# I finally have bees!



## Thucar

So finally, after hunting for a swarm for the entire previous season and the better part of this one, I managed to catch one thanks to a fellow beekeeper. We took what I now think were three separate swarms (one football sized and two fist sized ones on branches within couple feet of the first one.) At first I thought it was all one swarm but after shaking them into the box there was some fighting and some dead bees.

Anyhow, after few hours things had calmed down and most of the bees who did not end up in the box at first, merrily made their way inside. Since I could not hive them last night, I followed the beekeepers advice and stored the box in a cool basement. This morning I went out before sunrise and transferred the bees into my TBH. I closed off 2 of the 3 entrance holes and left them alone. I did consider sealing all 3 holes for a day or two just to be sure, but since I do not have a screen floor I was worried about ventilation. They did not seem too alarmed and they did not start pouring out the entrance, so here's to hoping they will not abscond. I have no frames or old comb in the hive, all new top bars with strips of wax coated string for starters.

Right now I'm contemplating if I should feed them or not. There's flow around here right now but the weather has not been too favorable. Today and the next 3 days all come with a chance of light showers.

Gonna be in the office today, so I won't know if they decide to stay or not until I get back home in the evening... fingers crossed!


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## Corto

Good luck!


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## msl

good luck!
a swarm carrys quite a bit of honey with it and you say there is a flow on I would let them sit tight for a week or 2 too settle in before fussing with them. Feed is good, much comb needs to be drawn, but I don't tend to feed if there is a flow on, but there is no harm once they have some brood on and playing peak a boo won't cause them to leave .


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## Thucar

Thanks for the suggestions, msl. I'm thinking I'll try and not disturb them for the next week or so and just keep a close eye on their comings and goings. How soon should I see them bringing in pollen and by what time should I be concerned if I do not see them bringing any?

Also, should I keep the 2 entrances closed for the week?


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## blk

I am a first timer and listened to several bee keepers on how to establish and hold a swarm in my bar top. They told me two things of most importance. 1. Feed immediately and do not stop until they have quit building comb. 2. Don't worry about plugging any entrance holes and check for cross combing every two days. I have done exactly that and I have all kinds of comb building and had to break up a small start of cross combing day 10. My bees started making orientation flights the moment I shook them into the new hives. Both hives well established and doing fine. Good luck.


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## Thucar

I guess there is no harm in feeding, so I'll go set up a feeder on top of the top bars later today. I'll also open up the remaining two entrances. I was out there earlier today watching them come and go and there was a lot of activity. A constant in-out stream of bees. So hopefully they have decided to stay and are busy redecorating their new home.


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## blk

Ya, it sounds like your bees are doing the same thing mine did and mine love their new homes. I put my feeder inside the hive so the wasps and ants don't get to it. Outside will attract lots of critters besides bees. I have a partition with a 1" hole in it so they go in and out of the feeding chamber and they do not build comb on the flat top of the divider. Most of the experienced bee keepers I have talked to say feed until they quit taking it. Now if I had 500 hives I would probably not say that but I got 2 !!


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## Thucar

2 days ago, (on day 3) I opened up the hive enough to give them a liter of sugar syrup into the hive and took a quick peek inside while swapping out the follower board. They were all festooning where they needed to be, so I did not disturb them any further and replaced the follower board. I also opened up the remaining 2 entrances - they had been pushing and pulling at the tape I used so it was clear they wanted the entrances open.

For the past days I've been checking the activity on the hive entrance 3-4 times a day. Morning, day and evening. I have been unable to spot any pollen coming in to the hive and was getting nervous. The weather has been favorable, with some very light rain on couple days, but mostly dry and the girls have been up and about.
So today I set up a camera to the side of the entrance, keeping an eye on the traffic for me. After recording for an hour I had enough material to do a more thorough check. And lo and behold! I see pollen coming in 

First inspection is scheduled for tomorrow. The plan is to make sure they got the hint I tried to give them with my guide strings, correct the comb if needed and check to see if the queen is laying.


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## Thucar

Since there is a chance of rain tomorrow, I decided to do the inspection today. The two goals were to check on the progress of comb building and see if I can spot eggs. The comb building was coming along nicely - 3 separate combs in 5 days. However two of the combs shared a bar. So I had to cut the smaller one off and ended up tying it to a new bar with some string. I also tried to push the other comb more towards the center of the bar. It's nerve wrecking to be handling this delicate comb with my clumsy paws...

I did not see any eggs but as I saw from the video recording this morning, they are starting to bring in pollen. Considering the time of the year (our swarm season is late April to July as much as I have gathered) it is likely the swarm was a secondary and has a virgin queen. So I'm not that worried about not seeing any eggs at this time.

As for their comb building antics, I'm starting to think I've given them too much space too early. They currently have 13 bars to play with. Considering they have started building on 3 so far, should I maybe reduce their space to around 5-8 top bars?

This is the proof of work of a newbie in action:


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## Corto

I watched bits and pieces and you look pretty darn experienced doing all that work. I am glad all my comb has been straight and one per bar.


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## beesonja

How thick are your bars? Yes, I would reduce the number of bars they have and check on them about every 3 days.


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## Thucar

My bars are all 34mm (about 1 and 11/32 inch) wide. The two combs were built almost exactly on the edges of the bar, protruding just a bit on either side. So if they had just moved half a bar in one direction or the other, they would have been spot on. I'll go in and move the follower board closer a few bars in the afternoon today. There are two contradicting things I'm worried about the most at this point. On one hand, I'm worried of disturbing them too much and not letting them do what they need to do - maybe even cause them to abscond. On the other hand I'm worried about them crosscombing the hive so badly that it would need major surgery and more harm caused later on. I'm well aware that they are way behind schedule in getting their house in order and stocked up for the upcoming winter. We might have about two months of variable nectar flow left and they still have about a month to go until the first batch of brood hatches.


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## msl

Add triangle comb guides to your bars, a bit of wood glue and a staple gun will make it fast, a pneumatic gun with longer staples and sans glue all the better it you have it, they are following the irregularity of were the 2 bars meet, you want them following a center line of the bar, 
Give them the space the cluster is using +2-3 bars till they hit 10+ then keep more bars ahead of them. This is dependent on conditions and inspection rate..place new bars between drawn combs, not at the back, the +2-3 bars is to keep them seeing they have space and help stop swarming, maintain it bigger hives more bars, but expand the brood nest, and the honey stores by checker boarding to give you nice strait combs
pick up a light color jacket , once they grow up a bit they may get a bit more touchy and dark colors give a threat response


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## Thucar

I failed to get hold of suitable triangle stock to use as guides when I was building the hive. In the end I resorted to wax coated string guides. One inconvenience with my current bars is that they lack any real means to center or lock them in place. They are just straight pieces of wood. I'm now looking to buy a small table saw to be able to cut triangular guides into my current top bars as well as cut a step into each end so the bars would sit the same distance from the hive sides every time I remove and replace them.

I also reduced the number of space available to 9 bars today. They are festooning on bars up to 8th, so I did not feel comfortable restricting them any further.


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## AvatarDad

Go to the big box home store and look for molding in the back of the lumber section. You should be able to find a shape profile which will work well as a guide. Cut appropriate sections and tack to your top bars.

You can buy a table saw if you want one and will use one, but buying an 8 foot strip of molding will get you operational in an hour or less.

Many people swear by the "saw kerf and paint stir stick" guide method, which is worth considering. More than a few do "saw kerf and a foundation strip" as well. You have lots of options. But, if you are buying a table saw, get a SawStop cabinet model and tell me how you like it; I've always wanted one of those! Too bad I spent all my money on bees.


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## beesonja

Thucar said:


> My bars are all 34mm (about 1 and 11/32 inch) wide. The two combs were built almost exactly on the edges of the bar, protruding just a bit on either side. So if they had just moved half a bar in one direction or the other, they would have been spot on. I'll go in and move the follower board closer a few bars in the afternoon today. There are two contradicting things I'm worried about the most at this point. On one hand, I'm worried of disturbing them too much and not letting them do what they need to do - maybe even cause them to abscond. On the other hand I'm worried about them crosscombing the hive so badly that it would need major surgery and more harm caused later on. I'm well aware that they are way behind schedule in getting their house in order and stocked up for the upcoming winter. We might have about two months of variable nectar flow left and they still have about a month to go until the first batch of brood hatches.


I checked on mine every 3 days and they are fine. You can do a quick mini inspection, where you don't check on all the bars, just the newly built comb to make sure everything is straight. Good luck!!


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## blk

As a side note, I liked your video and I am just wondering if you have ever tried not smoking. I have had my bees for the first time this year for a period of 27 and 13 days respectively for the two bar tops. First one was a caught swarm and second one was a purchased package with a laying queen. I have opened them to feed every two days and inspected entire hive of bars with no smoke ever. I am now opening the hives with no protective equipment except a head net cause I hate them crawling on my bald head! Stung once last week when I crushed a bee between the bar tops when I was putting it down. I deserved it. I just hurried a little and made a mistake. Laugh but I talk to them every day, observe them through the window everyday and may regret not donning everything someday and not smoking but for now I am going to enjoy it with no smoke and just a head net. 27 day hive almost completely combed out on 14 bars and the newer one is half way there. Good luck.


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## Thucar

*blk*, this was my very first hive inspection so no, have not tried without the smoker yet  However, I was trying to follow Les Crowders advice on using smoke - couple puffs at the entrance, another puff or two at the very back of the hive, and then just have the smoker nearby. Also, as you can see in the video the smoker went out just few minutes in.

My goal is to lose a lot of the protective gear as I go along. I'm not worried about stings - I'm not allergic to bee venom and it seems to have only minimal effect on me. I got stung twice in two days when trying to capture a swarm before this one (didn't work out, the bees were about 30+ feet up in a tree and it was raining for 3 days straight) and the stings barely left a mark.

The reason for using gloves and a smoker for now, is the fear of getting caught off guard and dropping a bar or causing some other sort of mess for the bees when I get stung. 

Oh, an interesting thing is - the swarm came from my neighbors hive and he described them as: "Little black mutts with unknown origin. They are hardy and good workers but mean beyond belief." He has 5 hives in total of these bees (langstroth-style). I have yet to experience their mean nature and have marked their temperament as "Exceptional" in my bee journal so far. 

*AvatarDad*, I've tried the stores around here with little or no luck. We don't really have a lumber section as such, most of the time. All the molding we get is plastic or some pressed cardboard-like material. I'm a tinkerer by nature so a table saw has been on my tools-to-get list for a while and it just got bumped to the top of that list. I wish I could afford something like the SawStop models, but it'll have to be about the cheapest contractor saw I can find on the classifieds.

*beesonja*, I keep telling myself to give the girls some space and not bother them too much. Most books I've read suggest not opening the hive for at least a week, maybe even two, after installing the bees. I managed to hold off for 5 days the first time. It's been 4 days since my last inspection and I'm losing another battle with myself. If the weather holds, I'll probably be going into the hive again this afternoon


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## trishbookworm

I use the triangular guides, and the bees look at them as a suggestion, not a rule to follow.  That bar width - 11/32, very close to 12/32 which is what I did - works well for brood comb but the bees prefer wider comb for honey storage. I have made a lot of spacers about 1/8 to 1/4 and when the bees start building wider comb, I put a spacer between the bars. If they build a wider bit on one upper side, I cut it down (pull up or sideways with hive tool on new comb, don't push down or comb may rip off). 

Also I only add a single bar between existing good comb, near where the bees have brood comb next to a stores comb (nectar and pollen). Les covers that well in his book, and it is a way to speed comb building quite a bit. Of course this isn't possible when you have just installed a swarm and have no comb!

They will not abscond once they have brood IF: 1) no extreme pesting from ants or other insect fiends, 2) no extreme ventilation issues leading to discomfort, either too little or too much, and 3) no extreme manipulations leading them to think their "bee tree" has been damaged. 

One more thing - you can get a feeling for how quickly they will build a comb - I think it will be 2 a week or so, as a guess, for a Kenyan top bar hive - and time your inspections for that. You can put in 2 empty comb - each nestled between existing comb - and check when they should be done building. 

For whether to feed, the rules I use are these: if they do not have 1 bar of stores for 2 bars of brood (so if 6 bars of brood, 3 bars of stores only away from the entrance), then it is key to feed 1 part sugar to 1 part water by weight to avoid starvation if it gets rainy. If they have stores and are in a nectar flow and are in there first year, I leave them alone and let them build. If we get to late july/early August (beginning of a nectar dearth here) and they do not have near 20 combs drawn out (necessary for my winter), I feed. AND lastly, if we get to mid-late August and they don't have a bar of honey started for EACH bar the bees cover (not brood; they are dialing down already), then I feed 2 parts sugar and 1 part water. They aren't pets and I don't feed for my satisfaction, but always for a purpose. Our winter/no forage starts mid October. I hope that helps give a sense of what feeding can accomplish, so you know when it suits your purpose to feed.


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## Thucar

Ok, so I just got back from doing my second inspection and oh boy have they been busy. 6 new combs in 6 days so they were pretty much out of space to build. They still had insisted on being a little creative in the first part of the hive, where I was fixing things the last time. Had to realign 2 combs again to get them to sit on a single bar. The good thing is - about halfway through they picked up on my hinted string guides and stayed on track from bar 5 onward. All bars are being filled with mostly nectar, some pollen here and there, but no eggs so far. This is day 10 for them, so not too worried still. Just hope the queen gets to have her mating flight and start laying some time soon now.

I added 4 new bars in between the straight comb and left them to their building. Oh, they are becoming a bit more protective of their new home. Had a guard come and inspect and ping me when I was working on last 2 bars.

Things are looking good so far.


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## blk

Sounds like you are doing fine. I got my first brood hatch yesterday at 29 days after I loaded a swarm into my first BTH ever. It was absolutely amazing!! New bees doing an orientation flight and all the old ones coming and going with them. Looks like a city highway at the entrance.


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## Thucar

Inspection 3 - All 13 bars have comb. I noticed some comb on the bottom of the hive at the entrance last time but the girls were telling me I was done for the day that time. So today I was planning on removing that as part of the inspection. I had read that comb problems become worse fast, but I had no idea it's this fast. They had conncted first two combs to the pieces on the floor and had also built on the pieces so I had to do some serious cutting and scraping to get everything cleaned up.

Overall, this was by far the most destruction I have caused in the hice so far. One comb was curved in all possible directions. I straightened it up as best as I could and then just took my bread knife and cut the sides straight. All the comb I scraped off the bottom and the cut pieces of comb I put in a plastic dish and left it in the hive, behind the follower board, where I used to have the feeder.

Still no eggs, but noticeably more pollen and the last 2 combs of honey is being capped at the top. I added 2 more bars between the straight comb and will be checking in on them again in 3 days.


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## Thucar

Inspection 4 finally shows eggs as well as both open and capped brood. All in all on 4 combs. Nice and tight laying pattern, so things are looking good. One thing I noticed, is that the combs at the entrance of the hive have a yellowish tone to them. I'm guessing this is pollen the foragers are tracking in with their feet and not something to worry about?

They are now on 14 bars, with 3 empty bars available to build on.


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## Thucar

Inspection 5 - everything seems to be in order, 4 combs of capped brood, 1 comb open brood. Loads of honey, nectar and pollen on all combs. They are now on 15 combs, three of those is small unfinished comb. Cant wait for all the baby bees to start emerging. They will be the ones to show my queens strengths or weaknesses and they are the ones I will have to overwinter.


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## Thucar

Inspection 6 - they really are taking this brood raising thing seriously... They are on 17 top bars, only the very last top bar available for them is empty. Since they have 4 partial combs in addition to that one empty one, I opted not to add any more this time. Looks like they are content with the space available. All in all they have 7 combs of capped brood, 2 combs of open brood and 4 combs of mixed honey/pollen combs - not counting the partials that are mostly empty. All brood combs have been fattened up at the top and filled with honey and capped. Luckily the fattened parts still stay _mostly _on the bar, so should not be a problem. Once they start building full honey combs, I suspect I will need either wider bars or spacers. 

I saw the queen for the very first time today! I had set that as one of my goals for this inspection - to try and spot her. I even set the camera up and presented each and every comb to it just in case I missed her - the hope was that I would be able to spot her watching the recording afterwards. Turns out that was not needed. I found her only few bars in - she's a true dark beauty! And her laying pattern continues to be almost perfect. Only few empty cells here and there which seem to be filled with nectar or uncapped honey.

There was some very minor comb fixing needing to be done - for some reason they decided that the very first bar should not have comb on it, but rather it would be nice to have two small palm sized combs hanging off the side of the hive. I removed the combs and put them at the back of the hive to be cleaned up.

Waiting for the first batch of brood to emerge so I can do a sugar roll and check for mites.


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## trishbookworm

I've found the brood combs fit well on the bars that are the recommended size - 1 and 3/8 inch, or 35 mm - but they want the honey storage combs to be wider, about 1.5 inch or 41 mm. So I have spacers which are 1/4 inch - 5-6 mm or so - that I put between the bars. That helps so the bees don't offset the combs a bit more with each comb to try to fit a 1.5 inch comb on a 1 3/8 inch bar!

Also I recommend giving a lot of space this time of year, especially if there is a nectar flow - but only 1 bar between drawn out comb. What I do is place a single bar between drawn comb, with 2 in the brood nest (so if the brood area is combs 1-17, I would add an empty bar after 15 and after 16), and at least 2 in the honey storage area. They might not be crafting one yet since they are getting the brood nest going - but if you add at least 3 bars (between drawn comb) every 5-10 days, then they will drawn out a lot of comb and be less inclined to swarm.

If the bars stay empty, and you don't see any more white new comb, then the nectar flow may be over. I don't know if Estonia has a dry period in the summer the way Ohio does, but we have a month where very little nectar comes in. If I was starting a new hive now, I would feed 1:1 sugar syrup CONTINUOUSLY after they stop making new comb. If you feed every once in a while, with a few days where the feeder is empty, they store the nectar instead of using it to make comb. So no breaks to make a fake nectar flow for comb building. 

Good luck and keep us posted!

Oh and I am making a point to take pictures of the brood pattern with each inspection. Problems with increasing numbers of holes in the solid brood mean the bees are removing brood for some reason. European foul brood and high mite pressure are some of those reasons, or not enough nurse bees. So it is good to have brood pattern pictures over time. So I've found anyways!


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## Thucar

Thanks trishbookworm - I'm currently keeping an eye on the comb placement to see when they start inching towards the outer edge of the bar. I suspect that will be a good indication it's time to add spacers. I also followed your advice during todays inspection and added 2 new bars in the broodnest and 2 more in the storage area. Sandwitching them all individually between the straightest available comb. Looks like I'm having the best of luck finding the queen - saw her again today, strutting on some brood comb. 

My original goal for todays inspection was to take a comb of emerged brood and do a sugar roll test with the nurses on it. Unfortunately there was not too much emerged brood at this time. Ony one comb had mostly emerged brood on it but I was worried the bees might not be all on that comb but rather all over the other combs and the result would be a very diluted concentration of young nurses. So I postponed the sugar roll test for the next inspection. A very large portion of brood should be emerged by that time and I should be able to get a valid result.

Also - got my very first sting (from my own bees) today. I was flicking away flies that constantly landed on my fingers and failed to notice one was not a fly. She did not appreciate being flicked away.

There is a LOT of pollen (and I suspect nectar as well) still coming in - counted 151 bees in a minute at the entrance. 91 arriving, 60 leaving, even though I read on local beekeeping forums that people are taking off supers from their hives. There are currently 11 combs of sealed brood and 3 combs of open brood. A booklet for newbie Estonian beekeepers says that in the beginning of August it is time to start compacting the brood nest and preparing them for winter. My plan for the next inspection is to see if there are any eggs/larvae in the empty brood cells. If not, should I gather all combs with brood at the entrance and move the already hatched brood comb at the back of the brood nest, just in front of the storage bars? Also, when I'm saying storage bars, there really are only 2 I could call that. The rest of their storage is all packed away above the brood. About 10cm of capped honey and pollen on all 14 bars, in extra wide comb. 

A recommendation for winter stores around here seems to be either "a hive should weigh 50kg" or "a hive needs 10 frames of honey" (Estonian frame is 277 X 414 mm) I'm having a hard time translating that knowledge into TBH language. I have no idea if my hive is going winter strong, weak or so-so. 

These are the monthly avg temperatures for Estonia. In Dec-Feb we can get cold spells down to -20C and -25C

__ Jan| Feb| Mar| Apr| May| Jun| Jul| Aug| Sep| Oct| Nov| Dec
°C | -4 | -5 | -1 | 06 | 11 | 15 | 18 | 17 | 12 | 06 | 01 | -02
°F | 25 | 23 | 30 | 43 | 52 | 59 | 64 | 63 | 54 | 43 | 34 | 28


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## trishbookworm

Winter prep - the bees will arrange their incoming nectar/honey and brood as they see fit. Ooops, I am assuming your entrance is on the narrow side, so there is no way to store honey on both sides of the hive body relative to the entrance. If that's the case, the only beekeeper intervention I do is 1) feed if no nectar is coming in during a late summer dearth, if they don't have stores, and 2) take partial combs in the honey area ONLY and make sure they are not in the middle of completed combs. So, I want the completed combs to make a "sphere" with the most complete all together then tapering to smaller combs as we get to the end of the hive (away from the brood nest). Last year I had a number of partial honey/nectar combs between fully drawn ones so I had some shuffling to do.

For numbers of combs to have, it is difficult to compare the langstroth/upright hive and top bar hive situations. A langstroth hive that is 5 frames of brood and 5 frames of honey can survive the winter here in Ohio (lows in the -20 C rarely, and weeks below freezing). It is called a nuc hive. 

I have had 2 top bar hives survive with 5 bars covered in bees in fall and 6 bars of honey - and they did not finish all the honey. Italian race bees have a reputation for needing more honey, because they raise brood earlier and stop later relative to other races. I do not have Italians. So that is another difficulty with comparing bee survival.

As a quick calculation, I look for as many honey bars (not nectar, but honey) come late summer/early fall as there are bees covering combs. That seems to work well for me. In early fall, which is late Sept, I can feed sugar syrup if comb is empty- but they will not draw out comb usually, just store it in comb already made.

This time of year, for a late starting hive, you want the bees to make as much comb and as many bees as possible so they have a lot of nurse bees to raise their special "winter bees". The bees that emerge in Sept ideally should not forage or feed larvae - they conserve their resources so they can last the winter. If there are not enough older bees, the winter bees will have to chip in. Feeding larvae and foraging is what shortens bee life to 2 months - if those activities are not done they bees live from August to late March (which is where feeding larvae/spring foraging starts and ends their life).

If the bees do not have the hive nearly full of drawn comb, then by offering sugar syrup that is 1 part sugar to 1 part water you will prevent any dearth from stopping comb production (and bee production). To get comb drawn, it is important to not have any break in the supply of sugar syrup - or the bees will try to just store it and possibly block the brood nest and prevent more bees from being produced.

So feeding is tricky business potentially - it can lead to the brood nest being filled with sugar syrup - but done continuously it can ensure there will be enough comb drawn out to optimize winter storage. 

Having said that, I want my hives to draw out more comb and they are determined to store all nectar in what was brood comb - their instincts are to start contracting the brood nest and storing for winter. So I will be simulating a nectar flow for those hives that are only 1/2 full of drawn comb. The ones that have at least 3/4 full of drawn comb will be watched to be sure they are able to store enough for the winter, so less feeding hopefully. It does take time!

Good luck and happy bee watching...


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## Thucar

Thank you TrishB! My bees are local mutts. They look like Apis Mellifera Mellifera or Carniolans judging by the pictures. They look a lot smaller than the bees I see on youtube. Well, except for the drones - they are twice th size of the workers.

The hive is about 3/4 drawn out, or close to. So I'll be keeping a close eye on their stores throughout August and start feeding in September if I see them not finding enough nectar on their own.


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## Thucar

Inspection 8 - the most stressful inspection to date after installing the bees. The one and only goal was to do a sugar roll. I went in knowing I would stress the girls and most likely get stung. So I jumped every time one of them landed on my hands. I guess I should have gone in with a bit more protection this time than just my T-shirt. The girls were absolute angels though. I did get one to sting me, but that had more to do with me jumping and shooing them off my hands than anything else. I picked 2 full combs of brood for collecting the donors. One was in the final stages of emerging - mostly emerged, few capped cells and few in process of emerging. The other comb was 1/3 capped brood and 2/3 open brood. So my thought process was that I should get a lot of the freshly emerged bees who were cleaning the cells from the first comb, and slightly older nurse bees from the second one.

All in all, I got close to 100ml of bees in the jar - maybe not exactly 100ml but close. And after rolling them for 1 minute, letting them sit in the shade for 3-4 and shaking the sugar out from the jar quite vigorously for another 30 seconds, I did not have one single mite to show for my efforts. Considering they were a swarm that just had its first batch of brood emerge, I guess it's quite normal.

At least I'm happy to know they have one less thing to worry about going into the fall and winter.

I did notice they have slowed down their comb building considerably. The 4 extra bars I gave them last time had not been touched but they were continuing to work on the half-drawn ones which were closer to fully drawn now. 

I do see them foraging actively on a daily basis still and after doing some research I found that there should be things producing nectar around here until mid September. So I'm waiting to see how things progress over the month of August and feed in September if I really need to.


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## Apismellifera

You seem to want to wiggle those bars sideways. Dangerous! Use a little prybar to pry up both ends gently if they're sticky, don't wiggle side to side, then use the same tool to pry the bar away from its' neighbor and slide it back, keeping the bar flat to the sides. Rotate the bars end over end if you want to turn them upside down to see the other side, but only AFTER they're a bit older and firmer.

You WILL break off comb if you flub and do the sideways flip, think of the unsupported weight of the comb. Pretty doable end over end, though, just be cautious. If it's very warm where you are, try to do your manipulations when it's cool in the am or evening to lessen the chance of soft comb causing oopses.

And don't let langstroth beeks play with your bars, they WILL snap off comb. ;-)

You WILL get wonky comb without good triangular or other guides, bees will just build where they want. String is useless and will just fall off. 

Board won't let me upload a pic for some reason... Drat!


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## Thucar

Video of my sugar roll test process


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## Thucar

Inspection 9 - so far so good. They are still furiously rearing brood so there must be resources out there for them. At least two bars of previously hatched brood have new larvae in them almost ready to be capped. Still struggling to get a good idea about their winter stores, as most of the honey and pollen is on the top halves of brood combs. Only the last two partial combs are all nectar and some capped honey without any brood at the bottom of the comb.

Since my full time job is programming smart homes and I'm also a geek and a tinkerer, I've been working on adding the hive data to my smart home. I've been testing a solar powered sensor set for the hive. It consists of a number of temperature sensors, a humidity sensor and 4 load cells. At this point I still need to come up with a way to install the load cells and temp sensors so they would be of actual use. 

the temp sensors are with stainless steel shells, like this:






so I was thinking of drilling matching holes in the top bars and just stick them in there so they extend about 10mm inside the hive. Was thinking 3 temp sensors like that. One at each end and one in the middle. Could do up to 5. The humidity sensor is a bit trickier. It's this one:






I'm worried the bees will propolise it or build comb on it but we'll just have to wait and see. Anyhow, was thinking of having it stuck to the follower board inside the hive.

The load cells is the hardest part. I'm going to have to come up with some sort of enclosure for each of the four cells and then place them under the hive legs in a way that the hive still remains stable.

All in all I'm hoping this set of sensors will help me keep an eye on things over the winter and get a better idea of what they are and when are they doing it, next season.


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## Thucar

Inspection 10 shows that they have completely stopped drawing out new comb. They are also filling the used brood comb at the end of the hive with nectar - so they are thinking of witer, which is good. They are still rearing brood on about 10 frames, there was brood in all ages from egg to emerging. All of those brood combs have a strip of pollen and a wide strip of capped honey on top. When judging how much stores they need, and going by figures like "you need X frames of honey for Y frames of brood", do I ignore the stores on the brood frames?


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## Corto

thucar,

I read and see many different opinions of how much honey is needed. One consistent item is the hive size will decrease and they will use areas previously used for brood to store honey, like you say. 

As for number of bars, I have heard anywhere from 40lbs, or about 6-8 bars, to 20 bars (from the guy who supplied my bees). 

How to judge, then, I don't know. One thing that is starting to make sense is to wait until spring to harvest.


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## Thucar

Corto, see this is where I'm having trouble - you mention 6 to 20 bars. Is this full honey bars or is it "a total of 20 bars, including the brood nest?"

I'm no planning on taking a drop of honey from the ladies until I'm absolutely positive it is a surplus. I'm keeping a close eye on their stores fr the remainder of August and in September I'll have to decide if they need additional feeding or not. Right now we have goldenrod and heather blooming, so they still have resources to gather.


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## Corto

When I mention those bars, I do mean full capped honey bars, and am not including strips on top of the brood. At least that is how I understand it generally meant.

I currently have 19 total bars, about 9-10 brood and 9-10 mostly capped honey. So I "think" they are reasonably prepared for winter according to most estimates I see, except for the one outlier who said 20 bars. That seems excessive, and maybe misunderstood, his first language is not English.


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## msl

> One thing that is starting to make sense is to wait until spring to harvest


That depends, if the hive needs space, it needs space. Last year I had a swarm fill the hive and swarm in 2 mouths.


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## trishbookworm

Last year, I had 4 hives. They are essentially long Langstroth in dimensions, so my comb is bigger than a kenyan comb. By mid Oct, after frost, they all had about 5-6 bars covered with bees (no brood), and 6-7 bars of capped honey. 2 survived the winter fine, used barely any honey. The other 2 died from too small due to queenlessness, or to receiving a mite bomb from robbing another hive that was dying of mites (my theory - no mite frass/poops on the roof of the combs. google it if unsure of what that is). The ones that died had used barely any honey.

I think the balance between the size of the brood nest and the amount of honey is pretty important - just a guess though. I know that too few bees by frost is doom for the hive. Too few is an interesting question - there needs to be at least 3-4 combs covered in winter bees, is my guess, not just the fall bees who will die soon. So that means the hive needed to be large enough by Sept that the youngest sisters did not have to forage or feed any brood. 

Good luck, hope this helps, keep us posted!


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## trishbookworm

Just read the rest of the posts - very intrigued about the temp probe. I have toyed with temp sensors, but I will be using something what this person did for temp and humidity: 
"I2C based HTU21D breakout sensor board. I covered the HTU21D board in PTFE tape. " I want something like 30 sensors at varying heights and distances from the brood nest. 

link:
http://makezine.com/projects/bees-sensors-monitor-hive-health/

For the scale - is it possible to have 2 bases with scales, with each base holding 2 legs? That's pretty expensive though. Top bar hives have a much longer base, so we can't just put a scale under the whole thing... 

Keep us posted!


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## Thucar

Inspection 11 - I'm not going into the hive as often as I did in the summer, now. They have completely stopped drawing out new comb and are backfilling used brood comb. I also saw the results of my earlier mismanagement. In the back of the brood nest I had inserted an empty top bar during inspection 9. The temperatures dropped from aroun 21-25C to barely 15-17C during daytime and around 7-10C in the night. So when I inspected the last comb of brood nest, it had about 1-2% of dead bees in the cells. Most of them had started chewing at the caps, few had their heads almost out and few were still capped but seemed fully developed. I'm gu ssing the nurse bees stopped keeping the brood warm after most f them had emerged and moved on to more important business. These unfortunate ones were left behind as collateral damage.

I removed the empty bar and rearranged all the drawn and half drawn combs at th back of the hive so that the smallest combs are at the very end.

As for the sensors, I've been trying to come up with a way to use the load cells with my existing hive but does not look like its happening. Looks like the best bet is to build the next hive with load cells in mind. Right now I'm thinking of having about 10mm of vertical play between the hive body and legs for my new hive. So the load cells get pinched between the bottom board and a support attatched to the legs.

For the time being I'm going to settle with 4 temp sensors and one temp/humidity sensors inside the hive. In addition I'm going to have one temp sensor above the top bars, below the roof and one compleptely outside the hive for ambient readings.

I have the code part done and tested, currently working on fitting everything in a suitable enclosure.


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## Thucar

I took a quick peek in at the end of the hive yesterday and saw that in the past cold week they had either used up or relocated all the honey they had stored or had started storing in the last 3 unfinished combs. So they have no solid honeycombs at this time. So today I dropped a baggie feeder with 3kg of 3:1 syrup in there and while I was at it I installed the sensors. Getting more sugar tomorrow and starting to feed more. 10kg of sugar seems to be the required norm among the conventional beeks. I was wondering if they bees know to leave themselves some empty comb for clustering or will they backfill everything if being fed too much?

This is a screenshot from my smart home system








And I'm also pushing the data to ThingSpeak for more flexible analysis
https://thingspeak.com/channels/325282


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## Thucar

The weather here is acting up. We should be in the late autumn, with winter knocking on the door. And it’s currently 14C outside, the bees are flying.

Anyhow, I have the girls all prepped for winter. Fed 7 kg of sugar in form of 2:1 syrup. So about 10kg of syrup. They are now on 13 bars. I moved 3 empty honey combs to the other side of the follower board before I started feeding. 
I installed 10cm of insulation wool in the “attic.” The insulation was the kind with aluminium foil on one side. I left that side down, against the top bars.

I also created a more convenient chart to share my data with the local beeks here: http://static.raitwebs.com/chart.html
Speaking of - it seems the “proper” beeks over here ae starting to warm up a bit. There is an actual discussion going on on our local forum, instead of the usual flame war.


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## blk

I think you are making a huge mistake with the aluminum foil on the back of the insulation, no matter which way you place it: UP or DOWN. The top insulation of a hive MUST breath moisture out of it according to all I have read. I am using burlap sewn into a bag with dry sawdust in it to let moisture through the insulation. Hoping for the best for you and for me.


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## Thucar

So, a long overdue update on my bees. I wish it was with better news. 

As you might know I had the hive fitted with temperature sensors. I had been monitoring the readings throughout the winter and had been happy to see the bees keep a nice steady temperature wherever the cluster was at any given time. They had moved down to the last quarter of the hive, but it seemed as if they had not reached the very last bars just yet.

We have been having very low temperatures for couple weeks now. With the night temperatures reaching to -25C or -13F. 
Yesterday we had another record low just below -25 and I woke up to the temperature above the cluster being -3C or 26.6F I had seen all the sensors in the hive being in the negative before, so I contained my anxiety at first. But when the temperature outside started picking up but the readings inside the hive kept falling, I grabbed a plastic tube and went out to the hive to do some listening. The hive was dead silent. I cut the straps and removed the roof and top insulation and took a peek inside from the follower side. All I saw was unmoving bees on the combs and lots of bees on the bottom of the hive.

After consulting with some local beekeepers, I concluded that the only hope I had, was to move the hive to someplace warm. My garage would be that place. I had to wait for my neighbor to get off work and lend me a hand tho, so that meant waiting for another 8 hours. I bottled 3 litres of hot, almost boiling water in plastic bottles and placed them inside the hive. It was still -20C outside.

So at the end of the day last night, we moved the hive into the garage. I took another look inside and realized the were all out of stores. Completely out. I had prepared my ver first batch of fondant (or well, a slab of hopefully inverted sugar in my case) a week before (had been waiting for a warmer weather to check up on the girls and add the fondant) which I now placed i the middle of the cluster, hangin from a top bar.

This morning, when I went to check on the girls, I still saw no movement or any sign of life. I started to bring myself into terms that I had lost them. I conducted a “post mortem” by going over each comb, looking for signs of problems. I found nothing. No mold, no smelly bees, no parasites. So it was just hunger that had got them. I scooped about hundred of them on into my sugar roll jar and brought them into the house. 

I was shocked to see movement in the jar about 10-15 minutes later! About 20 minutes later around 80% or more of them were walking around on the walls of the jar. I took them back to rhe garage, opened the hive and carefully dumped the bees on the fondant in the middle of the unmoving cluster. I then took a kitchen chair and placed an electric cook top on it and slid underneath the hive, about 10cm below the hive bottom board and set it to low heat.

They have been “cooking” like that for most of the day now and the activity is slowly picking up. The bees who were piled on the hive floow, are crawling onto the combs. The bees on top of the combs are still mostly notmoving, especially the ones who are inside the cells.

I’m about to nod off here, and the heater is on absolutely minmum heat, the hive floor is warm to the touch, but not hot. I’m both excited and worried going to check them in the morning. It would be amazing, finding them mostly alive and active and eating but at the same time I’m worried how the hell do I check and continue to feed them indoors like that? Oh, I have screen mesh on the entrance.


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## blk

*Wow Thucar*



Thucar said:


> So, a long overdue update on my bees. I wish it was with better news.
> 
> As you might know I had the hive fitted with temperature sensors. I had been monitoring the readings throughout the winter and had been happy to see the bees keep a nice steady temperature wherever the cluster was at any given time. They had moved down to the last quarter of the hive, but it seemed as if they had not reached the very last bars just yet.
> 
> We have been having very low temperatures for couple weeks now. With the night temperatures reaching to -25C or -13F.
> Yesterday we had another record low just below -25 and I woke up to the temperature above the cluster being -3C or 26.6F I had seen all the sensors in the hive being in the negative before, so I contained my anxiety at first. But when the temperature outside started picking up but the readings inside the hive kept falling, I grabbed a plastic tube and went out to the hive to do some listening. The hive was dead silent. I cut the straps and removed the roof and top insulation and took a peek inside from the follower side. All I saw was unmoving bees on the combs and lots of bees on the bottom of the hive.
> 
> After consulting with some local beekeepers, I concluded that the only hope I had, was to move the hive to someplace warm. My garage would be that place. I had to wait for my neighbor to get off work and lend me a hand tho, so that meant waiting for another 8 hours. I bottled 3 litres of hot, almost boiling water in plastic bottles and placed them inside the hive. It was still -20C outside.
> 
> So at the end of the day last night, we moved the hive into the garage. I took another look inside and realized the were all out of stores. Completely out. I had prepared my ver first batch of fondant (or well, a slab of hopefully inverted sugar in my case) a week before (had been waiting for a warmer weather to check up on the girls and add the fondant) which I now placed i the middle of the cluster, hangin from a top bar.
> 
> This morning, when I went to check on the girls, I still saw no movement or any sign of life. I started to bring myself into terms that I had lost them. I conducted a “post mortem” by going over each comb, looking for signs of problems. I found nothing. No mold, no smelly bees, no parasites. So it was just hunger that had got them. I scooped about hundred of them on into my sugar roll jar and brought them into the house.
> 
> I was shocked to see movement in the jar about 10-15 minutes later! About 20 minutes later around 80% or more of them were walking around on the walls of the jar. I took them back to rhe garage, opened the hive and carefully dumped the bees on the fondant in the middle of the unmoving cluster. I then took a kitchen chair and placed an electric cook top on it and slid underneath the hive, about 10cm below the hive bottom board and set it to low heat.
> 
> They have been “cooking” like that for most of the day now and the activity is slowly picking up. The bees who were piled on the hive floow, are crawling onto the combs. The bees on top of the combs are still mostly notmoving, especially the ones who are inside the cells.
> 
> I’m about to nod off here, and the heater is on absolutely minmum heat, the hive floor is warm to the touch, but not hot. I’m both excited and worried going to check them in the morning. It would be amazing, finding them mostly alive and active and eating but at the same time I’m worried how the hell do I check and continue to feed them indoors like that? Oh, I have screen mesh on the entrance.


Wow Thucar, You have gone way further than I have so far. I got 2 bartops and insulated them for the winter and left. I won't be back home until April 10 or so and I am very very anxious since this is my first year with hives. Newbee keeper. Wishing you luck with that crazy salvage experiment of heating them back up. Keep us all posted that is really really interesting.


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## GregB

blk said:


> ........ The top insulation of a hive MUST breath moisture out of it according to all I have read. ....


Not a requirement at all.
You may ventilate sideways or downwards even with proper designs.


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## Thucar

*Morning update*

I'm just back from checking up on the hive. The bees are active. In addition to the candy board I have hanging in the middle of the cluster, I dropped some pieces on the hive floor at the back of the hive. Those pieces were mostly covered by bees. There was a comforting steady humming buzz coming from within the hive. I guess the biggest question right now is - is the queen ok?

I turned off the heater and left the bees to manage their own temperature now. The room temperature in the garage is about +5C or +41F. Temperatures inside the hive are +10C and +12C. I'll be monitoring those closely.


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## Thucar

*Re: Morning update*

So, I'm having a bit of a dilemma. I have a hive of bees in my garage. A lot of them seem to be dead but a fair bunch of them is still alive. They have perked up enough to a point where I can no longer open the hive to check up on them, as they will start getting out of the hive. I have covered up the windows in the garage to keep sunlight out. It's not completely dark, but barely enough for me not to bump into things. I used some model airplane covering film to make a dim red flashlight.

So my question is - what's next? They have about a kilo of candy in the hive right now which they seem to be munching on. There is an even buzz coming from the hive and the bees seem to be sticking into one place and not wandering around the whole hive - with the exception of a few patrols. I should probably get them water in the hive as well? The temperatures inside the hive are around +14C or 57F right now. The heater is off, and the roof with insulation is on. They are responsible for generating their own heat at this point. I opened up one of the entrance holes just in case they decide they want to start moving the dead bees out of the hive.

Usually at this time of the year we should be having a fair number of days with above freezing temperatures and sunlight, meaning chances for cleansing flights. However the current forecast is saying there is no hope for a +C weather for the next week or two still. Should I just keep them in the garage until it gets warm enough outside, or would it be better to move them back outside now that they have food?

I really appreciate any advice at this point.


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## Thucar

*Re: Morning update*

An update on my bees.

I've confined them to as small of a space as possible using two followers. One of the followers has a 3/4 inch hole in it as an entrance/exit. They currently have 7 bars at their disposal and the cluster is on 5 bars. While restricting their space, I cleaned out the front section of the hive that is not being used to reduce the chance of some sort of disease settling in. I scooped out all the dead bees from the hive floor as well as from the combs. I also removed the combs, as I saw signs of mold on couple of them. I'll try to preserve the combs until the weather warms up and see if I can reuse them. If not, I'll have to melt them down.


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## GregB

*Re: Morning update*



Thucar said:


> So my question is - what's next? They have about a kilo of candy in the hive right now which they seem to be munching on. .................However the current forecast is saying there is no hope for a +C weather for the next week or two still. Should I just keep them in the garage until it gets warm enough outside, or would it be better to move them back outside now that they have food?
> 
> I really appreciate any advice at this point.


So, 
#1 - you know the forecast is bad - good (that you know this)
#2 - garage is able to hold steady, cool temperature - good
#3 - bees have food - good (if you can add more - add more; nothing wrong with having too much sugar; not good to NOT have enough)

My conclusion is - do not touch them anymore for the next 1-3 weeks for as long as you can keep them *cool and dark*. 
Nothing good in trying to move them outside and then back inside and then outside again (trying to play with the weather).....
Minimize stress and keep then cool and dark for as long as possible and as steady as possible.

When you can no longer keep them cool (+5C) and dark anymore (meaning the weather is steadily above +10C) - just set them outside and keep them there.
Being close to the Baltic Sea probably means cold and long spring due to winds from the sea. So I would not rush.


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## Thucar

*Re: Morning update*

Thank you, Greg. I will do just that. In the mean time, I went over the combs that I had removed earlier and removed all dead bees from the cells with tweezers. I took the chance to do some mite counting - too bad I thought of that only when I had only one side of the last comb to go. I found 4 mites on that side. The patch of bees on that side was about one and a half to two hands.


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## GregB

*Re: Morning update*



Thucar said:


> Thank you, Greg. I will do just that. In the mean time, I went over the combs that I had removed earlier and removed all dead bees from the cells with tweezers. I took the chance to do some mite counting - too bad I thought of that only when I had only one side of the last comb to go. I found 4 mites on that side. The patch of bees on that side was about one and a half to two hands.


Good luck!
I myself have no time or desire to remove dead bees with tweezers or count mites. 

You being in Estonia, maybe you want to research into how well the top bar hive meets your environmental requirements.
Bees should not really run out of the stores.


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## trishbookworm

*Re: Morning update*

Neat! Indoor wintering - a tried and true way to minimize stores consumption. Wish I could do that!

there are a lot of beekeeping issues and techniques in common between traditional hives (are those langstroth style boxes in Estonia?) and top bar hives. One of those issues is mite pressure on bees. If there are too many mites, or the viruses are too numerous, then garther forage for a shorter stretch each time they go out, are more likely to get lost, and just have a shorter life span - this means less honey. If too many foragers don't come back, that means a lot of nectar doesn't make it back too. 

There are bees that can survive with mites. You should see indications that the mite numbers are very low in spring. If you found more than 1 or 2 mites in a handful of bees (for me, that is 1/2 cup, or 300 bees), then that means a lot of mite pressure, given the time of year. You can do the math - if you had 150 bees in your hand (1/4 cup for me, or 60 mls in metric) and you saw more than 1 mite, then let's call it 2 %. A fully covered comb for a Kenyan is about 1200 bees, so on one comb that is 24 mites. On 5 combs it is 120. Once brood starts, then emerges, it could be 240 mites. 20 some odd days later, 480. Very quickly it can get to fatal levels, especially your second year. Other beekeepers around you have been through this, you can ask them what works (and what doesn't).

If someone has bees that fight off the mite, they should be able to measure it. An experienced beekeeper (Randy Oliver) just told us in Ohio that the alcohol wash (or powdered sugar shake) is far more reliable than counting mites falling. he would see the mite drop go up and down with the amount of brood, while the alcohol wash count stayed the same.

My second year, I had a booming hive coming out of winter. My third year, I had 1 hive left out of 4, and they were never as populous as my first year. That was when I started having hive deaths due to excessive numbers of mites, and I am still learning how to manage the number of mites to get the best from the bees.

Know your enemy... that is the perspective I am taking.


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## Thucar

*Re: Morning update*

Could someone bottle up some spring and send it my way please? Another week of -10C and below. My bees have been without a clensing flight since October. They are drawing figure eights as they walk on the combs...


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## canadiyank

*Re: Morning update*

I read through this with great interest. How are things now?


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## Thucar

*Re: Morning update*

The hive has been outside for 3 days now. The weather has been playing nice for a change with 12C in the shade and up to 17C in the sunlight around noon. The bees got to take a cleansing flight on the first day - it was a very weak and careful one but there were still a lot of specs on the roof of the hive by the end of the day.

Yesterday was cloudy, so they stayed indoors.

Today they have been doing house cleaning. I'm seeing them move bits and pieces of the bee candy out the front door. I guess that is a good sign - means they have something better to eat. I saw some minimal flying, but this time they were flying with a purpose. When they got out, they took off somewhere and when they got back, they went straight in.

The cleansing flight looked like this:


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## Thucar

*Re: Morning update*

Got two days of good weather at last. +16C and +21C days. The first day I was around to take some pictures, second day I got back home late, when the temperatures had dropped again. So I only caught a glimpse of a lone arriving bee. However the arrival was of monumental importance to me - she had her pollen baskets filled tot he brim! So they are working on, or preparing for brood raising.

Can't wait for the next +20C day to open up the hive. There is a top bar with a slab of bee candy hanging from it in the middle of their brood nest. I bet it's pretty much a wall for them at this point so it needs to go.


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## Thucar

*Re: Morning update*

A quick update. The amount of bees in the hive is extremely low - they are only filling the space between two combs. I've added a terrarium heater pad on top of the bars, below insulation to help them maintain high enough temps for brood raising. The heater is adjusted to 33C measured just below top bars. The good thing is, on sunny days I see them do serious house cleaning - they are constantly hauling out dead bees and debris.

Waiting impatiently for the next warm day to be able to pop the lid and take a look at how things are going.


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## GregB

*Re: Morning update*



Thucar said:


> A quick update. The amount of bees in the hive is extremely low - they are only filling the space between two combs.


Unsure of your "terrarium heater" methods.
I believe you just keep sending your bees all the wrong signals and confuse them.
But at this rate, not much left to loose.

Do restrict them to the minimum so they only have combs that they are able to cover (which is - two; three is maximum).
I would use insulated follower boards on *both * sides of the bees. You want them really, really tight at this point.
The bees should be able to go under/around the follower boards - just outside the follower board place combs with honey if still have any. 
If none of those, full an empty comb with a sugar syrup and use that.
Do have plenty of insulation above the bars.

A small, but healthy colony still should rebound.


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## Thucar

*Re: Morning update*

The ladies are doing well. Yesterdays inspection showed sealed brood on 8 bars with 3 bars emerging. Another 3 bars of honey/pollen in addition to what was on brood bars. Today there were masses of orientation flights, so new work force is heading out. Our main flow is over but we often have a strong late flow when Heather starts blooming. I will be chcking the stores of all three hives in mid August, to determine if and how much I need to feed.


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## Murdock

*Re: Morning update*

You have done quite well for a newbee. Saw kerf on the bar bottoms and a paint stirrer/popsickle stick/tongue depressor works really well. The bees don't care as long as they have something to hang on to. Watch for crowding, the queen needs room to lay eggs or she will swarm. If you have to take out frames to reduce crowding and make a nuc. Let them make their own queen in the nuc and you can use it later in case you need a queen or some brood. Good luck. :applause:


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## Thucar

*Re: Morning update*

So, I’m happy to let you all know that I have not repeated my mistake from last year - all three hives have plenty of stores still.

However, two of the three hives also had mice... One was completely destroyed, all bees eaten and mice were having a blast when I opened it up. The other did not have any mice in it when I checked, but had serious damage done by them. Half-eaten bars, loads of bots and pieces of bees on the bottom. There are still bees on about 4-5 bars.

The third hive was my original one, thin walls and smaller dimensions. That’s the one I propped back to life last year. They did not make it into the winter. Not enough bees I guess.

So at any rate, looks like I’m back to square one and catching swarms this year.


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## canadiyank

*Re: Morning update*

I'm sorry to hear that! So frustrating. There really are an endless amount of things to go wrong.


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