I moved the bees in to their new home yesterday after work. The hive looks like it is in good shape for the winter. Several frames of capped honey, capped brood and now a sturdier home. There were many small hive beetles at the bottom of the hive, on top of the top bars. I didn’t see any on the frames as I transferred them over. Resting a hive body on top bars yields many little corners for the beetles to hide. The re-homing gave the bees the added benefit of me squishing every small hive beetle. They didn’t stand a chance as they kept trying to get back in to the top bar hive body. I took a video of the bees flying around after I transferred all of the frames.
I wanted to give the long hive a couple empty frames to fix the spacing issues. Frames from the same box will slide together nicely because the wax was built with the neighboring frame as a guide. The frames from the different boxes didn’t line up so well. As always, I didn’t have any frames assembled and quickly put together a few foundation-less frames. The only unused frames I had were pulled from the hive that was killed by wax moth, and I don’t plan on using those frames again until I get the chance to scrape the wood and cycle them through a deep freeze to make sure I don’t pass wax moths eggs in to a healthy hive. I added two frames to the bee side of the follower board and put a few behind it to help keep it in place. When I removed the inner cover, the bees were covering all of the frames. It was a good sight to see.
I previously built a Kenyan Top Bar Hive (KTBH), but so far have had no luck with getting bees to move in to it. I really want to experience managing bees in non standard hives and the prospect of not having to lift boxes during an inspection is very motivating. The long hive I built is the equivalent to three 10-frame medium (6 5/8″) hives. Instead of them being stacked vertically, all of the frames are next to each other in the single long box. With normal langstroth hives, you control the size of the hive by adding or subtracting boxes and moving frames between them. The size of the long hive is controlled by using a follower board; a frame that is solid with no space for bees to crawl past it.
With the exception of the KTBH, all of my hives use medium frames (6 5/8″). This consistent frame size will let me easily move bees in to the long hive, unlike my failed attempts with the KTBH. In a few days when the primer and caulking off gas a bit more, I will transfer the frames from the nuc on a top bar hive in to the long hive. They never expanded in to the KTBH and I would be happier if the hive was more than ten frames going in to winter.
Screened Bottom
The size of the broodnest in a long hive will use as many frames as the queen will lay. A screened bottom is good to have under the broodnest because any varroa mites that fall off will fall out of the hive. Two trays allows me to adjust the ventilation without having a long board extending out from the back of the hive. One of the trays is the size of a 10-frame. The trays rest on a pair of 3/4″ x 2.5″ wood rails with 3/4″ x 3/8″ rabbets. The rails keep the the sides of the hive from warping, act as footings and provides an inside edge to attach the 8 mesh hardware cloth.
Inner Covers
An inner cover has many uses for a hive. It provides a thermal break from the main part of the hive and allows moisture to escape the hive. I didn’t want to use a single inner cover for the hive. It would be a bit unwieldy and result in many crushed bees. A single piece inner cover would also expose every frame and that could mean a lot of angry bees. I chose to make two 10-frame inner covers and a third shorter odd sized one for the middle. The only plywood I had laying around was 19/32″ sheathing. These are very thick and noticeably heavier. Inner covers are normally made from 1/4″ plywood. The extra wood should provide more insulation for the hive.
Outer Cover
This is the first outer cover that I’ve made with a metal top. I used a roll of 20″ wide flashing and cut three 26″ long pieces. I have an old paper cutter, which works surprisingly well for cutting flashing; nice straight, clean cuts. I used a quick square to align the center piece first and clamped it down on the corners. I bent the edges with my hands first and then finished off with a hammer. I attached it to the wood sides using 1/2″ staples. The next two pieces of flashing overlapped the first piece by ~5″. I used exterior caulking to keep any water from getting between the pieces of flashing.
I mixed up a large batch of 2:1 (40 lbs sugar, 20 lbs water) syrup for my three hives at the Garner community garden. Next time I’ll need to do 50 lbs of sugar to completely fill all of the feeders. Two of the hives were small swarms. During the last inspection, they had barely started to fill their second box. Today’s inspection showed that all three hives were doing well. They all had drawn out more frames and the right most hive even had 4 frames of capped honey in the top box. I only had enough sugar to fill half the feeder for this hive. I feel strongly that this hive will survive the winter. It’s already has a decent amount of stores and a several frames of capped brood in the bottom box. The hive has a screened top with a spider “foraging” on the screen. I managed to get a picture of it dragging around a bee corpse.
The middle hive had me worried after first removing the inner cover. Just like last time, there were a few wax moth larvae and a small hive beetle crawling around in the empty feeder. This prompted a full inspection. I didn’t see any signs of either in the hive. I guess the bees ignore the pests in the feeder because it’s separated from the hive.
I’ll need to bring an inner cover and two trays to start closing up the hives for winter.
A collaboration between the army and academia resulted in identifying that Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) is caused by a fungus and a virus infecting the hive. It’s an interesting read and hopefully this leads to an effective way to prevent CCD.
Now, a unique partnership — of military scientists and entomologists — appears to have achieved a major breakthrough: identifying a new suspect, or two.
A fungus tag-teaming with a virus have apparently interacted to cause the problem, according to a paper by Army scientists in Maryland and bee experts in Montana in the online science journal PLoS One.
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