# Starting TBH with package



## Tern (Mar 20, 2008)

I'm sure there are existing posts, but I've searched and followed links without finding the info. 

So, I have two Langstroh (sp) hives and would like start a KTBH. I've researched KTBH contsruction, management, feeding, wintering, etc. and I am all in. How best to package a new hive? Do I use a follower board and a certain number of top boards then expand as hive size dictates? 

Again, I'm sorry, as I'm sure the info is here somwhere. Thanks in advance for any help with this.


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## beenovice (Jun 19, 2007)

I hived 5 from packages last spring and did not use follower boards. All thrived and are looking good in coming spring...


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## peletier (May 5, 2007)

My experience is that the bees will start comb on the bar nearest the entrance and proceed in order from there. (my entrance is on the end of the hive, not the side.) I have not used a follower board as such, but I have divided the hives in half with an entrance at each end, running two colonies in each hive.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I've never bothered to build a follower, but it's a nice idea. I always pull a few bars at the front, dump in the package, let them start clustering on the top bars, and direct release the queen while holding the cage down inside so she doesn't fly. I do not recommend suspending the cage in the hive as they will almost always build comb from it and get started off wrong. I do not recommend putting the cage on the bottom as there is the possibility they will get cold and cluster up at the top and abandon her (at least in my climate).


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## Adrian Quiney WI (Sep 14, 2007)

I started my first hive last year. I used a follower board with a notch in it and put a boardman feeder inside the back of the hive to feed syrup to get them started. It worked quite well. Later on I used a solid follower board and I liked it because I was able to slide bars back into the unoccupied space to leave a gap as I inspected bar by bar. Making a follower board is not a lot of work.


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## Tern (Mar 20, 2008)

*Thanks for the info*

As usual, very helpful responses. Thank you.


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## trapperbob (May 27, 2007)

I started with a package in a TBH last year and all I did was spray them with sugar syrup and honey b healthy mixture dumped the bees in and turned the queen lose in the middle of them. I did learned a very valuable lesson and that was to make sure and keep a open brood nest or thay may swarm sooner than you can imagine. They started like gangbusters last year and and built 12 combs so fast it was mind blowing. Instead of building more comb right away they filled 10 of the combs with brood and set up to swarm. In the mean time I was unable to get back to my bees and they swarmed multiple times. That was confirmed buy the farm owner{hey your bees swarmed 6 time while you were away}. When I finally was able to get to my bees almost all of them were gone but there was at least one queen cell left and she began to do her thing but it was to late and they were unable to build back up and put enough stores on to survive the winter. They were able to make 8 more combs. so come spring I will have lots of comb to start with and all of my langstroth hives seemed to do well so far so some good news there. And heck I built 2 more TBHs and thought I would put 5 combs in each one of those and give them a jump start. It would seem that they may need to be watched a little closer for crowding. Good luck have fun and remember the bees will be your best teacher so keep an open mind.


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## Daddy's Girl (May 5, 2008)

I hived one from a package last year and it was pretty much a matter of getting the bees from package to TBH, then hanging the queen cage for a day or two, and coming back to remove it. I didn't have bees building comb around Her Majesty, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't happen on the next try. 

My hive has two follower boards. I had two because the instructions for a KTBH per Phil Chandler say to build that many, and to use the followers to confine the swarm to the central area of the hive, which I am not really convinced is necessary at all. You lose a bar for the bees to have a follower in the forst place, and I really, at most, need one per hive for management and tightening up the leftover space in the hive(which I hope to not have this year, by putting the girls to bed with full combs end to end).

One thing about a follower is that if you're gonna have one, make sure it fits snugly against the walls of the hive body. I know I lost heat because mine weren't as snug as they could have been. 

The other advantage to having a single follower is that when you are establishing and feeding a package, you can drill a hole to allow the swarm to pass back and forth to an internal feeder. I like having the follower close up the extra space, because it lets me put the feeder in the unused space inside, so I don't have to expose the brood to elements or myself. 

The other thing that I think would be exceedingly helpful for establishing a colony in a TBH is an adaptation of the Brushy Mountain Anti-Robbing screen. I hope to have pictures of mine to post somewhere early next week.


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## Stevedore (Jan 22, 2009)

Michael,

Would you still direct-release the queen if she's been in the package less than 24 hours? Our local association is doing a group purchase and all the packages will be driven up straight from Georgia to Ohio. The package workers will not have the 2-3 days typical with Priority Mail to accept her pheromones.

Steve


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Would you still direct-release the queen if she's been in the package less than 24 hours? Our local association is doing a group purchase and all the packages will be driven up straight from Georgia to Ohio. The package workers will not have the 2-3 days typical with Priority Mail to accept her pheromones.

I probably would, yes. They still were shaken from a bunch of different hives and left in total confusion for some time. If you're in doubt, you can always make sure they have feed and leave them in a cool dark quiet basement for 24 hours before installing them.


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## elsyr (Dec 2, 2008)

Michael Bush said:


> I've never bothered to build a follower, but it's a nice idea. I always pull a few bars at the front, dump in the package, let them start clustering on the top bars, and direct release the queen while holding the cage down inside so she doesn't fly. I do not recommend suspending the cage in the hive as they will almost always build comb from it and get started off wrong. I do not recommend putting the cage on the bottom as there is the possibility they will get cold and cluster up at the top and abandon her (at least in my climate).


I've got a pair of KTBHs built and a couple of packages I'll be picking up in April, and want to make sure I understand something ... when you install the colony in the TBH, and are not using a follower board to limit the expansion of the colony, are all of the top bars in place from the start? I would assume so, as it seems pretty obvious that they would need to be, but you never know - some of the biggest mistakes I've ever made have been from assuming that the obvious was in fact correct. 

Thanks,
Doug


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>when you install the colony in the TBH, and are not using a follower board to limit the expansion of the colony, are all of the top bars in place from the start?

With or without the follower board all the top bars should be in place. The bees may find their way to the other side of the follower and you want the combs to be on the bars.


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## elsyr (Dec 2, 2008)

Michael Bush said:


> >when you install the colony in the TBH, and are not using a follower board to limit the expansion of the colony, are all of the top bars in place from the start?
> 
> With or without the follower board all the top bars should be in place. The bees may find their way to the other side of the follower and you want the combs to be on the bars.


Thanks - that's what I thought, but I've done some awfully silly things in the past thinking I knew the right answer. 

Doug


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## LenInNorCal (Feb 28, 2009)

Daddy's Girl said:


> The other advantage to having a single follower is that when you are establishing and feeding a package, you can drill a hole to allow the swarm to pass back and forth to an internal feeder. I like having the follower close up the extra space, because it lets me put the feeder in the unused space inside, so I don't have to expose the brood to elements or myself.


I've yet to get my first TBH but I simply made the follower board 3/8" shorter so the bees could come and go for an internal jar feeder. The I cut a piece that would fit in that bottom 3/8" space to close that board up when I wanted to. That way I can place the board where needed and close off when wanted.


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## bill whyte (Apr 18, 2008)

*Live release of queens.*



Michael Bush said:


> I've never bothered to build a follower, but it's a nice idea. I always pull a few bars at the front, dump in the package, let them start clustering on the top bars, and direct release the queen while holding the cage down inside so she doesn't fly. I do not recommend suspending the cage in the hive as they will almost always build comb from it and get started off wrong. I do not recommend putting the cage on the bottom as there is the possibility they will get cold and cluster up at the top and abandon her (at least in my climate).


Hi Michael,

last year I package four top bar hives and then I dropped in queens live. Later in the day I found one queen walking around out side and another hive ended up loosing the queen also. So I don't actually understand how the direct release works. Can you help?

Thanks,

Bill


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>last year I package four top bar hives and then I dropped in queens live. Later in the day I found one queen walking around out side and another hive ended up loosing the queen also.

Any kind of release can fail, but my guess is if the queen was walking around outside without any attendants there was another queen in the hive. Probably one in the cage and one loose in the package. As far as one losing the queen, last years packages were very poor and a lot of them lost a queen in a short time and either ended up queenless or moved next door because they didn't like the queen in their hive. I have seen this with the queen still in the cage as well as with the queen loose in the hive. If they don't like her they won't stay. If they do like her they will stay whether she is in the cage or not.

My concern with foundationless and top bar hives is that the cage will cause the initial combs to be on the queen cage and mess up all the subsequent (and in this case ALL) of the combs. This, to me, is a much more likely occurrence than the queen being rejected and one with consequences that are harder to deal with.


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## dan k 1 (Jan 7, 2009)

what do you mean by an open brood nest?


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

The bees have a plan. That plan is to reproduce the superorganism. The sequence is to build up and then to backfill the brood nest with honey, both to stop the queen from laying (so she can get slim enough to fly), and to have adequate stores in case the main flow doesn't pan out. As the brood nest gets backfilled it makes more and more unemployed nurse bees. These nurse bees start doing a keening buzz that is quite different from the typical harmonious buzz you usually hear. More of a warble. Once the brood nest is mostly full of honey they start swarm cells. About the time they get capped the old queen leaves with a large number of bees. Even if you catch the swarm, the hive has still stopped brood production and has lost (to the swarm) a lot of bees. It's doubtful it will make honey. If there are still enough bees, the hive will throw afterswarms with virgin queens heading them. 

What we need to do is interrupt the chain of events. The easiest way is to keep the brood nest open. If you keep the brood nest from backfilling and if you occupy all those unemployed nurse bees then you can change their mind. If you catch it before they start queen cells, you can put some empty bars (or frames) in the brood nest. Yes, empty. No foundation. Nothing. Just an empty bar (or in the case of a regular hive an empty frame). Just one here and there with two bars of brood between. In other words, you can do something like: BBEBBEBBEB where B is brood comb and E is an empty bar. How many you insert depends on how strong the cluster is. They have to fill all those gaps with bees. The gaps fill with the unemployed nurse bees who begin festooning and building comb. The queen will find the new comb and about the time they get about ¼" deep, the queen will lay in them. You have now "opened up the brood nest". In one step you have occupied the bees that were preparing to swarm with wax production followed by nursing, you've expanded the brood nest, and you've given the queen a place to lay. If you don't have room to put the empty combs in, then add another brood box. The other upside is I get good natural sized brood comb. 

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesswarmcontrol.htm


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## dan k 1 (Jan 7, 2009)

*open brood nest*

Thank you so much for that awesome explanation.


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## dan k 1 (Jan 7, 2009)

*open brood nest*



Michael Bush said:


> The bees have a plan. That plan is to reproduce the superorganism. The sequence is to build up and then to backfill the brood nest with honey, both to stop the queen from laying (so she can get slim enough to fly), and to have adequate stores in case the main flow doesn't pan out. As the brood nest gets backfilled it makes more and more unemployed nurse bees. These nurse bees start doing a keening buzz that is quite different from the typical harmonious buzz you usually hear. More of a warble. Once the brood nest is mostly full of honey they start swarm cells. About the time they get capped the old queen leaves with a large number of bees. Even if you catch the swarm, the hive has still stopped brood production and has lost (to the swarm) a lot of bees. It's doubtful it will make honey. If there are still enough bees, the hive will throw afterswarms with virgin queens heading them.
> 
> What we need to do is interrupt the chain of events. The easiest way is to keep the brood nest open. If you keep the brood nest from backfilling and if you occupy all those unemployed nurse bees then you can change their mind. If you catch it before they start queen cells, you can put some empty bars (or frames) in the brood nest. Yes, empty. No foundation. Nothing. Just an empty bar (or in the case of a regular hive an empty frame). Just one here and there with two bars of brood between. In other words, you can do something like: BBEBBEBBEB where B is brood comb and E is an empty bar. How many you insert depends on how strong the cluster is. They have to fill all those gaps with bees. The gaps fill with the unemployed nurse bees who begin festooning and building comb. The queen will find the new comb and about the time they get about ¼" deep, the queen will lay in them. You have now "opened up the brood nest". In one step you have occupied the bees that were preparing to swarm with wax production followed by nursing, you've expanded the brood nest, and you've given the queen a place to lay. If you don't have room to put the empty combs in, then add another brood box. The other upside is I get good natural sized brood comb.
> 
> http://www.bushfarms.com/beesswarmcontrol.htm


This is what I was refering to. Maybe I should have asked if this is something I need to worry about this year? 

Thanks for the good advise Len I appreciate it.
Dan


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>This is what I was refering to. Maybe I should have asked if this is something I need to worry about this year? 

It's possible that a first year hive will explode in population and need some swarm control, but it's much less likely than with an established hive. If they stop expanding the brood nest before the main flow and it starts to contract, then I would put some empty bars in the brood nest.


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