# Beginning Beekeeping Treatment Free



## Jovian (May 31, 2016)

Found a few pics from the extraction in February














The Hive are more of a Layens design just resized to hold a frame the equivalent of a double deep. These hives were big enough to house two full colonies as well. I really like the horizontal style of hives but I didn't like the time it took to build everything, how big and heavy it all ended up and how easy it was for the frames to twist throwing off the spacing of the frames on the bottom. Mostly due to the size, weight, frame issue I decided to move to the more popular Top bar design this year. Figured it was a better time to do that now since I can quickly and easily change all the existing equipment.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

Jovian said:


> As I am going to be treatment free I had heard it's best to start with swarms...


the nice thing about catching swarms is that you don't have to buy bees. in most cases however it is difficult if not impossible to know from where the swarms originate. a swarm caught from nonresistant stock is no more likely to have success off treatments that a package produced from the same stock.

depending on where you are located in madison county there may or may not be a surviving feral population present in your immediate location. chances are better for that if you happen to be near heavily wooded areas or near the river and it's associated tributaries. 

the eastern part of the county around gurley looks pretty good. the outskirts of the bankhead forest might be a good place to set swarm traps if you can acquire some spots to do so. 

an overwintered cut out at gives you a colony that has survived at least one winter. a swarm of unknown origin especially in an area with other managed bees present is a bit of a crap shoot.

either way i would recommend including mite monitoring into your management, the use of robber screens if you are unable to watch the hives on a daily basis, and the possibility of having to treat for mites if it comes to that.

my thread is provided mainly for informational purposes. i'm flattered that others have found it helpful and inspiring. my hope is that sharing our experiences may add to the knowledge base and move the ball forward on mite resistance for all of us. 

but as i have posted in the past it is not my mission in life to convert the whole world to treatment free. my opinion is that unless beginning beekeepers have someone in their area already demonstrating success off treatments from whom they can get bees and advice... 

the responsible approach is to proceed with careful monitoring and be prepared to take whatever steps are necessary to avoid collapse and the spreading of mites to nearby colonies.

at the same time i don't mean to discourage the pursuit of keeping bees off treatments. i have just made the case for the importance of location and pedigree of bees. the other consideration is hive count. my opinion is that it takes more than just one or two hives to be sustainable.

it is not my intent to throw a wet blanket over your beekeeping plans jovian. on the other hand i tend to agree with those who are critical of the admonition for everyone everywhere to ignore varroa and proceed blindly off treatments.

these are just my frank and honest opinions shared for what it's worth. i am glad you started this thread, i wish you much luck, and we are looking forward to your updates.


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## Richinbama (Jan 15, 2018)

Hi guys, Decatur,.al
Here. I plan to start up.this year also. Sqarepeg, I finally have my 2 5 frame med. Nucs done. I also built 2 med. Boxes to be able to double stack at later dat. Only left to do is finish painting, and cover my telescoping lids. Next to build out 10 frame hives. Ill be setting up my 2 nucs as swarm traps really soon. Only need some lgo !!! I think Kroger has that. Should be a fun year starting off. I see several swarms each year at my farm just outside Cullman, al. Also, I've asked the few folks in my location about nearby beekeepers. None close, and I'm on dead end road. The 2 I saw last year were really large, and I was amazed. So was my wife. I know about where they ended up at. So my small starter yard will be essentially in the middle of the last swarms flight path. Fingers crossed !!! 😁 good luck guys !!!!


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Jovian said:


> Found a few pics from the extraction in February
> View attachment 37559
> 
> View attachment 37560
> ...


I suggest you review my designs here: http://forum.tfbees.net/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=890
Also started as thread under the "Equipment" about horizontal deep hives.

The long hive does not need to be "big and heavy". If you want, it can be very mobile (more mobile than conventional TBH).
In fact, the mobility is big for me since I do not own large property and must be able to move the equipment easily.
The are many options around just using the standard Lang frames with very minimal reconfiguration. 

Also, historically, the warm way of positioning frames was quite common. 
Today it is scoffed at or people don't even suspect of such an option. 
Well - using the warm way gives even more options if you are into horizontal hives. 

More designs are in works come this spring...


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## Jovian (May 31, 2016)

No wet blanket over hear Sp you've only stated reality. You make an excellent point about it mattering where the bees come from. And in my particular case while all my traps are near large wooded sections with streams nearby in a little over half Im a mile or less of some other beeks. So your caution about the mite monitoring and applying treatments if needed is definitely sound for my situation. I certainly don't intend to make any mite bombs or anything of that nature. I have always intended to go treatment free from the start even before I found beesource. As I stated I wanted more control of my food and its quality so I personally see little point of beekeeping if I treat with harsh chemicals ( I haven't fully decided on Thymol, OA etc, hopefully its not needed). Honestly my initial thought if there was a mite problem was to requeen from known treatment free stock.

Richinbama Congrats on your start and hope it goes well. If you can't find LGO at Krogers I know Hobby Lobby and Micahels has some by their candle supplies. I am envious of your lonely location as it seems no matter where I look there is always somebody else nearby. Which incidentally I have talked to most of them and have asked how they manage their hives, so that I would know what kind of bees I would likely be catching and what their accustomed treatment regime was. In every case they have told me that they were also treatment free but they wouldn't tell me what their regimen was. These guys are more traditional and old school in their approaches from what I could estimate so I am pretty sure they ain't giving me the full story or are using some kind of different definition of treatment free. "sigh" oh well on ward and forward.

Btw has anyone used wolf creek bees to get started? I have been looking at them in case I can't catch anything.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

a tf friend of mine needed a late season queen in a pinch and ordered one from wolf creek in august 2016. they produced a good honey crop in 2017 and are coming out of their 2nd winter strong.


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## Richinbama (Jan 15, 2018)

Yes the location had it's merrits. When we bought the land 10 yrs ago. It was literally dead zone. The guy couldn't keep 20 cows alive on it. I now have about 40, and thriving. I've planted allot of grasses, and clovers, ect. There is literally thousands of acres with hills, trees, and pastures. Some are planting a small amt of row crops last couple years. Lots of timber harvested last few years, but that over with for 20 or so yrs for those guys. I wouldn't let the loggers cross my land either. I may have, if they would've asked. I had one tell me he was going to file a right of use case on me, if I didn't let him cut through my place.. lol, I told him to find a good lawyer, and pay my property taxes...he even got to the point of threatening me ... I love my hills, and my cows, horses. Those hills work me to death though... !!! I've got allot of maple, and tulip poplar in nice sized pockets, lots of wild hedges, I hate em but , the bees love em. And BlackBerry to galore. Should be interesting 1st year. I've just got to get over the stings though. Went to my first bee meeting at Cullman last month. Was interesting, I asked about a mentor, nobody even looked my way, or responded... otherwise was ok though. Ill go to Madison, or Lawrence co. Bee club meetings in near future as well. Ill find my calling somewhere though. Ill learn here, and self teach myself the hard way, I guess.. lol. But would love to meet someone in the 20 mile or so range to learn from. I like friends with same ambition that I have. It's a fun hobby, but also a business too. So, growth, and learning is essential for me.


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## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

Jovian
My opinion if you can afford it. I would bug one of those traditional bee keepers you have talked to into selling you a split or a few frames and a queen. I would of course also keep the traps out but traps are not a garrantee and if they fail, it is just another year with out bees. Of course if the bees die, it is also another year. If one of your neibors sells you some bees. Just don't treat them knowing they may die. You don't know till you try. If they live, fine and if they die, you may need to do more. I am new and don't have the experiance to tell you this will for sure work or that will for sure work. In my defence, I put my money where my mouth is and this is how I am doing it and also how I have seen several others do it and it has worked so far for some and not for others. I only know one way to see and that is to just try it. No garrantees.
Cheers
gww


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## Richinbama (Jan 15, 2018)

Say guys, I have a question??? In my pursuit of catching swarms, I tried to list myself on here to catch swarms, (bee removal) in the Alabama section. How long does it take to get listed? I did it 2 times, and it's been about a week... Any advice how this works, other that filling out the online form here in bee source? 
Thanks, Richard


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## Jovian (May 31, 2016)

Thanks for the Feedback SquarePeg that helps me build confidence in them. 

Gww I am seriously considering it and would have already ordered except my wife and I just moved to a new home a few months ago and with taxes things are a tad tight. That said I still might do just that. 

Its partly why I am interested in Wolf Creek as they are about 1-2 hours away I believe with a similar climate and are treatment free. I have heard good things about their stock as well outside of Squarepegs info above. So what would yall do get some hyper-local treated bees or get some close but not as local treatment free bees to start?

Richinbama I had similar problems with the list here as well last year. I also put myself on several other lists including the Madison county list. I never received any calls from any of the 4 or 5 lists I put myself on. My guess is that there are so many people on these lists already that they never got to me, These lists aren't really connected well to community calls, or something else is going on. Fine to put yourself on them but I wouldn't expect anything. I am a member of the Madison County beekeepers so if you go let me know and I will try to meet you in person! I also got a similar reaction when I asked about a mentor. Most Everyone just said get some bees then ask about it, which I found annoying. One guy got a hold of me later on after the meeting and said he would be interested. I can only say keep asking never know who might be interested and even though they may not be the best beekeeper or new to it themselves any experience helps.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

Richinbama said:


> I tried to list myself on here to catch swarms, (bee removal) in the Alabama section...


this is the first time the question has come up since the forum changed hands a while back. it may be that the new owners aren't monitoring that function anymore.

i would suggest getting on madison county beekeepers list instead. you will be more likely to get a response there.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

Jovian said:


> Its partly why I am interested in Wolf Creek as they are about 1-2 hours away I believe with a similar climate and are treatment free.


not completely tf but as close as you can get with commercially available bees in our area.

they have changed their website but previously stated they used thymol. you could call and ask them about it. that said not a bad choice given so few options.

(answered rich before reading about jovian's experience swarm listing with madison county)


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## Jovian (May 31, 2016)

Rich here is the madison county beekeepers swarmlist for what its worth http://www.alabees.com/activities.htm#SL scroll up to find out who to contact to be added.


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## Richinbama (Jan 15, 2018)

Thanks sq.peg. Ill try Madison, and Cullman co. Bee clubs for list as you mention. Can't hurt a bit.


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## Richinbama (Jan 15, 2018)

Hi jovian, I added you on my friend list. Say when's the next bee meeting over there. ? Would be kewl to meet ya also. Ill pass ya my number, many a we can look over beeyards sometime. I'm always game to get out and ramble to meet new folks into this hobby. 1-256-566-2184 it my business number, so anytime is kewl.


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## Richinbama (Jan 15, 2018)

Thanks, jovian. I sent them a email. !!! 😊


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## Jovian (May 31, 2016)

Rich I forgot to tell you that the madison beekeeper meetings are the second thursday of every odd month at 6:30 at the Huntsville botanical garden. so the next mneetin gwill be March 9th.

It has certainly been an interesting few hours since I last posted and let me say I have the most awesome wife ever well almost  So Mrs. Jovian came home yesterday bringing home a stray kitten that was under her car at work to add to the 3 cats, 3 dogs, chickens, fish, etc we already have. Well in order to make up for it she agreed to let me order some bees! So I ordered two 3lb packages with an unmarked queens from wolf creek. They should be arriving April 18th which is the soonest I could get as the march shipments were sold out. I know its in the middle towards the end of our flow so I will likely be feeding to get them through the year. But I have to say its a bit of a relief to know that I will have a guaranteed shot. Free Bees is great but there is something to be said about being assured some will arrive. So good news there on top of that my wife also ordered me Hubers New observations vol 1&2. Im thinking I need to get my wife a extra special birthday gift.

So today I spent most of the day converting my old equipment into Top Bar hive design from the double deep design. They are made with 2x lumber which will have a polystyrene lid and some polystyrene followers outside the standard wood followers. All in all from the 2 hives that could house 4 colonies before I was able to make 8 top bar hives that can each house a full colony 4 for production and 4 that will be used for traps or expansions. pics below are from todays efforts and the bars I made a few days ago.


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## Richinbama (Jan 15, 2018)

Thanks jovian, I marked my calender. For the 9th. If all goes well, I and mabye my wife 
Will plan on attending .


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## Jovian (May 31, 2016)

I had lunch last week with another beek friend and we agreed to go and ask to put up a couple swarm trap where we have had calls last year. This prompted me to makesome more swarm traps and top bars this weekend. Hopefully I'm done for the season making equipment as I have other things needing my time.That said I do like how easily and quickly the top bars come together with any other system I think I would just be sol in getting additional equipment out the door to meet demand. In reading Squarepegs thread I kinda feel like Im already missing the season a bit with not having bees already (Ordered packages should be arriving mid april and swarming hasn't begun quite yet for our area) but trying to put that aside as I think that its just the excitement of the coming season and the natural rhythm of things.

Rich I will make plans to go the 9th as well. I will PM you with some contact details so that we can meet up.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

> she agreed to let me order some bees!


:thumbsup:



> So good news there on top of that my wife also ordered me Hubers New observations vol 1&2. Im thinking I need to get my wife a extra special birthday gift.


:thumbsup:


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## Jovian (May 31, 2016)

This weekend I finished putting up my swarm traps and placed my hives in the desired locations throughout my property. I had some girls taking casual interest in them shortly after placement so who knows maybe some will move straight into the hive for me. I unfortunately forgot to take pics when I was putting the traps up so y'all have to just tolerate the pics of the hives in my yard.







I grouped these hives so that I can monitor them closely and frequently if needed. These are also located in the chicken pen for assistance with shb. They are also the hives closest to the house.

The next couple of pics are a couple of the other hives I have spread out in areas further around the property and are intended to be more for colonies that are to be more left alone " production colonies". Easy to get to yet for anything they need but further out.


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## Richinbama (Jan 15, 2018)

Wow, looks like you been busy there. A nice looking yard. Was good meeting up with ya at the meeting. Was interesting. 
Good luck on the traps. I'm getting a couple out this week, after the rain ends. Was gonna do it Thursday and Friday., but my tractor died, and had to work on that. Starter fried !!! Hope that was all. My packages coming April 20 at lookout Mtn bees. Near Gadsden, . 
Got 2 hives almost ready to go, and 2 10 frame nucs ( 5 frame, but can double stack with 10 frames. ) gonna build some more soon, hoping for a swarm. But Nick, havnt seen any bees around my place much yet? Is it early yet, or did I jinx myself in anticipation...lol. give me a shout.... rich


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## Jovian (May 31, 2016)

It's still early for swarms so wouldn't worry. Though you want the traps up now so the scouts have time to find them.


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## Richinbama (Jan 15, 2018)

Will be up I'm thinking by wed. After rain, and tractor repair parts come in. Should be tomorrow for parts , l put starter in shop. Like a 200.00 bill. But new one like 6-700.0] was quoted. Whew !!!!


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## Jovian (May 31, 2016)

I had a bunch of bees checking out several of my hives that I have set out today. Strange thing was though that they were mostly checking and clustering underneath the hives and not really flying into the hive itself. I didn't have my phone with me to take a picture and when I came back a few minutes later bees were still around the hives butno longer clumped on the bottom. Is anyone familiar with this kind of behavior?


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## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

I have seen swarms arrive and have too many at once trying to enter the traps. The only way to know for sure is to open the top of the trap and look.
Cheers
gww


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## Jovian (May 31, 2016)

I hope you are right gww. I will take a look tonight and let you all know what I find


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## Jovian (May 31, 2016)

No take RS as of his evening. With the cool temps tomorrow not expecting anything until Thursday.


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## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

Good luck. I hope you post if you are successful. Don't use too much bait, I hear that will keep them on the outside of the box though I have never seen it.
Cheers
gww


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## Jovian (May 31, 2016)

Certainly will let you all know if I land one. I have heard that as well gww. I used swarm commander spray but instead of spraying it I soaked the ends of a qtip then placed that inside a cheap sealed sandwich bag and placed that whole thing sealed into the hive. The bag is supposed to be porous enough to act as a slow release without overwhelming. I did finally observe bees going into each hive on Monday night so at least not completely scaring them off.


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## Jovian (May 31, 2016)

I knew this was the case with this hobby but man when things happen they really happen fast. So no swarms yet, I believe this is mostly weather related as squarepegs (who lives not to far from me) thread indicates weather has been unseasonably cool. That said I also haven't seen any visitors to my hives since my last posting and they have been at my out feeder that I keep to see if they are flying or not. All the same I had an amazing, if a bit expensive, opportunity come up. A local beek who has unfortunately been having some health issues decided to leave the hobby and posted about selling his treatment free hives. I called and asked a few questions. He has never treated with anything, has allowed them to swarm and naturally superseed. Also he has used a mix of foundationless and wax foundation for his frames. I jumped at the chance and glad I did when I did as the next person was asking about them just minutes behind me. On top of that these hives are ready to swarm! The only predictable hiccup in the matter is that they are in Langs and I am running top bars. So from starting packages to splitting the hive for my noob brain seems like a big gear shift in practice. 

Monday seems like the first day I can really poke in and see the exact status of them and I am debating if I want to just move them all over to top bars or keep at least one split in each of the langs for backup due to the invasiveness of effectively doing a cutout
when I do the splits.

I Still have my wolf creek packages coming as well in a week and a half too so crazy but exciting times.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

way to go jovian!


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## Jovian (May 31, 2016)

Thank you SP. When I made the 8 hives earlier in the year I was kinda thinking I might be crazy making that many hives and having 0 bees. I would have been happy filling 2 or 3 of them. Now if the hives I bought are as strong as I am told I may have to pull in the reserves (My swarm traps) if I catch more than a couple swarms. 

Squarepeg do you think the 65 tomorrow would be warm enough for deep inspection and splitting? Its cooler than I would prefer particularly with my inexperience but I will try to be as quick as I can cutting up the comb and slinging it in the top bar hives.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

Jovian said:


> Squarepeg do you think the 65 tomorrow would be warm enough for deep inspection and splitting? Its cooler than I would prefer particularly with my inexperience but I will try to be as quick as I can cutting up the comb and slinging it in the top bar hives.


should be perfect weather for that, good luck!

i recommend splitting out the queens with some capped brood and stores. leave the parent hive with eggs and open larvae and as strong as possible to make a good replacement queen.

i would consider leaving those 2 hives in langs so you can compare and contrast to your tbh's.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

on afterthought jovian is that i haven't seen much new wax making going on yet.

i don't think flows aren't strong enough and the temps are a still little low.

something to consider with respect to cutting the comb and expecting the bees to make the repairs.

can you make the lang frames hang in your tbh's somehow?


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

I second leaving the langs in use, It will make you a better beekeeper to have experience with both

My favorite way to split in to different equipment is to fly back split. This way you would only have to chop the side bars off one lang frame per hive and place the topbar and comb in the new KTBH 
http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...it-Last-light-or-Midday&p=1168911#post1168911

choping the frame https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vb7UlgmWB00


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## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

jovian
Quote from squarepeg. 


> i would consider leaving those 2 hives in langs so you can compare and contrast to your tbh's.


I totally agree with this. I don't always follow what I say as I have two long langs that I have never moved bees to cause I have decided I like langs better.

You say the new hives are ready to swarm? Do you see queen cells and are bees swarming where you are? This is just an ideal. If the hives you bought are really full of bees. You could find the queen and cage her and just shake two thirds of all the frames into the horizontal hives and make your own package/swarm and leave the langs and the bees that are left to make new queens. This is only if you have drones in your area though.

You mention equiptment. It reminds me that last year I came out of winter with three hives. I had about 8 extra hives made. I gave my very first swarm (from my hives) to the guy I bought the only bees I have ever bought from. He told me he would bring my boxes back in the next day or two. I pointed to all the hives I had made and told him not to worry and be in a hurry cause I doubted I would fill the equiptment that I had. He kind of rooled his eyes and said I don't know.

With in a month due to my splitting hives to try and stop swarming and the hives swarming anyway. Two of those hives turned into eight and I caught two swarms in traps and was almost out of equiptment. It was not nessisarily my goal to fill all the equipment but it can happen fast. I did only get one super of honey from those two hives due to all the swarming and spliting but sure filled some equipment. I have a feeling with you buying these two hives, you could fill your equipment pretty quick with not even trying and may need to use the lang hives or lose bees and so might as well use them.
Good luck
Cheers
gww
Ps I have thirteen more hives built extra for this year, just in case.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

i guess the other thing i would add is that (correct me if i'm wrong) this will be jovian's first time doing anything with bees.

a lot of what is being discussed here is pretty ambitious considering that.

jovian, as far as the bought hives swarming you've got your traps in place giving you a good shot at catching them if they do.

if possible try to get one of the club members over there to come over there to give you a hand, even if that means waiting a few days.


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## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

Hey square
Being new myself, I was just trying to give the easiest way to get some of the lang bees in a long hive with out having to cut comb or lose bees. I know I am simple and simple minded. I am still intimidated bad getting in hives and so still know the feeling of knowing I don't know much.

I do say that one of the most helpful things was seeing somebody else that was good at it handle the bees before I had to dig in by myself and so if there is somebody willing, it is a great ideal to use them at least in the beginning. 
Cheers
gww


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

i think jovian has been presented with a number of good options here including yours gww. 

caging queens is one of those skills i really need to develop myself. 

it will be interesting to see how it all turns out for him.


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## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

Square
I only mentioned cageing the queen cause of not shaking all the bees and so needing to know where she was. I was thinking hair clip queen cacther. I guess there is risk of absconding due to having no comb to lay in but if it was my hives, I would release her in the long hive but did not know if that was good or bad advice. I just know that if I had langs and top bar hives, I would be doing something that did not require moving comb or if it did, it would only be one or two combs and not a whole hives worth. I don't know if this is a proper place to put it or a bad ideal for here and so if it is bad, I hope somebody corrects me.

If jovian just wanted top bar hives and was resistant to keeping the langs, Abby warre was a big proponate of just using the bees and destroying the brood and comb when he used to move bees from skeps to warre hives. His view was that the brood was a draw and that with 4 lbs of bees and no brood that a good havest could be had if done during the beginning of a flow. Yet the hive would still be ready for winter.

I don't put this out there to try and confuse the issue but more as an option of how the new bees might be used based on what might be wanted. I am greedy and so would want the langs and the top bar though if I wanted honey, I would try just the langs untill I was forced to make a split because of queen cells.

It might be stupid but depends mostly on if jovian wants both kinds of hive (I would) or just wants long hives.
This is not advice from me but more just a thinking point that I don't mind being called out on if it is bad.
Cheers
gww


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## Jovian (May 31, 2016)

First thank you all for your wonderful input. So is right in that I am new to Beekeeping and outside of a cut out that never really did well due to queen issues during and post the move I have never had a hive. I have helped a fellow club member with his 20 Lang's for half a season and have done a couple cutouts from homes as well with him so I do know what I'm looking at and not afraid to get in there.

I am not particularly hung up on any style hive and have worked the Lang's with my mentor and a couple top bars. Personally I definitely prefer the top bars style but still think there would be value in a better side by side comparison. My main hesitation for keeping the Lang's is equipment. I don't mind having it but don't necessarily want to keep equipment just for that one or two or buy more for a couple boom years.

I am not sure if there are queen cells as when I picked them up it was only 40 degrees out so a deep inspection couldn't be done. Also he was getting a little Ansy cause he was getting several calls for them but was holding them for me and was worried I would be a no show and I didn't want to lose those bees. He was the previous president of our club and I trust him. So that is why I went ahead without a full inspection so the state of the colony is based on what he told me.

Luckily I made my top bars with drop out bottom s so using them as supers may not be to difficult. They were also built to allow for a standard Lang top bar to fit on albeit with chopping the frame up. Perhaps the top bars could be nadired in some way as well.

I am going to review the link on splitting hat I believe msl provided and after a inspection tomorrow looking for queen cells etc will try to come up with the best path forward with trying to keep as much intact as possible. It is the beginning of the flow here as SP states and swarms are just starting so a artifical swarm package has a certain logic to it ATM that's attractive. I think a lot will depend on how many queen cells I find and how far along they are.


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## Jovian (May 31, 2016)

I forgot to mention that I also happened to buy a bunch of the hair clip queen catchers a few weeks ago more in the hopes of a swarm or cutout call but figured they were never bad to have on hand. Glad that worked out. 🙂


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## Jovian (May 31, 2016)

Well that could have gone better and I am walking away from that feeling like I did far more harm than good. Of the 2 colonies the smaller a deep and a medium was large and healthy. I did find about 15 queen cups none of which had any larvae. 2 of the deeps weren't even drawn out but the rest we're either packed with stores and brood and the medium also either had stores and brood. Except for two drawn frames that we're empty. Unable to find the queen in the smaller one and given the space they still had I decided to leave them alone. That is where I should have stopped.

Alas I didn't and went into the larger colony 3 mediums then a queen excluder and then 2 more mediums. The 2 super mediums were foundation and had nothing drawn. Below the queen excluder things were packed and indeed I found 2 swarm cells ready to be capped. They also had a couple frames of capped honey.

I decided to go ahead and do a split with the new colony going into one of my top bars. I had intended this to be like a fly away split but was unable to find the queen again so it ended up being more of a walk away. I also did end up cutting some of the comb out and slinging it from the top bars. The new colony got about 5 mediums frames of brood of mixed age. But I did ensure it got one of the swarm cells and some eggs. It also got a couple frames of stores both honey and pollen. The original hive kept most of the stores and at least 10 frames of brood of mixed age including the other swarm cell and frames with eggs.by the time I got this all completed I looked around (here's the sad part) and realized I had kicked off a robbing frenzy. I sealed everything up and moved anything with honey or wax way off to the other end of the yard. That's were things are at now
In about an hour I will go back and open the entrances again a small amount.

Seeing the robbing really made my heart sink and I should have been better prepared to prevent it by doing things in smaller bits so the hives weren't exposed so long. And so I could have closed them up quicker. Given the extent of it I am now a little worried about the survival of all three of the hives I now have. If I were in this situation again I think I would opt to just allow the hives to swarm and capture the swarm to rehive in the new format. Alternatively if I had wanted to proceed with the split gotten some help from another been as SP suggested.

Outside of looking for the queen with fairly inexperienced eyes things that took longer were dealing with the cross and Burr comb. Also getting the frames back in the hive was a huge challenge due to the proplis buildup.on the plus side I do have a bunch of comb and proplis I can now use to scent bait hives with.


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## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

Jovian
Everything I do takes three times as long as I thought it would. You got in and what will be will be. There is really no other way than that to do it. I have a feeling that even with mistakes, it will mostly work out though it might take a little longer for things to rebound that best case would have. I would keep the entrances a couple of bee spaces till the bees from the hives start backing up trying to get in and out. Lot of traffic can go through really small openings. I would definatly not feed for a few days till things calm down. Others may be better at giving advice on the splits themselves then me.
Thanks for the update of what you did today and hopefully you will give another one in a couple of weeks.
Cheers
gww


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## Jovian (May 31, 2016)

Thanks gww. That was the plan with the spacings and feed. I will certainly keep you all updated


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

it'll all work out jovian. thanks for the update.


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## Jovian (May 31, 2016)

Thank you SP. I checked on the new colony this evening real quick from a few bars from their brood nest looks like they are still covering the brood really well and everything was nicely warm. That said it looks like they had gone through the store I gave them pretty completelyl as well, so I will be feeding them starting tomorrow. I will also be feeding the smaller of the two colonies (the none split one) as that is what the previous beek was doing and they were significantly lighter than the larger one. I hope to be getting numbers applied and some records started on all these colonies this week so I can keep track for when grafting time starts rolling around in the coming years and so we don't all go insane with me trying to describe which hive is which


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## Jovian (May 31, 2016)

Well I fed the other day and had the entrances set to one or two bee widths. When I got home the new split were being robbed out. I went through the Combs quickly and they were still covering the brood. The queen cell was no longer there and I didn't see any of the uncapped brood I had put in. All the stores I had placed in were gone. So what to do? I went with the only thing I could think of. I combined them back with the original hive but instead of placing the frames I placed the original hive on top the new. I made a space a couple bee widths in the bars under the Lang so the bees could go between and double as a entrance. The pic below hopefully shows what I explained poorly. I fed them again this morning and everything looked good this evening even if the entrances were a tad jammed. I will give them a week or so before I go poking around some more.


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## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

See you in a week then.
Cheers
gww


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## Jovian (May 31, 2016)

Been a rather productive couple days. First I got all the hives labeled. Hive 1 is the strong Lang that I was trying to split. Hive 2 is the other Lang that is also going strong though not as much as 1. Hive 3 is the TBH that I was trying to get hive 1 into. And all the other hives are numbered and waiting up to 10. 

I moved hive 2 to it's permanent location this week and that seemed to go fairly well. Though I learned to ALWAYS ALWAYS strap Lang's together during a move. Y'all can guess what happened there.

Hive 1 was initially on top of hive 3 with the hope the bees would move down I to the top bar. That seemed to work well and I separated them today and moved 1 to it's permanent spot as well. A post inspection/observation indicates hive 3 got the queen ( through bee behavior) but both have brood (though did not see young brood in either, a bit of concern) and plenty of bees. So will see how hive 1 looks in about a week.

And to top it all off. I caught my first swarm of the season today. So Richinbama it has truly begun. Sucks the next three days are rain! As such I promptly moved them into hive 7. It was a big swarm and not sure how I missed them moving in. Guessing they were in the 5lb range.


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## Richinbama (Jan 15, 2018)

Wow, you on the ball there!!! I'm trying the swarm thing. I got 4 boxes out, and not a bit yet. I used Lemmon gr. Oil, and old comb, and baited with 1:1 sugar water. Bees here don't know what sugar is...lol. only been 24 hrs yet. How long ? Till they figure it out that I want to give an a new home...lol. 
Wow, a 5 lb er... kewl !!!


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## AvatarDad (Mar 31, 2016)

It is much like fishing. Don't get too eager.

there have to be scout bees in the area. Tom Seeley says these are bees who return with nectar and are not unloaded. They become uncomfortably full and start searching for a new home.

So: you'll get nothing for 3 weeks, and then suddenly one day there will be 3 scouts. 10. 20. OMG 40 scouts. Zero. OMG where did they all go??? 

Keep fishing. Some will move in eventually if you have provided a good home.


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## Richinbama (Jan 15, 2018)

Thanks avatar, anxious I guess...lol. hoping to get the show on the road...lol


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## Richinbama (Jan 15, 2018)

Actually, just hoping I do things right. Seems where I put out traps, there are bees there, just thought I'd see more. Man, it like nothing but a field of blackberries, and ticks...lol . Seems like bees are slow in my neighborhood, mabye they are just recovering from a cold , hard winter yet. ???


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## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

Richinb.....
I would get rid of the 1 to 1 sugar water. I could be wrong but find it hard to believe that bees would want to move into a home that is packed with robbers.
Cheers
gww


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## Richinbama (Jan 15, 2018)

Your probably right there gww. I hadnt thought of that. Its been there 24 hrs, and i havnt seen a bee on it yet. Now rain for 2-3 days. Ill.go ahead and pull the 1;1. Thanks, gww


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## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

Richin....
Good luck with the trapping.
gww


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## Jovian (May 31, 2016)

I was able to get off of work a little early yesterday and decided to go in quickly to see how the girls were getting on. Hive 1 was indeed queen less, though I did see what appears to be a chewed queen cell. The pic is below if anybody would confirm or correct me. Nearly all of the preexisting brood was about to hatch so I gave them a frame of mixed brood from hive 2 that definitely had eggs to sealed brood on it. 
Hive 3 the one that most of hive 1 was transferred to is doing really well. I somehow managed not to kill the queen with all my bungling about thankfully as I saw fresh brood. They have completely attached all the cut out comb. And completely built out 8 of the bars with another 4 well under way. After seeing the uncapped brood I just I the comb was straight as is critical in too bar hives.

Hive 7 the one the new swarm was placed in is also doing well with three full bars and 4 more on the way all perfectly straight. As it's a fresh swarm yet I didn't dig very deep just looked for the progress on the comb. I will do a deeper inspection in a week or two on this one.

Hive 2 I only opened this week to look for some eggs for hive 1 which was quickly found. They looked strong to me and I am thinking I will add a super next week. I did notice one or two workers with varroa on their backs. Makes me wonder if I should start with a sugar roll next week as well.


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## Richinbama (Jan 15, 2018)

Way to go. Sounds like you got it going on there. Glad to hear your bees are popping. 
I'll be getting mine in Monday Nick.


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## Jovian (May 31, 2016)

Was a pretty good weekend here. The frame I gave hive 1 last now has 5 capped queen cells and it looks like activity level has picked up. I gave this colony one more med frame of mixed age brood from hive 2. This will probably be the last bit of brood I will give them as they will hopefully have a laying queen in a couple weeks.

I supered hive 2 with mediums with foundation and replaced the brood comb I took for 1 with some drawn comb.population is. Still growing hope they can capitalize on the flow. I did not do a varroa count due to time constraints.im wondering if I should have checkerboarded it as well.

Hive3 has 14 full deep frames worth of comb drawn out with a couple more coming. I did have to correct the edge of one Combe that was just slight off. By far this is the most active hive and I have regularly seen the bees bearding by the entrance all week. Store and brood seem a bit out of wack but I think that has to do the cutout and the Bess haven't fully reallocatted things yet.

Hives 4 and 5 got populated this weekend with my packages from Wolf Creek. These are my first packages and thenumber of bees seemed small but everyone seemed in good health. I will be checking these tomorrow to see if the queen has been released.

Hive 7was the swarm I caught. They have blown past everyone else as the have 16 bars fully drawn with 3 more on the way. Saw eggs and capped brood as well as drone cells. I might end up with a little honey even. I am wondering if a split might even be reasonable with the flow just starting what's everyones take on that? Would that be a wise move with a new hive even if they have nearly filled it up.

So it looks like I didn't completely mess up with the splits and I am quite happy with how things have turned out. Lots to learn yet.


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## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

Yea, it all sounds good. 
Cheers
gww


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## Richinbama (Jan 15, 2018)

Wow Nick, looks good. Seems.like my packages are doing well also. They do seem.slower than the swarm I caught. The swarm is busting at the seems. I saw lots of drawn comb, and covered in bees. I added another 5 frame box. As I started with 2 5 frame med. Boxes . I'll transfer in a week or 2 to a 2 10 frame med box . By then I may need a 3rd box if they have brood. I noticed allot of pollen coming into all 3 hives today. Lots of nectar in frames, not capped yet. Mabye it was the 1 to 1 syrup I have been feeding. I will stop feeding next week I think. Hoping to let em run on their own after that. Also, feeding pollen patties. Ultra bee. I'll keep em.on that as long as they take it. I may stop that too though, as they are bringing it in nice right now too. I really like the swarm though. Didn't use a smoker, and they were pretty calm. I'll be building some more hives soon also. I think ill do some splits soon as the privet starts to bloom well, and I get brood going .


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## Jovian (May 31, 2016)

2 of my hives are doing really well and I am tempted to try to make a couple nukes from them. My problem is a lack of queens. Does anyone know if you a nuke can raise their own emergency queen or is that too much strain on the bees?
Took a quick peak At my recently installed packages both queens are laying as eggs were present. Ones comb was crooked due to the queen cage and needed correction.

I also added another super of medium foundation to hive 2 as most of the frames from the super I added last week we're built out.

I will check hive 1 for a laying queen next week.

Hope you all are having a great season so far.


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## Jovian (May 31, 2016)

Careful with the pollen patties there Rich they attract SMH and I have started to see a few. How are your packages and swarm going?


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## JWPalmer (May 1, 2017)

Jovian, as I mentioned today in another thread, the nuc I put together last week now has 5 queen cells in it. One is capped and the other four are close to being capped. This started as two frames with mixed brood including eggs and a frame with stores, along with an extra shake of bees. I will be taking the older cell and making a mating nuc with it. I do feed both syrup and pollen patties to the new nucs until the bees start to forage on their own. Go for it. It is super easy because the bees already know how to do the work. All you need to do is let them have at it.


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## Richinbama (Jan 15, 2018)

Hi Nick. Glad your bees are off to a great start there !!! Wow, you kick in there. 
Well I'm doing up the pollen patties, I put 2 per hive last week, and 2 this week. 1 hive from package is doing fairly well. I see lots of bees in the hive, sporadic to good at times in entrance. The 2nd package is doing well, and lots of traffic in and out. Put a second 10 frame med box on the kickin package. Both have eggs, and capped brood now, also lots of stores. Some capped honey or syrup. Last of syrup about gone in feeder boxes, I'll not refill till dearth. The swarm is doing really well. I moved the swarm colony from 3 5 frame nuc boxes to 2 , 10 frame med. Boxes. Moved stores to outside, and put a freshly drawn brood frame up top. Hoping to draw them up to the 2nd box. Hive beetles, all hives looked well, and I did see 3 beetles in one hive. After this round of patties, I'll not put any more in for a bit. The swarm is a real Jen, I didn't put syrup in, and only pollen sub patties. They be jammin...lol. I figure to add another box next week if the capped brood hatches by then. If I get lucky and have an extra frame of brood, I'll add to the slow colony. It actually looks good on inside, just traffic at entrance seems sporadic at times. I winder if that package had allotnofnold bees shipped in it? Never know, I'm at 2 weeks come Monday, and I'm excited still. I was nervous taking/transferring all the bees out of the 3 nuc boxes, into 2 meds. Though. They bumped me a few times, and one tried to sting through glove, but didn't connect. I think I bumped her wrong... no smoke used either... whew. Glad it went well, just hope I didn't mess up too bad.


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## JWPalmer (May 1, 2017)

Rich, I wouldn't worry too much about sporadic traffic in and out during the day, especially if you are looking in the morning or evening. Some hives are early risers and some seem to sleep in. Likewise, a hive might forage until dusk while the one next to it has no activity except for a few guard bees on patrol. My take is that a hive develops a "personality" and once you understand what it is, you can tell when something is not right.


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## Richinbama (Jan 15, 2018)

Thanks j.w. Your absolutely right on that. I just went to hives, and slower colony was looking more active a few minutes ago. Not a bunch, but better. It was later in afternoon qhen I did full hive inspections, and major manipulations on them. Inside boxes looked great though. Thanks for advice, and inspiration on this new journey... so far, so good. I'm pleased with all at this point. Egged, brood, and stores coming in. !!!


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

entrance activity is influenced by several variables. 

with small or just started colonies the degree of foraging depends on what portion of the colony is tied up with taking care of brood.

also, some pollens and nectars are only available at certain times of day, some earlier in the day and some later in the day.


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## Jovian (May 31, 2016)

Thanks JW I will be looking a researching and reviewing the different techniques to making a nuc and probably try making a couple tomorrow after work. I know the basics some open yo brood. Some closed brood and a frames worth of stores but just make sure I know and remember when I am in the hive


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

if you are going to allow the queenless part of your split(s) to make a new queen on the emergency principle...

i would split the queen out into a small nuc and leave the parent colony as strong as possible. this will give the emergency cells a fighting chance to get nourished properly.

the queen, three frames of bees including one of capped brood and two with honey/beebread is good, along with an empty frame or two to allow for growth.

i would avoid making small queenless splits and letting them make a new queen.

there should be lots of beebread and open feed in the hive making the new cells, if not consider supplementing.

after the cells are capped you can then make up more nucs with them if desired.

since most of your comb is new and soft i wouldn't worry too much about them fashioning emergency cells with it.

with the colony you acquired if the comb is old and stiff you might want to notch out underneath just hatched larvae.

here's a link with photos that shows how to notch:

http://www.mdasplitter.com/docs/Helpful_Tips_For_Notching-web.pdf

it's getting a little late here in north alabama for this. keep in mind that it will take about a month to have a laying queen and another month for her first brood to start foraging. 2 months from now will have the new colony starting out during our summer dearth period and you will likely have to feed them.


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## tpope (Mar 1, 2015)

Square peg gives good advice.


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## Jovian (May 31, 2016)

Thanks for the info SP. I was worried that I would be getting in on this to late. Am I correct in thinking that the best time to start this is early to mid March about when the first drones would be hatching so they would be sexually mature when the queen goes for her mating flights?


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

more like mid to late march but that can vary from one year to the next, but yes i like to see drones flying and even more to see drones returning with evidence of having mated.


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## JWPalmer (May 1, 2017)

Squarepeg's advice is right on the money. Nucs I am making now I hope to get into full sized boxes by July and will probably consume about $30 worth of sugar each by year's end. The nucs I make in six weeks will stay in the nucs and be over wintered that way. Yes, still Spring and planning for next year already.


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## Jovian (May 31, 2016)

First off let me thank everyone for their feedback. I spent last night looking at what was required/ should be done, and compared that to my skills, goals for this year and how I wanted to keep my bees , etc. In short I decided not to proceed with making the nucs. My reasoning is that my goals for this year were to have hives going strong into next season and over winter successfully. I already have more hives than I was expecting to enter winter with, and based on the feedback it looks like I would coming in late. It kinda sounds like I would be forcing this a bit and given my low level of experience I would prefer the first time being in more optimal conditions and to not weaken my existing colonies in trying to get it to work now. I think that I might go ahead with this in similar conditions if I had a bit more experience but as it is I have some pretty big problems finding the queens so I lots of other skills to develop so that I am ready next year at the appropriate time.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

I do my splits like Squarepeg describes.

This year I split again after the queen cells are drawn if possible. This worked well with the one hive which wanted to swarm, having more than one frame with cells.
If not, I split again in late may or June if sufficient bee mass and young larvae. I have honey bound brood nests this year despite expanding with supering. Not much to raise from right now.

The splitting depends on how much drawn comb I have. I don´t need to feed, I have food combs I would like the bees to use because they are one year old.
The packages I will get in June need drawn comb in my climate to be strong enough before winter so I don´t have much comb left then for the others.
The package hives will be completely filled with drawn comb and food comb, they are only 1.5kg of bees coming each.

Because of having so much nectar in the hives I try to force drawing, giving empty frames and foundations. This could work well with the queenless, which bursts with bees having the foragers, those will give me a harvest too, they already have a medium capped on deep box. And the short rainy period we have right now will make the bees bored and draw comb hopefully.
The mated queens I gave some frames to draw too. They don´t have foragers but are strong in bees. Not much space to lay so they are pressed to draw. Only a capped brood comb so activity might change to drawing if I took enough wax producers which I don´t know yet.

The moment the first queen cell is capped it´s important to evaluate the strength of the queenless colony. If they have more than 3 cells they swarm on me if the numbers are too high. Time to do one more split.

With drawn comb I see no problem with late splits done as long as drones are flying. Yes, those splits start with healthy winter bees because of the brood brake. The last brood cycle before winter bees are bred- is late july- august, mostly the winter bees in my area are bred in september. In this time I need to have summer bees left to do the work because we have a fall flow. This is the most important fact I need to consider, if late brood has to forage, dry nectar and raise brood they never made it tf in my climate. Too long a winter, too short the life. I need 25kg of stores, 15kg of this must be stored in in august.

So the smaller the splits the more stores and drawn comb. In fall the colonies strength must be evened out to give them a chance. Too strong is not good because of too many mites bred, too small is not good because no bees left after 5 months of winter.


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## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

jovian


> In short I decided not to proceed with making the nucs. My reasoning is that my goals for this year were to have hives going strong into next season and over winter successfully.


I am not much more experianced then you but personally, I like your plan on this.

Cheers
gww


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## Jovian (May 31, 2016)

Thanks gww. How long have you been a keeper of Bees?

Silwolke lack of drawn comb is also a limitation I am currently experiencing as I have just started. It's a close second right behind a lack of queens. Both of which I hope to improve next season. Do ing what I can while trying not to negatively impact the long term.


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## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

Jovian
I am starting my third summer.
Cheers
gww


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## Hickory Point Hollow (Mar 23, 2017)

Ok - now I will throw another wrench in the mix. MDA splitter or OTS method of queen rearing talks about specifically splitting after June for the purpose of rearing nucs, giving brood breaks for varroa etc. I am a strong proponent of having a young queen in the hive who is going to lay well. What better way to get that than to raise them.....I think you have months left to make splits. Some worry they wont have enough to make it and so on......Please tell me - will two or three queens laying eggs lay more than a single queen. Yes, you might not get the honey in the main flow, numbers might be down for a month and so on. But, split now or next month and in two months you will have all sorts of young brood for any possible aug/sept flow. And you know what - say they do terrible and don't build up. It only takes a bit to combine them......and you have all that drawn comb and resources and have given a brood break. You can do much more with 5 small queen right hives over a single big queen right hive......a single queen is only going to lay that amount - more queens equals more brood equals more workforce. Just another idea......


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

a poster asks:



> What does this look like - the drones returning with evidence of having mated? I thought they died after mating.


yes, they do die after mating. 

but some will make it back to the hive(s) and crawl around on the ground out in front before they die. 

if you pick those up, turn them upside down, and happen to see a thick liquid oozing out where their penis used to be you can be sure they were successful at having mated.


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## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

Hickory
But mel is only making bees to sale. The young queens are not going to lay a lot of eggs if there are not bees to cover those eggs and if there is not a lot of food coming in. I am not saying it won't work but wonder how much feeding is going to be involved. The only guy I know that has bees has the postition that big hives have a better chance at wintering and michael palmer likes making queens on a flow to have well fed queens. There are probibly a hundred ways to skin a cat and picking one is part of it and doing all the things inolved with that pick is going to make it work better. 
I have not had the guts to make late splits yet but will be interrested in how it goes. I did read some threads on here where a guy made 18 (and other numbers) and lost them all over winter. Even mel says you might lose 75 percent and still be ahead if bees is what you want to make.
Cheers
gww


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## JWPalmer (May 1, 2017)

Late splits need drawn comb and lots of feeding to be successful. But otherwise, they will do fine until the queen shuts down for winter. July is the Richmond area's best month for summer walkaway splits. After that, you need a queen. After the end of August, you are wasting time and resources.


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## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

Jw
Are you in growing zone 7 or 8? Hickory is probibly like me in zone 5B.
Not questioning the advice but just curious cause I looked a map and could not tell for sure.
Cheers
gww


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## Jovian (May 31, 2016)

Hickory , you make some good arguments and I agree with much of what you said. With that though this is my first year with bees practically speaking as such I don't want to push my luck and would rather prepare a better long term base. Yes I would believe more hives with queens makes more useful resources but that's what I don't have really is queens and yes I can do splits for them to raise more but as SP (who is very close to my location) pointed out by the time that happens and brood is raised our flow is well over. Now Im not opposed to feeding to help the bees through but a personal choice of mine is that I help the bees stay in sync with the local environment and not get them dependent or out of sync. Yes a one time thing isn't likely to do that but once you start down that road... Anyway as I said once I have more experience and can actually accurately judge a flow myself, find a queen bee in a big hive in under 30 minutes etc I will probably try a few late splits. My motto here is don't harm what I already have but I ain't gonna look a gift horse in the mouth either. 

JW I have the same question as gww dies above as I am trying to compare the timelines you state to how your flows are so that I can adjust them to what we have here.


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## JWPalmer (May 1, 2017)

Hey guys, I am in zone 7a. By Easter when I made my first splits, night were mostly above 40°, which is my target temp. Richmond does not have a fall flow like most of the country, by July, we are done for the year and feeding is necessary if you harvest the honey. My bees last year went broodless in October so I am planning for that this year.


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## Jovian (May 31, 2016)

Very nice JW. I am also in a 7a area. If what I have read and put together pans out for the flow most years our main spring flow is done by June and we have a minor fall flow around October. As expected as it may or may not be It is interesting how the flows can differ within the same zone.


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## JWPalmer (May 1, 2017)

Almost our entire flow comes from flowering trees, predominantly the tulip poplar and black locust. We don't have a significant goldenrod or astor bloom so the bees are forced to look pretty hard for enough to survive come fall. I think they foraged soybeans last year but that only lasted about two weeks.

The tulip poplars have just started here within the past week so we are in prime time for the next month.


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## Jadeguppy (Jul 19, 2017)

jw I would have thought you have more there. I'm surprised you don't have goldenrod.


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## JWPalmer (May 1, 2017)

I made a trip to Toledo last fall and was astounded by the vast seas of yellow flowers I saw on the drive up. I had no idea what all this talk about a goldenrod flow was until then. There is some here of course, but you can see them as individual plants growing on the roadsides. Kind of like comparing a sandbox to the beach.


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## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

Jw
Except for the temps early, Your flows sound a lot like my local flows. I do not see much golden rod around me but 12 miles away at mom and dads there are tons of it. I do have what they call old hairy field astors or frost astors and a ton of queen anns lace in july august that most bees might turn thier nose up to but mine hit. They just kill the frost astors but I see no gain in the actual hives and first year (about 1st of oct) I gave three gal sugar water in fall and second year two gal each. You would think the growing zone would change the time line more.
Cheers
gww


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## Richinbama (Jan 15, 2018)

Nick !!! How's the bees coming along? Great I hope. I'll be coming to Huntsville on the 1st. Of month. Dr. Appt. At 1 p.m. if ya around ,let's get togather.. talk bees ect..


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## Jovian (May 31, 2016)

Hey its been a while life got busy. heres what happened.

Hive 1: couple weeks ago looked for the laying queen. unfortunately did not see one. So even though it was late I gave them another frame of young larvae and eggs to try again from Hive 2. When I checked on them a few days later they didn't even attempt to make any queens cells with the new frame. I haven't had time to do a through inspection to see if I missed something. Hope to be able to do that this weekend. If there is no laying queen I will merge this colony with Hive 2.

Hive 2 has propsered well and has a couple supers of honey atm. I hope to harvest some this coming weekend.

Hive 3 has done fantastic and has filled all the bars in their hive (25 bars in the hive). I even managed to harvest 2 bars of capped honey for 7.5 lbs of Honey and 1lb 10 oz of unprocessed wax.

Hive 4 and 5 which were the packages from wolf creek have been building up well but only have about 8 bars built up. I will likely need to feed them to ensure they get through the winter. As the flow is still going here they haven't taken the feed really well yet. I did try to correct some wayward comb on a couple bars in 4 and the comb ended up ripping off. I fixed it as best as I could but I will remove that comb once the remaining brood emerge.

Hive 6 not populated

Hive 7: this was the caught swarm. all 25 bars were completely filled out and all had brood. However about 2 weeks ago something happened to the queen and I found a couple capped queen cells on 2 bars with no eggs or young larvae in my inspection last week. With the problems I had with requeening and how full this hive is I took one of the bars and one bar of mostly stores and placed it in a nuc (Hive 8). and left the other bar with queen cells in this hive. I did this to improve my chances of getting a mated queen.

Hive 8: the newly made nuc was starting to get robbed out the day after I made it so I put on a robber screen on.

Hoping I can save at least one of the 2 queenless hives.

Rich Sorry won't be available to meet up with you on the 1st already got a plans around then.


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## Richinbama (Jan 15, 2018)

It's all good Nick. Hope ya got things handled there with the bees, and other. Keep us posted... Richard


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## Jovian (May 31, 2016)

It's been a fairly interesting week. I caught a fairly late swarm. The trap host just saw it a couple days ago but they had built quite a bit of comb more than 5 deeps Worth so they had been their for a week or two. 

Good news on hive one it now has a laying queen. Whose pattern looked good.

Not so good on the earlier swarm hive that lost their queen. As there still is no laying queen. I am giving it another week to see if she just hadn't started laying.

The two packages are continuing to grow. As well Even though I have had to start feeding as the flow has ended here and they are still on the smaller side.

Speaking of flow I have been able to pull about 50 lbs of honey plus wax. A far cry from where would like to be but not to bad given its my first year of really having bees.


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## Jadeguppy (Jul 19, 2017)

That is good for what you are working with. I probably will be lucky to get that since I have been splitting constantly.


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## Richinbama (Jan 15, 2018)

Sounds like you are doing well there Nick!!!! I have had a queen issue myself. I think I got it corrected... my queen cells in package hive 1 should hatch out this week. I'll know next weekend. I had like 5 or 6 cells in that hive, and made a few splits from other cells. I left the 5 there, so somebody will have to win the fight??? The first year is a real challenge, but I'm pleased. We should get to gather and look over each other's hives, and setups sometime in near future. I'd really like to see your top bar hives. I like the idea of it, and thinking of one or 2 next year. I'd like to do it with med. Frames instead of bars. Mabye bars and frames, so they can interchange? What do they call that,??? A longstroth??? Lol, not sure here.


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## Jovian (May 31, 2016)

A quick update. The early swarm that was queen less now has a laying queen so excellent news there.

The late swarm that was recently caught absconded I believe. What I think happened is that the lid of the trap they were in bowed enough to allow robbing while I was at work. I put a stop to it as soon as I saw but the damage had been done and when I looked again in a couple days to see how they we're doing there were no bees and all the comb they built was sludge piles with lots of shb larve on the floor. I feed the larve to the chickens and cleaned out the trap. It had to be quite a bit of pressure as it popped out the screws holding it in place. Lessons for next time I guess.

The dearth is fully here. So I will be doing only entrance inspections until the fall flow. Overall quite happy with how the spring has gone.


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## Richinbama (Jan 15, 2018)

Hi Nick, where the heck did ya disappear to? How's the bees and hville doing?


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## Jovian (May 31, 2016)

Hey guys it's been a while. Sorry for the disappearance. As the bees were slowing up the fall garden started taking over. I also started and finished taking some Master Gardeners courses. So life got a little crazy and still have some volunteer hours to do. In any case over the fall I have planted some witch hazel which has several flower buds and with the warmish weather some are about ready to break. I also was able to get some elderberry bushes but it will probably be a few years before those bloom. 

I did do an external inspection yesterday and of the 5 hives that I went into winter with all are active. With the most active one pulling in some bright red pollen (dead nettle) I am guessing.

Hope everyone is doing well.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

5 for 5 so far is not too shabby jovian!

thanks for the update.


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## Richinbama (Jan 15, 2018)

Hi there Nick. Glad your doing well, and the bees doing good for you. Kewl with the master gardener work. We should get to gather sometime. My bees are plugging along fairly nice. 5 hives now. Hoping they all survive til spring. Give me a shout sometime. ... Richard


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## Litsinger (Jun 14, 2018)

Jovian:

Just finished reading this thread to-date, and enjoyed learning from some of your efforts and the feedback that has been provided.

I'll look forward to future installments, and best of success to you with your gardening and beekeeping efforts this year.

Russ


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## Jovian (May 31, 2016)

So I hadn't planned to check on the bees today but I was cleaning up the yard today and noticed on of my hives flying around and being active. So I decided to take a little break and go around and check on all the hives. First hive I went to no activity at all. I had a sinking feeling in my stomach and decided to take a closer look and peek the lid to see what was up. It was unfortunately a dead out a super small cluster bees left around some robbed out honey. Checked on the others all but one of the remaining had also died out. All had stores both pollen and honey yet so they didn't starve. There was some evidence of being robbed in each. So with 2 of 5 remaining for a 60% loss this year Im a super bummed ATM. That said I have nowhere learned what better to look for and I much better resources for trapping in the spring then last year. I took so.e of the bars with honey and put them in the freezer for the survivng hives to put in on a nicer day. I took the remaining ones to crush and strain ( needed to as comb was becoming crooked etc otherwise as I don't have a good place to store comb yet I set up the hives to be ready to use as traps in the spring and am hoping the incoming cold weather will keep pests to a minimum. Even though I can use this as a learning experience and am better off than last year I would rather have the active hives


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

sorry to hear about the losses jovian.

please let us know what you see inside the deadouts when you get a chance.

did you transfer all of your colonies to tbh's last season?


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

Hope your remaining 2 make it. A couple of strategies going forward is to make a few queens from your surviving hives but don't task them too much. If you can catch more swarms, then I would use these to make your biggest increase. Using swarm resources I would make small splits using bought TF queens or queens from a source that does proper selection for mite resistance. Going into next winter hopefully a few made queens from survivors, a few queens from known resistant stock, and a few swarm queens. 


Getting that initial start can be tough and lots of keepers treating or not have little initial success. Except maybe all the things learned in the meantime. The experience of getting your hive count to 5 will be useful, much more than getting a first hive and hoping to nurse it through its first year. Get 1 or 2 through your first year and I would consider that a good first step.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

lharder said:


> * Using swarm resources* I would make small splits using bought TF queens or queens from a source that does proper selection for mite resistance. .


I would caution on this.

So far, *most times* (GV: changed from "every time") I tried to expand using this approach (caught swarm resources + TF queen) - I failed.
In my cases, the caught swarms brought along so much mite load, no queen could turn them around.
Killed two young Russian queens in the 2018 fall this way (I ranted on the topic).

After two years of failing this way (caught swarm + TF queen) - I give up.
I also used caught swarms to boost up my nucs - the same outcome - I just boosted mite population in the nucs (and killed the nucs, subsequently).

The caught swarms will stay in quarantine through the winter for me now on.
The only resource to take out of them - honey/pollen/comb.
I'd rather have them work on max honey production if they can do that.
If they die of their own mites - good riddance and hopefully some crop stays behind (but don't want to spread the mites around into more valuable stock).

I will now continue propagation only using my own surviving stock (don't care if they don't make much honey - their job is to survive and propagate).
A single surviving colony should easily expand to 3-4 viable off-spring and more on their own.

So, I would not trust any caught swarm* in my area* to be used in propagation/splits/brood donations - too risky.
Be warned.

PS: 
I had under 20% survival last year (2 out of 11) - so don't despair - I was able to rebuild nicely;
it would have been better if I was cautious with the swarm resource usage - I killed two resistant queens last year also (a caught commercial Italian swarm brought so much mites - I killed good queens using the swarm resources);

In all I wasted four promising queens over the last two years because of my reckless swarm resource usage. 
The freshly caught swarms need to be allowed to die off before using them in propagation projects.
Well, I learned I hope.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

we might have some surplus nucs this year but i'm not sure about equipment compatibility.


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## Jovian (May 31, 2016)

Thanks all for your words of support. It is interesting Greg of you observations on swarms with them carrying a heavy mite load. I had thought that the "Conventional" wisdom is that the brood break that occurs from swarming tends to help out. I like these observations that don't match with the theory as it often points to a problem with the Theory. That said I do like your cautionary statements of just using a swarm immediately, makes common sense with any kind of animal husbandry. That said of the two hives that have survived thus far 1 was from the swarm I caught during standard swarm season last year. The other was the more active hive I purchased from a Treatment free club member (of the 2 that I got). That said both of the surviving hives are in a TBH layout. But to answer SP's question of if I had transfered all over the answer is no 2 hives last season were langstroth (mostly medium but one deep) One of those died out before winter subcoming to mites. The other was the reaminder split I made early in the season and had struggled throughout the year. So it wasn't a huge surprise to me to see that they didn't make it. It was this group of bees that I noticed a small handful dead on the bottom board with a super small golfball sized group stuck in the cells in the middle of the hive. I initially thought I saw lots of mite frass but was able to sort it out (as it was mostly flakes and not crystals) that it was chewed wax from the robbing. I was not able to Identify a queen and there were a small handful of bees laying in the ground by the entrance. The bees that were stuck in the cells looked healthy enough no unusual balding wings were complete. SO I think they were just too small and died from the cold.

The Second Deadout was in a TBH same construction as all my TBH's with 2x lumber for sides 3/4" thick tops on the bars


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

if you have some empty lang equipment i might know where we could set a swarm trap or two with a decent prospect of catching some of these wild-type ferals over this way.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Jovian said:


> Thanks all for your words of support. It is interesting Greg of you observations on *swarms with them carrying a heavy mite load*. I had thought that the "Conventional" wisdom is that the brood break that occurs from swarming tends to help out.


It just depends.
You can not assume either by default (no mites OR lots of mites).
Two years in a row now I tried to use a captured swarm to create nucs on "resistant feral" queens or Russian queens - four valuable queens killed as a result.
Also I killed 3-4 nucs by "boosting" them using brood from a captured swarm - so, also be cautious when transferring brood cross-hive.
I think only brood from a highly rated resource hive can be transferred.
Brood from a random swarm is to be considered as mite-infested.

I also had a great June swarm in summer of 2017 that by August was a classic mite bomb (this one is not on me - just a demo of what a swarm can be - a mite swarm).
Bad luck of my own doing.
So yes, be cautious of the "brood break" talk regarding the swarms - that is exactly what I thought too.
It depends, as it turned out.

But, to counter this - how do I even have the bees as I never bought any?
Well, because some of my captured swarms did survive the first winter and I propagated from those too using "resistant feral" queens brought from outside.
This means the surviving swarms came in with low counts of mites (low enough to survive a winter).

So - you never know.
But as for me, I would rather keep any captured swarm in quarantine the first winter.
The following spring you can do things with them.
That is my plan going forward.

So far this year 3 of the 4 swarms I caught are still hanging on.
But we are having a continuous week of -20C to -30C - will see what happens.


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## Jovian (May 31, 2016)

Sorry hit the post accidentally. And 1” polystyrene foam with a air gap and tin for a roof. This was a wolf Creek 3lb package from last year. Bees were going really strong last year and had nearly filled all 25 bars with comb. In this I saw no bees stuck in there cells but hundreds by the entrance and hundreds more on the floor of the hive under their stores. There were a solid 5 + bars full of capped honey with each bar being a little more than a standard deeps worth. Bees again other than dead looked ok. I did see a couple adult wax moths alive in the hive but no larvae or other pests.

If I forgot to mention it in the first dead out there was still 2 frames of capped honey in the box above the cluster.

In the third dead out similar story except no bees noticed on the outside. There was a huddle of black ants on the top covering of the foam and looks like they started a nest in the foam but none inside the hive. More concerning however is that at the top of several bars there were adult shb that looked frozen dead in the cells. No larvae we're noticed and no other pests were seen.

As for replenishing numbers I like the idea of buying a queen and doing a split. I might do that but my wife is still complaining about last year's expenses with them and the compensating quilting expenses weren't pretty 😁 ah hobbies.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Jovian said:


> ....my wife is still complaining about last year's expenses .....


My wife would never let me get into this "bee" thing IF I did not promise it will be about "free" and some honey/pollen too.
Which it is - just about free in my book
Minus the table saw and then..... few more tools. 
And long hours of "bee hunting/hive building" time away - hehehe...


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Jovian said:


> ... I like the idea of buying a queen...


You are already in AL - just ask SP (nicely).
He will dump you an envelope full of nice queens for the cost of shipping (or just drive over and get them for a Thank You).
An idea for ya...
Hahaha.

PS: if I have a good season in 2019, I will seriously give away my survivor-line queens to my closest neighbors - for free; 
this is for my own good, of course; 
but a neighborly thing to do also - everybody wins.


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## Jovian (May 31, 2016)

Thanks for the offer sp. 
Greg I grew up in Calumet Co WI. I know all about those couple weeks and/or polar vortexes that never see a high above 0, don't miss it one bit. Good luck on pulling through it.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Jovian said:


> Thanks for the offer sp.
> Greg I grew up in Calumet Co WI. I know all about those couple weeks and/or polar vortexes that never see a high above 0, don't miss it one bit. Good luck on pulling through it.


Then you know all about it.
I am in Madison too (just WI).
Thanks for the plentiful snow this winter - free insulation.


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## Jovian (May 31, 2016)

Saw the redbuds popping and a couple early dogwoods blooming today


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## Jovian (May 31, 2016)

Noticed the witch hazel has started breaking bud yesterday


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## Jovian (May 31, 2016)

It has been raining profusely the last couple weeks and coupled with the low temps there has been 0 activity. Yesterday was the first decently warm day we have had in weeks and the bees were out in force gathering mostly water from what I could tell. I saw very little pollen entering the hives. I believe it should been due to all the rain making the beginning of the season poor as the pollen and nectar are being washed out of the Bradford pears. I heard it was the wettest February on record for our area.


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## Jovian (May 31, 2016)

I hope everyone in the north Alabama area has there traps out. Caught two swarms this weekend. One from my own hives issued forth as I was standing there on Friday. I was able catch them and place them in another hive. Unfortunately they had left the next day. Then there was another swarm that I was also able to catch and even found the queen. I placed them in a hive with the queen in a cage. In some sad news I lost one of my hives in the last two weeks which is strange as they were scary strong back on the tenth. When I opened the hive it had been robbed out with only a couple adult hive beetles. There were no left over bees or anything to indicate what happened. I have had lost 5 of 6 hives now with little to show for diagnosis. Something I need to improve in the future. If anyone has suggestions on how to do that please let me know.on the good side. All my remaining empty hives have been getting heavy interest so looks like things will be filling up quickly.


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## Litsinger (Jun 14, 2018)

Jovian said:


> All my remaining empty hives have been getting heavy interest so looks like things will be filling up quickly.


Jovian:

Sorry for your late failures. While I don't have enough experience to offer too much advice, I do applaud you for sticking with it. I imagine this Spring will afford several opportunities to get your hive numbers back up and certainly opportunities to learn more about how to be successful.

Best of success to you this Spring with your swarm trapping efforts.

Russ


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## tpope (Mar 1, 2015)

This spring will be better for you Jovian.

I like to add a frame of brood when I hive a swarm. It tends to anchor them.


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## Jovian (May 31, 2016)

tpope looking like you were right. I have now caught my third swarm of the season. So my equipment is filling up fast. This is many more swarms than what I have seen in the past in this location so things are looking up. hopefully these guys can hold on. Also thank you for the tip on the frame of brood. I should have remembered/thought of that trick.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

:thumbsup:


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## tpope (Mar 1, 2015)

Cool beans man! Glad that it's working out well for you.

Don't beat yourself up for not recalling everything that you might could have done.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

any idea as to the sources of the swarms jovian?


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