# Top Ten Rookie Bee Mistakes



## Ron McFarland (Mar 30, 2013)

Anyone care to share their best rookie beekeeping learning experiences?


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## NasalSponge (Jul 22, 2008)

Keep in mind back when I started we didn't have internet nor cell phones. Opened a healthy booming hive in the spring and it had 20 plus queen cells in it so I cut them all out......not knowing they had already swarmed.


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## julysun (Apr 25, 2012)

My mistake? This is like engineering, study, build, buy, insert, reap. Done. Well, then the little ladies arrived and the learning curve got real steep!! My three hives have made it one year this month and I have caught one old swarm. So far I have only reaped some great fun (and some costs) but there is hope for better times ahead! opcorn:


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## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

I opened a hive with no smoke on a fairly chilly windy overcast kinda day, figured I'd get in and out and add a box, but that didn't work out too well, they poured out of there like a plague of locusts LOL Will always have the smoker on standby now LOL


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

For many a new beek, the most common one is not staying equipment ahead of the bees in a timely manner. In the spring-through-early-fall, you'd be wise to keep 2 to 4 hives ready to go if there are swarm calls. Another is only keeping only one hive - if it goes queenless, you could be out of luck in a hurry! (Much better to figure on keeping between 3 and 6 hives as a hobbyist).

Another common mistake is to think that you just get a box, add bees, then enjoy all this honey! HAHAHAHAHA! The learning curve is a bit steeper than that for most of us.

My ex-girlfriend's rookie mistake was getting stung under the veil, then taking it off and running! (Result? => 6 stings)

My first rookie mistake was getting vehicle trouble in LA the day before queens hatched in Ojai. (Result? => 2 live queens out of 32 cells)

My most painful one was not having all my hives on pallets and bolted, ready to move in my queen yard. A sudden, hurried move caused a huge die-off, including the loss of an AFB-resistant colony of very productive, well-behaved bees. 

There was a big thread recently here on Beesource about stolen hives, so another is not branding your equipment! I'm at the point where I won't make anymore woodenware until I complete my branding irons. Face it, building hives and queen equipment is a lot of work and expense. START BY MAKING OR BUYING YOUR BRANDING IRON!!! You won't regret it.

The saddest mistakes often involve wintering. Hives must be strong - 130 lbs for a 2-box 10-frame deep Langstroth colony - with pollen and honey going into winter. Weaker colonies should go in a double-nucleus over a double screen board setting on top of a strong colony, or just newspaper combine them with a strong colony.


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## psfred (Jul 16, 2011)

Harley: 

I did the same thing, only I didn't even have a veil on. I'm pretty smart (and have three college degrees to prove it), won't do that again.

I suspect the number one beginner beekeeping mistake is to fail to feed a new hive enough. I know at least four people who wanted to keep bees but insisted that they were supposed to be "all natural" and didn't feed them. Guess what? Most hives (90% or so) die if you don't feed them in the first year. I fed mine to start with, then failed to realized that Italian queen from Mississippi or wherever didn't respond to a lack of forage and kept laying until they ate all their winter stores. Died off in the spring after a failed supersedure attempt and a wax moth infestation.

Fed my swarms up almost too well the second year.

The other beginner mistake that is very common is to fail to provide the correct hive space in a timely manner, either by not giving them enough room and letting them swarm or by adding too many boxes and having wax moths make a mess.

Like every thing else in life, practice improves performance.

I'd say #3 is probably incorrect use of the smoker, either not enough smoke to calm the bees properly or sending billowing clouds of hot smoke through the hive and getting the bees really annoyed just before opening the hive. Takes a while to get the hang of smoke, I think. I've learned one long, slow puff in the entrance and a quick one under the cover is all I need with my current bees except when they start pouring over the tops of the frames and top edges of the box. Then another puff will run them right down out of the way. I usually just drift the cloud of smoke over the hive, I try no to puff smoke into the hive except into the entrance.

I've avoided most of the rest of the really bad things, I think, or maybe I just have bees that recover from my poor efforts at management well enough I'm not doing any real damage!

Peter


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## Aerindel (Apr 14, 2012)

Thinking that you can just throw up bear proof a electric fence made with nothing more than a few T-posts and four strands of wire. It doesn't matter how healthy the hive is if a bear gets in.


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## Sticky Bear (Mar 15, 2012)

Moving a hive without a bottom ranks as my worst rookie mistake, had the hive almost to its new location and a frame fell to the ground loaded with bees needless to say I paid a hefty price when they went up my pants. inch: Upside is I'm not allergic to bee stings, down side is with that many it didn't matter. :ws:


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## laketrout (Mar 5, 2013)

Good info guys , I really appreciate all the knowledgeable beekeepers that take the time to answer all of the newby questions posted here . I know with all the info here us newbs stand a much better chance of success . I think for me learning how to read the hive and what the bees are doing will be the hardest part to learn. 
Great thread !!!!


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## rsjohnson2u (Apr 23, 2012)

Number one mistake: not having a plan when opening the hive. Whether it's cold, and one is too hasty when the hive needs a quick peek for whatever reason, or it's warm enough for a slow, let's not crush any bees, frame by frame inspection, have a plan (including, as mentioned above, a lit smoker even if you don't PLAN to use it). Personally, mine was not having the zipper on my veil/jacket all the way closed on a cold day when the bees were a little testy. Amazing how many angry bees can find a two inch opening. Twenty two stings to the head and face later, I missed a day of work with one eye closed shut and one side of my face so swollen, it looked like I had suffered a stroke. Also, while I agree with psfred about not feeding a new package at all, the opposite is true as well. I fed a new package by the "feed until they stop taking it" method right into a syrup backfilled brood chamber and swarm cells (and "they" say a first year package won't swarm-yeah, right!!!).


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## Blackwater Bees (May 7, 2012)

Worst mistake was not taking time to go home to get my veil before capturing a swarm. It was getting dark, and cold when I got there and they were much more testy than expected. Took 20-30 to the back of the neck, 15-20 to the forehead/eyebrows. I looked like the hunchback of Notre Dame. My buddies in the ER still have my picture posted in the break room. Needless to say I now have a spare veil in every vehicle I drive.


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## dadandsonsbees (Jan 25, 2012)

My most recent mistake,,,, letting my wife go out to the beeyard and stand a little ways away from me while I was intalling 4 packages. Usually would have not been a problem but this time we had just come home from church and she had on hair spray and perfume. They went to her like a fat kid to cake. She got two tangled in the back of her hair (stung twice) and several on her back and back of her legs (no stings). Felt so sorry for her I left the hives open to rescue her. Made sure she was alright, she never showed any emotion (crying, yelling or anything). After seeing she was alright I went back and finished. The next day I asked her if she would go out to the beeyard and help me to which she replied, "NO, I will help you extract, melt the cappings, clean frames and equiptment or anything else." I told her she was a sissy. You know sleeping on the couch really isn't that uncomfortable.


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## beedeetee (Nov 27, 2004)

Deciding that it might be a good idea to move a couple of large hives with honey supers a box at a time at night by carrying each box to the new location.


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## beedeetee (Nov 27, 2004)

...or maybe trying to get a swarm out of a fir tree that was about 30 feet up in the tree. I backed my pickup up to the tree, put my extension ladder in the back of the pickup against the cab and went to the top of the ladder. The swarm was about 8 feet out on the limb so I decided to slowly cut the limb and when the limb would slowly bend down I would scoop the bees into a bucket. Also it was raining.


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## Adam Foster Collins (Nov 4, 2009)

I had a hive that was making swarm cells, so I split it. Then I realized I was supposed to move the queen with the split and leave the cells in the original location. Had to go back in and do it all over again.


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## Lburou (May 13, 2012)

I remember a trip across the town of Cheyenne, Wyoming with a recent swarm of bees in 1977. I put them inside a pickup topper and did not tie them down or secure the hive in any way (I had seen dried propolis on the edges of the hive body and shallow super, so thought that was enough to stick it together). In the middle of town I went around a corner and the hive body and super became disarticulated  Of course my veil was in the back with the bees...In traffic....I can only plead a case of temporary insanity. Gentle bees, no stings.


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## westernbeekeeper (May 2, 2012)

Wow Lee,
Is that why you left here? Bad memories, eh? Just kidding. 1977 is a little while ago. I'm sure it was better back then, maybe, huh? Next time, the best thing to do is drop the swarm to me. PM me for directions.


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

Listening to people who said not to feed unless you just had too. Can a beginner really judge when they really need to feed? Better to have fat bees that swarm than malnutrinioned bees that don't.

A rooky mistake I did not make was failing to split and make increase. Two small hives are way better than one big hive any winter.


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## D Semple (Jun 18, 2010)

Last week had a hive I thought was a dead out in one of my outyards (no activity on a blue bird day when all the other hives were flying.)

Short on time wearing just a T-shirt and shorts I muscled it in to the back of my pick up, unloaded it the same way at the house.

Went to clean it out yesterday and saw a few bees going back and forth, popped the lid and it was chalkfull of bees. Not a sting one even though I jostled the heck out of them. Makes up for some of the stings I've taken when I was just walking by.


Biggest rookie mistake I made was getting talked into bees to begin with. Should have stuck with horses, booze, and women. :scratch:

Don


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

A most common mistake….beginner and experienced beekeeper alike….is impatience.
I’ll get countless calls every season asking for queens. The beek is sure their hive is queenless. I’ll advise that they wait a little longer…but they don’t listen. When they go to install the storebought queen….they find a small patch of new brood…or worse…they install the new queen only to discover, a couple of weeks later, a laying, unmarked queen.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

D Semple said:


> Should have stuck with horses, booze, and women. :scratch:


Horses?


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## westernbeekeeper (May 2, 2012)

Don't turn this bad, now, Dan.


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## Bees In Miami (Nov 30, 2012)

Most important lesson I have learned??? "It will only take a minute"... "I'll be real quick!"....and "My bees are always nice!!" are NOT good enough reasons to go into a hive without a veil! Hero... shmero...I'll take the ribbing for being a wimp far better than I react to stings!  I hope you hear this lesson, before you have a hive decide it's time for you to leave, and the bees mean NOW!!! :ws:


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## Blackwater Bees (May 7, 2012)

Mistake #2 I made picking up a nuc from a new source. When I went to pick it up, the beekeeper was fully suited up with veil, gloves, and sleeves/pants cuffs duct taped shut. I work mine in shorts and white tshirt with tulle veil. They head butted me repeatedly while we were in his bee yard just standing there. I should have left those bees there. I've been stung by them more than all my other hives combined. The only reason I haven't requeened, is that they stick the honey back like its going out of style. They were also the only hive that the hive beetles wouldnt mess with last summer.


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## btmurph (Aug 7, 2011)

D Semple said:


> Should have stuck with horses, booze, and women. :scratch:


Don, you forgot fast cars


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## Pink Cow (Feb 23, 2010)

Throwing on a queen excluder without knowing why, or how it should be used. 

Caused a REAL big swarm, REAL fast when I did this on our first hive during peak flow. "What? You mean the bees might not care to move through it?"


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Allowing myself to be sweet talked into looking after somebody's bees while they went on their honeymoon. 

She said when they got back she would bake me a cake.

The hives were an hour across town but it was only supposed to involve one visit, so I did it. But on a hunch, I went there day after they left as I thought from something that had been said that the bees might be brink of swarming. They were, bearding, & queen cells everywhere. So, raided their garage, found supers, unfortunately mediums, the others were deeps, made some major changes best I could to the hives configuration, & left. 3 hours plus mileage wasted.

2 weeks later the neighbour called, freaking out, there's a swarm in his tree. I drop what I'm doing (which cost me later), drive there, the swarm is at the very top of this incredibly tall tree, no way any sane person could get it. Check the hives, regardless of my efforts the previous visit, they were in full swarming mode & just went ahead & built more cells and swarmed anyway. Had to reconfigure my checkerboarding and other manipulations from the first visit & to prevent after swarms I go through & kill the majority of the cells, set up a swarm trap in the garden, and leave, best part of 4 hours wasted, peak traffic.

The couple get back from honeymoon & she rings me the same day. I explain what happened, I can tell in her voice she thinks I did a crap job. I tell her in a couple of weeks the hives will have laying queens, and she can put the still empty swarm trap away.

She made several more calls over the next few weeks her voice tone getting more annoyed every time. The queens never did mate & start laying, in the end I sent her free caged ones, but she was still not happy about what I "did" to her bees. No cake for me, and we haven't spoken since either.

Next time somebody asks me to do this, I'm going to be too busy.


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## bwdenen (Feb 3, 2012)

_Opened a healthy booming hive in the spring and it had 20 plus queen cells in it so I cut them all out......not knowing they had already swarmed. _

...been there

_I opened a hive with no smoke on a fairly chilly windy overcast kinda day, figured I'd get in and out and add a box, but that didn't work out too well, they poured out of there like a plague of locusts LOL Will always have the smoker on standby now LOL _

...done that

_not having the zipper on my veil/jacket all the way closed on a cold day when the bees were a little testy. Amazing how many angry bees can find a two inch opening._

...still have the scar

And... after moving some hives to a new yard, I found a small cluster, (must have missed the memo that the house was moved), on the side of a tree in the old location. I made the mistake of treating them like a swarm and tried to collect them in a swarm box. Meanest bunch of bees I've ever come across. Chased me through the woods for almost 10 minutes. Like someone once said...stupid hurts. Problem being, I wasn't a rookie when this happened.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Getting addicted to bees. Run away now. There is still hope for you...


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## bwdenen (Feb 3, 2012)

Michael Bush said:


> Getting addicted to bees. Run away now. There is still hope for you...


+1


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

An old fella at the bee club talked of beekeeping with grandpa back in the Model T truck days...The error was lack of maintenance on the truck. The truck broke down in the Virgin River gorge on the way from Las Vegas to Saint George, Utah. The truck went off the road, down the bank, scattering bee hives, and of course bees, all over the place. A week-long fiasco in 100 degree F weather. 

Almost makes what Michael Bush said sound pretty reasonable.

I still think the worst is bringing your wife to the bee yard...well, I did bring a girlfriend...oopsie daisy! And, of course, Oldtimer has a good one, as usual.


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## westernbeekeeper (May 2, 2012)

My little brother learned a bad lesson: Don't leave your fly open when messing with the bees. Them suckers got him right on the jewels. :no: :lookout:


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Ouchie! Down there is no fun for the sensitive spots.

My first time was going to the bee farm that turn out to be a walnut farm. Pick up my 2 bee hives without a suit or veil on at
4 in the morning. Got stung 6 times on my left arm not knowing what I was doing. Multiple entrances on the hive that I found out
later on. Found out later in the summer that I got the most aggressive hives from the farm that nobody would touch them. 
Yep, I over paid for them too. That was a good learning experience for me.


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## throrope (Dec 18, 2008)

Opening a hive after dark. I surmised from response, only conclusion was siege and they took appropriate action.

Fussing too much.

Thinking they will do what what I desire.

Listening to others more than my bees.

Not taking enough risks.


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## wanderyr (Feb 11, 2012)

First year, installed two packages, fed them with top feeders. Both building up wonderfully.

They both stopped taking syrup about the same time, and I thought all was going great. You know how they say the bees will lay off of the 1:1 syrup when nectar is available?

It turns out that they stop taking syrup once it spoils, too  I came out for a checkup, one hive was starved out, the other was still functioning but had no food stores. I was probably only a few days from losing the second hive inch: . Both had syrup in the feeders, discolored and bad-smelling...


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## jbeshearse (Oct 7, 2009)

Having Only one hive tool. 

Closing your hives up to stop the robbing when they are actually doing orientation flights 

Setting a lit smoker on the floor board of my truck. Dashboards burn and melt. Bee jacket can be used to smother the dashboard fire out after you rip the glove box out to get to the flames.


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Well, I shouldn't post on this thread so much, but the number of sting stories is so great, I guess I should pass this one along.

I washed my bee jacket too many times that it no longer stops them from stinging through, and commenced queen rearing operations last year without a sweatshirt under the jacket. I took somewhere between 450 and 700 stings - mostly on the arms - right through the jacket! Luckily I had "built up" a lot of tolerance with some very naughty colonies that always sting me somehow, despite suiting up pretty good every time. My previous record was about 75 stings one day and 35 the next. No big deal. But somewhere in the neighborhood of 550 stings, I got "amped up" pretty good for several hours. I did feel a little bit tense and had a stupid feeling about me. My friends said I needed to go to the hospital, I answered, "No! I want the benefit of the stings." Guess I was born for this stuff. 

The naughty girls were Melliferas - feral German Black Bee stock and locally brewed in Mexico and California for many years. I do work along C.C. Miller's idea that mean bees who produce LOTS OF HONEY are a good enough goal, at least for that line of bees. I still have them and do love them very much. They are my best comb-honey producing bees. They are why I suit up with thick hunting boots, 2 pair of pants, sweatshirt, and a hat inside the bee jacket. They are also why I always light 2 smokers.

One mistake I don't want to see or hear about is starting a fire in your host's orchard with your smoker! ALWAYS have an extinguisher, a bucket of water, and a trowel to bury burning smoker fuel. ALWAYS have a metal bucket in which to keep you smoker.


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

Oldtimer, could have been worse, it could have been your honeymoon.


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

:lpf: Now THAT"S a roflmao.

Glad it wasn't your's Oldtimer.


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## litefoot (May 25, 2012)

For me it was:
1) Not keeping a journal the first year.
2) Only having one jacket/suit. My wife and kids/grandkids weren't "in there" with me to help or take pictures or learn and appreciate it all.
3) Dropping a frame of bees on the ground; then stepping on the pile of bees while I was trying to help them back in the hive.
4) Assuming that those freshly-packaged Spring bees would be just as gentle and docile going into the Fall.
5) Medicated my bees with twice as much ApiGuard as suggested...right in the middle of a robbing frenzy...utter chaos!


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Saltybee said:


> Oldtimer, could have been worse, it could have been your honeymoon.


Ouch! Sounds like some hard life experience behind that!


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## cerezha (Oct 11, 2011)

Breaking foundationless comb and dropping it in the box with angry bees;
Trying to remove dropped comb out of the box, honey everywhere, bees stuck to the comb...
Successfully fishing out the comb (with bees) from the box and immediately dropping it on the ground...
Stepping on the dropped comb with bees... and walking around not noticing... 
...
moving two hives box-by-box at night to the new location...
I told you - my bees ARE real survivors!
------------------------------------------------
At night, moving swarm from the box into TBH and not noticing that most of the bees were adhered to the side of the box - dropping supposedly empty box on the ground covered with thick layer of pine-needles... bees dropped from the box into the pine-needles... scooping bees WITH pine-needles (flashlight) and placing them into the hive... at night ... by hands ...no single sting ... bees were attacked by ants (in pine-needles), oil cups (bees are in oil), removing the pine-needles from the hive along with the dead bees...


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

Oldtimer said:


> Ouch! Sounds like some hard life experience behind that!


Fortunately, more by observation than participation.


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

Taking perfectly sound advice and applying it perfectly incorrectly.


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## hlhart2014 (Jun 11, 2012)

Opening up a hive in February(in eastern WA)...I thought my hive was dead..tons of dead bees, no sound in hive(whereas a week before there were signs of life). I started tearing it apart and discovered a small cluster--and then they were really dead. I brought the top box into the house because it had a lot of honey and discovered that the queen was still alive(she was above the cluster and I had separated her from then when I took the box off). There was no saving this hive. 
Also I will not wrap the hive again. During a warm spell I believe the cluster had broken and didn't have enough time to get back together.

Going in and giving sugar water with no protection...one little guard bee followed me back to the house and went up my shirt, down my pants and into my britches...eek...my hubby and dtr had quite a laugh when they saw me stripping down in the living room. The poor little thing tried to sting me on the back end, but didn't succeed. She of course gave her life for the hive.


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

Not me, but a customer of mine trying to figure out why his package failed. after 15 minutes I finaly found out he was opening the hive EVERY DAY and rearranging the frames. read somewhere he had to do that to stop swarming..... poor queen never did get to lay...


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## imthedude (Jan 28, 2013)

Mods - could you please make this a sticky/pinned thread for complete newbs like me? Some good info in here that I would hate to see get lost over time.


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## crazylocha (Mar 26, 2013)

Forgetting the sage advice:

"There are 40,000 women in that box you are trying to make happy"

Second the motion of making sticky


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## rhaldridge (Dec 17, 2012)

I'm too inexperienced to know what mistakes I've made, but I'm sure I've made some.


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## Michelle Pensa Branco (May 22, 2012)

Well, there were probably a good number of them throughout my first season if you asked the bees, but my own personal highlight was learning that warnings that bees get "testy" as fall sets in is extremely accurate. My bees were so docile through the summer that I was regularly going down there in shorts and bare feet - no smoker or sugar spray needed and I could have a nice leisurely inspection. One cool September afternoon, those docile sweeties turned into an evil horde that sent me screaming with a good 20 stingers (all OVER!).


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## CaBees (Nov 9, 2011)

Standing in front of a hive with shorts, no socks on cleaning up the hive next to it and bumping it. Granted, it was dusk and cool out but regardless, 4 bees on the ankle immediately stinging away and yes, I can still run!


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

My biggest newbie mistake, was feeding. We hived the packages, and then put on feed, which is good. After they built out on 7 of the frames, we added a second box of frames, still good. But, they weren't building comb as fast as we wanted them to, so, we kept topping up the feeder, even with a flow running (we didn't realize there was a flow at the time, to new). They were foraging for nectar, and hauling feed out of the feeder, backfilled the broodnest and swarmed.

I have since learned, the bees will build comb, and lots of it, when there is a flow on. When there is no flow, they wont build much / any comb. If you insist on feeding them, when they are not short of food, then they will swarm. This is why so many newbies have packages swarm early, they feed and feed, but the bees dont have space to store it all, so backfill into the broodnest, and then half of them fly away with the queen.

Now, if we want more comb, we take a completely different tack. Prepare a box full of empty frames, and then wait patiently for the dandelions to show. Once the dandies have started to bloom, put that box on top of a hive, pull one frame of comb up into the new box, place one of the empties down in it's place, put the lid back on, and wait patiently. The comb will come, and, plopping a feeder on top will actually hinder the process rather than expedite it, because it'll just get bees into swarm prep mode instead of comb building mode.

In our first year, both hives had feeders on when the dandies popped, and both swarmed. Last year (our second year), 1 hive had a feeder on when the dandies popped, it swarmed. The others had no feeders, but boxes of empty frames, they built comb. This year, our third year, none of our 6 hives have feeders, all got a built out super when the dandies started to pop 3 weeks ago. One of them is capping the first super, and storing nectar in the second, the rest are all putting nectar into the first super still. Remains to be seen if we have swarms to deal with this spring, but, the feeders stayed in the garage, and the bees are doing great.

Feed them if they are hungry, but, trying to induce comb building with a feeder is counter productive, that's the lesson we've taken from this.


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## Cloverdale (Mar 26, 2012)

cerezha said:


> Breaking foundationless comb and dropping it in the box with angry bees;
> Trying to remove dropped comb out of the box, honey everywhere, bees stuck to the comb...
> Successfully fishing out the comb (with bees) from the box and immediately dropping it on the ground...
> Stepping on the dropped comb with bees... and walking around not noticing...
> ...


Too funny! I dread what my stories will be.....


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## linn (Nov 19, 2010)

In theory a "bee chute" sounded good. Maybe the "bee chute" would have worked with the inner cover off. I was tired of shaking a thankless swarm into an empty hive. The solution was to extend the wall of the empty hive with empty supers (3 or 4 shallows) Well, it worked; the bees started fanning and everybody stayed. Only problem is that the next morning the bees were plastered on the inside walls of the bee chute. The configuration was the empty super swarm trap, the inner cover, the bee chute, and the outer cover.


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## Ron McFarland (Mar 30, 2013)

Thanks to everyone for sharing their experiences. Seems like the common theme is -- the learning never stops.


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

Leaving my spare boxes along the side of the house without a full compliment of frames in them....Now home to a swarm. I was able to get 4 more frames in the day after, who knew the bees were all balled up still in the empty space hanging from the second box.... They were really unhappy when they fell from there when I popped the top box off. Managed only one sting as a bee got into my veil and when I took it off to let her out around the corner of the house some other bee got me above the adams apple. I had it all set up a few days prior, but pulled 6 frames out to pull nucs and didn't restock it when I did.


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## debtfreedave (Apr 1, 2012)

Brought home a cutout with no queen and set it up in my backyard. I live in a subdivision with houses on 3 sides of my backyard. Before the day was over my wife, my daughter and 3 neighbors were stung. My back door neighbor was stung 4 times. Needless to say I did a lot of apologizing, gave away lots of honey to neighbors and got the bees the h*ll out of my back yard as soon as it got dark. Cutout bees are not happy bees for the first week or so. They're fine now. Lesson learned.


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## jbeshearse (Oct 7, 2009)

Wearing white at night while moving un-closed hives. Black at night, white during the day.


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## MichaBees (Sep 26, 2010)

Going to California Almond Gold assuming there are no sharks far from the cost ready to take your flesh.


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Grozzie2 - Nice post! (#52) Thank you.


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## MrHappy (Feb 10, 2012)

Number one thing I've heard and tell anyone I'm helping, get into the hive and learn by touching. If you don't look at the hive all the time, and open it every week or so, you can't learn what is good and bad. Yes you might kill your hive because you go into it to much, but the education you get from it the first year will not only love the bees more, but set you up for success with the bees the next year. Plus, that's why you have 2 hives right?


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

MrHappy, you are right that nothing beats a hand on experience. 
I open my hive almost everyday since Nov. of last year. They are growing
stronger not dying everyday. If I know that opening up the hive everyday will kill them
then I won't. But so far they are fine and multiplying. Of course I do it fast too.


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## Silverbackotter (Feb 23, 2013)

Not feeding in a dearth


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

MrHappy said:


> Number one thing I've heard and tell anyone I'm helping, get into the hive and learn by touching. If you don't look at the hive all the time, and open it every week or so, you can't learn what is good and bad. Yes you might kill your hive because you go into it to much, but the education you get from it the first year will not only love the bees more, but set you up for success with the bees the next year. Plus, that's why you have 2 hives right?


And the thing to learn the second year is don't get into the hive too often. Watch the activity in front of the hive, get an observer hive, listen to the hive. Go to bee club meetings, read old threads on beesource. Tune your senses to all the clues that you get BEFORE you crack the hive open. Go with veteran beeks to their yards - a 30 year hobbyist with 12 hives, a sideliner with 150 hives, a commercial beek with 800+ colonies. You will learn a lot!

I used to check on the 1st, the 10th and the 20th of every month, now I just look in the ones that have issues.


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## PatBeek (Jan 13, 2012)

Blackwater Bees said:


> Mistake #2 I made picking up a nuc from a new source. When I went to pick it up, the beekeeper was fully suited up with veil, gloves, and sleeves/pants cuffs duct taped shut. I work mine in shorts and white tshirt with tulle veil. They head butted me repeatedly while we were in his bee yard just standing there. I should have left those bees there. I've been stung by them more than all my other hives combined. The only reason I haven't requeened, is that they stick the honey back like its going out of style. They were also the only hive that the hive beetles wouldnt mess with last summer.


Ha, that's why I think I prefer them a tad hot.


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

PatBeek - Do they make lots of honey? Are they Hygenic? If so, send them to me! I love naughty girls (need a smilie with an evil grin, heh heh)

My bumber sticker says, "Beekeepers do it with 60,000 girls at a time", but actually I'm very decent, just a one-girlfriend-at-a-time kind of guy who gets away with humor that few could pull off safely. 

Oh, and one to pass along. Don't sneeze when making a bee beard. BIG MISTAKE. HUGE. *STUPENDOUS*. And it's a good idea to put earplugs in your nostrils when doing it, and wear "Kareem Abdul Jabbar" goggles. Two or three breathing straws can help a lot. Just put your queen cage necklace on, add unsmoked SWARM bees, get you photo, and put them back in the box (Put the queen in the box and brush them off with a goose feather) without goofing around too much.


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