# Starting off on the right foot - What's most important the first summer?



## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

If you're just interested in having the hives, increase the number of boxes until you get the equivalent of three deeps or better, and let them do their thing. No intervention necessary. Let them swarm, catch the swarms and start some more. But I'm a bit more hands off than most. I would certainly recommend increasing hive size in any case.


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

In your case with them being new hives, one of the real key numbers is weight. How much food is in there to get them thru the winter. if there light, you will need to feed, or combine to get to a survivalble point. not sure a good number where your at but I would say total weight is going to have to be 100lbs (complete hive) or so. 
as for mites, Randy oliver has the best method for checking them on his website. for me the right time to check is the beginning to middle of the goldenrod. still time to correct if you decide to. 
when fall is on you stack the honey/food above the cluster and put emptys on the outside. stack as many as you have food in.....


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## JWChesnut (Jul 31, 2013)

Just cautionary, I find sticky board counts to be very poorly correlated with the mite load. It encourages optimism, and in (treatment) interventions measures relative deadfall. Drone larvae removal or a sugar roll are better to see actual mite load. 

Screen boards are a great way to observe hive events without opening the hive all the time: eggs, capping, pollen all falls through and tracks hive events. Good way to isolate frame with queen-- look for dropped eggs. I don't have SHB, and the Wax Moth are weak, so the trash build-up is not critical. 

East coast beekeepers are reporting mite leg chewing as a hygenic marker/behavior, and these killed mites are found on boards. My Russian, Glenn Hygenic grand-daughters, and local mutts don't seem to have learned the leg-chewing trick (based on microscopic exam of countless mite fall).

First year hives are very unlikely to have serious mite problems. Its the 2nd or 3rd year of unmodified hives that are hit the hardest. Plan on spliting, queening, renewing the hive in the spring, this resets the mite clock for another year. Even a big hive left out in the pasture to live on its own will dwindle after a season or so. I see this countless times -- a lomesome hive that was "great" one year is gone the next. Working the hive will raise the probability of it continuing.

My experience is from the wrong climate to give you wintering-over suggestions. My mild-winter bees cluster in the inner 6 frames of 10 frame boxes (ignoring the sides), and move up into the honey crown as they consume stores. For this reason, I like to have well built burr comb between the brood and the winter store super -- removing the burr will tend to trap the cluster below the stores.

Condensation was an issue -- you want moisture to be able to escape. The old habit of insulating with straw, allowing easy escape of moisture while retaining heat seems like a traditional practice that can be emulated with modern materials. A hermetically sealed hive won't be healthy -- think that cascade of tent moisture in a single wall tent after a frosty night.


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