Beekeeping Journey

[saysfaa]

The first thing I've learned is there is a lot more to learn than I realized.
My first goal is to keep bees healthy. I'll worry about getting honey later.


Evidently, location is the most important because if that doesn't suit them well enough they will leave. Or die if they can't leave. Location includes the hive and the hive site. The hive site includes hive placement and site characteristics such as available forage.

So, among other things, I'm researching bee hives, bee pasture, and bee predators.


The top bar style of hive looks best. The main advantage is less disruption to the bees when you work the bees whether it be just checking the hive or more invasive things. I like the cathedral style because it supplies more support to the comb. Hopefully, enough more to be able to reasonably harvest honey but even if it doesn't - I'm still okay with just healthy bees while I get started. I think I will get at least a queen generator which would repay the expense of getting the hive set up. Note the passage holes in the top bar - consider incorporating them even if using another style of hive backyardhive.com/collections/the-cathedral-hive/products/the-cathedral-hive

Modifications to consider: built out of rough sawn wood to promote the use of
propolis - rabbit trail to go down later: is it worth making tree sap more readily available for the bees including whether there is a way to do that without promoting tree diseases too much. www.beeculture.com/catch-the-buzz-georgia-scientists-show-that-more-propolis-means-healthier-bees-and-heres-how-to-make-that-happen/


Side entry: research shows bees prefer side entrances rather than end entrances.

Insulation: needs more research on how but definitely need to do this www.stewartfarm.org/docs/What%20Would%20Langstroth%20Think%20of%20Insulating%20Bee%20Hives.pdf

Subdivisions within the hive: if don't do top bar - consider incorporating the quadratic hive concept because I can't lift 80 lbs and it might be better to divide vertically rather than horizontally like the standard medium and shallow supers do. www.biobees.com/quadratic-hive.php

Rabbit trail: top bar is horizontal - do the bees care? Even if they do, can the top bar be done vertically.
Rabbit trail: is there any advantage to incorporating the quadratic concept in a top bar style - maybe if insulating it anyway it would be better to build the insulation as box into which goes removable top bar subsets

[simplynaturalfarm]

Evidently, location is the most important because if that doesn't suit them well enough they will leave. Or die if they can't leave.

Location is very easy and bees rarely leave because of bad location - they leave if queen leaves, if they are crowded,o if they have too many mites etc, but people set up be yards in bare canola fields and never lose them, so don't stress too much about that. Bees can always leave - they don't die in bad location, they just leave.


The top bar style of hive looks best. The main advantage is less disruption to the bees when you work the bees whether it be just checking the hive or more invasive things.

Out of curiosity, how do you figure that? Because the principle of top bar is that bees will attach comb to side of have, so if you want to check for diseases, mites, brood pattern or a laying queen, you have to carefully cut each "frame" out. I did foundationless bees for years, and you have to become very careful with how you handle them when you do inspections etc because it's very very easy to hold it the wrong way and have all the bees Honey comb break off.

The treatment free beekeepers I know say the bigger the have, the more to fight mites etc. One of the problems I have with top bar is the tiny amount of space for the bees. I know many do single box management and I've done it, but it means you have to be in the hive all the time monitoring for swarming and checking for superseding etc. Which is not easy to do in top bar but. The treatment free guys often winter maintain in triple deeps which means they're building up and swarming sometimes two weeks ahead of regular which means adding 5-7 honey boxes on top to give those bees something to do to keep busy so they don't swarm. My concern with the top bar is you are stuck to a very limited amount. You want good healthy bees to be booming and a queen really is only restricted by the amount of room she has to lay. While the single box guys have all the numbers and stats for why a queen doesn't need more room, she just needs to be managed better, I have found with a deep and triple the queen and her brood nest will produce five times the amount in a triple that they do in a single.

Depending on where you are located, insulation is sufficient in form of tar paper. I know it isn't really insulation, but it is wind protection and helping raise temp during day. Up here in cold people do cardboard and tar paper.

Is there anything more beautiful that fit drawn cathedral frames - just gorgeous. But definitely not so easy for backyard person to build themselves unless you are a woodworker. Have you considered five frame nucs or six frame hives? Many many people are raising bees in them because they produce way lighter boxes. They are fairly easy to build to save you money and you can do narrow or deep frames. Bees prefer to work up than sideways, so you just add boxes up and they are closed to 25-30 lbs. I use shallow honey boxes on 8-10 frame hives and they weigh 35- 40

If you want to do any amount of honey or sell nucs (and you should be aiming for this with healthy bees) the top bar really restricts your ability to do anything. I know they say extracting honey is easy because you just crush and strain, but that is insanely time-consuming as a honey producer. and reduces your honey quantity because the young bees are constantly rebuilding comb. And the queen has nowhere to lay and if she doesn't have workers making enough wax comb your hive doesn't grow. If you are wanting to produce nukes to sell, you have to convince anybody buying the nukes to do everything in cathedral top bar which admittedly is a very expensive way to start into bees.
Good luck and keep us updated with what works for you!

[saysfaa]

I freely admit I don't know much yet. And most likely, much of what I think I know is wrong.

Anyway, I thought the top bar hives had less disruption because the windows let you check quite a lot without opening everything and let you pull frames/bars one at a time which leaves the rest of the hive intact/covered/not disturbed as much.

And I thought the cathedral style allowed them to attach the comb to the sides of the bar and that it hung down into the bottom half without attaching - it could be diagrammed that way because they are selling those hives but the pictures of windows in regular style top bars show that pattern too.

I'm thinking through the rest of what you've said about how you and others you know have done things.

I am not a woodworker; I do have a son-in-law who is a serious woodworker... he made his living as a furniture maker for many years. I'm not sure I want to ask him to make them because he has his own things to do but I'm sure he would at least be a help in figuring out how to get or build the hives.

It gets cold; usually just -5 to -10 degrees F for a few days or weeks at a time but sometimes colder than that. I know people don't usually do even tar paper or cardboard much less more insulation but I haven't found a good reason not to.

I don't know what products I want to produce for sale yet. My main goals to begin with are to learn how to do bees and to keep my land zoned ag... I need to produce something that counts as ag on some of the acres that are too steep or inaccessible to till conventionally in order to get to half the acres being used as ag.

[rosalind]

We use side entrances, the bees love them. The only time they use the front/bottom entrance is during peak season when there's a ton of bees working.

Our hive is insulated from Nov-March-ish. We use the foam board, around all four sides, bungeed or duck tape. There's the top entrances still open and the bottom board has small holes in all four corners. So there's a bit of cross-air-flow. I wouldn't use insulation in a humid environment (risk of the bees getting too much moisture). We estimate we save a few frames worth of honey in heat savings over the winter.

Our hives are standard shape. I worry about the one you linked to, without foundation, the bees do their own thing. I've know a few people with the open frames, and their bees don't follow the rules. lol Which means you have to destroy the foundation to get to the honey each time.

[saysfaa]

I'll keep working on the type of hive. Moving on to predators. The ones I know I have to worry about (that are larger than insects) are mice, shrews, skunks, raccoons, opposums, and bears. Possibly toads.

There seems to be two main ways to keep mice and shrews out of the entrance holes: metal strips with holes in them or hardware cloth. And the discussion over whether 1/4 inch or 1/2 inch is best. Quarter inch might not restrict the bees too much and 1/2 inch might let some mice or shrews in.

And two main ways to keep skunks, raccoons, and opposums out - either raise the hive so they have to stretch up to reach it which leaves their bellies exposed to the bees. Or beds of nails around the hives. I think both would keep toads away too.

Bears need an electric fence.

[simplynaturalfarm]

In all my years with bee guys, nobody has ever mentioned skunks, coons or opossums, although bears and cattle are an issue.
Wondering if it is because most don't do top bar and the weight of extra boxes keeps them out?

Mice - some say they have never had mice issues. my hives will fill with mice come fall and when I open boxes mice will have built nests everywhere. I use entrance reducers til snow which keeps mice out and this year I just ( last week) lost two hives to humidity due to this wacky year ( it never thaws dec and January here!!). my bee friends said to take reducers off for better air flow even though I have top and side entrance and ventilation. So I did and hopefully no more loses. They were also my smallest hives.i am going to make some 1/4 hardware mice reducers next year to keep ventilation going in case of freaky thaws again. I moved four hours south a year ago and it was always too cold for humidity so I'm learning new things also!!

It never hurts to have ventilation, so do bottom, top and side entrance. As long as they aren't large holes, bees can defend then and you can always pop take over them if u find they are detrimental.

Ventilation and Insulated top is more important than insulation alone. Condensation from hot air hitting cold top cause moisture drips and then humidity that kills bees more than cold does. I'm not sure how you can insulate the top while having proper ventilation in a top bar. For winter, I use shallow super with 5/8 inch side ventilation holes and 2 inch pink board for insulation. Then top cover still fits fine. And u can still use migratory cover if you like, plus if you had a dearth or emergency, there is room to feed if absolutely necessary.

Can I post a few links to things I've enjoyed learning? I didn't know if you'd prefer to just share rather than have people interact.

I think if you have funds to try, you should do a cathedral hive for fun and beauty alone!! If I was into woodwork, I absolutely would for viewing pleasure.

[rosalind]

We had mice last year. I attribute it to not putting in the entrance reducer early enough. What a royal mess, but thankfully he stayed in the bottom box. I should have known - I kept seeing grass in the bottom box, and thought some grass had grown up through the bottom of the box. Nope, it was mouse nest.

I've heard about skunks, I think they'll sit at the opening and eat the bees! My box is in our fenced orchard, so we've never had a bear problem. My dog wouldn't let the skunk, etc. get too close. I have 6 cats now, and haven't seen a mouse in ages, so hopefully they'll prevent any problem there.

[saysfaa]

Please share! I would very much like to hear what you have learned and what links you like! And anyone else too, for that matter.

Currently, I'm thinking of getting both kinds of hives and maybe other kinds than just these two so please don't limit advice to what could be used with a top bar style.

I don't know who around keeps bees (yet; I expect to start finding them in next few months) or how much trouble they have with predators but I know mice, skunks, coons are really thick and bears are around. I'd rather avoid problems than fix them if I can without causing worse problems. I wonder if cones on the legs of the hives so the mice can't get to the entrances would work.

[saysfaa]

Okay. I was pretty well decided on getting my first hives next year so I could watch what plants I have blooming when this year. But I got the tax notice and they have changed the classification of my land from ag to residential improved. It isn't by my thinking since it has never had a building or well or utilities or anything like that but is to the tax people since it has a driveable entrance (which just gets on the fields - it isn't even a faint two-track) and electricity across the road from it.

I'll probably contest it but if I don't win then I'll try to strengthen my case for next year and try to get it back. So, that plan will include planting bee pasture and setting up some hives this spring. I'd rather go slower and get more of the land stabilized and various things set up before starting.

As it is, the next step is to wait for the verdict on the ag status. I'm too busy to do any more research this week anyway but my first take is that I'll probably do things a lot more conventionally than I might otherwise have done. Like Langstroth style hives.

We fly in on Wed for the house hunting trip. According to Zillow and the realtor - I have no hope of finding a house I can have chickens and bees at but at least I'll be living within an hour of my land instead of 1,000 miles away. I knew they were going to see my address and try to take the ag status away. I just hoped it would take a couple of years. Even one would have made a LOT of difference in getting the tax people to see I'm actually, really farming. With the move, it should be easier to make the case.

Sorry for the rambling. It has been a whirlwind around here lately since the move is very unexpected.