Backyard Apiary

I planned on inspecting most of the hives today, but ended up only opening the Nuc on a Top Bar Hive. I built the hive based upon the plans provided by Michael Bush. When using the hive in such a way that there is not a solid top to keep the rain out, it works fine as is. I wasn’t able to provide a solid roof to the hive because of the Nuc sitting on top of the front half of the hive. This wasn’t so bad, as the only entrances for water were the gaps between the first and second frames that served as the entrance to the hive.

The real problem was when I decided to feed the bees using an inverted jar. I took an entrance moving screen, laid it across the hive in place of a few top bars and then put the inverted jar on that. It gave easy access to the jar for the bees, but kept them behind the screen to allow me to refill the jar without crushing bees. There were a few issues with that. The bees kept climbing on to the top of the screen, which made it impossible to replace the jar without crushing bees and it provided a nice big opening for rain to get in to the hive. The inverted jar prevent the plywood from covering the screen. My original plan was to get a drill bit the size of the jar tops and use a piece of wood to prevent water from getting in. I never found the time to make that happen, so I cut corners.

End result was that all this rain that we’ve gotten in the past to weeks made its way in to the hive and had no place to go, so it just sat there. There was about 2-3 inches of water in the bottom of the hive with many dead bees floating in it. It smelled disgusting. I ran and got my drill with a 3/8″ bit to put a few drainage holes in to the hive.  I then spent the next 30-45 minutes scooping out the dead bees and using the hive tool as a squeegee. The cardboard follower had to be tossed and this explains why there was always a mass of bees on the screen. They were desperately trying to dry out the hive.

The main lesson to be learned from this is that you should always assume that water will find its way in to the hive and it needs a way to drain out.