and slightly more sluggish/docile. But these gals didn't HAVE any honey because I just put them in. So instead of calming them it just heightened their aggravation. I'm sure they thought, "WOW TERRIBLE LUCK, a bear is ripping into our hive, attacking our queen, and ALSO THERE'S A FIRE."
> Maybe in the early days I should be using a sugar syrup sprayer instead? So they're distracted trying to clean that off themselves? I didn't really want to get them all wet since the weather wasn't warm, and I've heard mixed opinions on that causing issues.
> Sorry, long post, but that's my current frame of thinking. I do plan on smoking slightly, or at least having it on hand if needed, in future inspections, but I don't think it'll "work" till the hive is really established and has honey stored.


----------



## VanBow

*Re: Days 15 - 17: the move*

Yeah, I *really* wish I had comb and capped honey from another hive to give them, but alas, the downside of being a first time beekeeper. Next time I will!


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## trishbookworm

*Re: Days 15 - 17: the move*

Yuzow, something I did was print out inspection sheets where I would fill in what each bar "had" and thoughts for next time, etc. Usually I fill it out after the fact because I can't inspect and write!

On the bottom I added the days it takes a worker to become capped (9), to emerge from the cap (20), and then to mature enough to out and forage (40 or so). If you look at those days, it takes nearly a month for a drone to go from egg to flying. So if you are seeing drones at your hive.... they did not come from your queen. This is very exciting! it means that you have a feral (or managed) hive nearby! Drones apparently have a habit of finding "any port in a storm" and are not too picky about which hive they go into. 

About inspections - it is harder to move fast, especially at first, and the longer you take the more stressed the bees can be. 

First, I'd say watch this video by Randy O - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcfqTx4_FAo - he talks about what it takes for the bees to become defensive. When I inspect, I try very hard to avoid sudden jerks, bangs, or quick large moves. It makes my inspecting slow, but I don't have too much trouble with the bees become defensive - until I get to the brood nest. It's typical for my one hive (feral lineage) to have a handful start headbutting about the second bar into the brood nest (so maybe the 15th bar). That is as aggressive as they get. I have heard of bees covering the veil and stinging goat skin gloves - haven't seen that yet thankfully!

Second, you can set your hive up so you either go in the front/brood side first, or go into the back/honey side first. My entrance is on the narrow side, so I have set up an empty bar at the front so I can go into the broodnest first, so that helps reduce the time it takes me to get to the brood nest. And reduce the time I need to open the hive to get my questions answered. BTW you should not have many entrances - just one - like a bee tree. Otherwise your bees are vulnerable to being robbed by other bees. This will make them cranky.

Third, I make sure I rehearse my purpose before I go in. Is it to check for eggs/brood? Then I can go in the brood side. Is it to check their stores, or add space between honey and brood areas to reduce the urge to swarm? then I go in the honey side. I do a full inspection at the beginning of the season, but then I will just do partial ones. 

Good luck, keep working on your technique. It will get easier!


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## Yunzow

*Re: Days 15 - 17: the move*

thanks for the tips about the drones, that is very interesting.

That is a good video, too. I enjoyed it but it sure put Bodhi to sleep!



trishbookworm said:


> First, I'd say watch this video by Randy O - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcfqTx4_FAo - he talks about what it takes for the bees to become defensive. When I inspect, I try very hard to avoid sudden jerks, bangs, or quick large moves. It makes my inspecting slow, but I don't have too much trouble with the bees become defensive - until I get to the brood nest. It's typical for my one hive (feral lineage) to have a handful start headbutting about the second bar into the brood nest (so maybe the 15th bar). That is as aggressive as they get. I have heard of bees covering the veil and stinging goat skin gloves - haven't seen that yet thankfully!


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## Yunzow

*Day 31 "the flow"*

Day 31
Monday, April 17th, 2017

I'm very puzzled about the nectar flow. Hard to find details about the flow in Georgia. I think we might be in the middle of a flow?

I did see that the bees were very eagerly visiting my neighbor's apple tree. I can only hope that they are my bees Well it the closest most obvious pollen nectar source to the hive right now, so I figure....

You may notice elsewhere I started paying attention to the dead bees around the hive, see: http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?336027-Observations-on-Honey-Bee-Biology
I figure, maybe some clues to the health of the hive?


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## Yunzow

*Re: Days 15 - 17: the move*

Hey Vanbow,

I checked out your build blog. I'm very impressed with the 2 inch thick boards! 

Also, I have to admit I was very daunted by designs requiring precise measurements and cuts because I suck at precision, that is why I went with the Michael Bush design. I'm not sure if I did it how he might have, because how I did it did involve some intriguing spreading of side boards AFTER they were nailed to the bottom board....



VanBow said:


> Oh, oops, forgot to answer your question about what type of hives I have. Kenyan, custom dimensions.
> View attachment 32281
> 
> (My hive build journey can be found here.)


----------



## VanBow

*Re: Days 15 - 17: the move*

Thanks! It was definitely daunting, probably not the best choice for a first carpentry project. :doh: The roof is really the thing I'm least happy with, I just can't get it on and off without shaking up the hive. Not sure how I could've handled that though since I think even if it were hinged it'd shake it a bit, and I wanted the gabled roof for ventilation since it's so humid around here. :s

You inspired me to do little "lessons learned" posts after each hive inspection so that I can learn from my mistakes. This was my first one: https://vanbow.wordpress.com/2017/04/17/first-hive-inspection-lessons-learned/


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## Yunzow

*Re: Days 15 - 17: the move*

Hello, Vanbow,

what kind of lid do you have? From your blog it sounds like it has sides on it like a telescoping cover?? I had a very simple lid 4' by 17" or so, just barely covered the bars, but then I followed Mangum's advice for lid spacer for air flow because it gets very hot down here, and I added some plastic cardboard to make it longer and wider. I think I will switch back to the simple lid for the winter because that will retain heat better when it is cold. 

I think I got lucky with the queen cage thing, because I did put it on the bottom board, but then it created another worry - why are they all clustered on the side wall? That sorted itself out after a while...

Thanks for blogging too! I appreciate it. I am still trying to figure out the most basic things, which the bee experts kind of gloss over.

heart,
Thomas



VanBow said:


> Thanks! It was definitely daunting, probably not the best choice for a first carpentry project. :doh: The roof is really the thing I'm least happy with, I just can't get it on and off without shaking up the hive. Not sure how I could've handled that though since I think even if it were hinged it'd shake it a bit, and I wanted the gabled roof for ventilation since it's so humid around here. :s
> 
> You inspired me to do little "lessons learned" posts after each hive inspection so that I can learn from my mistakes. This was my first one: https://vanbow.wordpress.com/2017/04/17/first-hive-inspection-lessons-learned/


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## Yunzow

*Day 32 - Queen Bee*

Day 32
Tuesday, April 18, 2017

It just rained, in the afternoon. There was a cloud of very noisy bees hovering around the entrance. In contrast to yesterday, only seeing a few bees pop in with some meager pollen, the rest of them seem to be just buzzing around. 

I am practicing how to light and keep the smoker going. Newspaper and pine straw doesn't seem to work for me. I had my best results with sage. Will keep trying because pine straw is in abundance and free but sage is not.








I just wanted to share what I use for a bee brush, Sharon made it from turkey feathers. Here it is modeled by my queen bee
I feel all mystical about that brush, gathering "bee medicine" from brushing the bees. The darkness draws their attention when provoked and they will attack it but their stingers just poke through the barbs.


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## Yunzow

*Day 33 - Queen Bee2*

Day 33
Wednesday, April 19, 2017

The most important part is I persuaded Sharon to join me with this inspection. Though she has been supportive, she really hasn't been that interested in seeing the bees. She brought the camera along, which is nice but of course the battery died immediately!

This is the first time I did a mid-afternoon inspection. I had the day off for various appointments.

I was looking forward to doing an inspection today but the weather was no good so I was feeling pessimistic, but luckily after lunch the sun came out.

I did just a partial inspection, the very back and the very front. Looks like just shy of 13 combs, two of the thirteen are partial combs. It would appear to me that they are on track for 14 or fifteen combs by Saturday. 

I was able to see some larvae for the first time! There were some capped cells as well, kind of higher on the comb not lower, I think that might have been worker cells?

So there are still four empty bars up front. Perhaps this is good for swarm suppression?

Per Les Crowder i flipped the last two bars. I don't know if that was entirely necessary...

I almost burned the house down with my smoker practice. I was experimenting with some sweet grass, which I do not recommend btw. When I thought it was done smouldering I put it next to a piece of sage. A couple of hours later the sweetgrass was all gone and the whole sage bunch was smouldering. It burned a black spot into the shelf. Yikes!


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## Yunzow

*Day 34 - the apple trees and scary bees*

Day 34
Thursday, April 20, 2017

Today when I checked the hive, nothing out of the ordinary. They are bringing in a lot of pollen. I assume the ones without pollen are bringing nectar.

My neighbor has an apple tree in bloom. I have noticed bees, hopefully my bees, depending on the time of the day. I was staring at the tree looking for bees, of course, my neighbor was curious what I was up to. His kids asked "what is he doing?" I said, "I'm watching for the pollinators, bees." Thinking what a wonderful experience to share for the next generation. My neighbor replied anxiously, "you see bees??"

Oh yeah, people are frightened of bees. Doh!


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## VanBow

*Re: Day 34 - the apple trees and scary bees*



Yunzow said:


> what kind of lid do you have? From your blog it sounds like it has sides on it like a telescoping cover??


Yes, I believe that's what it would be considered. It slides down over the top and rests on those two bars on the ends.
Here's a picture before I put the plywood on:








Your turkey feather bee brush is fabulous! Love it! Very smart.



Yunzow said:


> Oh yeah, people are frightened of bees. Doh!


Oh man I keep running into this. I didn't realize it'd be so hard to find helpers! Also because of where I had to put one of the hives the bees fly across a path to part of my backyard and I was walking a friend back and she was ABSOLUTELY MORTIFIED. For some reason I didn't expect people to be afraid of them unless they were helping me open up the hive (which I do find intimidating) but no, they're just scared of any bees at all. It's sad.  Hopefully I can help them overcome their fear. Glad to see your wife decided to join you! I'm hoping my husband will eventually be bold enough to as well.


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## Yunzow

*Re: Day 34 - the apple trees and scary bees*

Oh, I see it fits like a house roof, I think you said that was for ventilation? Way beyond my skillset to make those kind of cuts!

It definitely took some coaxing to get Sharon out there. Once she was there she was fascinated. Bodhi, on the other hand, is always game.



VanBow said:


> Yes, I believe that's what it would be considered. It slides down over the top and rests on those two bars on the ends.
> Here's a picture before I put the plywood on:
> View attachment 32469
> 
> 
> Your turkey feather bee brush is fabulous! Love it! Very smart.
> 
> 
> Oh man I keep running into this. I didn't realize it'd be so hard to find helpers! Also because of where I had to put one of the hives the bees fly across a path to part of my backyard and I was walking a friend back and she was ABSOLUTELY MORTIFIED. For some reason I didn't expect people to be afraid of them unless they were helping me open up the hive (which I do find intimidating) but no, they're just scared of any bees at all. It's sad.  Hopefully I can help them overcome their fear. Glad to see your wife decided to join you! I'm hoping my husband will eventually be bold enough to as well.


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## Yunzow

*Day 35, night 36 - night bearding*

Day 35
Friday, April 21, 2017

I've seen this described elsewhere so I guess it is "normal". It was definitely past midnight, so technically Saturday a.m. The bees, a clump of them hanging outside the right entrance, perhaps numbering about a hundred. Not doing much, at least a couple of layers of bees. Curiously, the left entrance there were perhaps twenty, and some were noisily ventilating, perhaps only four or five bees. The middle entrance maybe ten or so, hanging out within the entrance. It was a warm day earlier so....


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## Yunzow

*Day 36, 37 - I miss my bees!*

Day 36
Saturday April 22, 2017
Earth Day

Day 37
Sunday April 23, 2017

Over the weekend, I only saw my bees for a couple of minutes on Saturday morning. Nothing much going on, just bringing in lots of pollen in the morning.

It rained heavily on Sunday, most of the day. I was curious to see how my new roof was handling the rain, but I could not because of child care issues.

I miss my bees!


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## Yunzow

*Day 38 - Night watch bee rescue*

Day 38
Monday, April 24, 2017

It was a long day. I was running late so I forgot to let the chickens out in the morning. So they had maybe an hour of sunlight when I let them out when I got home.

After dinner and helping Sharon out, I visited the bees in darkness. 

No night bearding tonight! Definitely a cool day and a cool night, cloudy most all of the day until the last couple of hours.

Most of the ventilation is occurring on the left entrance.

I got accosted by a guard bee several times. She would head butt the flashlight.

I saw a house bee dragging out a dead bee. She fell to the ground with the carcass, but then still struggled to move it further.

I found a bee on the roof of the hive, far from the entrance. She looked sluggish. I picked her up with a leaf and then placed her just on top of a bar I have roofing the entrance holes. 

I noticed a guard on patrol, just down from where I put the rescue bee. They do seem to have a specific patrol, with well-defined paths and circuits.

The lost bee found the entrance! For a while, she perched at the top of the entrance hole, as if she couldn't believe what was happening. Then eventually, after a few minutes of the guard bee head butting my light, I saw her go into the hive, lost among the waving antennas, the pulsing abdomens, and buzzing wings.


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## Yunzow

*Day 39 - Peace offering & what not to do on an afternoon inspection!*

Day 39
Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Let's just get what not to do out of the way.

It starts with, I just got off work, around 5 p.m. got home. After fail with the dogs still crapping in the hall even after I put them outside, I go to the bees.

My new lid with the plastic cardboard seems to collect water in the little tubes, so when I lifted it water spilled out. Not a huge amount, but noticeable. We'll see if this is an issue or not??

I examined the back first. So they had built a partial comb on R. Looking further in, I did find a "bad comb" right next to it, bulging on the right side of the hive. So I went one further bar in, took that straight comb out and put it where R started off at. I did have to shave off a little bit of comb because Q I think it was had formed a small burr with R on the left side. A few bees fell to the floor and I got a little wax stuck on the hive tool. That is going to be my peace offering. 

Then I tried to open the front. I will not do that again at this time of day unless I really must.

So I have a small gap between the first bar A and the front board. For entrance reducers I have two identical lengths of rectangular wood, with an open space between them in the center of the hive width, together with a bar for the "roof", which goes on top of the gap, this forms three entrances. Basically a center slot barely two inches, and two side entrances just bigger than a half-inch openings.

So I lifted the "roof" of this entrance which immediately multiplied the size of the entrance opening by a factor of almost ten. Then I was trying to grab B with leaving A in place. It was very tight in there. Once I got it out, I noticed that the bees were very loud all of the sudden and there were so many all around me, like they were looking at me, watching what I was doing. I also realized my left hand (bare) was blocking the right entrance, which is their favorite entrance right now, so foragers were rapidly accumulating.

So, I nervously closed up the hive, without being able to see if they had come any further forward. 

Oh well, I'll check that out Saturday morning!

My lesson, fine to do an afternoon inspection deep in the back of the hive, where the activity levels are fairly constant and consistent so the bees aren't going to have many guards there. The front is filled with much activity, comings and goings and they sure do notice real fast. 

But this is not news to most of you that have heard any basic advice about hive inspections!

I should mention if I didn't say it I probably didn't do it. For example, at no point did I light or use a smoker.


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## Yunzow

*Day 40 - sick!*

I was sick today in bed all day so I couldn't visit my bees! Too bad, it was a bright sunny day, so I am sure they were busy.


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## Yunzow

*Day 41 - Cloudy day inspection*

Day 41
Thursday, April 27, 2017

I wasn't expecting to, but I opened up the hive. It was a cloudy day. So my first intention was to merely observe what was going on.

And I could see some foragers returning, some with fat pollen loads. So....

I opened up the front of the hive. This time, I left the entrance largely intact instead of lifting up the "roof" bar. Because I was planning to lift out only one bar at a time. I knew this was risky in other ways, and I did end up decapitating a bee. "Off with her head!" 

But I confirmed that the bees were building comb on D! So that means they are building comb on 15 bars, (13 full bars and 2 partial bars). I suppose they are doing well, not in general, but for a first year colony.


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## Yunzow

*Day 42 - Tiggy Patrol*

Day 42
Friday evening, April 28, 2017

Went to put the chickens away then figured since I was already outside, wearing my boots, with a flashlight, might as well go visit the bees.

Who should I meet on the dam (where hive is located) but our cat Tiggy! 

Now Tiggy really shouldn't be out this late at night, and he was coming from the other side of the dam....

The bees were bearding. Kind of hard to exactly describe the space they were covering. I used Mangum's idea for a lid, so there are two 15" two by fours that are spacers, one at front one at back. So in the "trough" formed between the spacer stud and the bar "roof" over the entrance slot, entirely covered in bees. I would say hundreds of bees were bearding.

There was one very persistent guard bee that kept coming for the flashlight, no matter where I moved. 

The most ridiculous part of all this was Tiggy, perched right on top of the beehive. Wish I had a camera! Who was crazier, me or him??


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## Yunzow

*Day 43 - a little "Night Beard Music"*

Day 43
Saturday, April 29, 2017

I took my camera with me to the hive because I wanted to take some video. I met Tiggy on the way, he was coming from the opposite side of the lake! Even though I thought it would be a great picture with him on top of the hive, I couldn't in good conscience subject him to the risk of being stung. So I walked him back home. Tiggy followed me like the good cat / dog he is.

So I have some video of the night bearding! 

[video]http://moonpathblog.org/bees/nightbeardmusic.mp4[/video]

The first part shows the front center entrance. The later part shows the left entrance and the view of the "trough" from the side.

And here is a picture of the right entrance, which is the main entrance for the bees right now.


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## Yunzow

*Day 44 -Bald brood and burr Honey*

Day 44
Sunday, April 30, 2017

I did a hive inspection in the mid afternoon, a couple of hours ago. The bees have gone to 16 bars, two of which are partial. I did a switch at the far end and corrected some burr comb, a piece of which I brought to my queen bee to sample. She approved. Bodhi had some, too, he liked it.

I examined the first couple brood combs, the brood pattern was radiating out from where the cluster started on the right wall. I was able to see some uncapped pupae on one of the brood combs
-opps, oh this is a bad thing. "Bald Brood"???


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## Yunzow

*Days 45 & 46 - 50% and bee scooping*

Day 45
Monday, May 1, 2017

This was my birthday. Just a brief night visit to the bees. This is turning into a fetch Tiggy routine as well.

Day 46
Tuesday, May 2, 2017

I opened up this hive this morning because I've been anxious to understand the "Bald Brood" a bit better. From what I have read, a linear pattern could mean a wax moth is eating the caps?? So it does look like a bit of a linear pattern, a line of three or four here or there.

Thinking about how well the bees are doing, from feedback I got from Michael Bush, who designed the hive I am using, I am thinking in terms of percent volume of the hive. My guesstimate is the hive is 50% comb right now. They had fully drawn out "D", not got further than "S", which is being further drawn out from a couple of days ago.

I am very puzzled about the flow. But I can see that they are bringing back pollen, so I think that is a good sign.

I want to say a word about bee scooping and putting bars back. What works for me is to angle the bar back in, the far end usually. It is still a slow process of tapping the bees until they decide to go elsewhere, whether back down or on top of the bars.

Then I use my turkey feather brush to "scoop" the bees up. No brushing at all. Instead I very gently nudge them with the edge of the brush until they clamber onto it then I move them elsewhere. This definitely agitates them less.

Stupid cat. He hopped on top of the hive while I had it open!!!


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## Chris LS

*Re: Day 14 - how to bump bees*

Trish, do you use follower boards in your TBH? Phil Chandler's system uses a follower board with a 4- 6" gap at each end of the hive, so that you can just lift the follower and see what the bees are doing without disrupting them or moving any bars. Of course, this only works if you have the entry holes on the front (long) surface of the hive.


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## Yunzow

*Day 47 - slo-mo cam*

Day 47
Wednesday, May 3, 2017

Today I discovered the slo-mo function on my iphone.
[video]http://moonpathblog.org/bees/slo-mo.mov[/video]

It starts at regular speed for a few seconds then goes slo-mo. You can see at the regular speed the bees are very active and noisy. It was around 6 p.m.

In slo-mo you can see how clumsy they can bee when trying to land. Several crash landings and fails.

I think I can tell when they have nectar, their proximal abdomen looks amber.


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## Yunzow

*Day 48 nope*

Day 48
Thursday, May 4, 2017

Didn't go see the hive today, too pooped from work and various meetings after work.


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## Yunzow

*Day 49 - the elusive tulip poplar and bee brush cam*

Day 49
Friday, May 5, 2017

It was the second rainy day in a row, and the temperature has dropped forty degrees. I looked at the hive around 6 p.m. The bees were not that active. Strangely there were a few hanging out at the entrances and they looked sluggish. But there were a few zipping in and out of the hive as if they had someplace to go.

I saw a bee on the lid and figured it would be better off inside the hive. So I used the "scoop" technique and plopped her in the left entrance. I used a gopro camera. This isn't the best example of "scooping" hopefully I can post something better tomorrow. You'll notice how she grabs onto the feather, I think this is instinctual.
[video]http://moonpathblog.org/bees/beescooprescue.mp4[/video]

I've been obsessed with tulip poplars. Never seen one before, but apparently these are one of the main honey sources for bees in Georgia. Finally I saw a few along the Yellow River, which I live next to. There is no way I would have noticed them driving, in fact I have driven by these trees numerous times and not known that they were tulip poplars. It took a flat tire and walking home from Tires Plus to notice them.


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## Yunzow

*Day 50 - hive inspection with gopro cam*

Day 50
Saturday, May 6, 2017

Today I did a hive inspection with a gopro cam mounted to my left hand. I figured I could review the video for details I wouldn't be able to see with my eyes. Alas, the resolution wasn't good enough. I think I might try this again with a bigger camera. I mean take pictures, not mount a big camera to my hand!

I counted seventeen bars of drawn comb today, two of which were partial. The bees had not gone any further back, they were building up the next to the last bar, which was the last bar I had moved forward at the last inspection. They had started making comb on C. So they are moving forward.

I can see that the front hive inspections will get more difficult as they move forward because it leaves me less maneuvering space.

I did this inspection in the morning. Later in the day, around 730 p.m. (still light out) I showed the hive to my cousin Chung and his girlfriend. It was his grandfather that was one of my first inspirations to be a beekeeper. I let her wear my suit and Chung wore a veil, no jacket. I didn't wear any gear at all, as I was planning only to open up the back of the hive to show them a honeycomb. A bee did land on my face but it didn't sting me and eventually went away.


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## Yunzow

*Day 51 - exterior nothing unusual*

Day 51
Sunday, May 7, 2017

Around 4 p.m., just observing the exterior. Nothing special to note. The bees were very actively buzzing around the hive and bringing back pollen, about every other bee.


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## Yunzow

*Day 52 - cat on the roof*

Day 52
Monday, May 8, 2017

Stupid cat!







I wish he would get stung already so he can learn his lesson!

Anyways, this is a decent shot of my hive, which is based upon the plans Michael Bush has on his website. You can see the blue duct tape which I used to stop the carpenter bees, the plastic cardboard I stapled to the lid, and how the lid is per Mangum, with spacers between the lid and top bars. The entrances are on the right side of the hive, three entrances, two on the left and right corners and one in the middle. The bars are left-over cedar from 1 by 4's I bought for building a playset, with triangular cleats glued to them. About half the bars are 1 and 1/4 inch (for brood) and the rest are 1 and 1/2 inch; these specs are per Michael Bush. I don't use a follower board and I've fed the bees twice, using raw honey, during the first week of install and not since then.

I have the hive located on a dam which situates it between a small seven acre lake and about six acres of woods on the other side of the dam. There is a huge drop off going into the woods, which the Yellow River runs along. There is shade during the morning and afternoon and partial shade in the middle of the day. The axis of the hive is north-south, with the entrances south.

This is in the middle of a low-key subdivision within a suburb of Atlanta,


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## Chris LS

*Re: Days 15 - 17: the move*

Having just finished building my second top bar hive, I can so totally relate to your story, VanBow! I'm a very bad measurer, apparently, and not so good with woodworking tools, either. I used Phil Chandler's free online plan, and his book, Building a Top Bar Hive - which was (should have been!) a relatively simple process. I made mine with an eco floor, so I didn't have to miter the bottom board cuts. I wanted to change the top bar dimension to 19 inches so that it would match a Langstroth, but once you start changing one dimension slightly - as you found out - it changes *everything!* So I went ahead with the 17 inches, as he proposes. They turned out pretty well. I think his sequencing of tasks in building the box is most helpful, and worked out pretty well. I also, yesterday, decided that I needed to put an observation window in both hives, so took the first one apart and took it up to my very kind brother in law to make the cut out (I had tried using a jigsaw myself and... um, no.) I recognized how much easier it would be to just monitor the bees a bit without having to open up the hive. I learned how to cut plexiglass, and lost less than a couple of cc's of blood in the process. I did hinge the gabled roof and used lid supports - I really recommend it, if you can, because they now open and close so easily. I wasn't going to do that at first. Anyhow, thanks for sharing your story - it's great, and really funny!


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## Yunzow

*Day 53 - bee in web*

Day 53
Tuesday, May 9, 2017
just before 6 p.m.

The bees were rather noisy and quite a few flying around the front of the hive. I was intimidated. It was ninety degrees after what had been a cloudy previous week followed by a cool mornings. It was in the 40s yesterday morning!

I saw a bee caught in a spider web just under the hive.
[video]http://moonpathblog.org/bees/beeinweb.MOV[/video]

It was struggling mightily and getting nowhere. I rescued it with a stick. I put it on the roof. It didn't move for a while as if it were resting. Then it crawled away to the entrance. I think its wings were still stuck together.


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## Yunzow

*Day 54 - drones*

Day 54

Wednesday, May 10, 2017
around 6 p.m.

Not as busy outside the hive as it was yesterday though the temperature was perhaps hotter.

I noticed drones entering the hive. I take this as a sign that the hive is doing well, or else they wouldn't let them in.

Not much pollen coming in this afternoon though. Who knows why....


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## trishbookworm

*Re: Day 54 - drones*

Couple things you might be interested in - the amazing activity you saw (relative to more "regular" days) sounds like an orientation flight. Let's see, looking back, you started this 3/21, and we are now 6-7 weeks past that time - right on time for the some of the first young workers to start flying. They only take 20 or so days to emerge from the brood comb, but they take another 20 days to mature enough to fly and forage. Before they are full-fledged foragers, they make orientation or practice or maybe even strengthening flights - it's probably all three! 

These flights seem intimidating, but if you watch one bee's path, it is in a figure 8 or other meander around the front of the hive. The flight path doesn't get perturbed by your presence or by other bees, just by the wind. And none will have pollen or swollen/amber abdomens.

Watch for drones soon - they sound so much louder it's alarming!!!

As for the pollen to non-pollen bearing ratio - this will reveal where the colony has the greatest need. If they are bringing in a lot of pollen, it means their nectar/honey stores are high enough that the nurse bees are finding that on their own from hive stores, and instead "clamoring" at the foragers for pollen with each entry.  The foragers will shift to that from their feedback. If few are bringing in pollen, then the nurse bees are instead "rewarding" foragers who bring in nectar by relieving them of their load very quickly. So it can mean they have enough pollen packed, need nectar - or that they are low in nectar/honey stores. Only an inspection can distinguish between those possibilities.

This also can indicate a nectar flow is on. If so, then they will be building new comb very quickly, and it is important to be checking the hive weekly to prevent cross combing. Best way is to insert empty bars between the brood area and the nectar/honey area. If there isn't a clear difference, then about 3-5 combs into from the last comb. Also between each of the rear honey-storing combs is a good way to give them space. If you are giving them space only in the brood area, to prevent swarming, then keep 3 frames of brood together, insert bar, then another 3-4 bars together - you don't want the nurse bees to be too spread out when needing to keep brood warm, like when the temp drops 40 degrees in 24-36 hours! Ah, spring...


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## Yunzow

*Re: Day 54 - drones*

Thanks, as always, for the tips, Trish! 

I had heard about splitting the brood, but reluctant to, the three bar thing makes sense.

Now to figure out how to keep the cats away!



trishbookworm said:


> Couple things you might be interested in - the amazing activity you saw (relative to more "regular" days) sounds like an orientation flight. Let's see, looking back, you started this 3/21, and we are now 6-7 weeks past that time - right on time for the some of the first young workers to start flying. They only take 20 or so days to emerge from the brood comb, but they take another 20 days to mature enough to fly and forage. Before they are full-fledged foragers, they make orientation or practice or maybe even strengthening flights - it's probably all three!
> 
> These flights seem intimidating, but if you watch one bee's path, it is in a figure 8 or other meander around the front of the hive. The flight path doesn't get perturbed by your presence or by other bees, just by the wind. And none will have pollen or swollen/amber abdomens.
> 
> Watch for drones soon - they sound so much louder it's alarming!!!
> 
> As for the pollen to non-pollen bearing ratio - this will reveal where the colony has the greatest need. If they are bringing in a lot of pollen, it means their nectar/honey stores are high enough that the nurse bees are finding that on their own from hive stores, and instead "clamoring" at the foragers for pollen with each entry. The foragers will shift to that from their feedback. If few are bringing in pollen, then the nurse bees are instead "rewarding" foragers who bring in nectar by relieving them of their load very quickly. So it can mean they have enough pollen packed, need nectar - or that they are low in nectar/honey stores. Only an inspection can distinguish between those possibilities.
> 
> This also can indicate a nectar flow is on. If so, then they will be building new comb very quickly, and it is important to be checking the hive weekly to prevent cross combing. Best way is to insert empty bars between the brood area and the nectar/honey area. If there isn't a clear difference, then about 3-5 combs into from the last comb. Also between each of the rear honey-storing combs is a good way to give them space. If you are giving them space only in the brood area, to prevent swarming, then keep 3 frames of brood together, insert bar, then another 3-4 bars together - you don't want the nurse bees to be too spread out when needing to keep brood warm, like when the temp drops 40 degrees in 24-36 hours! Ah, spring...


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## Yunzow

*Day 55 - orientation flights*

Day 55
Thursday, May 11, 2017
around 7 p.m.

I did observe the orientation flights that Trish was talking about. This can be a little confusing if you are trying to gauge how many bees are coming back with pollen, because lots of bees are returning, some never having left the immediate vicinity! As it got later, there was less and less orientation going on.

Even this late, there were plenty of bees coming back for pollen, which is cool.

As it got later, I was paying attention to the sound the hive was making, which was getting louder and louder. It is mostly a tonal drone with occasional upwards shifts in tone. This is one of those bee mysteries that I don't think I really want to get to the bottom of, but I like to experience.


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## Yunzow

*Day 56 - Guard Bees*

Day 56 / night 56

technically Saturday morning, May 13 as it was very late. There was a heavy rain on Friday, in the early evening a brief powerful deluge followed by no rain for a while, then another powerful deluge. I was wondering how this would affect the bees.

I am so glad I built that overhang, based on Mangum's idea of having the lid be raised up off the top bars. this allowed the bees to beard around the entrances and not get wet.

I could see that some of the bees still had pollen in their baskets, like the really hard bits to get out!
There were many roly-polies all over the outside of the hive. I think they were just trying to keep dry.

I want to talk about guard bee behavior, just because I didn't see any typical behavior tonight. Usually, a guard bee or three would accost my flashlight. Not tonight. Maybe they got washed away.
The bees around the central entrance were very loud, and some were flapping their wings outside the hive. I didn't see what purpose that would serve???


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## Yunzow

*Day 57 - hive inspection*

Day 57

Saturday, May 13, 2017
5 p.m.

I really had it in my head that I was going to harvest honey today. Naive it turns out.

The bees haven't made much progress going away from the entrance, not build any new bars. I would say they are adding to the last two bars, and those two bars are definitely filled with honey. The third bar from the end has eggs and sealed brood.

They are building new comb towards the front, so now there is a small comb on B, so that is eighteen bars total, at least two of those are partial combs.

So the bees are still building comb, but not that fast I would say.

I couldn't see much of the bald brood going on. This afternoon inspection, I get some good light from the sun in the west. I could see eggs very well.

I want to mention a technical thing. After the inspection last week, I was fretting about where to put the first two combs, that had festooning bees, while I was inspecting the brood. I had through about rigging a filing crate. But then, doh, just leave the back open and put them in the back of the hive temporarily....


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## Yunzow

*Day 58*

Day 58

Sunday, May 14, 2017

Nothing much. I did an evening inspection. One guard bee got very attached to me, even in the dark. It was crawling on my neck at one point.


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## Yunzow

*Day 59*

Day 59

Monday, May 15, 2017
late afternoon

Bees were busy with orientation flights around 6 p.m., many bees buzzing around the front of the hive. I still don't have a good sense of "the flow", but I can see drones returning and the guard bees letting them in, so I assume all is good.

Later around 7 p.m. the activity around the hive has died down, just bees returning from forage.


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## Yunzow

*Day 60- Videoblog*

Day 60 - Videoblog

Tuesday, May 16, 2017

I took my goPro to the hive. It doesn't take the sharpest image, but it is super simple to use and easier to get into tight spaces.

Sorry it looks like it takes a while for this video to download!

[video]http://moonpathblog.org/bees/videoblog1.mov[/video]

The first segment is a slo-mo with the camera right above the center entrance. 
The following segments are from a partial hive, inspection, just looking at the honey bars.

You can see that the very last comb is capped on one side and the one next to it has even less honey, none capped.

There is a shot of some burr comb.

More later!


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## Yunzow

*Day 61 - video: orientation flights*

Day 61 - video: orientation flights

Wednesday, May 17th, 2017

I'm posting this video of orientation flights because this can be very intimidating to experience, more so if you don't know what is going on. By the way, this video can take a while to load before it starts.

[video]http://moonpathblog.org/bees/orientationflights.mov[/video]

I used my goPro again, on wide angle setting with 60 fps. That is the other thing I like about goPro for bees, at least, the high frame rate, most digital cameras record at 29.97 fps.

I edited the video so that it is in half-speed. This helps to see what the bees are doing, easier in slow motion.

You will see that most of the bees are zig-zgging in front of the hive. This is in contrast to experienced foragers, when leaving the hive they simply shoot straight out. This can be a little hard to distinguish from returning foragers, because sometimes they hover a bit around an entrance before they land.


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## Yunzow

*Days 62, 63: finally got stung!*

Days 62, 63

Thursday, Friday
May 18, 19, 2017

I did visit the hive on Thursday, but nothing new to say about that.

I decided to see what the girls were up to in the morning, at sunrise.

[video]http://moonpathblog.org/bees/morningbee.MP4[/video]

I did see a bee returning with pollen, so they get started pretty early.

You can see that the bees are bearding in the gap between the lid and the top bars. This is happening due to the combination of my entrances being at the top of the hive and that potential space under the lid. I like this unintended feature because it would protect any bearding bees from the elements and predators.

Later, after work, I inspected the hive. This time I brought both cameras. I look forward to reviewing the footage and will post an edit as soon as I can.

I worked from the back forwards. I would say compared to last week, I could probably harvest a bar of honey, it is ready enough, but I will wait a bit.

The biggest development was on B, which had quite a buildup compared to just a few days ago. Go Bees!

Where I got in trouble and finally got stung was I dropped some burr comb in the back of the hive. I could have been more gentle about that, but I wasn't. That probably riled one of them up enough to come sting me.

It was on my pinky! It's safe to say I am not having an anaphylactic reaction. In fact, it doesn't even hurt anymore. Just two tiny bumps next to the dot of a sting mark.

I'm glad to finally get it over with but I do feel sorry for the worker. What a waste of some life spirit!

The biggest problem I had with the inspection was definitely burr comb. The worst was on bar I, which was a mistake. I had mistakenly put a wide bar there when the bees were no more than a festooning clump! Oh those were the days.... I couldn't really get I separate from the next two for fear of some serious comb drop.

I did see a worm crawling along the top of the a bar. I squished it, I think, but who knows? Maybe a wax worm?

More later.


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## Yunzow

*Days 64, 65, 66 - rainy days*

Days 64, 65, 66

Saturday, Sunday, Monday
May 20, 21, 22

It's been raining a lot for the past couple of days and will continue raining the next few. So not much bee activity or inspection going on. I have been visiting the hive, including in the middle of a downpour, because I was curious to see how water-tight the hive was. It looked pretty good, though the bars were definitely getting moist and had expanded.

Tonight, there was some night bearding.

I still have a lot of video to review from my inspection on Friday, hopefully more on that later!


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## Yunzow

*Day 67 - break from the rain*

Day 67
Tuesday, May 23, 2017
Re: Days 64, 65, 66 - rainy days
It was raining all day, but it stopped as I was driving home from work. I went to look at the hive, the sun just peeking out from behind clouds. They were sluggish at first but seemed to get more active while I was watching. The bearding bees are festooning from the elevated lid, dunno if that means anything.

I saw one drone returning and a couple of others popping out. Some bees coming back with pollen!


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## Yunzow

*Day 63: video of hive inspection*

Day 63: video of hive inspection

Friday, May 19, 2017

So I finally got to look at the video I shot on Friday. It turns out the goPro let me down, there is a big gap in the middle where it shut off, so it recorded the first few bars I inspected (the far end of the hive).

[video]http://moonpathblog.org/bees/hiveinspectionmay19.mpeg[/video]

The first two bars are honey bars. The next two are the tail end of brood. I'm not super experienced with what I am seeing but it appears to me that the brood pattern is not that tight, but maybe because it is at the end of the brood cluster?

Sorry this video is about 500 megabytes, will take a while to download!


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## Yunzow

*Day 68 - the flow*

Day 68

Wednesday, May 24, 2017

Everything I'm hearing from everyone, it seems the flow is done here.

Of course, being a newbie, this makes me a nervous Nellie, what happens now???

It is hard for me to gauge the hive activity because of the almost constant rain this week. The ladies do seem subdued. I did see some drone activity, I assume this means the hive is doing well.


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## Yunzow

*Days 69, 70*

Days 69, 70

Thursday, Friday, May 25, 26

Thursday: observed the hive in the afternoon, some girls returning with pollen, a couple of drones coming and going, definitely not as active as I had seen in the afternoon before.

Friday morning, sunrise: it being 54 degrees all of the sudden, no observable bearding and little activity.


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## Yunzow

*Day 71 - partial hive inspection*

Day 71 - partial hive inspection

Saturday, May 27, 2017

The goal for the inspection this morning was just to look at the combs at the far end of the hive and at the entrance of the hive, just to measure any progress. Also, I'm still working on my photo technique. The goPro is very easy to use but the pictures aren't the best, so I tried to use my digital SLR.

The bees haven't made much new comb compared to the last inspection a week ago. On the other hand, the levels of honey / nectar seem about the same, as the furthest comb has nectar on the far side.

I really don't enjoy at all opening up the hive at the front entrance. They really notice it when I remove the "roof" I have over the entrance. A bunch come out and start bumping up against me.

Didn't really get any good pictures of brood. Here some of the honeycombs.







This is the last comb with nectar on the far side.








I believe this would be the third comb from the end the far side.

Later in the morning I bought some honey from the Fat Bee Man's son, because my friend wants to make some mead and needs about fifteen pounds of honey. I ladled some honey into jars to give to our neighbor and to a nurse I work with. What to do with the honey-covered ladle and measuring cup?? Put it in the back of the hive and let the ladies clean them up!


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## Yunzow

*Day 72 - Beavers*

Day 72 - Beavers

Sunday, May 28, 2017

I went to the hive in the early evening, an hour or so before sunset, to remove the ladle, etc, that I had put in the hive for the girls to clean off. Sure enough they did a good job. Then I saw a guy waving at me down the dam a bit. Technically, my neighbor and I share the dam as far as property lines go. There are some folks in the neighborhood that maintain the dam, fixing the overflow drain, etc. I guess right now there are beavers digging holes in the dam and he's been fixing it.

I had been nervous about my hive on the dam because I knew they were doing work on it. Bob said he was leery of the bees at first, but he hasn't got stung. I was nervous because I was thinking he might say he didn't want the hive there. I mean, he probably doesn't want the hive there, but what is he going to say, not technically his property.

I didn't know but I guess a beaver could really hurt you if it felt threatened. They are large and have claws powerful enough to claw through the trunk of a tree.

Best not to have to talk to your neighbors about your beehive. He did ask me how many more I was going to put on the hive. I said it depended on neighbors. He said he didn't mind the hives. We'll see! Because I would like at least one more hive!

Later, after it was dark, I went back to see the hive. I saw much more night-bearding than I had seen before, but not as much as I have seen in typical "bee beard" pictures. They were bearding out of all three entrances and formed a mass connecting the center and left entrance. I am going to assume this is because the population is continuing to climb.


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## Yunzow

*Day 73 Memorial Day 2017*

Day 73

Monday, Memorial Day, 2017

Nothing much to report, I was helping my mom out most of today.


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## Yunzow

*Day 74 - rainy day*

Day 74 rainy day

Tuesday, May 30, 2017

We've had quite a few rainy days. When I went to look at the hive in the afternoon after work, it was overcast and drizzling. The activity was definitely subdued, but there was a bee bringing back some pollen!


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## Yunzow

*Day 75 -entrance reducer*

Day 75

Wednesday May 31

Today I decided to remove the entrance reducer. I figured the girls were expending extra energy at night trying to cool off, and having a larger entrance would speed up comings and goings. I do notice some bumbling around when foragers are returning and it looks like it take some time for the foragers to get out of the entrance hole. Our climate in Georgia, overheating in the summer is more concerning than cold during the winter. It has been unseasonably mild lately, which for us is the mid 80s, lol. Also, I had concluded that the population was large enough to defend a larger entrance size.

After I removed the reducer, I checked it later at night. The girls are still bearding, haha, perhaps more than before, but all the bees are on top of the first bars. I have a top entrance, which is just a slot gap between the first bar and the hive body. The lid of the hive is set above the bars by a 2x4 spacer, so they are sheltered from the elements. The bees completely filled even the larger entrance hole. 

More later!


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## Yunzow

*Day 76, 77, 78 - more night "bearding"*

Days 76, 77, 78

Thursday, Friday, Saturday
June 1, 2, 3

I did visit the hive each of these days but not a lot to report except for Saturday night (or early Sunday morning).

Around midnight, I went to visit the hive. There were many bees gathered outside the hive, on top of the first couple of bars, and even hanging from the lid over the bars (there is a 2x4 spacer between bars and the lid). So many more than I had seen before. It was one of the hottest days we have had so far. Not a proper beard, but if they were hanging on the side like I have seen in other pictures, it would have been a large beard.

Much of the ventilation was occurring on the right side of the "beard".

More later!


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## Yunzow

*Day 79 - video: partial hive inspection*

Day 79

Sunday, June 4, 2017

I attempted a hive inspection today, but got cut short by rain, when I was four bars short of done.

While they are not out of nectar, they are digging into their capped honey.

All the combs that I handled were noticeably lighter. No obvious signs of disease, nor swarming.

This first video is several bars from the front, bar F or G.[video]http://moonpathblog.org/bees/Bar1.mpeg[/video]

This second video is bar M, near the far end of the hive.[video]http://moonpathblog.org/bees/inspectionbarM.mpeg[/video]

Any comments would be appreciated. I made smaller clips this time, in slow mo.


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## Yunzow

*Day 80, more night bearding*

Day 80

Monday, June 6, 2017

I visited the hive at night. It was cloudy all day, with a couple of thunderstorms. As per usual, night bearding, more than I have ever seen.

As I mentioned yesterday, I didn't seen any evidence of swarm preparation during inspection, so I take this as normal behavior for the conditions: warm day, cloudy day, not much nectar available.


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## r2t2

*Re: Day 80, more night bearding*

Thanks for the continued updates! I'm really enjoying following along with your journey.


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## Yunzow

*Re: Day 80, more night bearding*

Hi, r2t2,

thanks for the feedback, I'm hoping this is helpful for people! It definitely helps me keep engaged.



r2t2 said:


> Thanks for the continued updates! I'm really enjoying following along with your journey.


----------



## Yunzow

*Days 81, 82 - videos - the cure for insomnia*

Days 81, 82

Tuesday June 6, 2017 and Wednesday June 7, 2017

I have some video from my night inspection on Tuesday. I like night inspections because I can see the bees (not combs obviously) up very close when they are bearding. Who the heck knows what these bees are doing? Or some of them are doing obvious things like festooning and ventilating, but the others, who knows!

[video]http://moonpathblog.org/bees/nightbeard1.MP4[/video]
[video]http://moonpathblog.org/bees/nightbeard2.MP4[/video]
[video]http://moonpathblog.org/bees/nightbeard3.MP4[/video]
[video]http://moonpathblog.org/bees/nightbeard4.MP4[/video]

I wish I could change the name of this thread, because it really should be "night by night blog, with occasional day inspections"!

I didn't visit the hive yesterday at all, after several nights of insomnia and associated meltdowns I had to work on making things right with my queen bee Sharon.


----------



## Yunzow

*Days 83, 84 - friendly bees*

Days 83, 84

June 8, 9, 2017
Thursday, Friday

Didn't get to see the hive yesterday due to lots of mom business and a dental procedure.

I went out this morning and hope to see them this afternoon.
It was just at sunrise. The woods are to the east, so no direct sun on the hive until later, on the other hand the afternoon sun is very long because of the lake to the west.
The bees appear to be festooning just under the lid.

Three friendly bees landed on my (uncovered) hands and head. They're just being curious, but I walked away in a huff!

At work, I took a break and noticed honeybees working a couple of short flowering trees. I work in Decatur, so far from my bees, but it is heartening to see there is some forage for them still, even here in the middle of a big city.

After work, I went to visit the bees I think it was around 6 p.m. They have put propolis between the lid space and the first couple of bars and are busy being busy in that space. I did see a couple of drones returning from flights, so the hive is probably not starving!


----------



## Yunzow

*Day 85 - noob tip - make sure your hive is closed!*

Day 85 full hive inspection
Saturday morning, June 10th, 2017

I just want to mention, from last weeks inspection, when I came back the next day, I saw that there was a gap created in the middle of the hive, where one end of a top bar was not all the way down, there was a tiny gap and a few bees were going in and out there.

Today, at the end of the inspection, I had to put a different size spacer at the end, and in my double check I saw there was a small gap underneath the piece of wood I used so I had to do that over.

The girls had propolized the lid, or rather lid spacer (2x4), to the top bar, so when I tried to lift the lid, the whole hive started to come up!

They have eaten all the stored honey, but there is nectar in about every comb, a little bit. So I'm sure they are not starving. 

They are building a little bit more on comb B, the second from the entrance and some significant festooning going on with bars B and C. This would suggest to me that nectar storage is being prioritized towards the front of the hive.

No swarm cells, no supercedure cells. No drone cells either though I did see at least one drone loafing on a wall.

The girls were quite agitated by the goPro! No paparazzi!!!


----------



## Yunzow

*Day 86 - not quite machine gun...*

Day 86
Sunday, June 11, 2017

After 6 p.m., we still have a couple of hours left of sunlight here. I can see the bees shooting out about a rate of one bee a second somewhat urgently, so I think that means they have somewhere to go! Prolly not as fast as "machine gun" described elsewhere, but I think they are doing okay.


----------



## AvatarDad

*Re: Day 86 - not quite machine gun...*

I tend to agree. My local bee club was all like "the flow is over" tonight, but I'm seeing a strong second wind here in the foothills of the mountains after 3 weeks of non-stop rain. The sourwood in my neighborhood is just opening, and with some binoculars I was able to see a cloud of bees in the top of one. (Honeybees as well as a respectable showing from the native bees). The sumac is covered in tiny buds, and I feel it will bloom in a week or so (last year, the bees were all over the sumac). And, golly, what a year for dandelion. I've never noticed it before this year; there are people all around me with yards full of the stuff. Way prettier than grass!

The fruit trees and blackberry are all spent, but I feel there are still some trees out there, and a couple more weeks of flow. The bad news is that last year the sourwood bloomed around July 15th. Blooming now, 5 weeks early, tells me the end of summer might be rather stark. All I have after this is a splash of golden rod in August.

Bees are happiest when they have a job to do. Still happy so far! Mine are shooting out just like yours....


----------



## Yunzow

*Re: Day 86 - not quite machine gun...*

Thanks for the feedback, Mike! Hey what is your elevation? I heard that sourwood needs a certain elevation?? The fat bee man's son said his bees were working clover when I saw him a couple of weeks ago.


AvatarDad said:


> I tend to agree. My local bee club was all like "the flow is over" tonight, but I'm seeing a strong second wind here in the foothills of the mountains after 3 weeks of non-stop rain. The sourwood in my neighborhood is just opening, and with some binoculars I was able to see a cloud of bees in the top of one. (Honeybees as well as a respectable showing from the native bees). The sumac is covered in tiny buds, and I feel it will bloom in a week or so (last year, the bees were all over the sumac). And, golly, what a year for dandelion. I've never noticed it before this year; there are people all around me with yards full of the stuff. Way prettier than grass!
> 
> The fruit trees and blackberry are all spent, but I feel there are still some trees out there, and a couple more weeks of flow. The bad news is that last year the sourwood bloomed around July 15th. Blooming now, 5 weeks early, tells me the end of summer might be rather stark. All I have after this is a splash of golden rod in August.
> 
> Bees are happiest when they have a job to do. Still happy so far! Mine are shooting out just like yours....


----------



## Yunzow

*Days 87, 88 - taking stock*

Days 87, 88

Monday, Tuesday
June 12, 13th, 2017

Didn't see the ladies yesterday and not sure I will get to see them today because I am headed to the Gwinnett County Beekeeper annual picnic. Maybe a late night exterior inspection...

I'm feeling the need to do a bit of a recap of the past few months, so folks know where I'm at, where I've been, and where I think I'm headed.

The origin story: I learned later that my Italian bees from Jarrett Apiaries, raised in South Georgia, took a trip out to California before I got them. Wow.

The hive: it's a bit smaller in bar width compared to most others, so not really compatible with Langstrom's at all. I think the advantage of the smaller bars is the combs are more sturdy in attachment, less likely to collapse from the heat, which matters to me in Georgia. It doesn't have proper drilled entrance holes, more like a slot gap entrance in front, which has gone through different configuration depending on whether the lid was sitting right on top of the bars, or else separated from the bars by two 2x4 spacers. Sits on top of a concrete blocks and I weigh the lid down with half concrete blocks. Didn't paint the hive at all, instead covered the lid with white plastic cardboard. The bars are made from left-over cedar.

The location: perhaps I am regretting this now, because the one neighbor who feels like he must maintain the dam, technically on my property lines, is understandably antsy about getting stung. However, other than that it seems like a perfect location to me: seven acre lake on one side, sloping down to a forest on the other side and nowhere near anyone's house and good use of unused land, smack in the middle of a suburban subdivision.

The girls: so far no disease or mites or such that I can see. They expanded to eighteen bars with a couple of honey combs, but have receded from that a bit, ate all their stored honey. They are pretty mellow for the most part, I don't smoke them at all. They only pay attention to me when I am looking at brood combs in the middle. Haven't seen the queen since install, but she's looking busy. No signs of any swarming at all.

The controversial techniques: I really haven't fed them at all after day two or three or so, and when I did feed them I fed them raw honey. I don't plan on feeding them. Bless their hearts, the Jarrett folks told me again and again I should go ahead and "treat" them, but I haven't don't that either. So far so good.

The boys: I think I take a different attitude towards the boys than most. Whenever, I see a drone, I think, oh, good, the girls are doing okay, or else they wouldn't put up with this freeloader.

The pests: there was some interest from ants at first, perhaps because of the raw honey, but now they aren't that interested in the hive, but do feed on the bee carcasses on the ground around the hive. Stopped the carpenter bees with blue duct tape, not so pretty, but it worked. I do believe I have seen some wax moth activity, including an actual wax worm, but this doesn't seem to be a huge problem.

Creatures of the night: I really have spent more time inspecting this hive at night than during the day! A lot of this has to do with my schedule, but I also like being able to see them close up.

The research: even if I'm not visiting the hive, I'm thinking about the hive, reading about bees / forage. Bee brain....

The future: I would like to try a cathedral hive. Actually, come to think of it the features I like about what I have seen aren't specific to the cathedral design. Features I like include the longer bar wedges with the beeholes, the observation windows. I suppose I could try to make that happen with a similar design to my current hive.... I'm not looking forward to the day when I might have to make a split, because I still haven't ID'd the queen yet post install. And, I think this isn't a day by day blog anymore!

More later...


----------



## Yunzow

*Day 89 - "they're all right"*

Day 89 - "they're all right"

Wednesday, June 14, 2017

Hadn't seen the girls since Sunday. As I was headed out the door, Sharon said, "they're all right." She's probably right, but it wasn't about if they were safe or not, I just wanted to see them!

It started raining in the evening, now it was about 9 p.m., but not quite dark. The bees were bearding, but not as thick as I had seen other nights recently. I immediately noticed a strong smell of nectar. Cool!

I went to a beekeeper picnic yesterday and someone scared me about small hive beetles, so I was looking for tiny things crawling around. I did see one that a worker immediately 86'd as soon as it got near the entrance. The entrance is well guarded.


----------



## AvatarDad

*Re: Day 86 - not quite machine gun...*

Based purely on Beesource hearsay, I've heard that sourwood does perform differently at different altitudes, but I think maybe it is just rain and sunlight. Last year I did not see a dramatic interest in the sourwood, but last year was a terrific spring flow followed by a 3 month drought right around the time the sourwood was budding out. I think the sourwood flowers just dried up on the trees. This year they are opening early and in heavy moisture, and I think they are wetter this year. But: hearsay and guesswork... there is no botany behind my answer. I only know I see bees in my binoculars, about 40 feet up in the trees. And when the sumac blooms I might have to post a picture, because you guys will not believe me if I say "there were 1000 bees on that sumac bush" without one.


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## Yunzow

*Re: Day 86 - not quite machine gun...*

LOL


AvatarDad said:


> Based purely on Beesource hearsay, I've heard that sourwood does perform differently at different altitudes, but I think maybe it is just rain and sunlight. Last year I did not see a dramatic interest in the sourwood, but last year was a terrific spring flow followed by a 3 month drought right around the time the sourwood was budding out. I think the sourwood flowers just dried up on the trees. This year they are opening early and in heavy moisture, and I think they are wetter this year. But: hearsay and guesswork... there is no botany behind my answer. I only know I see bees in my binoculars, about 40 feet up in the trees. And when the sumac blooms I might have to post a picture, because you guys will not believe me if I say "there were 1000 bees on that sumac bush" without one.


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## Yunzow

*Day 92 - second flow, or making a comeback!*

Day 92

Saturday, June 17, 2017

I did a partial hive inspection this morning, Sharon's mom and Bodhi did join me. I looked at the last couple of combs and one brood comb.

From what I have observed from exterior inspections the past few days, shooting out even late in the day at the rate of a couple of bees a second, and the strong smell of nectar from the entrance, I was thinking they had found a new source.

It appears that is the case, as they are storing nectar on the last two combs again.

Here are Bodhi and Lucia checking out a honeycomb.








Here is a video of the last brood comb before the two honeycombs.[video]http://moonpathblog.org/bees/inspections/lastbrood.MP4[/video]


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## Yunzow

*93, 94 - the ladies*

Days 93, 94
Sunday, Monday
June 18, 19, 2017

Today was a visit at dusk just after sunset.

Many bees hanging outside the hive, on top of the first couple of bars, festooning from the lid, thicker on the right (south entrance) side of the hive. A woody nectar smell coming more from the left side (north entrance), perhaps because they are ventilating OUT from that entrance.

I go visit the hive almost every day, not with any real purpose. I just like hanging out with the ladies....


----------



## cohutt

*Re: 93, 94 - the ladies*



Yunzow said:


> Days 93, 94
> Sunday, Monday
> June 18, 19, 2017
> 
> 
> I go visit the hive almost every day, not with any real purpose. I just like hanging out with the ladies....


Haha I get it. 

2 of the 6 hives in our small backyard are TBH and we look at these differently. It is like they are our pet bees and the others are "just bees." I think it comes from the windows- seeing pretty much the whole colony at once without disturbing allows for more "intimate" relationship with them. It is quite relaxing just to sit quietly and view their secret world a few minutes a day.


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## Yunzow

*Re: 93, 94 - the ladies*

thanks for sharing Cohutt. Are y'all in the "second" flow right now?


cohutt said:


> Haha I get it.
> 
> 2 of the 6 hives in our small backyard are TBH and we look at these differently. It is like they are our pet bees and the others are "just bees." I think it comes from the windows- seeing pretty much the whole colony at once without disturbing allows for more "intimate" relationship with them. It is quite relaxing just to sit quietly and view their secret world a few minutes a day.


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## Yunzow

*Day 95 - wet bars*

Day 95 - wet bars
Tuesday, June 20, 2017

It rains a lot this time of year. I went to check out the hive in the rain. I have been noticing that some of the bars in the middle are moist, coincidentally, exactly where the honey combs are.

It appears there is a bit of a drip from the lid. There are a couple of inches of space between the bars and the lid.

I rearranged some loose bars and spacers on top of the bars to deflect the drip.


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## cohutt

*Re: 93, 94 - the ladies*



Yunzow said:


> thanks for sharing Cohutt. Are y'all in the "second" flow right now?


Their activity suggests there is nectar out there they are still bringing in. Maybe they aren't quite as manic as they were a week or two back but they are still coming and going with "purpose". 
I'm in downtown Rome where we have rivers and decent sized creeks winding in and out of the area, supporting a pretty diverse bunch of trees and thickets. In other words, it appears that I'm in junk tree and wild weed heaven. Right now I see a ton of pink mimosa blooms along the rivers and road sides and sumac is budding up but doesn't appear to have started blooming in earnest. Like every other southern town we have a lot of crepe myrtle around and i understand it can provide some nectar. 
Last year my hives managed to bring in some nectar and cap honey off in June and into early July before the drought really shut NW Georgia down for a few months. 
This year I am assuming everything is moved up a bit due to the lack of winter and warm early spring so I'm not sure that they can count on much more in the immediate future.


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## Yunzow

*Days 96, 97 baby chicks*

days 96, 97
Wednesday June 21, 2017
Thursday June 22, 2017

Right baby chicks have nothing to do with bees.... Except in my case when they are a distraction. Our golden comet hatched out a couple of little ones last week and I caught them in an outing Wednesday for the first time. So the bees might be neglected for a while, but the bees can take much better care of themselves than these little birds!

I am trying to fix a leaky lid for my hive. Seems like water drips on the bars in the middle. I don't know that any water actually gets inside, but who wants to see moist bars!

I cut several 1 x 4's to lay on top of the bars, under the raised lid.

It's a lot of rain in the forecast, so I will have ample time to check if this works right.

This minimalist hive is having quite a few elaborations!


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## Yunzow

*Day 98 - bees per cubic inch*

Day 98 - bees per cubic inch

Friday, June 23, 2017
Evening

I visited the hive at night while it was raining because I wanted to see how my fix for the leaky lid was going. Not very well, the 1x4 I put across the bars was just dripping water on bars to the right of the center one. Need to work on this more. I can see that the lid itself, water is dripping from just inside the edge somehow.

I feel like I keep saying "more bees bearding than I ever seen before" but I don't know what else to say! The space under the lid at the front of the entrance back to the spacer 2x4, all of it solid bees. I would say 15 x 2 x 3 cubic inches minimum, it almost looks like as many bees as I started with in the package!


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## Yunzow

*Day 99 - machine gunning it and the drip*

Day 99 - machine gunning and the drip

Saturday, June 24, 2017
morning

It's raining a little bit. I went to check on my lid leak fix and make some changes to make it less janky. But I realized the real problem is the leaking is occurring because I have three pieces of plastic cardboard and the water is gathering in the gaps. This should not be a surprise. There isn't any plastic cardboard that is 4 foot wide, so that is why I did it like that to have some overhang on the front and back. But I think I'm going to have to try a 4 foot piece and maybe add some extra on the ends instead of this three piece setup.

The girls are machine gunning it this morning which is impressive given that it is cloudy and a light rain!


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## Yunzow

*Day 100 - just hanging out*

Day 100 - just hanging out

Sunday, June 25, 2017

Spent all day at the Native American Church in Athens, so didn't see the girls until about midnight. I had to do a small fix with the lid, the plastic cardboard got loose in one corner so I re-stapled it.

Looking at all the bees bearding, I really don't think it has anything to do with venting, because they completely jam up all the entrances and I don't see a single bee fanning.

I have a hypothesis, which would be difficult to prove, but I think all these bees are hanging out, hanging from the lid in the space above the first two bars because they like to hang (festoon) and there isn't any comb space inside for them to do it.


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## Yunzow

*Day 101 - partial inspection*

Day 101

Monday, June 26, 2017

I was eager to do an inspection today because it was the first clear sunny day in a while, but I knew it was going to be a late afternoon inspection because if was coming from work and an appointment.

The girls keep propolizing the lid spacer to the bars. So when I try to lift the bars, the whole hive moves. I get in there with my hive tool, which is awkward with the bees everywhere. Ended up the first two bars came up a bit on the right. So squished bees at the very end. I'm am going to have to fix this. I think i will staple some plastic cardboard on the bottom of the spacer 2x4.

I looked at the last three bars. There is nectar, but no honey. The third bar they had been using as brood comb, but I couldn't see any eggs or capped brood at all, just nectar. Maybe they have shifted there brood production forward, there were building on bar #2, and bar #1 was still empty the last time I checked.


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## Yunzow

*Day 109 - hive inspection, black beetles, not quite day by day*

Day 109 - hive inspection, black beetles, not quite day by day

July 4, 2017
Tuesday

I just completed a hive inspection. 

Okay, can't say this is a day by day guide anymore!

The most notable thing I saw were these little black beetles about 1/4 the size of a bee, in the honeycomb cells, a handful. The bees seemed oblivious to them. I will post a video elsewhere on the forum for ID.

The other thing, no nectar at all! Poor bees.

Oh and another thing, I saw a small what I think was a supercedure cell, but it was open and empty.

Ironically, I just gathered four full bars of honey from a lady's ceiling. However, she said that rid-a-critter sprayed the bees with "something to slow them down" that made the honey inedible....


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## cohutt

*Re: Day 109 - hive inspection, black beetles, not quite day by day*



Yunzow said:


> Day 109 - hive inspection, black beetles, not quite day by day
> 
> July 4, 2017
> Tuesday
> 
> I just completed a hive inspection.
> 
> Okay, can't say this is a day by day guide anymore!
> 
> The most notable thing I saw were these little black beetles about 1/4 the size of a bee, in the honeycomb cells, a handful. The bees seemed oblivious to them. I will post a video elsewhere on the forum for ID.


No doubt these would be small hive beetles


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## Yunzow

*Re: Day 109 - hive inspection, black beetles, not quite day by day*

Thanks for the ID Cohutt!!! I was fretting about putting up my video,
haven't had a chance yet, but I googled "small hive beetle" and sure enough.
I was gonna try to corrugated cardboard trap mentioned elsewhere in the forum, well using plastic cardboard instead because I got a lot of that. Maybe fill it with DE. What do you do about the beetles?


cohutt said:


> No doubt these would be small hive beetles


----------



## cohutt

*Re: Day 109 - hive inspection, black beetles, not quite day by day*



Yunzow said:


> Thanks for the ID Cohutt!!! I was fretting about putting up my video,
> haven't had a chance yet, but I googled "small hive beetle" and sure enough.
> I was gonna try to corrugated cardboard trap mentioned elsewhere in the forum, well using plastic cardboard instead because I got a lot of that. Maybe fill it with DE. What do you do about the beetles?


I've used small traps in my Langs and they caught a few, but mainly I keep my hives where they get a lot of sun and try to keep the space manageable by the bees. Too much space or too small / weak population lets the beetles get upper hand sometimes. Thus far I see them in each hive but not in big numbers. 
And any I see on inspection get smashed with satisfaction. 
Some keepers are using dryer sheets with success in both Langs and TBH, search and you will see threads about it. If I think I am getting a problem I'll try that next I believe.


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## Yunzow

*Day 111 - Did they swarm?*

Day 111 - Did they swarm?

July 6, 2017
Thursday night

I went to check on the girls because of what I noticed on Day 109, I think it was a queen cup, no nectar on any combs, the small hive beetles.

Last night, I went to see the bearding. It was noticeably less than before. Whereas they were completely filling the "virtual" space between lid and bars (2" by 15" by 3"), now they are just on the surfaces.

Of course, yesterday was also a hot rainy day, the hottest day we have had, following cool rainy days, so I don't know if that had something to do with it.

Gonna try the dryer sheet method mentioned by Cohutt for the small hive beetles!


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## Yunzow

*Day 114 - ebb and flow*

Day 114 - ebb and flow

Sunday, July 9, 2017
evening exterior inspection.

I have observed over the past couple of days, I believe that the population of bees is about at the level it was more than two weeks ago, because the night bearding is diminished, the bees cover the first couple of top bars, but not the entire "virtual" space between lid and bars. This coincides with no nectar noted in the last hive inspection and the small hive beetles, and an empty queen cup.

I don't think they swarmed because I didn't see any swarm cells. I think this is a decrease in population due to nectar dearth and they are also dealing with some infestation.

The beetles are bumming me out, but I will try the dryer sheet method, plan to insert it with my next inspection either tomorrow or Tuesday.


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## Yunzow

*Day 115 - Full inspection / queen bee!*

Day 115 - queen bee! and Full inspection

Monday, July 10, 2017
full inspection

I went to inspect the hive with Sharon's friend Missy, who will be officiating our wedding this weekend. Missy tells me that her given name Melissa means Honey Bee in Greek!

Today, I saw the queen bee for the first time since day 0! I wasn't even looking for her and there she was.

I didn't see any swarm or supercedure cells, and it looks like they tore down the queen cup.

Still no honey or nectar either, and a few small hive beetles at the far end of the hive. I was unable to place my beetle trap because it was too wide for the hive floor. I had taped a dryer sheet to a CD case, but it turned out to be too wide for the hive floor.


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## Yunzow

*Day 118 - reducer*

Day 118 - reducer

Thursday, July 13, 2017
morning exterior inspection

When I saw the current level of activity at the entrance, I decided to put the reducer back on. There are adequate numbers at night to defend, but I don't see how they could defend the whole entrance with their daytime numbers.

I saw a worker bee drag a carcass out of the hive. She was dragging it across the ground for a while, then, surprise, she took off into the air still carrying the carcass, and shot out over the lake!


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## Greeny

*Re: Day 118 - reducer*



Yunzow said:


> I saw a worker bee drag a carcass out of the hive. She was dragging it across the ground for a while, then, surprise, she took off into the air still carrying the carcass, and shot out over the lake!


I've seen that a few times from the hive on my deck. A bee will be dragging a carcass across the deck, and appear to be struggling mightily. Every crack between the boards is a challenge. Then, when she gets to the edge of the deck, she will fly off with the dead bee, up two stories high, and over my neighbor's roof. It's easy to follow those bees since she's flying slow and basically double the regular visual target.


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## Yunzow

*Day 131 - newlyweds!*

Day 131 - just married
Monday, July 24th, 2017

We got back from our honeymoon on Sunday and I did an inspection on Monday!

The bee population has definitely receded. The last two bars are devoid of honey. Curiously, a few bees still hang out on the combs. I saw about ten small hive beetles on the last few combs, mostly on the empty honeycombs. 

The very last brood comb also was devoid of any brood or anything. The next to last brood comb had some capped brood on it.

there was some nectar scattered throughout the rest of the combs.


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## Yunzow

*Day 136 - exterior inspection*

Day 136 - exterior inspection
Saturday, July 29th, 2017
dusk

So the current situation, I put the reducer back on, there are some small hive beetles, probably a few wax worms, the population has decreased.

The numbers I see outside the hive seem to be about the levels I saw right before the population maxed out, when I took the reducer off in the first place. So some bees gathered outside the left entrance, just a few outside the middle and none outside the right entrance. And a few bees in a line on top of the bars where the bars meet the lid spacer. A smell of nectar coming from inside.

A fat spider has set up camp right beneath the left entrance, in the space in the middle of the cinder block. Next time, maybe turn the block the other way?


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## trishbookworm

*Re: Day 136 - exterior inspection*

I hesitate to ask this: but are you sure your queen is still present/laying? Last year, from late summer to fall, I had a hive with capped brood - and I assumed they were queenright. Turns out they were trying to raise a new queen during that time. The capped brood took much longer to hatch out since bee numbers weren't enough to keep them warm enough to emerge quickly. She did not have time to lay enough to have enough numbers for winter and they died. I wasn't in the habit of looking for eggs and larvae at that time - but I am now. Of course, your situation is pretty different from a chilly fall coming on! But using the presence of larvae/eggs to date the last time the queen was present is safer than relying on seeing capped brood. 

If the hive did swarm, there is a chance the virgin queen did not return. At that point there is no way to raise another since there are no more eggs. 

But some queens are very responsive to a dearth, and will stop laying as the workers stop feeding. Take care they don't starve - the bees should always have a few combs with nectar in reserve as a cushion against starvation. If there is a lot of nectar on brood combs, on the top, then it isn't as big of an issue if they don't have reserve nectar combs - for now. If the dearth continues and they are tapping into all reserves and all combs are light, that is bad. They would need rescued then.

I have had bees bring in a lot of nectar and work hard to make honey - without a queen. And laying workers developed so they had pollen coming in. And they were never defensive. So I find the only sure way to be sure I have a queen is to check for eggs. 

As for the spider, if he is not near bee flight path/climbing path to get into the hive, he's more likely to catch robber bees (if there is another hive near enough) or yellowjackets and other bee predators - let him hunt if he isn't a clear and present danger!

Happy bee watching...


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## Yunzow

*Day 140 - Spiders!*

Day 140 - Spiders!

Wednesday, August 2, 2017

I did an exterior inspection around six or seven, when the lawn care folks showed up. 
As before there was a big fat spider in the hole of the cinder block and I saw at least one girl trapped in a web. I had saved one from yesterday, she wasn't moving, stuck in a web, but when I started tearing at it she came back to life.

This time I decided to put the spider on equal ground with the bees. I used a stick and tried to drop the spider right on top of the bees near the entrance. It took a few tries but I finally got it there. Couldn't really tell what happened, because it was already a bit dark. I had seen this video on youtube where bees destroyed this fishing spider that had been picking them off one by one. But on equal ground, no web, it didn't stand a chance.

When I was walking back to the house, I saw a huge spider on the trail, like a tarantula. It wasn't moving so I poked it with a stick to be sure. It was a FAKE spider. But how did it get there???


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## Yunzow

*Re: Day 136 - exterior inspection*

Hey, Trish,

I did actually eyeball the queen a few weeks ago, ironically, the first time I had seen her since I released her from the queen cage on install. I failed to mention in my post for day 131 there were definitely larvae on the brood combs. I've never been very good at spotting eggs! Weather permitting, I will do another full inspection this weekend, so more later!

-Thomas


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## Yunzow

*Day 143 - full hive inspection*

Day 143 - full hive inspection

Saturday, August 5, 2017
3 p.m.

First I observed the bees coming and going from the outside, looked like there were a few doing orienting flights. I did see a couple of bees coming back with pollen, different colors.

The brood pattern has receded, there is now brood on 10 bars. I can see a little bit of nectar on each of the bars with brood. Mostly capped brood, though I did see some larvae.

I saw perhaps twenty or so hive beetles, mostly on the empty combs in the back of the hive.

About a month ago, a lady I sing in choir with had shown me the bees in her ceiling, they had drawn out four or more combs full of honey. This is in my same neighborhood. So I know there is plenty of forage around here, and those bees didn't need any artificial feedings or any kind of help.


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## trishbookworm

*Re: Day 136 - exterior inspection*

I'm relieved to hear that you are seeing larvae. Reports of a drop in the number of bees make me concerned that she has disappeared with a swarm or something. But if you're seeing larvae then she's been there recently enough! 

Spotting eggs - I actually hold the comb up and let the sun shine through sometimes. Then I can see where the center of a cell is - usually eggs are in the center. That is how I am sure I have a queen - I have not seen queens in any of my 6 hives this season! Just eggs. 

It's so neat with a tbh, how we can see the ebb and flow of the bee population. Enjoy your bee watching.


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## Yunzow

*Day 153 - full hive inspection and yellow daisies*

Day 153 - full hive inspection and yellow daisies
Tuesday, August 15th, 2017

The bee population has dwindled even further than the last inspection, but I can still see capped brood and larvae. Y'all may remember that triple crossed comb I have, I can only assume there is something going on in there because I can't see for sure. I'm not going to "correct" this comb right now because I don't believe that would serve any purpose for the bees in their current state. But definitely, if they survive the winter and during the spring flow.

Some of y'all may know I am not inclined to feed these bees. The reason is that I don't want to propagate bad genetics. I can see the yellow daisies blooming on Stone Mountain, within the forage range of my bees, and I can see honeybees working these daisies. There is plenty of forage around right now. I had got these bees from a nursery in South Georgia, and they took them to California to pollinate almond trees. Next, year I will get bees from a truly local beekeeper in my neck of the woods....


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## Yunzow

*Day 172 - staying alive!*

Day 172 - staying alive!

Almost three weeks since the last inspection. Busy busy, but also dragging a little in motivation.

They are still alive! That is the most I can say, but they are plugging along. Now occupy about six combs, with capped brood. No sealed honey at all. A few dozen dead bees on the floor. Significant, because I assume they aren't putting much effort into clearing them. Not many small hive beetles either.

I'm already plotting the new hives I am going to buy for next year. I'm not that motivated to trying to prop up this colony because I think their genetics aren't that great, so why sustain what is unsustainable??

On the other hand, I think they have a decent shot at surviving the winter, because this is Georgia, it won't get too cold for too long and there will some sort of forage available. We'll see! If they make it through the winter I would expect a huge amount of honey in the spring.


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## AvatarDad

*Re: Day 172 - staying alive!*

My bees also were light as could be, with no honey. A terrible dearth here. Feed them like crazy... gallons.

I did some in-hive feeders which worked ok, and am now trying open feeding in the yard (which is a bit unnerving).

Good luck!


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## Yunzow

*Re: Day 172 - staying alive!*

Wow, yeah, not a good year for bees!


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## Yunzow

*Batten down the hatches*

On Tuesday I flipped the lid on the hive. This effective reduces the entrances to three holes about one square inch each because I had 2x4 spacers between the lid and bars, now the lid is flush with bars. 

I did this because I do not plan on doing any internal inspections of the hive until February. I don't see any benefit to the bees at this point from opening up the hive.

In fact, when I went out the flip the lid, I though the hive might be deserted because I didn't see any bees at all exterior, so I cracked it open quickly, no protective gear, but lo and behold, there were still bees in there. Perhaps they were laying low because it was dark and cloudy and there numbers were definitely low. The day before had been Hurricane Irma, or more accurately for Atlanta, Tropical Storm Irma!

I think I mentioned earlier, I am not going to feed them because I can see there is plenty of forage around, so I don't want these bees to contribute to the gene pool if they cannot survive on their own.

This might be the end of this particular blog, we'll see. But not the end of my beekeeping, as I already have plans for two new hives / packages. See ya in February!


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## Yunzow

*They live!*

"They live!" is a great John Carpenter movie, btw, if you haven't seen it, go see it!

I checked on the bees yesterday in the afternoon and there were bees coming in and out, perhaps one every few seconds or so. So they are still doing something! I guess they were just laying low when I "flipped the lid" on them Tuesday. It was quite dark that day, so that makes sense.

I'll keep doing exterior inspections sporadically from now until February!


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## Yunzow

*Pollinators*

Right now there are lot of beautiful yellow and blue flowers blooming right next to the hive. I counted five different kinds of pollinators on these flowers, including a lone honey bee, I assume from my hive!

As a reminder, my hive is located on an earthen dam, creating an artificial neighborhood lake, which immediately adjoins six acres of woods that stretch to the Yellow River. There is a quite a variety of forage available as well as plenty of water.

I'll keep checking on the ladies!


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## Yunzow

*Weird bee, golden rod, "critical hive size"*

There was a weird bee hanging outside the right entrance. She seemed a bit feeble and her abdomen, instead of black bands, was brown the top half and black the bottom half.

We have goldenrod blooming everywhere now, so I think these ladies should have plenty of forage. Anyways, the last time I did full inspection was early September and I saw brood then. I'm not going to check again until February!

I am wondering about "critical hive size", will inquire in a different thread.


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## Yunzow

*The death of a thread*

Hey y'all,

this will be my last post in this thread. My hive is dead! See my other thread about this.

Needless to say I am not defeated. going to get some packages from the Fat Bee Man and build a couple of new hives. 

Later!
Thomas


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## Yunzow

*Post-mortem*

Okay, so maybe one more post. Because it might be useful to others.

I took the hive apart. This involved separating combs that were webbed together. Note to self - the honeycombs were largely intact, it was the brood combs that were all tore up. From what I read, the wax moths are interested in pollen and brood leftovers, not the wax itself, so it makes sense they would ignore the honeycombs, but please correct me if others have seen different.

There were caterpillar sized larvae / pupae cocooned on most all of the bars, on the south end of the bars, right where the "wedge" cleat ended. That's right I don't remember seeing any on the north end of the bars.

I used my hive tool to detach them from the bars and flicked them on the ground. I suppose I could have offered them to the chickens....

The webbing was mostly in the middle of the combs so I grabbed these with my gloved fingers and ripped them out. Usually a bit of comb came out, too.

A few of the combs broke off while I was doing this, or when I was separating them. 

I set all of intact combs at the bottom of a chest freezer. I also included the comb fragments, might try to re-attach some of the bigger ones at least.

Not clear on how long I'm going to keep them in the freezer. If through the winter, might need to make a storage shelf so I can store other things in there because it is a deep freezer.

I left the hive itself open, top off, exposed to the elements. No rain expected the next few days and it is cold here thought not freezing. Hoping the sun and cold will provide some decontamination, though I will certainly do a more thorough cleaning in the spring.

I'm already thinking ahead as to how I might utilize the old combs with a new package. I plan on building at least one more top bar hive to the same dimensions. I was thinking I might alternate the combs with an empty bar between the combs, so they will build new comb in between.

Looking forward to a fresh start. 
The queen is dead! Long live the queen!


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## gww

*Re: Day 115 - Full inspection / queen bee!*

I would probly not alternate the comb if I put a new package on it. Atleast not untill they were layed up or filled and capped with honey. If they are putting honey in them and have the empty space beside them, they might make the comb fat enough to take up two bars. 

It might be fine with brood comb but honey comb that is not capped can get pretty big if nothing stops it.
Cheers
gww


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